“How do I know you have ANY idea what you’re talking about, crazy internet man?!?”

That’s a very reasonable question. Why should you listen to ANYTHING I have to say?

I’ve disagreed with every major nutritional science “fact” you’ve known your entire life, most likely. I’ve disagreed with institutions with impressive credentials and a long history of being the “authority” on science and health.

So I must have some kind of qualification or credential, right?

Nope.

At least, not the kind of credentials that get you the label “expert”. 

So who am I? And why am I telling YOU  what to eat and how to be healthy?

How rude of me. My name is Skylar! It’s nice to meet you. 😊

First and foremost, I’m a gigantic nerd. I love to research topics that interest me. And I don’t mean “read a little bit” about things that catch my fancy.

No. If I get interested in something, I like to DIG IN to the material and learn as much as I possibly can. So why did I get interested in health, nutrition, human evolutionary biology, and biochemistry? 

BECAUSE I WAS REALLY FAT.

“… how fat? …”

That’s me in 2012. I was 270 pounds. Even that big-ass chair couldn’t make me look small.

“Ok… What about now? You eat tons of fat and butter and bacon… 🙄“

That’s October 2018. Same me. Same little girl. Although neither of us look anything like we did in 2012. And the boy was a baby when the first photo was taken! #TheyGrowUpSoFast

So what did I do? Did I eat salads and chicken breasts every day? Eat plenty of whole grains? Plan my meals a week in advance? Fight hunger, watch my portions, count calories?

YUP.

And it SUCKED. But that’s what everyone said to do. Eat the “healthy” western diet. Lots of whole grains, skim milk, lean meat. Avoided fat and sugar. At least, OBVIOUS sugar like candy, ice cream, cake, soda. Stuff like that.

And you know what? I lost 70 pounds in 3 years!

But that only takes us to the end of 2015. I didn’t switch to a high fat, anti-inflammatory diet until January 2018. And from October 2015 through December 2017, I kept relying on discipline and CICO (calories in, calories out). 

So after I finally got below 200 pounds (On October 16, 2015. You’re damn right I was counting the days!), what happened over the next 2+ years?

By November 30th, I touched 200 again. Just once, but it only scared me enough to enter “maintenance mode”, because the CICO, low fat diet is TORTURE!

I hovered around in the 190s, and at the end of June 2016, I was 199 pounds. That’s 8 months of NO PROGRESS. I mean, I had lost 70 pounds, I looked much better, and felt much better. And that was kind of “good enough”. 

I was on and off the wagon month after month, but by August of 2016 I dipped down into the 180s for the first time since I was 22! 

And that’s where I stayed…

Until February 2018, when I decided to take a chance on some “hippy bullshit”, as I would call it, and tried the Paleo diet for a couple of weeks. Still low fat, but I eliminated processed foods, bread and grains from my diet (the dreaded gluten!), as well as most dairy.

My body dipped into the 170s for the first time since I was 19!

I was on to something. My body LIKED this. Liked SOMETHING I was doing.

But I didn’t stay “strict” Paleo. I started avoiding bread a lot more. Burgers without buns. Only one roll with cinnamon butter at Texas Roadhouse. (And I felt guilty about eating the “fattening” butter!) But I was just bouncing around from 178-185 for the next few months.

Here’s a good place to drop another set of photos. My progress from 2012-2018, told by my face!

This is when the RESEARCH started.

I was hovering around in the 180s, and kept flirting with eating bread now and then. Milk here and there. Just noticing that my body actually responded badly to these things, but still CRAVING them.

CRAVING CARBS.

That’s when I stumbled across the high fat, low carb, anti-inflammatory diet. Also know at HFLC (high fat, low carb) or the Ketogenic diet (keto for short).

THAT’S WHEN THE MAGIC STARTED HAPPENING.

I researched and learned and read and watched videos and documentaries. I looked up everything I could find, because the concept was ABSURD!

Don’t just eat MORE fat, eat MOSTLY fat. Whole grain bread was carbohydrate trash. Milk was no different from soda (lactose is just milk SUGAR, like fructose is fruit SUGAR).

My mind was blown, and I had to do my due diligence. My dad’s heart stopped one night in his 50s. His dad’s heart did the same.

I couldn’t just take a chance with my life. I have kids that need me to be around. I can’t eat a bunch of fat, clog up my arteries with cholesterol, have a heart attack and die!

Which is EXACTLY what I had been told would happen, my entire life, if I ate “too much fat”.

But the research checked out. It MADE SENSE. And I started to try it. And I felt better. And I looked better. And it just got BETTER AND BETTER.

(SCROLL WARNING! There are shirtless pictures below. From 2012 all the way until now. If that’s not your thing, cool. Maybe stop scrolling. You were warned! 😜) 

I started an anti-inflammatory diet in January of 2018. By November, here’s what had happened:

“Well, you MUST have been in the gym like 2 hours a day, right? Run like A MILLION MILES? You can’t just EAT BUTTER AND BACON AND LOOK LIKE THAT!!!”

I work out 2-3 times a week, with each workout being moderate intensity for about 20 minutes. Mostly bodyweight exercise you can do in your own home. I don’t have a gym membership.

The point is, these results are from WHAT I EAT, not WHAT I DO.

“Ok, so what supplements are you going to try and sell me? 3 easy payments of $299.95, and I can do what you did, right? 🙄“

Afraid not, my friend.

I shop at Walmart for my food. I know what to avoid. That’s it. And if you’ve read, or if you’ll GO READ RIGHT NOW, these 3 posts of mine, YOU’LL know the basics to get 80% of the results:

Fat Doesn’t Make You Fat
Your Body Doesn’t Need Carbs
“Healthy” Oils are Making You Sick

“Ok. But you said that CICO worked for you, and that doesn’t scare me, because it’s what all the experts say to do…“

That’s fair. You can ride the rollercoaster. Fight hunger, watch portions, count calories. Fall off the wagon, lose your mind on cheat days. Everything I’ve done 1000 times over the past 10+ years.

I’ll dig into PLENTY more detail in other posts. But to drive my point home, and wrap up this post, let’s end with A BUNCH OF MIRROR SELFIES!

If you want to know the difference between what happens on a CICO diet, and what happens when you eat an anti-inflammatory, keto diet, here’s the context for this next photo, and the reason I chose mirror selfies for this:

When I got below 200 pounds in October 2015, I felt comfortable taking my shirt off and taking pictures of myself. For maybe the first time EVER.

When I started doing keto at the beginning of 2018, I was already THRILLED with my body. I never thought I’d get ANYWHERE NEAR that shape again in my life.

But since I’ve started eating an anti-inflammatory, high fat diet, I have felt INCREDIBLE, in ways that sound crazy when I explain them to people.

• My brain feels like it’s always ON and SHARP
• I have energy. Limitless energy. All day. Every day
• I sleep like a ROCK
• My body feels like a finely tuned machine. A performance sports car. I feed it high octane, high fat fuel, and it just RUNS!

So here come the mirror selfies!

From when I got down to 200 pounds in 2015, when I started keto in 2018, and the difference it made in ONE YEAR:

What’s the blogging equivalent of a mike drop? Do I just drop my keyboarajkhakljrgbarlgbnakrgnagnkan