today's video is going to be a bit of a
story time I'm going to be telling you
about my health and fitness journey now
I did a video similar to this a couple
of years ago when I first started my
channel at the time I was just getting
into keto and had not yet discovered
carnivore and I think overall that video
was pretty surface-level
there's a lot more of my story that we
are going to go into today so if you're
interested in hearing about my struggle
with weight amenorrhea energy sugar
addiction binge drinking and more keep
watching hey guys welcome back to my
channel if you're new here my name's
Kait I'm a health coach and I post
videos on a high fat nutrient-dense way
every day if you like this video please
give it a thumbs up feel free to share
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Facebook or I should new posts every
single day I wrote down some notes for
this video to try and make some form of
a timeline because I find whenever I try
to share my story I end up just jumping
all over the place and missing parts so
hopefully we cover it all today this is
definitely going to be a bit of a longer
video I know that I personally really
like watching these types of videos and
getting a little bit of insight into
other people's lives but yeah I hope you
enjoy it and let's begin growing up I
always considered my family to be pretty
healthy we rarely had fast food if we
went to McDonald's for lunch or
something that was considered a treat I
was also very active I played a lot of
sports a lot of sports competitively I
played hockey and baseball those are
probably my two main ones so I always
had a winter sport in this summer sport
anyways the first time I can remember
even thinking about or worrying about my
weight was around grade six at this time
I had a growth spurt and I was probably
almost the height that I am right now
so I was pretty tall I wasn't overweight
at all though I wasn't one of those like
tall really skinny kids I was just like
tall and normal and athletic but I have
one friend who would always just kind of
backward Lee call me fat an example of
this is it was Halloween and we were all
going to dress up as each other it was
me and my three other girlfriends and I
was dressing up as said friend she was
giving me some of her clothes to wear
and she pulled out a pair of pants and
she said I think these are my only pants
that will maybe fit you because they're
really stretchy but I don't know and she
would always make just little comments
like that it was just so mean and the
worst part is it wasn't even true
I wasn't even overweight or anything but
anyways that kind of put me in the
mindset that I was like the fat friend
if you will and yeah that started a lot
of insecurities none that I ever really
verbalized but that were always kind of
there
now when I look at what my family was
eating when I was growing up it was
carbs carbs carbs we were very much
following the dietary guidelines so lots
of whole grains whole grain pasta brown
rice low-fat yogurt margarine so low-fat
high-carb whole grains and at the time I
didn't really give food a second thought
so now moving on to high school I can
remember homies having trouble with
portion sizes and I think this
originally stems from as I said I kind
of thought I was the fat friend even
though looking back I was not fat
any way shape or form at this time but I
always had that in the back of my mind
so what would happen is I would go to
eat a meal I would look at the cereal
box read how much a portion was three
quarters of a cup or whatnot and I would
perfectly portion that out for myself I
would eat it in about five seconds
because one serve of cereal is not a lot
of food at all and I would still be
hungry so to pour another Bowl and eat
it still be hungry and maybe you have a
third Bowl and this was just such a so
mentally draining and yeah this got me
this cycle where I was always hungry and
I didn't know what was wrong with me and
at this time I would try to make the
healthiest choices that I could I would
always choose whole grain I never had
white bread I would choose the low-fat
skim yogurt if I was eating out I would
always pick like a Caesar salad or
something I would always choose lean
chicken no skin turkey bacon instead of
regular bacon and as I started to move
through school I actually started to
gain weight and move into that
overweight zone I was still playing a
lot of sports find you and I even went
to a sports focused High School where he
had to complete a fitness test to get
accepted I was working out every day in
the fitness program and then I was
playing sports for the school sports
outside of school I was burning a lot of
calories but at this point yes I liked
playing sports but I absolutely hated
working at I would dread having to do
the beep test which we had to do every
semester I hated doing weights I hated
doing any type of running yes I was good
at sports at the time I was good at
hockey and rugby and baseball and
whatnot but I wasn't actually that fit
and looking back on it it was because I
didn't push myself when I was working at
I would do the
haier minimum that I could get away with
pretty much and this is just such a bad
attitude to have
anyways despite all this exercise I was
getting weight and I think a large part
of this was to do with the binge
drinking culture in high school every
Friday every Saturday it was where the
party's at let's get wasted and this was
not only bad for my physical health but
also my mental health I was not very
confident in high school at all I did
have a large group of friends and I
guess I was in what you would considered
to be the popular crowd
but I was so insecure about my weight
and about my personality so to combat
this I would get absolutely wasted at
these parties I was drinking to get past
the point of worrying about what other
people thought about me and to the point
where I just wouldn't remember anything
I would wake up after one of these
nights out and just have such a sense of
dread I would have no idea what I did
the night before or I would have this
very very faint idea I would feel so
embarrassed and this would only make my
confidence worse alcohol was a short
term fix a very very short term fix but
yeah it was just making everything so
much worse and on top of this when
you're hungover what do you eat I would
go out with my friends the morning after
we would go to Tim Hortons get a
breakfast sandwich oh I have not had a
Tim Hortons sausage breakfast sandwich
in ages but honestly that was such a
hangover staple and an ice cap oh my god
how many calories how much sugar is in
even a medium ice cap
if there's a drink anyways so I get out
of high school I'm in college now still
living at home still eating the same
still going out just as much if not more
and still gaining weight I'm playing
less sports at this time so that's not
helping but I'm trying to go to the gym
consistently I'm doing all the workout
classes and whatnot but for some reason
the scale just keeps going up now this
is where we get to probably the first
defining moment in my health journey and
that is when I gave up drinking
long story short not one of my proudest
moments but pretty much I ended up in
the drunk tank
one night my mom and my sister had to
come pick me up and it was mortifying
and I pretty much stopped drinking cold
turkey I think I must have been about 19
at the time which is actually the legal
drinking age in Canada so I had just
reached it and I stopped drinking right
now I am 26 and I could probably count
on probably less than two hands the
number of times I have been drunk since
that night and honestly quitting binge
drinking it was like a weight was lifted
off my chest I felt so much better about
myself and I thought that a side effect
of giving up drinking meant that I would
probably lose some weight but
unfortunately this did not happen at all
I only continued to gain I think at my
heaviest I was probably around 180
pounds now at this time I was just
finishing college I studied fashion
business and I wanted to be a retail
buyer that was kind of my loose path
that I wanted to follow and when I was
growing up I feel
vacation in the Cayman Islands a lot and
if you aren't familiar the Cayman
Islands it's three islands that are near
Cuba and it's under British rule so it's
very westernized it's actually a tax
haven as well so I was finishing college
and my dad's like whining good job here
you don't have to pay any taxes you
should do this I started applying for
jobs and it actually got one right away
working at a high-end retail store and I
was thrilled about this so I moved to
the Cayman Islands this was the first
time that I moved out of my parents
house and I was living on my own and I
was so so frugal with my money I didn't
want to spend money on like extra snacks
or extra food I really only wanted to
buy the bare basics of what I needed to
eat and pretty much just save everything
else so I would eat three meals a day I
would pack my lunch and yeah no snacks
pretty much and I ended up losing quite
a lot of weight and I was doing next to
no exercise at this time I actually like
I didn't have a gym membership I wasn't
doing any running I was on my feet all
day at work working in retail but ya
know exercise pretty much just cut out
snacking and I dropped a lot of weight
but then I moved back home back in with
my parents and I fell right back into
all my bad habits and at this time I was
getting really really into cycling with
my boyfriend max it was a form of
exercise that I thoroughly enjoyed it
was so much fun to just go on bike rides
with him and pick a destination get
there maybe grab some lunch and then
bike home and you could see your
progress pretty much every time you got
on the bike it was really really
rewarding and my mindset at the time was
that because I was doing so much
exercise I could pretty much eat
whatever I wanted and this actually
morphed into me making a blog and an
inch
an account called biking to get food and
we would scope out the most Instagram
Abal places to get food around the GTA
which is the greater toronto area we
would bike there I'd get an Instagram
photo eat the food and then we'd bike
home I'll try to find some of the photos
because oh my god like this the food I
was eating at this time was Instagram
all but so so bad
think sushi burritos I'm like huge
milkshakes ice cream waffles so while I
was doing probably the most amount of
cardio I've ever done in my life my diet
was probably the worst that it has ever
been
now as is probably a surprise to no one
I felt absolutely terrible on my bike
ride eating this way like so so bad
anyways so Max and I did a couple of
bike tours as they're called pretty much
you do like multi-day rides to get
somewhere so we went like Toronto
tonight or Falls one time and we also
did Toronto to Montreal and then fast
forward I moved to Australia very much
still into cycling but cycling in South
Australia is nothing like cycling in
Ontario in Ontario it is so flat you can
go so far without having to go up any
real hills around Adelaide it is all
hills and when I first moved here I
didn't have a job I couldn't even get a
job because I was on a visitor's visa so
cycling became my life I did have
fulfilled by Amazon business which is
pretty much you sell a product through
Amazon but they do all the work so I was
managing that online I did
a bit of income but I didn't actually
have a job so I had a lot of free time
and one day Max and I decided we were
going to do another bicycle tour we were
going to go from Adelaide to Melbourne
which is about 1,000 kilometers and this
is another defining moment in my health
journey I still had the same mindset
that because I was doing so much
exercise I could eat whatever I wanted
but this ride was so much more intense
than anything I had ever done there were
a couple days it was so so windy we were
moving so slowly we didn't know how we
were even going to get to our
destination for the day and to give you
a sense of what we were eating
pretty much every morning we had like
little packets of oatmeal we had like
bananas and dates and whatnot lots of
carbs to keep us going those are
supposed to be the best fuel but what
would end up happening is you would ride
for an hour and a half to two hours and
you would just totally crash this is
otherwise known as bonking and it's
pretty much when all of your stored
glucose runs out and you're just
completely left on empty and I was very
much a sugar burner at the time non
ketosis at all I was eating so many
carbs so much sugar multiple times every
day this would happen my energy would
just crash same thing would happen to
Max and he'd just be like oh we get to
Melbourne and I say to myself okay I
need to get my nutrition sorted there
has to be a better way there has to be a
better way than eating every hour and a
half to two hours and this is pretty
much when I discovered paleo so the
first book I read was Gary Taubes the
case against sugar actually this one
right here this was just such an
eye-opener for me I was obviously
someone who ate a lot of sugar
and reading about it and just how it has
such a huge impact on our health such a
wake-up call I pretty much cut out all
refined sugar and all refined
carbohydrates cold turkey and at this
time I was eating all whole foods pretty
much nothing processed lots of fruits
and vegetables and nuts and seeds yes I
was paleo but I saw the vegan diet as
the gold standard and something to
strive for so wherever I could I would
replace animal protein with plant
protein instead black bean burgers were
a staple that I would make and a couple
times I tried to do like scrambled tofu
instead of eggs and in general eating
this way cutting out all processed food
or refined sugar I felt so much better I
was becoming obsessed with health and
nutrition I was so against refined sugar
anything that had added sugar in it even
if it was 0.1 grams I would not touch it
but then natural sugar I didn't have a
problem with if something was sweetened
with coconut sugar or honey that was
okay which is very hypocritical which is
something I realized later on and I was
making a lot of healthy desserts at this
time so like raw brownies sweetened with
dates things like that and that is
actually why I started my youtube
channel at the start I wanted to make
these healthy recipes and just show my
hands on camera that was really what I
had in mind when I first started my
channel I had no intention of showing my
face on camera talking to the camera I
was still very unsure of myself and of
my opinions and my thoughts I didn't
really want to put anything out there
risk judgment so I was doing these
recipe videos on my channel and I don't
know what came over me
and this is probably the next defining
moment in my health journey but I
decided to film a video talking to the
camera and just talk about my channel
that was probably one of the hardest
things I have ever done watching that
video back
I was just cringing so hard but for
whatever reason I edited it and it did
it I posted it I had I put it out there
and it's crazy for me to say this
because now I talk to the camera like
it's no problem
but honestly filming myself putting
myself on YouTube has done wonders for
my confidence and he would think it
would be the exact opposite I was so
afraid of criticism and of people
attacking me for whatever reason but my
experience has been largely the opposite
if you're watching this if you're one of
my followers new or old all of you are
amazing like I get so many nice comments
all the time and the response has been
largely positive overwhelmingly positive
anyways getting a little bit off-track
but you guys are amazing as I was
learning more and more about health I
started reading and learning about how
bad the birth control pill can be for a
woman's hormones and how it can deplete
certain vitamins and I had been on the
birth control pill maybe like three or
four even five years at this point I had
originally started taking it because oh
my period used to be so horrible d
habilitated cramps like you can not
imagine
Nadja like you can not imagine it was
super heavy
it was super long it was honestly such a
nightmare I had been told that the birth
control pill would help with that
so that is why I originally started
taking it and it did help a little bit
like all of my symptoms I still had but
they were a little bit less but I was
all about being really natural at the
time and I didn't want to be taking
these synthetic hormones anymore so I
stopped taking it and immediately I lost
my period over the next two years
I saw a lot of doctors trying to figure
out why I wasn't having my cycle I think
I saw two general practitioners I saw
functional medicine doctor I saw an
endocrinologist I like had an ultrasound
and a bajillion tests I even went to a
naturopath as a last resort but yeah on
paper everything looked fine my hormones
were all totally normal
I had an ultrasound because they thought
maybe I might have PCOS which I didn't
have with the functional medicine doctor
I did so many so many tests and
ultimately we found out that I was low
in iron and low in iodine so I started
supplementing both of those
unfortunately none of this helped and at
the time I wasn't under a lot of stress
I had a part-time job I was making
YouTube videos so that wasn't it I did
think to myself okay maybe I'm over
exercising and that was such a hard pill
to swallow I did not want to cut back on
my cycling because it was just such a
big part of my life and something that I
enjoyed so so much but I did end up
cutting it back almost entirely which
was so hard
around this time I also started hearing
more about the keto diet about how it
could increase your energy how you go
long periods of time without eating as
well and not being hungry and for my
cycling especially this just sounded
amazing because as I said before when we
were on our tours we had to stop every
hour and a half to two hours to eat
pretty much and with keto it seemed that
you wouldn't have to do this so I think
I started keto
just before I cut back on my cycling and
I was really hesitant to try it because
yes I cut out refined sugar months prior
but I was still eating a lot of natural
sugar and like I said I was making all
these healthy desserts that were still
packed with sugar and I was so afraid to
give that up to give up bananas I was
really hesitant but ultimately I did do
it and ultimately it was amazing my
energy increased my sleep got better as
promised I could go hours and hours
without eating and my energy would stay
consistent so I was eating Kido for a
few months and then I started to fall
back into old habits and by that I mean
I had always been a really big snacker
like I said I was making these healthy
desserts and I started replacing the
ones I had made previously with keto
desserts with fat bombs with things
sweetened with stevia and what I found
was that even though these didn't have
any actual sugar in them they were still
triggering my sweet tooth and causing me
to crave more sweetness crave more sugar
I could not just have one fat bomb I had
to have two or three I just keep eating
them and couldn't stop fast forward a
few more months and this is when I first
heard of the carnivore diet which seemed
completely insane to me at the time I
didn't even consider trying it right
away I thought how will you get vitamins
how will you get fiber that's just
absolutely ridiculous and while I was
currently eating a keto diet at the time
I still had that voice in the back of my
head that was saying that meat was
unhealthy that you had to limit it so I
was always trying to eat a wide range of
fruits that I could have on keto and
vegetables and keep my animal-based
protein to a minimum but more and more
people were popping up saying they tried
a card for diet and it just took keto to
the next level so eventually
I was like okay I need to try this first
it was only for a week and then a couple
months later I did it for a full 30 days
with my boyfriend max it really was a
game-changer
Kido was a step up from paleo and
carnivore it was a step up from kita my
sugar cravings weren't completely gone
there really isn't anything sweet you
can eat on a carnivore diet I mean yes
dairy like yogurt milk those are sweet
and honey is technically carnivore but I
wasn't really having any of these so
when you're just eating meat eggs fish
there's nothing to snack on there's
nothing to fuel all your sweet tooth and
what would you know when I started
carnivore I got my period back now I
didn't just get it back I got it back
with zero cramps zero nausea so much
lighter and so much shorter I I cannot
believe that I suffered OH
with it the way it was for so many years
it was so horrible in the past now I
don't know exactly what brought it back
now I eat an animal-based diet which is
manly carnivore and my cycle is a breeze
I think the extra iron from meat as
compared to plant sources of iron helped
and I also think that adding iodine into
my diet helped as well one of the side
effects of low iodine is heavy periods
so that totally makes sense
I really didn't eat much seafood growing
up at all I have a whole other video on
iodine most people are not getting
enough of it so if you want to check
that out I will link it above and you
can watch that after I do think that
cutting back my exercise significantly
helped as well although it was almost a
year and a half after I significantly
cut it back that I got my period back so
it did take a while if
that was the cause and as I started my
carnivore journey this is one I decided
that I wanted to become a health coach
and I started studying with the primal
health coach Institute I felt I had so
much information to share and previously
I did not realize the connection between
nutrition and health my whole life I
didn't know what I was passionate about
going through school I didn't really
have a favorite subject
I liked clothes and I liked business so
that's why I went into fashion business
but I wasn't really passionate about it
but the passion I felt and still feel
with health and nutrition was so strong
I knew that this was my calling anyway
so after the month of carnivore I
honestly didn't really know where to go
I didn't really want to go back to keto
I was just in such a good routine that
carnivore was just so easy next to no
food prep no food planning no cravings
it's just so easy shoppings a breeze
I did miss a little bit of variety
though so I started adding back in a few
keto friendly plants avocado olives
coconut oil macadamia nuts on occasion
as well and I didn't negatively react to
any of these so how I eat today
I call it animal-based it's pretty much
90 to 95 percent carnivore and then a
few keto friendly plants thrown in as
well and if I'm eating out I do give
myself some more flexibility I feel like
now I'm at a place where I have such a
good relationship with food throughout
high school I was always focused on
eating small portion sizes and this just
got me in this cycle I was just focused
on small portion sizes which I could
never stick to I could never just eat
these tiny portions and when I first got
a sugar
I was so strict about it I would not
touch anything with
whatsoever now I try to look at the
bigger picture point five grams of sugar
in a food is not going to impact me at
all
eating one meal out with friends that
isn't 100% carnivore and maybe isn't
even kita that's also not going to kill
me I know what my triggers are I know
that if I am left alone with a box of
chocolates I'm gonna polish that box off
but now if I'm out and it's someone's
birthday I might have a slice of cake
right now this is working fantastic for
me I really do hate the word balance
when it comes to diet I am a low carb
advocate through and through but even I
admit that there are situations where
carbs are appropriate and maybe even
ideal such as in athletics for example
some people can eat sugary foods in
moderation they can have two squares of
chocolate and not eat the whole bar if
that's you I envy you but it's about
figuring out what works for you
I do think animal foods are a critical
component to our health and if you cut
animal foods out entirely you're putting
yourself at risk but there are different
strategies and these different
strategies can work for different people
anyways guys that's my video for you
today and that is my story up until this
point at least I knew this video was
going to be long but I didn't know
what's gonna be this long so if you're
still here with me you are honestly the
if you liked this video you might also
like this one or this one and if you're
interested in starting Aikido or
carnivore diet you can check out my
coaching programs here thank you guys
again for watching and I will see you
next time bye
