Robbert’s Story

Robert has a great success story –guys—and a cautionary one as well, reminding us to eat our vegetables when on keto. 

"I never meant to get THAT heavy."
 

But in Thailand, food is everything—and I fell right into their buffet atmosphere and really enjoyed it – and put on weight steadily. 

In Thailand, food is everywhere, delicious, and cheap. Buffets full of rice and delicious Asian delicacies. 

The good weather encourages a spirit of celebration—food, music, entertainment, buffets full of mussels, lobster, rice, noodles, and all kinds of delicious things to eat.

Now there’s no bread over here. And you think this would help keep you leaner but it doesn’t because what we don’t eat in bread, we make up for in rice, noodles, and dumplings.  Over time, as I crammed in one lunch meeting after another into an already packed schedule and dinners on the go too, I gradually gained a lot of weight. I topped out at around 250 lbs. 

In Asia, or Thailand where I live, we don’t have a lot of dark, green leafy vegetables, like Dr. Berg advises. We have mostly lettuces imported from China—but no kale, no collards, no Swiss Chard.

We have a LOT of fruit. People love love love fruit over here. Mangos are huge. All fruits are huge. If there’s a lot of carbs in the Asian diet it’s the rice and the fruits!

FOOD, period, in Thailand, is HUGE. It’s like only about food. Food and family. 

Over here, people don’t ask “what did you do yesterday?” They ask “where did you eat for lunch yesterday? What did you eat? Where are you going for dinner?” And there’s lots of eating out and food-centered activities.

I cannot stand being heavy. I like my body lean….So I was too heavy and very miserable. 

Then, I heard about a book that explained the effect of food upon your blood – your blood sugars and Fat Storing Hormone. And first, I just cut out sweets. Nothing else. I was still eating a lot of rice. But I also started running.

And I lost about 60 kilos and then plateaued. I still had more weight to lose to reach my optimum weight. But then I discovered keto and IF and Dr. Berg’s program. And I started doing this WITH running. And I lost that last 16 pounds.  

And since I’ve really gotten into eating keto, I’ve found I can push myself beyond normal levels—not quite as much as these 60 year olds I run with—I mean they’re amazing.

In Thailand, they say that the older you are when you start running, the better, because you can take pain. You can work through pain. You’ve learned to endure hardships and pain. So you can stand the pain of running too.

But since I began full on ketogenesis and the began trimming meals down to a short window of 5 hours every day, I’ve began losing every single bit of fat off my body—but keeping the muscle. 

I’ve also noticed I can run longer and harder than I ever have. I don’t need carbs halfway through—no gels, or sugar spiked drinks. I don’t even need the water anymore during a run. Just plain—nothing. 

I can just keep going, and going, and going. My cognition has improved. Everything has improved. 

And I’ve gotten leaner than I’ve ever been. Because I run 50 to 70 kilometers a week, I don’t really lose weight so much as fat and I’m always putting on muscle.

But I’m losing ALL the fat on my body and keeping lean muscle and I’ve leaned down even more. 

Typically, runners tend to burn off muscle if they’re not careful and keto and IF helps preserve that muscle while you still melt all that fat –so for long distance runners, this is great. 

For those of you who haven’t tried the ketogenic diet—don’t fear missing carbohydrates. The first two weeks I did go through some keto flu and I missed my rice a little bit. 

Of course, I didn’t have the dark, leafy greens Dr. Berg recommends to avoid the keto side effects that would have helped with this, like Dr. Berg says.

And even the side effects passed quicker than I thought they would. 

Because I haven’t been eating enough vegetables, I believe, I’ve developed about a 1 inch gallstone and some fatty liver issues. I may have had these issues from poor eating habits before – I don’t know because I didn’t get this full health profile run until I lost the weight. 

My interviewer told me about the Trace Minerals, the Gallbladder Formula, and the Kale Shake, and the Gallbladder Formula at Dr. Berg’s store and I’m going try all of these to get more nutrients in the diet and, hopefully, dissolve that gallstone. That and drink lots of lemon water! 

Today I do both keto and intermittent fasting and a typical eating day for me looks like this: 

Breakfast at noon of bacon, 4 eggs, and one stalk of broccoli 

Dinner at 5 pm: something like a salad, seafood, and avocado.

Today, for example, I had a mushroom, avocado, and peanut sauce salad. 

Other days, I like to eat dried sausages, lettuce, or blood sausage with Spanish eggs and chorizo. 

Yesterday I had a Kai-lan shake (similar to kale) with some blueberries and dried sausages. For dinner New Zealand mussels and guacamole. I drink at least 1 liter of water a day mixed with ACV, 3 coke zeros, and 3 espressos—black.

On the weekends, I must admit, I do like a little beer or wine. I do buffets on the weekends eating lots of fats and moderate protein with vegetables

But like I said, I’m super lean again, I’m feeling better than I ever have and accomplishing more every day than I did before. I love the program.