I feel and look great thanks to you, Dr. Berg!

Hey Dr. Berg, I just wanted to thank you so very much for your YouTube channel and excellent content! I am 42. I have always been able to eat pretty much whatever I wanted. From time to time, I would put on some weight around my midsection. But it was nothing that a little exercise wouldn’t take off quickly.

From as far back as I can remember, I always had a bit of an issue feeling sleepy after a big meal. But sometime around when I turned 40, I began noticing that the sleepy “feeling” turned into, I would basically pass out after a big meal and feel groggy for sometimes up to 4 hours afterwards. Also right around 40-41, I noticed that I was gaining weight around my midsection despite eating the same diet for years. Since I am a creature of habit, eating a consistent diet, and working out about the same amount, I couldn’t understand why at 40-41 I was gaining so much weight. I probably put on about 35-40 pounds in a year or two. I was very upset that I had gained so much weight and I was concerned because I couldn’t understand why.

Last December, my doctor ordered blood work from me, and he said my cholesterol and sugar levels were high. I was shocked: I don’t eat a high-fat diet and I literally don’t eat anything with “sugar” in it. The closest thing to sugar I used at the time was one teaspoon of honey each day in a cup of green tea. Since I don’t eat things like candy, cakes, cookies, syrups, sodas, ice creams, etc., I could not understand how it was possible to have high sugar levels. And since I don’t eat things that I would associate with high fat, I couldn’t understand the high cholesterol levels either.

My typical diet consisted of a banana with peanut butter for breakfast with coffee. A hot lunch and a hot dinner consisting of a small to medium portion of meat, typically lean skinless chicken or lean turkey, maybe red meat from time to time. I tried to stay away from fatty cuts of meat and from things like bacon. I never ate butter because I thought it was “fatty”. So, I used olive oil. And, I also tried to stay away from eggs because of the “high cholesterol”. I ate a good amount of vegetables, including a lot of beans and legumes. I would eat lunch and dinner over rice and I did eat a decent amount of potato and corn products. For snacks in between meals, if I got hungry, I would have fruit (a lot of apples) and nuts. For dessert, if I had any, I would have more fruit and maybe some dark chocolate (usually at least 78% cacao). I stopped regularly eating pasta and breads and things like pancakes and french toast with syrup a long time ago.

So, overall I thought my diet was pretty healthy. But I kept eating and falling asleep. My stomach was upset more often than it ever had been. And, I generally felt terrible all day long — I always felt sluggish and on the verge of falling asleep. My skin was a mess. And, my allergies were worse than ever. My wife had tried the keto diet a year or so before we got married and she had success with it. So, I decided to try “sort of keto” lol. I ate all of the high-fat items and also kept eating all of my favorite empty carbs. It was great. But my weight skyrocketed and I felt worse than ever. That experiment was short-lived. Shortly after ending my “sort of keto” experiment, I went back to eating my typical diet. But, one weekend I had pizza for lunch on a Friday — and passed out afterward. I had Pho with rice noodles for dinner on Saturday, which although it was excellent, caused me to pass out afterward. And I ate a burrito with rice and beans on Sunday for lunch and…, you guessed it, passed out afterwards. I was done.

So, although I didn’t know anything about intermittent fasting or true keto, I didn’t eat anything for dinner after the burrito lunch that Sunday. I didn’t eat until Tuesday. In between, I stumbled across your YouTube channel and binge-watched years of your videos. I decided to commit to your recommendations for keto and intermittent fasting to see if they worked. One thing you said, which I thought was very interesting, applied to me. I had a gut but it wasn’t flabby. You said, “well…, it’s because you have a fatty liver.” I laughed at first because I do not drink much alcohol except for maybe a few glasses of wine throughout the year. And obviously, like most people, I assumed a fatty liver was only caused by abusing alcohol. So, thinking that I was developing a fatty liver, which I’m sure leads to many more significant health problems, I really stopped, sat up, and paid attention to what you had to say. Since then, I have been doing an 18-6 fasting schedule on a daily basis. I will usually eat two meals per day, sometimes one. And, I’ve been trying to do 24-hour fasts once each month. I’ve been doing keto and intermittent fasting for about three months, and I’ve lost about 30 pounds. My skin looks great. My stomach has been calm. My energy levels are consistent throughout the day. And in the past three months, I have not passed out after a meal. I lived with that I’m about to pass out feeling after meals for so long in my life, I am always waiting for it to kick in after a meal, but since I’ve been on the keto diet, it just doesn’t. I have been feeling great. And, my belly has gone down almost back to normal — I am fitting into clothes, which I came to assume I would never fit into again.

The keto diet obviously has its drawbacks, like no french fries, no pizza, no pasta, no french bread, no potatoes, no rice, no potato chips, no corn chips, etc. My wife and I have been having fun trying to replicate those things with low net carb ingredients, sometimes with success and sometimes without. But, I do not miss the food hangovers I used to get by eating those foods. And I would not change the way I’ve been feeling to go back to feeling horrible again by eating those things.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Dr. Berg! Keep up the great work in spreading the news about the benefits of keto and intermittent fasting and getting people healthy and feeling great.

Lou M. Bayville, New Jersey