I am Alison and my partner is David. The pandemic arrives!! David is working in a security environment for a University and I am working in a Corporate establishment in HR working from home as everybody else in the world – feeling scared. As the virus became more dangerous and lockdown started to arrive – 23rd March 2020, my birthday!! David went through some mind-changing experiences and I saw medical equipment arriving at home, Leaving him to it, thinking he could cure the virus
Both realized we were obese in weight, diabetic, and having hypertension. This is what the medical equipment that David was buying was for. To research our health. We needed a cure for ourselves fast as we were on a critical list and vulnerable should we get COVID-19. Continuing in lock-down and the sunshine appears, blue skies arrive and David is now working 90 hours a week helping sick students. Life is becoming challenging. In May 2020 we have a 4-day food and alcohol binge with ultimate food coma. By the end of the four-day binge, David says “I can’t do this anymore. I am going on a keto diet! – You either join me or cook for myself”. Alison’s response “That is an absolute no-brainer” as David is the chef in the house and cooks some amazing meals! Now the challenge was on to cook with ingredients he had never used before! The day we started the diet, David had a hypertension issue and we had to call a doctor. His blood pressure was reading 190/130 with a pulse rate of 110. No help was available due to the lockdown. The helpline advised that if David was still alive in the morning to call his doctor!
That day the cupboards were cleared, including all the bulk pasta we had bought from the alluming pandemic and uncertain future. No, we didn’t stockpile the toilet rolls!! Alison did encounter one of Margaret Scarr’s famous ginger biscuits for one week only, having one a day but then decided to share them with the family.
In week one of keto, we developed “keto flu”. David was still trying to research from the internet and cookbooks as to how all this worked. Cookbooks and information were mainly from the USA and difficult to find good information from the UK. Many of the cookbooks recommend we eat bison and crocodiles. This isn’t something we stock in the UK.
Keto flu put David into a depression, cold sweats, and a very emotional state. Alison became a psychopath!! Swatting flies with a flying pan. We emerged from this 4 days later and both had lost a stone (6 kg) in weight. We had both survived the “keto flu”. What an experience that was! We didn’t think sugar could cause this illness and having to go through some mind control cold turkey was astonishing. There are no words to explain the feelings.
2nd month into the keto diet my blood glucose readings which had been UK readings of 23 – 26 depending on the time of day were down to between 5 – 6.5. We kept our own medical information on blood pressure, glucose levels, lung capacity, and weight and although David was being treated for high blood pressure this had now started to fall, and he was able to reduce his medication,
We got to September 2020 and we had both lost 5 stone (31 kg). Our wardrobes completely changed and at that point, we decided this was now a lifestyle and not a diet.
We carried on with keto, losing inches rather than weight. Research took us into the depreciation of fat cells. Clothes started to become baggy, our mindset was changing, and our tastebuds had altered. Walking into the supermarket the smell of freshly baked bread and cakes made us feel sick whereas in the past we loved it. David started to experiment with different foods. Different flours and making bread. The first one was like a brick, the second like sawdust, the third was amazing! Eventually,
David found ingredients like psyllium husk and almond flour. He made cloud bread and started to learn about MCT oil and its benefits, The unbelievably scary information about rapeseed and vegetable oils, and what it does to our health. We both started a keto education with the Centre of Excellence to help us understand what was happening to our bodies. By the end of 2021, we both had a diploma with distinctions in the keto diet.
Fast forward to 2022 – David resigned from the security world and went to work in a factory reducing his hours to 37 with weekends off. We purchased a small van and converted it into a “lifestyle” filling it with paddleboards, kayaks, bikes, and a rooftop tent.
We had always been into the outdoor life and always camped but this was a different experience now we were half the size. Three years into keto, David has gone from 120 kg to 70 kg with no hypertension and no medication and from a 40-inch waist to a 28-inch waist and Alison has gone from 116 kg (size 20 – UK size) to 63 kg (size 8 – UK size).
As we now realise time and health are two precious assets that we don’t recognise and appreciate until it has been depleted. It is time to take care of our bodies as it is the only place we have to live.
We now help others change their lives, reducing medication purely through food.
