How I lost 33 pounds of overweight without trying to

First reaction from people who knew me before I started on my natural healing journey is “waou! You’ve lost weight!” And that is how the whole conversation about how I’ve lost 33 pounds begins.

I didn't think I was overweight

Back in October 2017, I talked to my new friend Manon about my joint pain, fatigue, and the huge impact my ankylosing spondylitis was having on both my personal and professional life. She then advised me to go see her nutritionist, to check with him about food intolerances. Coincidentally, at that time, I had already been reading a lot on this subject and I was ready to give it a try. So my only goal, when I went to see this nutritionist was to try to stop the pain in my joints that I had been suffering from most of my life. By that time, I weighed 138 pounds (for a 5ft4 height) so I absolutely didn’t think that I was overweight.

Getting a food intolerance test

This nutritionist/functional doctor got me tested for intolerances on 22 foods. He also did a complete checkup of all my vitamin levels and many other things. As it turned out, with the results of these tests, he had the proof in front of his eyes that I was living a pretty healthy life. I’ve always exercised and eat home cooked meals (I almost never bought prepared meals at the supermarket). I was already used to check all ingredients on everything before buying it (that’s because I grew up with my ingredient expert dad who checked everything at home) and select the best quality product (which has absolutely nothing to do with the brand).

Gaining weight was not my fault

I knew that I was gaining a little bit of weight each year since I was 18. I gained about 4 pounds a year for no particular reason. But I wasn’t really worried about it because my mom and many people around me told me that it was normal to gain weight as I was getting older.

But my nutritionist told me, “although it happens very oftenly, it is not normal to gain weight just because you grow older, without a change in your way of feeding yourself and exercising”.

What he also told me, was that I was overweight, even though I didn’t really look fat and my Body Mass Index (BMI) was saying that I was in the “normal” zone.

I was overweight not because of some trend or some standard index was telling me this. But according to my own specific body constitution (my nutritionist has a special machine, telling him the exact weight of fat, water and bones in my body).

Then he explained, that I wasn’t at fault in gaining this weight.

The link between gut health and weight

If you have read about food intolerances, you know that you can eat food you are intolerant to, without even noticing it. That is exactly what happened to me. According to him, eating food that I was intolerant to was causing inflammation in my body. This inflammation was preventing the adipocytes (body cells) from doing their job of fat destocking.

That is how I lost 33 pounds. By just removing my food intolerances from my diet. Even though I eat quite a lot, regardless of the calories and the quantity of fat in my food. Again, my goal was not to lose weight (or to cure my keratosis pilaris and many other things). But by removing the food causing inflammation in my body, I cured all these other symptoms. And honestly, I feel much better now in my body now that I have lost those 33 pounds. Not because I think I'm more beautiful. I feel better in my body because my legs are lighter. They used to be so heavy that it was painful for my lower back and my joints.

If you want to learn more about this subject you can read the book :

Gut and Weight: From dysbiosis to overweight, From inflammation to obesity written by Doctor Panizza.