Ara Espanola's story

I was always overweight. Even as a child. I grew up poor. We tended to eat  lot of refined carbs, sugar, sugary-sauces, like barbeque sauce. Lots of carbs with our proteins, which is, as Dr. Berg tells us, a good recipe for diabetes. Even at 10  was overweight, but by 18 years old I weighed about 239 pounds.

But I was a chronic dieter too. I was into starvation. I was also bulimic and believed that diet pills were the solution to weight loss. I was convinced. It started with Dexatrim and then Hydroxycut.

Then it went up to prescription diet pills, like phentermine. I realize now these were only hurting, not helping me. That they probably caused stress that spiked cortisol and caused more weight gain. Not weight loss.

You’re basically starving yourself on diet pills. And living off stress and diet pills. And they also wreck your metabolism and just exacerbate the whole yo yo dieting trend that causes even more weight gain.

As I was growing up, I only lost weight through unhealthy methods—losing weight with diet pills or purging and I was gaining, losing, gaining, losing. It’s very unhealthy.

After the birth of my son, at 5’ 4”, I ballooned up to 239 pounds—the highest I’ve ever been. And I needed that weight off my body.

As time went on, I developed a long list of health problems because of being overweight. I developed ADHD, hypothyroidism, depression, restless leg syndrome, migraines, acid reflux inflammation, all of it—all conditions I know now are being attributed to high carb and sugar consumption.

I was on all kinds of medications for these conditions—but now I’m off all those—since I started keto and intermittent fasting, I mean.

I first started experimenting with keto and IF in 2016. Then I discovered something called Primal Blueprint. From there I discovered  Dr. Berg, and I moved on from just dabbling in Keto/If and into full-fledged keto.

Most recently, I weighed around 210 pounds. Now I’m at 157 pounds. I feel absolutely fantastic. It’s amazing that I was able to lose all that within about a year and a half. I’m off all medications . I can eat well and never feel hunger but the weight stays off forever—and I am so amazed that I finally get to lose weight and feel so full and satisfied.

Once I discovered  Dr. Berg, it only took my three weeks to get into ketosis.

Today, I don’t have restless leg. I’m off my thyroid meds. The depression is gone. And I feel better than I ever have.