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Sharon has been working with Carole since she enrolled in Carole’s coaching program in January of 2017. After years of standard diets as well as moderate success with grain-free/low-carb, she decided she needed the expertise and guidance of a coach. On Carole’s program, she has lost additional weight and kept it off, as well as lowering her blood pressure and eliminating all acid reflux.

Sharon’s motivations include staying active as well as being as healthy as possible at all ages. She lives in the Chicago suburb of Lake Zurich and enjoys music, hiking, biking, kayaking and cross-country skiing.

Transcript:

Well, welcome. Thank you for watching this video. My name is Carole Freeman, Certified Nutritionist. I’m here today to introduce you to Sharon Dudley, another awesome lady who’s been through my program and experienced a transformation of keto as well as now she’s so inspired that she wants to come out and help a bunch of other people as well. So, welcome Sharon.

Thanks Carole.

Will you just share a little snippet to sneak peak of who you are?

Oh sure, I am Sharon Dudley, and I’m 52 years old, and I live in a suburb, a northwest suburb of Chicago near a lake which is my new life. And, after years in the city itself, so just kind of wanting the vibe of a lake life, so.

Oh, there’s a show on HGTV or something like that, like Lake House Hunters or something.

Oh, I’ll have to look at that.

I’ve watched it on flights. Alaskan Airlines has free, I’m not trying to plug them, but free TV shows you can watch. So, the only time I ever watch home improvement shows is on that. So, I think it’s called Lake House Hunters, anyways.

Okay.

I know all about your lifestyle, I’ve watched the shows. Okay, well so let’s share your story. So, long before keto, what was your life? What kind of struggles did you experience with weight and health?

Oh sure. I’m the oldest of three children and my mother really was a slim teenager and young adult, but after three kids she battled weight most of her adult life. And, I’m an athlete, was a three sport athlete in high school, and varsity athlete at Miami University. I played field hockey there, and but then I got a desk job after college and just started battling up and down, was able to somewhat manage it, it kind of came and went, but never got too out of hand. But, I did Weight Watchers and some other things. And then, I forget, I think it was in the 90’s, my brother and I found, or maybe it was the early 2000’s, my brother and I found a book called Eat Stop Eat. And, we were trying that along with turbulence training and just some kind of bio hacking things before that was a thing. But, it was a way to shorten your work outs and eat better, and do all these things and kind of go against … Oh, I know, I moved to Chicago and my roommate and I started doing aerobics three times a week and eating …

Step aerobics I bet, right?

It was, step aerobics. And so, we were working our butts off and eating tons of pasta and all this other stuff and I gained 10 pounds. And, I was freaking out because I’m working out so hard and not seeing any results. So, I stopped that and thought there must be something better. And so, just kept moving on and learning. I think I looked at Dr. Phil, and I looked at Oprah, and anything that came along that was making sense. But, the Eat Stop Eat made a ton of sense to us. So, then let’s see, I don’t know, oh my brother, my other brother got sick about 12 years ago and ultimately passed away at age 44. And then, with the stress of that, he lives in Ohio, I’m in Illinois, and driving back and forth, and just the stress of having a sick relative, I really kind of didn’t take care of myself at that time. I mean I was doing the best that I could, but did kind of peak out after he passed away. And then, looking at that whole experience, my brother Kevin and I just said, “Oh my gosh, we have to be better at this”. And so, I started looking around, took a weekend away in 2014, and took Weak Belly with me, isn’t that good vacation reading?

Yeah. It’s the type of vacations I take.

Oh yeah. So, before I finished the introduction I had issued all grains and was working on the sugar part. It was my birthday weekend so I did eat one more cupcake and then I was done. And, that was really the last grains that I’ve had in four years. That was the summer of 2014. Did that, lost about 20 pounds. Then found you in January of 2017, and have been with you ever since, but on your Quick Start program I lost another 20 pounds. And then, have maintained it through some other health issues with other family issues and more stress. And then, now I’m sort of back into calming down, and using my tools, and getting back into actually losing.

Awesome. Okay, so 20 pounds over a couple of months, amazing. Also, very typically results, I mean I know you’re special Sharon and it’s fun though to actually be able to share that if you follow what we teach you that’s pretty typical.

It does work.

Yeah. So, what else? So, weight loss is one nice thing. What other things did you notice that got better for you?

Oh, indigestion went away in days, literal days from starting keto. And then, I’m also on mild hypertension, high blood pressure medications. I was able to stop one of those and my goal is to stop the other one. So, I’m just working towards that. I do realize that at my age and my history, that I am very insulin resistant. And so, that my weight loss journey may be a little more of a struggle than others. But, I also know from I mean just, the articles just keep coming out more and more these days, everyone’s acknowledging the downfalls of sugar with regards to mental health, and biological health, and aging, and all these other things that I feel like I sort of have a jump start of. But, I’m educating myself continually and that’s really what I want to do is put myself in the best health for the rest of my life. And, I see so many inspirational people out there that have pulled this off, right? They say they’re better health at 60 than they were at 30 or 40 and that’s my goal. So, that’s what I want to do.

Yeah, yeah, so much of what we’ve been told about, “Oh it’s just a normal part of getting older”, is complete hogwash.

I don’t want any of those normal things. I want the normal thing to be energized, and be that energizer bunny at 90 years old just still going, still going.

Yeah, well and so recently you’ve really taken a interest in fasting. And so, you’ve been playing around with that as a way of kind of hacking your approach. Do you want to share a little bit about that?

Sure, yeah. I started reading more and more about this insulin resistance and plateauing, and things like that. And, though I eat fairly strict keto like I said I haven’t had grains in four years and I’m just not tempted by them anymore. But, hunger sort of scares me I guess. I grew up never being hungry, so I don’t probably really know what that is, but I eat because I don’t want to ever be hungry, right? So, which is probably fairly typical. But, then I read more and more about fasting and how that can actually lessen the hunger. And then, it actually makes compliance with keto or whatever you’re doing even easier. And, I’m all about the easy and the comfort. And so, if I … And, not to mention no grocery shopping, no cooking, no dishes, there’s easy and comfort for you, right? So, like I said I started with Eat Stop Eat years ago, but I was still eating carbs at that time. So, that was 24 hour fasts. You started after dinner one day and then ate dinner the next day. So, you never went … So, I kind of dipped my toes in the water at that point. I never went a day without eating, so it’s the mental thing like oh you’re just going from that to that. But, it sort of yeah, dipped my toes in the water and got me started.

So, when I started keto, and then started looking into the insulin resistance, and just the insulin reactions in general, and things like that, then the fasting just made way more sense, and was so much easier already being fat adapted. So, I just, I started by skipping breakfast and doing a timed eating window. So, I would eat lunch and dinner, and then I’d have a good 16 to 18 hour fast overnight which was very easy to do because I’m always just running out the door in the morning. So, not having to stop and I never stopped to sit down and eat breakfast, that’s not my style. So, I’d grab something on the go or something like that. And so, to just skip all that and go to lunch was a very easy transition.

And then, on say Tuesdays, I am just wall to wall meetings all day everyday. So, to even skip lunch on Tuesday, I didn’t even notice the first time I did it, and all of the sudden I’m at 24 hours. I ate dinner Monday night and bam I’m eating dinner Tuesday night, very easy. So, then I sort of did a couple of those and progressed from 24 hours to I’m like, “Well, I think I’ll try a 42 if I just don’t eat dinner Tuesday night and go all the way to Wednesday lunch there’s 42”. And then, a couple of weeks ago I actually did a five day, so that was my longest so far and it was unbelievably easy. It was amazing, so.

Yeah, isn’t it? It’s the psychological hurdle, that’s what I always coach people through is that the first few times you do it, and that’s what I recommend is that you just keep building on your success you’ve already had. And, the biggest hurdle is obstacle, or the biggest obstacle is just your mind.

Oh, it definitely is. I had to teach myself to not think about, but you just kind of get used to it and it comes in waves. And, no one really, in a period of a week no one dies from hunger. And so, follow your advice on the salt intakes and the electrolytes, and just keep hydrated and I just cruised, I didn’t feel any different that Friday than I did on Tuesday. So, that was just phenomenal to me, and Friday ended up being a really hectic day at work. And, I thought oh I’m going to be so stressed out and it didn’t matter.

Very cool. Very cool.

So, I hope to try to get, I’ve read a lot about just not just for weight loss, but for immune system boosting, and sharpness of mind, and things like that. And so, I’m really interested in all of the aspects that I can get health ways from fasting with sort of weight loss or insulin resistance sort of being kind of bonus.

Yeah, nice. Well, so going back, thinking back to when you went through my program, what would you say were some of your keys to success?

Oh, I definitely think, I actually stayed in phase one a lot longer, probably actually the whole nine weeks I was in phase one. So, I had been doing recipes and trying to incorporate a little bit to treats with some coconut flour, almond flour, and some alternate sweeteners and things like that. But, I think my key to success with you was really you took it back to basics. And, I loved your five minute in the kitchen thing, like get in get out. And so, I just looked through the food lists and I went to the store, and I got things that I could just literally get in, get out. Like you said microwave a hamburger patty, so buy frozen. And, just nothing that took very long. And, just minimize the time that I was thinking about food and eating. And just made it more kind of nutritional and just for living, and not for eating for eating sake. I didn’t really make it a ceremony, I just kept it simple.

Yeah. So, you really found that the rules that I give you to follow, they delivered on the promise of these all work, it’s not just because I’m trying to be mean and take away fun things from you, they’re all very carefully crafted for multiple ways to help you get the success that you want.

Yeah, exactly. I mean I stopped looking at recipes and any blogs and things like that, that were going to show food pictures so that I wasn’t getting the visual on that. And, I wasn’t reading magazines, or cookbooks, or anything like that. So, just kind of stepping away and just simplifying everything, and following your rules.

So, did you notice a difference then? ‘Cause you were doing keto on your own before.

I was low carb, I wasn’t, and grain free, but probably the year leading up to joining you I had probably started to add in a few more things like every now and then I’d have sushi with rice or something like that that I really didn’t maybe realize even what the ingredients were. And, just sort of, it just sort of was creeping back in and so yeah by going full blown with your program and actually having rules to follow, helped me reset that so that it didn’t ever get out of control.

Did you notice a big difference in cravings then?

I did. They totally went away.

Another one of my promises.

Like you said they would.

Well, and this is a fun, I realized I’d been saying it wrong, like oh your cravings go away. Actually what I give you is bullet proof willpower, right? So, a lot of people feel like they fall off track because they just have weak will power, there’s tricks that I taught you about how the brain works.

Yes.

That are woven into all those rules to follow so that you get the will power and it makes it easy to stay on track rather than trying to constantly fight all those cravings.

Yeah, I mean I’m constantly getting people, you know people bring stuff into the office or whatever and constantly going, “Oh, I can’t believe you can just sit there and not have this”, and what not. And, it just doesn’t even cross my mind. And, plus the other thing is I just figure I’ve put so much work into this and you have to figure out … Your mental exercises worked towards that as well, as far as figuring out what your why is. And, I know I think about half way through the program, you directed me to go back to that week one and look at what, why are you doing this. What do you really want? And, the short term satisfaction versus long term goals, and I really think that if I could I’d plaster that on every wall because it’s that important that you have to stick with what you really want, and that think on the counter is not what you really want.

Yeah, oh that’s so great.

Yeah, I’m able to just not even notice what’s there, which is, a year ago no way, you wouldn’t have told me that, so.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that’s really cool. Thanks for sharing that ’cause I know that a lot of people come into this, the same thing, like I don’t know, I don’t believe you, that’s not going to work, and …

It does.

It’s all there for a reason.

Yeah.

So, was there anything else that you want to share that you want to share? I guess I was thinking of a different way of saying that, but what else would you like to share with people watching this?

Yeah, I mean just the reason why I want to be a peer coach. And, it’s just because I truly believe in this way of life, that it’s the healthy way. Like I said, I’ve got a history of trying just everything under the sun, and reading all of the books, and hearing all of this stuff, and I’m just sort of sickened and saddened by the state that the, the misinformation we’ve been given. And, one of the things that I read in Weak Belly said this is not you fault and I always believed that couldn’t be true, that I am in control of what goes in my mouth so it had to be my fault. And so, I kept reading and he, Doctor Davis went on to just say that we’ve been deceived by some different industries, and laws, and other things, doctors, and training, and the whole nine yards, everybody knows the story now. But, it’s just, so that’s really sad. So, I want to be part of the revolution of turning this thing around, getting the right information out there, and helping as many people as possible.

Oh, I love that. Oh my gosh, thank you so much, yeah. And, we get to help more people, the more people we have to help, and the support team that we’ve got to be able to help everybody too. So, I love that you’re so passionate about this and …

Well, I’m just excited to work with other people that are passionate about it. ‘Cause for several years it was my brother and I just kind of reading everything we possibly could, and we can’t even sell our parents on it. So, just to have people to work with that are this enthused about it, and knowledgeable, and people to learn from as well as other people that want this knowledge. I have been trying to impart it on people that don’t really want it. So, to work with people that are actually are open minded and want to learn, then that’s a real benefit.

Yeah, excellent, well I can’t wait to change the world with you, with your help, yeah. So, thank you Sharon so much for sharing your story and …

Sure Carol.

And, I’m sure you’ll inspire so many and I look forward to working with you even more going forward.

It sounds great, I’m very excited.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, wonderful. Well, thank you so much. And, thank you for watching.