# Episode 4: Discovering Low Carb
Welcome to the Why Wait podcast. I'm your host, Cheryl Takayama,
qualified nutritionist, emotional eater, and weight loss coach who walks
the talk. I've maintained my 30 kilo weight loss for the past 23 years
following a low carb plan, and now I coach other women online so they
can do the same. It's my mission to help women get off this crazy diet
wagon and find a way of eating and a way of thinking that works so you
too can lose your weight for life. Join me each week for lots of
practical advice, tips, and motivation so you can start now.
Welcome back to the Why Wait Start Now podcast. Today I'm going to be
sharing with you how I started, what got me on the path to discovering
low carb, a way of eating that has absolutely changed my life.
If you listened to the previous episode, I shared how I lost 30kg in a
year without really knowing anything about nutrition. I was young, I was
living overseas. I had lots of time to focus on myself, and I just ate
better, cut out any junk food, stuck with good meals, and I did a lot of
exercise. At the phase of life that I was in, that worked. It worked
really well, but when I came back to New Zealand, life got a bit busy.
Even though I was still exercising and I was eating in a way that I
thought was healthy, I noticed that my weight was just slowly creeping
up and I really couldn't understand why, and quite frankly, it was
annoying me.
Then one of the ladies that I worked with said, "Well, why don't you go
and see a nutritionist?" Now, I hadn't really heard about that before,
but there was a lady who worked down the road from where I worked. Her
business was called Results Nutrition Centre and they're still in
business---a wonderful, wonderful company. The lovely Alison, who at
that time was the owner and founder of Results Nutrition Centre, had
about a six-week waiting list, but that was fine. I signed up and I went
to see her for an appointment, and that was the moment that changed my
life because Alison told me about low carb.
She showed me what a meal plan should look like for weight loss. She
showed me what changes I would need to make to my breakfast, to my
lunch, to my dinner, and basically helped me realize that foods are not
all created equal. It's not just about calories in versus calories out.
The power comes in knowing where your calories are coming from, and it
really made me realize that many of the choices that I'd been making
that I thought were good were actually not good for me.
And this is me as a person who gains weight easily, me as a person whose
body is clearly very energy efficient. I only need a little bit of
energy and my body can work really well. And if I'm eating high
carbohydrate foods that are filled with energy, unless I'm doing a lot
of exercise, I cannot burn it off. I was doing regular exercise most
days, and even then it wasn't enough to stop this balance of weight
slowly going up.
So once I had my appointment at Results Nutrition Center and I got a low
carb plan, I had a whole new way of eating that I was really keen to
start with. Let me share with you how my food changed after that moment.
Before I went to Results Nutrition Center, I would eat cereal for
breakfast, so it would either be some All-Bran with fruit and milk, or I
would have oats. Good old oats with a bit of fruit. A snack would be
some fruit yogurt, maybe a piece of fruit. Then for lunch I would have
like a chicken salad or some tuna and salad. I didn't have a lot of fats
because in my head I thought, well, you know, fat's bad for us. That's
not great. So I didn't eat a lot of fat, but I would have a good salad.
Then I would usually have an afternoon snack because I was probably
feeling hungry, especially when I got home from work. And it might be a
Weight Watchers muesli bar, or maybe another piece of fruit. Then I
would have dinner, and dinner was usually just meat and veg. Sometimes I
might have a little sneaky something after dinner. I mean, I knew that
wasn't great, but that wasn't every day.
But when I look back at my food, it was definitely quite a high
carbohydrate meal plan. You know, I would have potato with my dinner, I
would have rice, I would eat the odd meal of noodles. So I was certainly
having quite a high level of carbohydrates.
When I went to Results Nutrition Centre and Alison looked at my food
diary and what I was eating, she shared with me that really, I was just
eating too many high carbohydrate foods for my metabolism, which really
made sense.
So the way that my food changed was that after that it was always eggs
for breakfast on one piece of toast or a protein shake. I had never
really had protein powder up to that point, so that was all new for me.
I would have a protein shake as an option. Instead of eating fruit, we
really cut that back. And I would have either half of a protein bar for
a snack or I would have some cheese, some hard-boiled eggs.
Lunch was fairly similar. It would be a nice piece of protein with
vegetables, but I added more fats. And so I started putting cheese with
my salad or a bit of mayonnaise or some avocado. Then I found that
because I was having more fat with lunch, I often didn't need my
afternoon snack, or if I did, I would sometimes have a protein shake,
especially if I'd been to the gym and that was really all I had.
Then dinner was fairly similar, except I just cut out the potatoes and
the rice and stuck with meat and veg, and I immediately felt a change
because I felt full. I no longer felt hungry. I just found that eating
that way, I felt really satiated from one meal to the next. In fact, I
couldn't believe it because I was feeling really good. I was feeling
full and I started losing weight.
It just didn't make sense to me because I thought, well, how can I be
eating what feels like more food? I don't feel hungry, and yet all of a
sudden the scales are going in the right direction again. It seemed like
such an epiphany to me and it just felt right. I was eating more real
food. I wasn't eating as much stuff in packets. I just felt my energy
levels were great. I was sleeping well, and all of a sudden this magic
key had unlocked and I was able to maintain my weight and slowly lose
those couple of kilos that had crept on. It felt like a miracle.
I just couldn't believe it that by cutting back on things that I thought
were healthy like fruit, yogurt, cereal, and swapping it for higher
protein foods---and I was far from perfect. I mean, I would still have
the odd little something, whether it was a bikkie or there might be some
chips. I mean, I've never been a perfect eater, that's for sure. But
even with those little moments, I was still losing weight.
So that was a huge, huge moment for me to see how a different way of
eating could have such a big impact. The other thing I discovered that
really helped me was having accountability, because I decided to stay on
as a client with Results Nutrition Center, and I would go and see Alison
every three weeks. She would look at my body composition and tell me if
my body fat was changing. She would get those horrible calipers and grab
my fat. She would squeeze it and do a little testing or get on the
scales.
I really loved seeing that data because I could see exactly what was
changing. And it felt to me that I wasn't alone. And in those moments
where things got a bit tough, instead of thinking, "I'll start again on
Monday," I knew that I was going to have to go and show up and get on
the scales at RNC, so I just behaved myself a little bit better, to be
honest, and that really helped me.
So what I discovered was that for me, especially as an emotional eater,
accountability was really helpful. And even when I would show up in
Alison's office feeling pissed off at myself or a bit down because the
scales hadn't moved much, when I left her office, I always felt better,
I felt encouraged, I felt motivated, and I was ready to go for it again.
So that process of finding someone that I could share this journey with
was really powerful for me. And this is exactly what I try and give to
clients. And this is what's shaped my career as I, later on in life,
decided to go back to university and retrain so that I could become a
nutritionist. It's really so that I can give this to others, because I
have just found it so, so beneficial in my journey.
So going to see a nutritionist was the catalyst that taught me about the
low carb way of eating, got me started with this incredible food plan,
and helped me lose those couple of kilos that I had gained, and then get
into maintenance. I also saw Alison right through my wedding, through my
first pregnancy. It was an incredible relationship and she just was the
most amazing influence on my life, on my health. And meeting her and
working with her was the catalyst for me deciding when I was in my
mid-30s that I would love to become a nutritionist, and she was so, so
supportive.
So I discovered this way of eating and realized that I wanted to share
it with other people because it is absolutely incredible. And that's why
I decided to retrain, go back to university, learn all about chemistry
and all about nutrition, and become a nutritionist.
So now that I've shared my whole story of gaining weight, losing weight,
discovering low carb, I now want to get into the fun stuff which is
sharing with you in upcoming episodes all about the low carb way of
eating, what it looks like, why it works, how you can create your low
carb plate. Because the whole purpose of this podcast is to help you
start now. I want to give you lots of actionable tips and ideas so that
you can get started with this way of eating, so that you can start
seeing benefits and feel how amazing it is to be able to lose weight and
not feel like you are on a horrible diet. Because this is not a diet.
It's a delicious way of eating that really works.
That's what I'm going to be sharing with you in my next few episodes, so
that you can get started on your low carb journey and start seeing
incredible results. I can't wait and I'll see you next week.
Thanks so much for listening and if you want support in your weight loss
journey, I would love to help. You'll see the links in the show notes
for my socials, as well as my fab freebie, a five-day low carb meal
plan, and five delicious dinner recipes. You'll also see the link for my
four-week Foundations of Fat Loss program. This is the program I've
designed specifically for the fat-burning needs of women over 35.
Remember, the only thing that's going to stop you reaching your goal is
if you quit. Never, ever give up.
