Would you like to read how I lost 70+ pounds in my journey for health and weight loss because you will see what worked for me and get motivated to do the same?
The Third Jerry Banfield Show – Weight Loss!
I saw that as long as I drank the whole rest of my health was hopeless. I wouldn't be able to change my diet if I drank. I wouldn't be able to fix my mental health if I drank. I wouldn't be able to be a healthy person as long as I drank.
So the first thing I did was pray to God for help on the alcoholism, because I drank and I liked being drunk better than being sober.
I couldn't see a way to fix that because the solution to my alcoholism was not to drink, but I don't like being sober. This was a problem.
Thankfully, God guided me to Alcoholics Anonymous and that's where the alcoholism, I've gotten a complete solution from there.
And just quitting drinking alone took off 30 pounds or so, even with eating a bunch of sugar after I got sober.
But the next 40 or 50 pounds was a real effort.
The first thing I tried was counting calories. I got the, "My Fitness Pal" app and I counted calories for every single food I ate every single day for an entire year in a row.
I put in every food I ate and that was my accountability like "If I'm going to eat this ice cream, I'm going to put exactly how much I ate, I'm going to see the calories on this ice cream, and I'm going to look at it."
I set a target for how much I wanted to eat each day, like 2,500 calories or something. I did that for a year straight and I'd watch and I learned like, "Wow, that's a lot of calories on that food," and I would consciously start deciding more on my food, what I ate.
I lost 20 more pounds just counting calories.
So if you total up alcoholism, staying sober, and then counting my calories every day for a year, I lost 50 pounds from that.
Fortunately that got me to a place where I had enough awareness of what I was eating to realize if I actually want to do better, I don't know how to do better. That came when I had this fungus on my chest and on my back. I got this fungus that came up, it looked like just a red rash and it persisted.
That brought me to a place of surrender with my diet because on some level I knew that my diet was a part of that manifesting. I started trying elimination diets to try to get rid of the fungus. I tried the turkey and rice and green peppers, elimination diet. I got sick within a day or two of starting that like I came down with a cold or a flu or something within a day or two of starting that.
I quit that diet, then I tried a different elimination diet where I didn't need certain kinds of meat, but I still ate seafood. Then I'd go out to brunch with my family and feel sorry for myself, and no progress on the fungus.
The fungus did not care what elimination diet I was trying. That got me to a place of hopelessness, like looking at all the food I'm putting into My Fitness Pal and realizing there could be an ingredient, I didn't know if it was an allergy either. I didn't know if it was a fungus or an allergy because I noticed certain food I ate, it would flare up immediately.
When I tried to figure out what foods and what ingredients, I started looking at all the ingredients, all the stuff I ate, I thought, "My God, this is horrible. I eat so much stuff with so many ingredients, I don't know where to start. Everything I eat has milk and wheat, soy and gluten, artificial colors and flavors. I don't even know where to begin with this."
I asked my uncle who's a doctor, a general practitioner for 40 years.
He suggested that I go to a dermatologist and read the book, "How Not to Die." He gives that book to every one of his patients he said on the first visit.
It's a book called "How Not to Die." It's by a medical doctor who's put together a lot of research I will share with you shortly.
I'm talking a lot about diet and bad habits like alcoholism to begin because as long as you've got something like alcoholism and you're still drinking, all the rest of the stuff you're doing with your health doesn't matter. You might as well just totally let go and don't bother with the diet.
Exercise can still help, but one of the biggest things you can do for your health is to stop poisoning yourself with whatever it is, and start eating the very best things you can to give yourself a chance to be healthy.
That's where I will take you into my diet, which is one of the things I've done after getting sober that's made a huge difference.
I read the book called "How Not to Die" when my uncle gave it to me, but I wasn't ready to actually follow it until I had this experience I'll share with you.
I was at the Detroit airport, my uncle lives in Michigan with my family. Now this is when I've been counting all my calories and I'd been getting frustrated with the fungus. I didn't know if it was an allergy or what it was. I hadn't been to the dermatologist yet, and this had been on my chest for a year or two. I'd kept going through one thing or another.
I have this book my uncle gave me, but I haven't started reading it, and I go to, I'll just say it, a restaurant with Asian food not to put any particular food chain under the bus.
I went to the restaurant and got this huge noodle bowl. It had like five kinds of meat in it, like chicken, beef, turkey, kill a couple other things and throw that into, and add all kinds of oils and salts, eggs and milk.
He probably put a cigarette or something in it too. It was a huge bowl of a lot of things that weren't good for my body.
When I went into that meal, I was feeling great. We were just leaving Michigan, my wife and daughter were there, I was so happy, we had a great trip and going home, "I'm so happy. I'm so grateful. I feel great."
I had hardly eaten anything that morning, and now I eat this food bowl. I eat a bunch of it. I didn't even finish it, but I tried.
We walk out, we go to our gate and all of a sudden my mind goes from really happy and everything's good straight down into the gutter like, "Oh man, I'm kind of annoyed that our planes not here yet. There's a bar over there, I could use a drink."
I'd been sober about two years at this time, not having the obsession, and my thoughts actually dipped all the way down to, "Well, I just thought about a drink. I might as well end it because my sobriety clearly isn't doing well."
I went from all the way up here to all the way down here mentally in a span of 20 minutes after I ate that food.
Then I had an epiphany, "Oh my God, that food I ate caused whatever these thoughts are to come up in my brain. If I hadn't eaten that food, I wouldn't be thinking like this right now."
Once that happened, I said, "Oh my God, I've gotten to figure out how to eat in a way that will help my mind to work better, so that I don't get into these depressions."
Once I saw that what I eat can actually cause a depression and not later, but almost immediately, "Alright, let me have this book to read the whole thing and follow the directions."
I love you.
You’re awesome.
I appreciate the chance to serve you today and I will see you again soon.
Love,
Jerry Banfield
Edits from video transcript by Michel Gerard.
Posted from my blog with SteemPress : https://jerrybanfield.com/weight-loss/
"I was insane" :P Its brave to say this out loud !!!
But I wished u shared a photo of that time as well..... when you weighed that much !!
I am quite motivated by this video!! Thanks
Very cool story. Inspired me to keep eating a little better, and stay away from long lists of ingredients!