At Optimising Nutrition, nothing excites us more than seeing our Optimisers progress and move towards their goals as they apply the minimum effective dose of tracking and data to guide their journey of Nutritional Optimisation.
Christine’s charts from her journey through our Data-Driven Fasting challenge and our Macros Masterclass and Micros Masterclass tell quite a story!
Let’s take a look and hear what Christine had to say.
Results… Or Should We Say Wins!
First, the results that everyone is most interested in – weight loss and fat loss.
The chart on the left shows Christine went from 183 lbs to 168 lbs (83 to 76 kg) in just 90 days! That’s a loss of 15 lbs (6.8 kg), or 8% of her starting body weight.
More excitingly, most of the weight she lost was fat, and she decreased her body fat percentage from 43.5 to 33%! Way to go, Christine!!
How Does It Work?
These are the sort of results that everyone wants, but how is it done?
Like many of our most successful Optimisers, Christine used the range of tools in our various programs – Data-Driven Fasting, the Macros Masterclass and the Micros Masterclass – to dial in what and when she ate.
Let’s look under the bonnet at some of her charts from our Data-Driven Fasting App.
The chart on the left shows her hourly blood glucose chart over three months. For comparison, the chart on the right shows her glucose over the most recent two weeks.
Notice how her blood sugars started out elevated and well into diabetic levels (>140 mg/dL). As she made more intelligent food choices, she was able to bring those down.
But this wasn’t a result of simply reducing her carbs. As she lowered her body fat, she became more metabolically flexible and gave herself more room to store energy from glucose and fat. Christine addressed the root cause of the problem: energy toxicity!
What Did She Eat?
In the Macros Masterclass, Christine dialled in her macros, working up to a super satiating 40% protein.
In the Micros Masterclass, she followed the guidance of Nutrient Optimiser to ensure she was getting all the nutrients she needed from her food within her calorie budget.
In our programs, everyone gets to fine-tune their current diet based on their preferences and the foods they have available where they are. So there’s no use giving you a perfect meal plan if you can’t get those foods where you are or you don’t like them.
Here’s a photo of one of Christine’s big protein-loaded salads.
Next, we have one of her high-protein porridge bowls.
‘This is a grain-free porridge I batch cook about every other week because it does take some time, but then I’ve got a week’s worth of breakfast. It freezes well too. It’s easy to adjust protein percentages by adding more or less egg white or protein powder. I love to have it with berries and yogurt!’
It’s fascinating to see how the tastes and cravings of Optimisers change as they experiment with some new foods.
‘I’m still having a love affair with chicken liver. After shunning it my whole life, I now crave it!’
She’s come to enjoy her breakfast bowls with eggs, egg whites, arugula, onion, red pepper flakes, and chicken liver.
Progress Photos
The photos below show Christine’s progress after one four-week DDF Challenge.
Christine’s Words of Wisdom
It’s been such a pleasure to have Christine in our community. She’s been who’s been so willing to share her journey and learning experiences with other members.
Here are a few words of wisdom she shared that you may find interesting and insightful for your own journey:
Losing 4 pounds in 4 weeks doesn’t sound like much, but it looks and feels like so much more. I was reluctant to take progress selfies. Reluctant because I’ve ‘been there, done that’ and felt like I should’ve had this down by now. But ‘there’ is not the same as here, and one can only make room for learning when they are ready to empty their cup and move forward after setbacks. So, I took the selfies, and I’m so glad I did because the pictures show what the scale can’t. I’m still a work in progress, but so happy to see that belly shrinking!
Marty is always emphasising the power of tiny gains. It is a message well worth repeating and a lesson I’ve needed to keep learning. Take those before selfies now, even if they make you cringe. Never lament losing ‘only’ a pound, and don’t let your sole measure of success be determined by an arbitrary number on a scale.
Take your time. Rest and enjoy the view when you hit the inevitable plateaus. And then get back on the path… sometimes you’ll go fast, sometimes slow. Go at your own pace, and don’t judge your progress against others. You may fall or get detoured, but you can always get back on the path using the tools from Optimising Nutrition as your compass. Keep learning and never give up on yourself.
In the past, I became a little orthorexic and struggled to maintain an extremely lean body weight. Then I took a 2-year ‘break’ and not surprisingly gained back a lot of weight. So, it’s good to reflect on ways in which you can be gentler with yourself while still achieving your health goals.
Your trigger is just a guidepost, and you really can’t fail this challenge if you are learning something in the process. If weight loss is not your primary objective, you may enjoy the micronutrients class. There is more food tracking, but I like that you learn to add foods to meet nutritional gaps. It has had the most significant impact on my satiety and feeling like I’m appropriately nourished.
Breakfast is my main meal because it is the one I have the most control over and sets me up for the rest of my day. I don’t stress so much about when I’m going to get below my trigger after I’ve gotten my first meal in. I always get at least two meals a day and sometimes 3. This is my 3rd round of Data-Driven Fasting. It was a gradual shift, not something that happened all at once. I moved all my meals a little earlier, so these days I am usually hungry for breakfast when I wake up, and my waking glucose has been below trigger all this round. I aim not to eat past 6 pm, but that doesn’t always happen.
I usually stick with whatever I had planned, but now I will crave things like chicken liver, egg drop soup, and Brussels sprouts. I have learned to listen to my cravings and my true hunger signals.
Four months into DDF and the Macros and Micros classes, I can honestly say I rarely get ravenous anymore. But, when I do, I feel like I can actually trust my appetite now. And I do make sure I hit that protein first.
I plan my meals in Cronometer and then run them through Nutrient Optimiser to see where I can improve to pack more nutrients in.
The more you stay with nutrient-dense whole foods, the more you can trust your natural appetite since you aren’t getting false signals from highly-processed foods.
You might either try a high-protein breakfast or plan ahead for when your midday hunger kicks in to have a high-protein meal. Getting protein early on goes a long way towards satisfying your hunger.
I love the agnostic, nutrient-dense diet approach. After years of restricting this, that, or the other, it is a nice change to shift the focus toward what I can ADD to my diet to nourish myself.
I am gradually building my permanent collection of go-to nutrient-dense recipes and foods so that I can shift away from tracking so much. No food is entirely off-limits, but I choose much more wisely, understanding the consequences and really don’t have the same desire for many foods I used to eat.
I am 55, post-menopausal, and hypothyroid… there is hope!
The grain free porridge-is that in one of the NO cookbooks? What is it called?
unfortunately not. this is just one of Christine’s that she posted in the group. I haven’t written it up.
So inspiring! Thanks for sharing; so helpful to see a mid-50’s menopausal woman succeeding! Gives me hope 🙂
Oh fantastic and inspiring! Thank you for sharing. I am similar to Christine in my “symptoms”, so this is especially encouraging.