#69 Brooke Ware – Lost 132 lbs and Healthy

Meet Brooke Ware:

I have forever struggled with my weight and eating habits. It has been a journey that I have been on for years, and failed multiple times. Once I found keto, all of that changed for me!

I was overweight all throughout high school, and was desperate to lose the weight. I was willing to do whatever it would take to make that happen.

That led me to have weight loss surgery the summer before moving into college (August 2006). Adjusting to new eating habits while living on my own for the first time, came with some growing pains. But I was losing weight; so I was happy about that!

I wasn’t healthy though. I had complications. No matter how much my lap band was adjusted, it was either too loose, and I would gain weight, or it would be too tight, and I wouldn’t be able to eat properly. Things would ‘get stuck’, and I would throw up almost everything I ate, since the food could not move through the band!.

After about 3 years of going back and forth, loosening and tightening my lap band, it had gotten to a point where I couldn’t keep liquid down, and was hospitalized. I knew I wasn’t healthy. Not being able to eat anything is not healthy. I began to look at my lap band as something that was hindering me from becoming healthy, rather than something that was helping me to become healthier.

I had to convince my surgeon that what was best for me personally, was not having some device or something similar to alter how I intake and process food. He was skeptical, and kept suggesting a more invasive weight loss surgery, but I wasn’t having it. After three years of being held back by something that was supposed to help me, I wanted to just remove the shackle around my stomach and try things on my own.

My surgeon told me I would gain all my weight back.
And he was right…. I did gain all of my weight back, and then some..
I wanted to prove him wrong. But I didn’t.

I felt like I failed when I looked at a scale that said 268 lbs, (20lbs higher than the day I had surgery), 268 pounds read more like “you failed”.

But I didn’t give up on myself.  Over the next couple years, I jumped around from one diet to the next, desperately trying new things. Each new diet I tried would help me lose a little bit of weight. Once I started incorporating exercise, the weight started coming off.

It was 2012, and I was beginning to feel like myself again! I was feeling confident! Shortly after finding myself, I found the person that completes me as well, (my now husband) Dominique (who I call Nique).  And with love and comfort came some weight gain. So, together we decided to try to lose weight, and turned to a fad diet that allowed me to get down to my lowest adult weight: 179 lbs.

I had lost nearly 90 lbs! However, the diet was exactly that… just a diet. It wasn’t a lifestyle change. And so when Nique and I went off of that diet, I returned back to my old ways of eating out daily. Except, now I had someone who would cosign on what I was eating, because he was right there with me, indulging in everything, too! We didn’t realize it then, however, we began to enable each other. So the weight slowly crept up… for both of us!

I weighed about 212 lbs when I realized I was pregnant in the summer of 2013. I gained so much weight during that pregnancy; about 80 pounds total! I had developed gestational diabetes that was diet-controlled, but otherwise had a relatively healthy pregnancy. Our handsome son, Drew, was born in February of 2014.

As I adjusted to motherhood, I gained more weight and scale crept up over 300 lbs for the first time. And so, I decided to go gluten free, which helped me begin losing weight and get down to 277 lbs.

And then I got pregnant again. With this pregnancy I had gestational diabetes again. However, I also developed preeclampsia, and had morning sickness up until the day that I delivered. I ditched the gluten free lifestyle that I had been doing for about three months, and just ate whatever I could stomach… and more!

Those bad habits didn’t go away after I gave birth to our beautiful daughter, Riley, in April of 2016. Instead, they continued. Together, my husband and I continued our bad eating habits. We both gained more and more weight.

By spring of 2017, my husband was fed up with his weight gain. He started a diet that I wasn’t so fond of, so I didn’t join him. I knew I needed to lose weight, but I started to lose faith in my ability to do so. I knew I needed to lose weight, but I wasn’t sure how. 

I got to the point where I was afraid to weigh myself, and had started considering another weight loss surgery.

The idea of another weight loss surgery terrified me. The last time was such a negative experience for me, but I scheduled an informational seminar anyways.

I figured that if I was willing to go down the surgery road again; something that I was terrified to do, that at the very least, I owed it to myself to know that I had tried EVERYTHING else prior to going back under the knife, this time around. And that took me back to the keto diet.

I picked back up some research that I had started months earlier about keto. I started reading articles and forums, joined Facebook groups, watched informational videos, and started following people living keto on Instagram. I took a couple weeks to learn as much about the keto lifestyle as I could.

So, I started keto on June 12, 2017. And I have lost 130 lbs since in 18 months. My husband also lost a large amount of weight, which led to reversing his Type 2 Diabetes, and lowering his blood pressure, as well!

I found a lifestyle that works for me. Through keto, I have lost weight, and as the cliche goes, I have gained my life back too. I have been able to work through my issues that led to emotional eating, and don’t binge anymore. I have grown on the inside and shrank on the outside.

I have bettered my health….

– I’m no longer considered pre-diabetic.
– I don’t have high blood pressure anymore.
– I don’t have aches and pains when I wake up.
– I don’t have to stop at the top of the stairs to catch my breath anymore.

Best of of all, I have way more energy than I have ever had! As a result, I’ve become a better woman, mother, wife, and teacher.

I’ve learned to battle and overcome my eating disorder, and am developing an unbreakable self-love, and pride in myself, my accomplishments, and my abilities to achieve things that at one point I couldn’t even imagine!

Before I turned thirty, I wanted to give myself the gift of life back, and I did. And in return, I gained so much more. For once in my life, I’m doing more than just existing and getting by; now I am finally living!

Though my journey, I have grown leaps and bounds, both inside and out. Through this journey, I have developed a passion for the ketogenic lifestyle, and healthy living in general. As a teacher, my passion has always been to help people grow and meet their potential. Now, I am excited to combine both of those passions and help inspire, motivate, and support people on their own ketogenic journey.

Show Notes:

ABOUT BROOKE

• I am 31 years old
• I am a teacher and I have struggled with weight my entire life
• I have been trying to find something that works for me
• Until, I found the keto lifestyle
• I started June 12 of 2017 and have been doing it a 1 year and a half
• I don’t remember exactly how I heard about it, but I remember looking up some research
• It took 4 to 6 months before I decided to start
• And I had my 30^thbirth approaching and told myself that I can’t go on my 30’s the same why I lived my 20’s
• I don’t want to be 300 lbs when I went into my 30’s
• The day I turned 30, I hit 299.8 lbs
• For me, this was something I have something I have to do now
• When I was pregnant with my 4-year old son, I weigh about 212 lbs and I got close to 300 lbs after that pregnancy
• I started doing some gluten-free for a while and I lost some 30 lbs and I found out I was pregnant with my daughter and gained 280 lbs to about 313-ish lbs
• And then, I put up more weight after my pregnancy to 340 lbs
• For me, keto is different from anything that I have done
• I have always been an emotional and binge eater, and keto has helped me battled that
• Keto has helped me find balance in my life with food, which I have never had
• Because I am a teacher, I have the luxury of having the summer off, I took the summer to relearn food
• So, I told myself that I am not going to focus on anything else but food and nutrition – what I can have and what I can’t have
• And if I make mistakes, it’s okay and I am going to learn from it
• I have done all the diets and nothing works because it was just a diet
• Keto for me is a lifestyle
  
• I had weight loss surgery when I was 18 years old and I had a lap band
  
• And I had it removed a couple years later because I was getting complications
• We found out that my stomach was twisting
• And I could not keep anything down, so I was bringing everything up and it was awful
• I had almost convinced my surgeon to remove it and he wanted me to go further and do a rerouting of the intestines, like a more invasive surgery
• Because I was young, and I think to do it my own
• I wasn’t feeling healthy and it actually holding me back rather than helping me
• When I started keto, I was considering another weight loss surgery
• And I decided, that I should try Keto
• When I saw the Keto food list, I got interested
• I decided to give it a shot and it has been life changing for me
• People who start Keto and stick and dedicate themselves to getting into ketosis, they start to see the benefits
• Like, having more energy, mental clarity and your body just generally feels like it runs
  better
• One thing I noticed from the beginning was that, I went from being somebody who went home from work and tells her kid to lay down and watch a movie to being productive, like organizing the house
• I told my husband that I can’t believe how much more energy I feel I have
• Once my body got into ketosis my whole world changed
• I got so much more out of it other than weight loss
• I went from somebody who struggled with food
• I had such a bad relationship with food
• I even tried out the biggest loser
• And when I started Keto, thing started clicking
• I have wow moments
• My body feels so much better
• I feel like I have become a better teacher, I have more energy, and I am accomplishing things I have never attempted before
• Keto allows me to recreate myself
• My husband is 29 years old and was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes 2 or 3 years ago
• And we did Keto, he was able to reverse it
• I was considered pre-diabetic
• I used to have a normal blood pressure even as a heavy person and I gained weight
• With the pregnancy of my daughter, I have to have her early because of preeclampsia
• And then, after that pregnancy, it did not go away because I gained more weight
• Once I started Keto, my blood pressure went down
• My doctor told me to keep doing what I am doing
• She is super supportive about it
  
• When I first started, I had no idea what I was doing and because I had that goal of getting under 300 lbs before I turned
  30, I have to track
• I kept it 20 net carbs a day and I listen to my body, eat when I am hungry
• I eat few meals a day, but as I went on, I started noticing that I wasn’t as hungry anymore
• I did some research and I realized that it is already something that I am doing, but not intending to
• So, I started to be more intentional about it
• I would fast for 16 hours and would eat within the 8-hour period
• After that, I started to shorten it and started OMAD (one meal a day)
• Now, I pretty much eat 1 big keto meal a day
• I did a 24-hour fast and a 48-hour fast
• I would do water with electrolytes, but mainly just water
• I have tried doing magnesium and potassium
• At the times when I did it, I always have in my mind that I can keep going
  
  

FAVORITE MEAL

• I am a big fan of cheese
• I am always a red meat person
• I make a cream spinach, that I pair with my ribeye steak and sautéed mushroom in the side with parmesan bacon on top

ADVICE

• When you are making such a big switch, focusing on the food and conquering that food is essential
• Like, relearn how to eat and after that, set a new goal
• Once you conquer that next thing, then level up
• That’s how I lost my 130 lbs
• Do not overwhelm yourself

TOUGH SPOTS

• I have hit some plateaus
• I have some times when I fell off the wagon during the holidays
• I just trust the Keto process
• It’s not always about the scale, it’s about celebrating those non-scale victories and that’s how I had gotten through that tough times
• I have considered putting my kids into Keto
• And I am glad I have found Keto before I turned 30 years old

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU

• I am going to Keto on
• I love this lifestyle
• I recently started a blog that I just launched
• And I am looking forward to start some Keto coaching
• I think it’s my calling

WHERE CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU

• Website: brooketo.com
• Instagram: real.brooketo
• Pinterest: realbrooketo
• Facebook: real.brooketo

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