How I casually lost 80 pounds by Gary Hopkins
November, 2015
Like most people I meet my weight has fluctuated over the years depending on my habits at any given time. Early on from about age 12 to around 34 or so I was dedicated to working out regularly. I have done everything from strength training and powerlifting to kickboxing and power yoga. Even though I normally carried a little extra around the middle for most of my life, it was never really an issue for me since I was strong and had good physical stamina.
As I grew older my interests and priorities had changed, like most peoples do. I went from working out regularly, to not much at all. Part of this was due to my meditation practice. I had been meditating off and on since my mid 20’s. When my compulsion for working out was on the decline, I replaced that time with learning and practicing different meditation techniques, eventually growing my practice to 6 hours a day - the details of which I will discuss further in another article. Over time I went from being very physically active to very physically sedentary. Couple this with a love for fast food and soda and you can see where I was headed.
Pushing Maximum Density
My weight finally peaked at around age 40 at a little over 300 lbs. For me it was a gradual progression over time. I would gain 20 lbs or so over a short period of time then plateau for a while before my next gain. Along with the extra padding came a few other problems. Diabetic issues, gout flair ups, chronic tension in my hips, back and neck, sudden bathroom urges; especially at night when trying to sleep, cramping issues, heart arrhythmia, ongoing fatigue and some serious mobility and stamina issues. To be honest if it were not for my meditation practice I am certain I would have had more anxiety and emotional issues to boot. But because my meditation practice was going so well at the time I would joke about the extra weight and just tell people that I was literally turning into a Buddha (the chubby laughing kind of course). In short it was that practice that kept me mentally together when I was starting to physically fall apart.
My inspiration to get healthier came from an unlikely source. During this time because of the issues described above I was physically uncomfortable most of the time. I was in the process of figuring out what to do about my issues when I was watching a television show one day where they were talking about the good health of Sumo wrestlers. The show went on to describe how even the heaviest of the athletes in that sport have no issues with diabetes, heart disease, blood pressure and pretty much anything else that would come to mind at a first glance at these men. They went on to describe their diet and workout regimen and it made perfect sense. Then they played a clip from one of the athletes training sessions. In this video they showed this 600 lbs Sumo do a somersault in the air and land perfectly on his feet. Once I saw that I thought ‘Wow’, even when I used to workout all the time, at my best, I never had that ability. From that point on with this new perspective I started digging in to learn and come up with a way to change my situation.
Before I go into more details I want to point out that I lost the weight over time, just as I had gained it. It was a process that continues today in the form of refining my daily habits to support a healthier me, and to be clear it had nothing to do with the weight but more with getting healthy. The weight loss was a side effect of this approach. This process can be different for everyone depending on how fast or slow you need to go. But for me, I knew I had some pretty bad habits already and in order to change them permanently for the better I was going to have to learn new healthier habits over time.
My Process
Because of my background in meditation I knew that conditions in the body are often a direct result of what the mind focuses on. In other words you can greatly enhance your physical condition or further exacerbate problems in your body just by negative or positive thinking. It has to do with Epigentic expression in the body that is fueled by your thoughts, feelings, emotions and beliefs. If you are into meditation and or understand some of the basics in regards to Epigentics or Quantum Physics then this idea will be familiar to you. If not, just understand that what and how you think matters greatly in regards to your health including gaining and losing weight.
Having said that, the very first thing I did was a simple meditation on normalizing my body’s processes. I knew that because of the condition I was in that my body’s internal processes were not functioning properly. So I sat down for about 15 minutes or so everyday and focused my thoughts on this one objective. Very simple, very easy. In about 10 days of doing this, my body responded by purging. There is no real pleasant way to describe this so here it is - I had diarrhea for 3 days. The reason I know it was from my meditation efforts was because of a few things: I had no change in my eating habits during this time, loose stools were never a problem for me prior to this, and during these episodes I had no cramping or discomfort at all. This was happening about 4 to 5 times a day and the amount that was coming out was extreme to say the least. My body was evacuating itself, a result of ‘normalizing my body’s processes’, which I basically asked for. During this time I made a point to drink plenty of fluids to stay hydrated while contemplating the gravity of the situation.
*If you decide that you want to include the above process in your regimen but do not meditate, you can use a technique that I give to some of my clients from time to time. That is to simply write down your objective on a piece of paper. Then put that paper it in your pants pocket, wallet or somewhere on your person and carry it with you for a couple of weeks. Take it out 2 to 3 times a day and read it aloud. That’s it. Setting your intention like this is basically the same as a meditation and will carry the same amount of weight with your process.
In the following 6 weeks or so I dropped about 25 lbs as a result of this ‘cleanse’. I was actually pretty impressed with myself at that point so I started taking the next step and began looking into my water intake and diet.
H2O
Everyone knows that the human body cannot survive without water, but I meet so many people that just ignore this these days and as a result, are often dehydrated. Any level of dehydration can cause a slew of issues in the body. Depending on where you read the body is made up of about 65-75% water, the brain at about 80-85% and the blood over 90%. Even the bones are somewhere in the 20% range. Knowing that, it becomes very clear very quickly that any level of dehydration can inhibit any and all of the body’s processes in some manner and if left unchecked long enough can be pretty serious.
I am often asked how much water is appropriate to fully hydrate the body. The answer is a little different for each person but a basic rule of thumb would be a minimum daily intake of 64 ounces or for larger mammals like myself, half of your body-weight in ounces. Also, you should drink clean water, meaning spring or distilled. Just any old liquid does not count in my opinion because your body needs to filter whatever is in it, such as a coffee or soda before it can use the liquid. This is harder on the body to process.
For some people this sounds like a lot. It was for me when I first started. I realized later that it was only because I wasn’t used to drinking water on a regular basis. For me I didn’t like the taste. So, I came up with a simple method to get the process going. Because I loved soda so much plain water just didn’t taste right to me, even though I knew it was hurting me not to drink it. I definitely did not like tap water because of the chlorine and metallic taste and I am not a fan of warm water either. So, I started with 1, regular size cold spring water a day. To be honest it was kind of hard to choke down at first, but after a week I got to like it and bumped it up to two bottles. Third week - 3 bottles, and so on. After about a month of this I noticed that I started craving the water a little more and when I would drink anything else it just made me thirstier. This result is very common. When the body is fed properly (water included) and it starts to function better it will acquire a taste for what nourishes it the most and start to reject what doesn’t.
What to eat?
Now this was the serious question I had to answer and I’ll be honest, after managing restaurants for years I thought I knew all I needed to know about food. I was very aware that my diet had gone to hell because I was consuming so much junk food at the time. I just didn’t realize how dysfunctional and poisonous our food supply had become over the last 30 years.
I had already been reading about different types of diets and approaches to eating. Then I started to dig into how our food in the U.S. is produced for the average grocery store patron. This led me to a number of topics and questions including:
- What does processed food mean?
- How is nutrition determined in our food?
- What does organic mean?
- Does organic have more nutrition than processed food?
- What is an additive, preservative, coloring and why are they used?
- What are flavor enhancers and excitotoxins?
- What are GMO’s?
- What are pesticides?
- What is factory farming?
To date I have spent literally hundreds of hours researching and reading about all of the above to try to gain a better understanding of what is healthy and therapeutic and what is not. I will attempt to summarize, this in my conclusion:
The food supply in the United States has been changed in a way that is significantly different and more harmful than it was just 30 years ago. The majority of the food in the U.S. comes from factory farming. Crops in factory farms are not rotated to support proper re-mineralization of the soil for future crops and as a result food is produced with about half of the nutritional value to that of food produced 50 years ago. The vast majority of the staple food that is used in processed foods is genetically modified and has been done so without the approval of the American public. Genetically modified food (GMO’s) has severely adverse effects on the human body, causing illnesses and diseases. Pesticide use is at an all time high and is directly absorbed into the food that is sold to you to eat. Pesticides and GMO’s are literally poisons and you and I have been ingesting them for some time without prior consent. The rise of illness and disease in the American population is in direct correlation to the introduction of GMOs, increased pesticide use and the over 90,000 chemicals sold as preservatives, food additives and the like that have been added to our food supply over the last 2 or 3 decades. This faux food has been created by the Bio-tech industry as a means to create revenue. Long term testing has never been done and now we are paying the price with our health and well being, as we are starting to learn why our population is so rampantly over weight and unhealthy.
In short, all of these chemicals and chemical processes do one thing in the body, they strangle the immune system. By themselves they are much less harmful as the human body can defend itself quite well. That is what it is made for. However, when every meal you eat has these toxic agents in it in various quantities the effect is cumulative and becomes a battering ram against your health. The more your immune system is taxed by these chemicals the less likely you are to remain in good health, because the system just can’t keep up. Additionally, these chemicals exacerbate your metabolism, which becomes less efficient by disrupting its normal processes. On top of that, a portion of these chemical additives are designed to stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain making these ‘foods’ more addictive, which makes it harder for you to stop wanting them. It is the same science the tobacco industry used to make smoking cigarettes so addictive.
Stop counting calories and start counting chemicals
Most diets are based on caloric intake and the counting of carbs and fats and so on. When I started this process I had to throw that approach out the window. Learning about your food and what is good for you and what is not is going to take a little time. Not to mention, how many foods that you will discover along the way that you are addicted to by this process. Just like any addiction you will have to retrain yourself to overcome these hurdles and learn to replace the bad with the good.
So, what do I do now that I know this? The answer is to eat Organic. Organic is the cleanest food with the highest nutritional value of our food supply because it is free of pesticides and GMO’s. Anything that is not labeled Organic in your local grocery store is going to have some chemical process involved with it whether its genetically modified or has been treated with a heavy dose of pesticides. Having said that, going 100% organic overnight will probably not happen for most of you. Switching to this can take time, so start slow by making easy ‘swaps’ along the way. I have been moving in the organic direction for about 4 years now and as of today I average about 65-75% organic foods in my diet on any given week. Coming from a completely fast food diet, I was on the bad end of the spectrum for quite some time and have some of the food addictions that go along with it. When I started, not much that I found and tried tasted right so I rejected most of it. But, I kept at it and slowly made progress as my body got used to detoxing from the chemical foods regularly and my palette for cleaner foods started to emerge. Like I said earlier, it is a process.
Commit to the process
One thing that helped me to get started and maintain my direction with my new food choices was committing to 1 meal a day that was organic. After some research I felt that 1 organic smoothie a day would be a good place to start and not be overwhelming. This way I could start ingesting all that good nutrition and still have 2 meals a day for my addictive food behavior if needed. I started out simply with organic fruits and yogurt and some added plant protein powder for good measure, and came up with a highly dense nutritious drink that tasted good and was satisfying at the same time. This was a good start for me.
After a couple of weeks of this I started to notice that my cravings for refined sugary foods started to diminish greatly. In fact, to my surprise I had actually stopped buying ice cream, chips and candy at about week 3. Not because I forced myself to, but because I no longer had cravings for them. My palette for sugary foods changed in 3 weeks just from the organic fruit smoothies I was making every morning. This was an unintended but happy result. I stuck with this formula for a while, and slowly started adding other things into my smoothies, such as spinach, avocado, turmeric and ginger amongst other nutritious organic ingredients over time.
As time went on I started learning more and more about food and trying new organic ingredients and meals. I still have my conventional junk food fixes but it has become much less for me over time. Fast forward to today and I am still having my smoothies every day, at least once and sometimes more. But they are far different than what they used to be. They have evolved to more vegetable base than fruits and much earthier with intense flavors with many more nutritional goodies packed in them. I have also started making more complete organic meals and have switched to mostly organic snacks. There are much better selections of these items at the stores now than even just a couple of years ago. Oh yeah, and did I mention I am 80 lbs lighter today to boot? The only other thing that I did during this process was some occasional light stretching, about 5 minutes a day. But this was mostly for my hip and back discomfort. More on that HERE. I spent no time at all at the gym during this process, nothing against it of course, but it was not needed for what I accomplished.
The key here is to be patient with whatever process you choose and just swap out the chemical laden food for organics over time as you go. Eventually you will be eating more organic foods than processed and that is when you will really start to notice the health benefits. The food will basically do the work for you. This is not just my process but I have seen others do this as well and every single one has a similar outcome. Over time as they get healthier they get leaner. I believe it’s a side effect of purging the chemicals from your body, which allows your body to function the way it is supposed to.
Obviously you can ramp up your progress as much as you want by implementing more organic food quicker than I did, and by adding a moderate exercising program can help push it along too. But for me, I needed the time to go slow and figure things out and get used to my new regimen. In my opinion making permanent positive changes only solidifies over time and my slow and steady approach really helped me maintain the direction I needed to go in.
If you need additional assistance you can consult any Naturolpath (or someone knowledgable in nutrition) in your area, or if you are in the CIncinnati area you can contact Gary HERE and set up a consultation
November, 2015
Like most people I meet my weight has fluctuated over the years depending on my habits at any given time. Early on from about age 12 to around 34 or so I was dedicated to working out regularly. I have done everything from strength training and powerlifting to kickboxing and power yoga. Even though I normally carried a little extra around the middle for most of my life, it was never really an issue for me since I was strong and had good physical stamina.
As I grew older my interests and priorities had changed, like most peoples do. I went from working out regularly, to not much at all. Part of this was due to my meditation practice. I had been meditating off and on since my mid 20’s. When my compulsion for working out was on the decline, I replaced that time with learning and practicing different meditation techniques, eventually growing my practice to 6 hours a day - the details of which I will discuss further in another article. Over time I went from being very physically active to very physically sedentary. Couple this with a love for fast food and soda and you can see where I was headed.
Pushing Maximum Density
My weight finally peaked at around age 40 at a little over 300 lbs. For me it was a gradual progression over time. I would gain 20 lbs or so over a short period of time then plateau for a while before my next gain. Along with the extra padding came a few other problems. Diabetic issues, gout flair ups, chronic tension in my hips, back and neck, sudden bathroom urges; especially at night when trying to sleep, cramping issues, heart arrhythmia, ongoing fatigue and some serious mobility and stamina issues. To be honest if it were not for my meditation practice I am certain I would have had more anxiety and emotional issues to boot. But because my meditation practice was going so well at the time I would joke about the extra weight and just tell people that I was literally turning into a Buddha (the chubby laughing kind of course). In short it was that practice that kept me mentally together when I was starting to physically fall apart.
My inspiration to get healthier came from an unlikely source. During this time because of the issues described above I was physically uncomfortable most of the time. I was in the process of figuring out what to do about my issues when I was watching a television show one day where they were talking about the good health of Sumo wrestlers. The show went on to describe how even the heaviest of the athletes in that sport have no issues with diabetes, heart disease, blood pressure and pretty much anything else that would come to mind at a first glance at these men. They went on to describe their diet and workout regimen and it made perfect sense. Then they played a clip from one of the athletes training sessions. In this video they showed this 600 lbs Sumo do a somersault in the air and land perfectly on his feet. Once I saw that I thought ‘Wow’, even when I used to workout all the time, at my best, I never had that ability. From that point on with this new perspective I started digging in to learn and come up with a way to change my situation.
Before I go into more details I want to point out that I lost the weight over time, just as I had gained it. It was a process that continues today in the form of refining my daily habits to support a healthier me, and to be clear it had nothing to do with the weight but more with getting healthy. The weight loss was a side effect of this approach. This process can be different for everyone depending on how fast or slow you need to go. But for me, I knew I had some pretty bad habits already and in order to change them permanently for the better I was going to have to learn new healthier habits over time.
My Process
Because of my background in meditation I knew that conditions in the body are often a direct result of what the mind focuses on. In other words you can greatly enhance your physical condition or further exacerbate problems in your body just by negative or positive thinking. It has to do with Epigentic expression in the body that is fueled by your thoughts, feelings, emotions and beliefs. If you are into meditation and or understand some of the basics in regards to Epigentics or Quantum Physics then this idea will be familiar to you. If not, just understand that what and how you think matters greatly in regards to your health including gaining and losing weight.
Having said that, the very first thing I did was a simple meditation on normalizing my body’s processes. I knew that because of the condition I was in that my body’s internal processes were not functioning properly. So I sat down for about 15 minutes or so everyday and focused my thoughts on this one objective. Very simple, very easy. In about 10 days of doing this, my body responded by purging. There is no real pleasant way to describe this so here it is - I had diarrhea for 3 days. The reason I know it was from my meditation efforts was because of a few things: I had no change in my eating habits during this time, loose stools were never a problem for me prior to this, and during these episodes I had no cramping or discomfort at all. This was happening about 4 to 5 times a day and the amount that was coming out was extreme to say the least. My body was evacuating itself, a result of ‘normalizing my body’s processes’, which I basically asked for. During this time I made a point to drink plenty of fluids to stay hydrated while contemplating the gravity of the situation.
*If you decide that you want to include the above process in your regimen but do not meditate, you can use a technique that I give to some of my clients from time to time. That is to simply write down your objective on a piece of paper. Then put that paper it in your pants pocket, wallet or somewhere on your person and carry it with you for a couple of weeks. Take it out 2 to 3 times a day and read it aloud. That’s it. Setting your intention like this is basically the same as a meditation and will carry the same amount of weight with your process.
In the following 6 weeks or so I dropped about 25 lbs as a result of this ‘cleanse’. I was actually pretty impressed with myself at that point so I started taking the next step and began looking into my water intake and diet.
H2O
Everyone knows that the human body cannot survive without water, but I meet so many people that just ignore this these days and as a result, are often dehydrated. Any level of dehydration can cause a slew of issues in the body. Depending on where you read the body is made up of about 65-75% water, the brain at about 80-85% and the blood over 90%. Even the bones are somewhere in the 20% range. Knowing that, it becomes very clear very quickly that any level of dehydration can inhibit any and all of the body’s processes in some manner and if left unchecked long enough can be pretty serious.
I am often asked how much water is appropriate to fully hydrate the body. The answer is a little different for each person but a basic rule of thumb would be a minimum daily intake of 64 ounces or for larger mammals like myself, half of your body-weight in ounces. Also, you should drink clean water, meaning spring or distilled. Just any old liquid does not count in my opinion because your body needs to filter whatever is in it, such as a coffee or soda before it can use the liquid. This is harder on the body to process.
For some people this sounds like a lot. It was for me when I first started. I realized later that it was only because I wasn’t used to drinking water on a regular basis. For me I didn’t like the taste. So, I came up with a simple method to get the process going. Because I loved soda so much plain water just didn’t taste right to me, even though I knew it was hurting me not to drink it. I definitely did not like tap water because of the chlorine and metallic taste and I am not a fan of warm water either. So, I started with 1, regular size cold spring water a day. To be honest it was kind of hard to choke down at first, but after a week I got to like it and bumped it up to two bottles. Third week - 3 bottles, and so on. After about a month of this I noticed that I started craving the water a little more and when I would drink anything else it just made me thirstier. This result is very common. When the body is fed properly (water included) and it starts to function better it will acquire a taste for what nourishes it the most and start to reject what doesn’t.
What to eat?
Now this was the serious question I had to answer and I’ll be honest, after managing restaurants for years I thought I knew all I needed to know about food. I was very aware that my diet had gone to hell because I was consuming so much junk food at the time. I just didn’t realize how dysfunctional and poisonous our food supply had become over the last 30 years.
I had already been reading about different types of diets and approaches to eating. Then I started to dig into how our food in the U.S. is produced for the average grocery store patron. This led me to a number of topics and questions including:
- What does processed food mean?
- How is nutrition determined in our food?
- What does organic mean?
- Does organic have more nutrition than processed food?
- What is an additive, preservative, coloring and why are they used?
- What are flavor enhancers and excitotoxins?
- What are GMO’s?
- What are pesticides?
- What is factory farming?
To date I have spent literally hundreds of hours researching and reading about all of the above to try to gain a better understanding of what is healthy and therapeutic and what is not. I will attempt to summarize, this in my conclusion:
The food supply in the United States has been changed in a way that is significantly different and more harmful than it was just 30 years ago. The majority of the food in the U.S. comes from factory farming. Crops in factory farms are not rotated to support proper re-mineralization of the soil for future crops and as a result food is produced with about half of the nutritional value to that of food produced 50 years ago. The vast majority of the staple food that is used in processed foods is genetically modified and has been done so without the approval of the American public. Genetically modified food (GMO’s) has severely adverse effects on the human body, causing illnesses and diseases. Pesticide use is at an all time high and is directly absorbed into the food that is sold to you to eat. Pesticides and GMO’s are literally poisons and you and I have been ingesting them for some time without prior consent. The rise of illness and disease in the American population is in direct correlation to the introduction of GMOs, increased pesticide use and the over 90,000 chemicals sold as preservatives, food additives and the like that have been added to our food supply over the last 2 or 3 decades. This faux food has been created by the Bio-tech industry as a means to create revenue. Long term testing has never been done and now we are paying the price with our health and well being, as we are starting to learn why our population is so rampantly over weight and unhealthy.
In short, all of these chemicals and chemical processes do one thing in the body, they strangle the immune system. By themselves they are much less harmful as the human body can defend itself quite well. That is what it is made for. However, when every meal you eat has these toxic agents in it in various quantities the effect is cumulative and becomes a battering ram against your health. The more your immune system is taxed by these chemicals the less likely you are to remain in good health, because the system just can’t keep up. Additionally, these chemicals exacerbate your metabolism, which becomes less efficient by disrupting its normal processes. On top of that, a portion of these chemical additives are designed to stimulate the pleasure centers of the brain making these ‘foods’ more addictive, which makes it harder for you to stop wanting them. It is the same science the tobacco industry used to make smoking cigarettes so addictive.
Stop counting calories and start counting chemicals
Most diets are based on caloric intake and the counting of carbs and fats and so on. When I started this process I had to throw that approach out the window. Learning about your food and what is good for you and what is not is going to take a little time. Not to mention, how many foods that you will discover along the way that you are addicted to by this process. Just like any addiction you will have to retrain yourself to overcome these hurdles and learn to replace the bad with the good.
So, what do I do now that I know this? The answer is to eat Organic. Organic is the cleanest food with the highest nutritional value of our food supply because it is free of pesticides and GMO’s. Anything that is not labeled Organic in your local grocery store is going to have some chemical process involved with it whether its genetically modified or has been treated with a heavy dose of pesticides. Having said that, going 100% organic overnight will probably not happen for most of you. Switching to this can take time, so start slow by making easy ‘swaps’ along the way. I have been moving in the organic direction for about 4 years now and as of today I average about 65-75% organic foods in my diet on any given week. Coming from a completely fast food diet, I was on the bad end of the spectrum for quite some time and have some of the food addictions that go along with it. When I started, not much that I found and tried tasted right so I rejected most of it. But, I kept at it and slowly made progress as my body got used to detoxing from the chemical foods regularly and my palette for cleaner foods started to emerge. Like I said earlier, it is a process.
Commit to the process
One thing that helped me to get started and maintain my direction with my new food choices was committing to 1 meal a day that was organic. After some research I felt that 1 organic smoothie a day would be a good place to start and not be overwhelming. This way I could start ingesting all that good nutrition and still have 2 meals a day for my addictive food behavior if needed. I started out simply with organic fruits and yogurt and some added plant protein powder for good measure, and came up with a highly dense nutritious drink that tasted good and was satisfying at the same time. This was a good start for me.
After a couple of weeks of this I started to notice that my cravings for refined sugary foods started to diminish greatly. In fact, to my surprise I had actually stopped buying ice cream, chips and candy at about week 3. Not because I forced myself to, but because I no longer had cravings for them. My palette for sugary foods changed in 3 weeks just from the organic fruit smoothies I was making every morning. This was an unintended but happy result. I stuck with this formula for a while, and slowly started adding other things into my smoothies, such as spinach, avocado, turmeric and ginger amongst other nutritious organic ingredients over time.
As time went on I started learning more and more about food and trying new organic ingredients and meals. I still have my conventional junk food fixes but it has become much less for me over time. Fast forward to today and I am still having my smoothies every day, at least once and sometimes more. But they are far different than what they used to be. They have evolved to more vegetable base than fruits and much earthier with intense flavors with many more nutritional goodies packed in them. I have also started making more complete organic meals and have switched to mostly organic snacks. There are much better selections of these items at the stores now than even just a couple of years ago. Oh yeah, and did I mention I am 80 lbs lighter today to boot? The only other thing that I did during this process was some occasional light stretching, about 5 minutes a day. But this was mostly for my hip and back discomfort. More on that HERE. I spent no time at all at the gym during this process, nothing against it of course, but it was not needed for what I accomplished.
The key here is to be patient with whatever process you choose and just swap out the chemical laden food for organics over time as you go. Eventually you will be eating more organic foods than processed and that is when you will really start to notice the health benefits. The food will basically do the work for you. This is not just my process but I have seen others do this as well and every single one has a similar outcome. Over time as they get healthier they get leaner. I believe it’s a side effect of purging the chemicals from your body, which allows your body to function the way it is supposed to.
Obviously you can ramp up your progress as much as you want by implementing more organic food quicker than I did, and by adding a moderate exercising program can help push it along too. But for me, I needed the time to go slow and figure things out and get used to my new regimen. In my opinion making permanent positive changes only solidifies over time and my slow and steady approach really helped me maintain the direction I needed to go in.
If you need additional assistance you can consult any Naturolpath (or someone knowledgable in nutrition) in your area, or if you are in the CIncinnati area you can contact Gary HERE and set up a consultation
