Meet Coach Charles:
I have dealt with weight issues most of my life. As a child and young adult, I always carried an extra 40 lbs. or so on me. It wasn’t until I entered Navy boot camp at seventeen that I obtained a healthy weight. In those eight weeks, I went from 235 lbs. to 190 lbs. Shortly after getting to the fleet most of that weight was regained, and I struggled with yearly physicals and making weight. The only thing that saved me was that I carried a lot of muscle mass and was able to meet the body fat standards. When I left the Navy and started civilian life, the weight came on hard and fast. By the time I was 22, I was 275 lbs. and by the time I was 25, I was at 325 lbs. I was always depressed, never had any energy, and to be honest, did not have much will to live.
My twenties, when most people are out exploring who they are, partying, and figuring out life, was spent as a constant battle with weight, self-loathing, and rejection. Here is the thing though, I was doing everything that I was taught to do for maintaining a healthy weight. I was eating the food pyramid and the Standard American Diet (SAD), I measured food, I was doing cardio, and I was lifting weights, and I also had physically demanding jobs. Nothing was working, and I felt like a complete failure, I was frequently contemplating suicide. It was at these ultra-low points that I would give up, and binge eat everything that I had deprived myself of, these binges would last for months, and at the end, I would be more depressed and 20 lbs. heavier.
Enter my thirties, and I was no longer in a physically demanding job, and with 65 to 75 hour work weeks and three hours a day commuting there just weren’t time for the cardio and weight training. I had a family to support I needed to put in the overtime to make the $$$. This led to more self-esteem issues and stresses ultimately leading to an unhealthy marriage and divorce.
By the time I was forty I was hovering around 375 lbs. and miserable. At this time I decided I wanted to learn massage therapy and besides the wealth of knowledge I gained around anatomy and physiology, I met people that opened my views towards diet and challenging what was normal. The biggest thing I came across was intermittent fasting (IF). Using IF and the SAD I was actually able to lose 50lbs throughout six months. I was losing weight, but I was ALWAYS HUNGRY, I developed extreme willpower. The one thing that didn’t go away was the depression though, I did my best to appear as the happy guy that had my shit together, but inside I was a crying blubbering fool. I thought I finally found the secret to sustainable weight loss and hoped that once I was thin, I would be happy.
Then in the early part of 2012, I was laid off from work, and I spiraled out of control. It took me three months to find a job, and by the end of that three months I gained a substantial amount of weight and was back up to 375 lbs. I finally found a job, but it was a 22K pay cut, I made just enough to cover my child support and pay my bills. There was very little left at the end of the month, and this stress led to more bad eating habits and further depression. Don’t let anyone fool you stress and cortisol will do horrible things to hormonal balance and when coupled with the SAD it is a blueprint for obesity and heart disease.
Enter the summer of 2013, and I was over 425 lbs. (that is all my scale would go to). At this time I signed up with Precision Nutrition (PN) and a one-year online coaching program in nutrition. At the end of the year I was down to 350lbs but found that the diet was not sustainable for me, without zealot level adherence I would quickly regain weight. What I did take away from this program though was behaviors around food and why are we eating and making the choices that we do when we eat. This program also reintroduced me to intermittent fasting, but the behavioral portion is what set my path going forward. With PN I learned all about clean eating and had cut out all processed foods and unhealthy vegetable oils, and yet I still needed to find something sustainable for me.
I eventually stumbled across the Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. From there, I happened to stumble on to Jimmy Moore and had my first introduction to a ketogenic diet. His book grabbed me, and I ran with it and loved the way I was starting to feel and the results I was getting. I started a ketogenic diet/lifestyle in May of 2015 at 375 lbs. (my body seems to like that number) and by November of that year, I was at 289 lbs. and really starting to feel great again.
Once again life got in my way, and depression entered into the picture again.
I went from amazing results to falling off the wagon and having a very destructive relationship with Ben & Jerry ice cream (averaged 4 pints a night). I was very quickly back into the old habits, and my body followed suit rather quickly. I was still trying to eat “keto” but with Ben & Jerry. In December of 2016, I took a new job and introduced stress that I had never experienced before. I broke up with Ben & Jerry and was doing “dirty keto” (eating keto foods but not tracking). With the stress & cortisol rollercoaster and dirty keto eating, I found myself back over 425 lbs., It was June of 2017. I left that job, on a feeling I had after the first interview with a potential new employer.
The relief that washed over me knowing I was never going back there was incredible, even with the voice in the back of my head wanting to know how was I going to pay my bills and child support. I started with my new company the last week of July, and in the seven weeks between leaving the old job and starting the new one, I lost FORTY lbs. with dirty keto. The stress was literally killing me. At that point, I realized the LCHF/Ketogenic way of eating was going to be my lifestyle for the rest of my days.
…..Upon this realization, I started to devour any and all information that I could find on the subject. I wanted to know the science and see the studies. I wanted the truth damn it! I have listened to endless hours of podcasts, YouTube lectures, read books, and attended seminars. I have completely immersed myself in the data, and I am still chasing knowledge. As most do, I joined a local keto support group on Facebook. After a while in this group and sharing my experience and linking to resources people started to approach me for advice and to look for ways to tweak their diet. I was happy to help out and pay it forward.
Eventually, a few of the people in the group convinced me that I should offer myself as a Keto coach to help that many more people. In my professional life, training was always one of the hats I wore, and I did enjoy sharing knowledge and skills, so I looked into becoming a Keto Coach. Since then, I have completed/certified in:
- Ketogenic Lifestyle Coaching (accredited with NASM)
- Low Carb High Fat/ Ketogenic Nutrition Treatment (Noakes Foundation/Nutrition Network )
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Coaching
- Primal Restoration Specialist
- Primal Health Coach (Mark Sisson, Primal Blueprint)
I am also launching this website where I blog about behavioral issues that could impact our adherence to a healthy lifestyle and offer professional coaching services.
In Health & Wellness,
Charles