#72 Christine Trimpe – Keto Healed PCOS, Sleep Apnea, and Fatty Liver Disease

Meet Christine Trimpe:

Christine, age 51, has battled obesity for over three decades. She was a tiny petite-framed girl, but that changed drastically with the “Freshman 15” during her first year of college. 

Until recently, Christine had been overweight her entire adult life.  She tried every weight loss program you can imagine: tracking CICO (calories in – calories out), SAD (standard American diet) like “My Plate”, the Diabetes Prevention Program, a liquid shake diet for 10 months with strict adherence, Weight Watchers, Medical Weight Loss Clinic, and exercise – just to name a few.  By the way, she used to hate exercise. It wasn’t until she learned from one of her MD’s her health is 95% diet and 5% moving her body.  She credits this conversation with her doctor to sparking her desire to start taking control of her health.

Just before her 49^th birthday, she began facing health problems – like a recurrence of painful ovarian cysts.  During an ultrasound to diagnose the cysts, it was discovered that she also a fatty liver.  As she began to research the consequences of fatty liver she began learning about hormones and how a diet of high carbohydrates is destroying her health. She decided to quit sugar one week before her birthday.

Christine successfully quit white sugar and processed foods over a few months.  The health benefits were the elimination of sugar cravings and a slight increase in energy. She expected better results, but her weight loss was extremely small.  She continued to research and learn.

A random google search on January 13, 2017 about fasting and hormones, led her to the work of Jason Fung, MD.  On this date, she committed to a strict Keto diet with Intermittent Fasting. Since then, she has spent many hours reading and keeping current on how her food choices dictate her health and wellness.

Christine is passionate about sharing this lifestyle with anyone asking.  She has a small, private Facebook group where she will encourage people, share the science, and share podcasts and recipes to help keep her friends motivated in their new lifestyle.  Christine likes to emphasis with everyone to “learn the science, apply the science, change your life”!

Christine launched her on-line presence in April of 2018.  Her website, JoyfulKetoLife.com, is meant to encourage and guide individuals in their own physical, emotional, and spiritual healing.  Her life has completely changed and her joy in life has been completely restored through her Keto and Intermittent Fasting lifestyle.  She follows a strict Keto lifestyle because of her metabolic needs – but encourages everyone in their journey whether they choose Keto, LCHF, with or without Intermittent Fasting.

Christine likes to joke she’s an “accountant turned blogger” as she’s exploring avenues to share the message of this healing lifestyle with a wider audience.  In her “real” job, she’s a Controller for a medium-sized physician organization.  In her professional career, she’s doing her best to drop hints about a different way to heal the patient population!  Her anecdotal success story in the office full of mid-level healthcare providers (like RNs and RDs) and doctors is making some positive waves.

Christine is married to her college sweetheart and is the mother of two young adults – a son, age 25, and a daughter, age 21.  They reside in a suburb of Detroit with their two cats, Miki Roomba and Kitty.  She’s known around town as “Keto Christine” and loves sitting down one on one to share the amazing, healing benefits that her new lifestyle has afforded her. 

This is a highlight list of the healing benefits that Christine testifies to through her food and lifestyle choices:

• ELIMINATED:
  • Obesity – from a high weight in 2015 of 230 lbs. to a healthy weight under 120 lbs. on her small, 5’1” frame
  • Extreme Fatigue, Chronic Exhaustion
  • Insulin Resistance/Hyperinsulinemia
  • Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (confirmed by ultrasound)
  • Obstructive Sleep Apnea (confirmed by sleep study)
  • The need for the C-Pap machine (confirmed by sleep study)
  • Ovarian Cysts
  • Daily headaches
  • Monthly migraines
  • Cystic acne
  • Joint inflammation
  • Insomnia
  • Food Cravings
• GAINED:
  • Amazing energy 24/7
  • Control over hunger
  • Control over emotional eating
  • Enjoyment in physical activity
  • Improved immunity to illnesses like cold and flu
  • Complete change in daily mood – from exhausted to complete JOY

You can follow Christine on her blog JoyfulKetoLife.com, on her Facebook page “Joyful Keto Life”, and on Instagram and Twitter as KetoChristine317. Follow her for inspiration and motivation for your own journey to health and wellness!

Show Notes:

ABOUT CHRISTINE

• I am 51 years old
• I have battled with obesity
• That’s how my Keto journey began
• I am currently trying to step away from my full-time position making it my part-time so that I can pursue my new passion, which is helping people get motivated and get inspired to take care of their own personal health
• I love inspiring and motivating people
• Over the past 30 years, I have tried all the diets under the sun
• For 10 months, I did a liquid protein shake diet, which I did lose a lot of weight
• But during that time, nobody ever talked to me about my metabolic dysfunction or what would happen if I started eating carbs again
• As soon as I started eating healthy carbs, I instantly started gaining weight back
• I went a few more years trying every diet. And then, I have a friend who was really into a natural health remedies who talked to me about hormones and I was thinking that should probably what I should start dig into.
• I realized that sugar is probably the number 1 thing to blame for my health issues
• I quit sugar and within 6 weeks, I was not having cravings anymore for carbs and I was feeling really good, but I was not losing any weight
• I had another conversation with my friend and she happened to ask if I ever heard about intermittent fasting and Dr. Fung
• So, I went home that night, googled Dr. Fung, hormones and fasting
• I landed on the website that changed my life
• That day was the last day that I ate potatoes and pasta
• I did lose some weight with the liquid protein shake
• Once I started going into what they considered, “the maintenance phase”, my body could not handle the carbohydrates
• As soon as I eliminated them from my diet, that’s when things started to improve
• I never felt great when I was doing that diet
• In comparison to how I feel following a Ketogenic diet, it’s a 100% turn around
• If Keto is the type of diet that is good for your body, you will have so much energy
• I started fasting too
• I have never been a breakfast eater, but I was eating breakfast
• At that time, I was in the middle of a diabetes prevention program. I was eating 5 times a day
• Immediately, I stopped that and told myself to do fasting
• As soon as I started to recognize my hunger signals more, I was able to stretch out the intermittent fasting
• When I started Keto, it did not take very long for me to realize that I did not need to eat when I was not hungry
• I don’t think that quitting the potatoes, bread and pasta was very difficult because I was already used to not feeding myself with sugar
• When I started Keto and fasting, within 2-week’s time, I was feeling a lot of energy and the weight was dropping off pretty quickly too
• I was sharing information publicly with my friends because it was such an amazing turn around in such a short amount of time
• I have quite a few friends that are following this way of life with me
• It’s very encouraging to see them changing their life too
• That’s what started my journey and ending up having my very own blog
• I have lost about 112 lbs
• I am very comfortable where I am now
• I have a cardiologist and only because my dad has heart disease and both of my brothers do too
• This cardiologist wanted to follow the whole family
• He is actually the one who planted the seed in my mind about the low-carb living
• He completely supports my lifestyle and I love talking to him about it
• Then after I found Keto, I went to a functional medicine MD at the same hospital system
• She’s come around to being more open
• I see her every six months and she is monitoring all my blood work
• She did in depth panels and I also did a stool test with her
• I have a pulmonologist that I went to for my sleep apnea, but I don’t have to go back to him any more unless I have issues again

WHAT DO YOU LOVE ABOUT INTERMITTENT FASTING

• When my schedule is busy, I love that I don’t have to eat
• And when I travel, I love I am not focused on, “where’s next my meal coming from” and “what and where am I going to eat”
• My mind is not consumed with thoughts of food whereas before I was a sugar burner
• It’s freeing physically and mentally
• Most of the time, I do a 42 hour fast each week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday
• I would eat 2 meals a day on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday
• Because I am a fat burner now and not a glucose burner
• When I was doing the liquid diet, I was constantly hungry and what I was burning was sugar
• Being a fat burner, I have extra fat to burn and it gives me energy
• I did not have hunger pains because my body is being fueled by ketones, which is different when being fueled by sugar
• I don’t cheat when I diet because I want the results
• And the only results I wanted with that diet was the weight loss
• Now, my new thinking with my Ketogenic diet is just realizing all the conditions that it could heal in my body and I am getting older too
• I tell people that the weight loss is a wonderful side benefit and I happy about, but all the other healing that I did is the incredible part
• When I used to diet, I felt deprived and hungry all the time
• That’s not the case with Ketogenic diet

OTHER BENEFITS

• My blood work has always been fairly good
• I do have to supplement with vitamin D – I live in Michigan
• The other types of tests that I had that really showcase the healing that I had was my abdominal ultrasound on my liver
• The thing that I am most focused on when I started my Keto journey besides weight loss was my fatty liver
• Because I started having reoccurring ovarian cysts again and so my doctor sent me for a pelvic and abdominal ultrasound to see what’s going on because it was so painful
• She kind of more focused on the ovarian cyst, so I did my own research on fatty liver
• I found out that it could turn into a Nash Liver Disease and eventually cirrhosis on the liver
• And I told myself that I really need to do something about it
• That was another thing that sparked my interest into figuring out how I can reverse that, and that’s how I got to the decision of quitting sugar
• A year after I asked my doctor if we could reevaluate my sugar to make sure that the fatty liver was gone
• And it was confirmed that my liver is completely healthy and the report did not say fatty liver anymore
• That was my biggest victory
• I did not know that the abundance of carbs and sugar that I was ingesting was turning into a fat to my liver
• All the research I did on my own was very eye opening
• What I used to know about cholesterol was based on my dad’s heart’s history
• My blood work was always pretty healthy, except my triglycerides were always high
• But not high enough that my doctor wanted to do anything about it
• Ever since I started the Keto diet, my functional medicine doctor has been testing my blood every 6 months
• My triglycerides have gone down, my HDL has gone up and my LDL has gone up, but not scary

WORDS OF WISDOM

• I am just excited about all the healing that has been taken place in my body
• And I want people to have hope and to be excited that they can do the same things for themselves too
• There is another way and you don’t have to follow the standard American diet
• And I really want to encourage people to spend their time doing their own research
• Once you learn and apply the Science, you are going to see a lot of life changing things happening for yourself
• I have eliminated my chronic exhaustion, obesity, fatty liver, obstructive sleep apnea, migraines, headaches, inflammation, joint pain, reverse metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance and ovarian cyst
• I go to a local gym 3 times a week and on Saturdays, I go to a Pilates session at my church
• I do strength training and lifting here at home
• I do enjoy moving my body now
• Before, exercise was a huge hell
• When I had my food sensitivity test, potatoes showed up, a few different greens, mozzarella cheese and some high-carb vegetables

HOW CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU

• Website: joyfulketolife.com
• Instagram: ketochristine317
• Twitter: ketochristine317

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