Here is Nutritarian Coach, Darci Kingry, and her amazing weight loss story!  I love Darci for many reasons.  For one, she’s been a major contributor to our Eat to Live Support Group on Facebook.  She is passionate about helping people and, when it comes to the Nutritarian Lifestyle, she has a wealth of knowledge that she is enthusiastic about sharing.  Thank you for sharing your amazing story, Darci!!!  I hope you’re all as inspired as I am:

No one’s life turns out the way they expected it to. It just doesn’t happen. And it didn’t happen to me either.I grew up in a house where healthy eating was not the rule. It was the exception. There were always cookies, ice cream, pasta, meat and every other unhealthy food you can imagine stored in our kitchen. We ate at restaurants on a regular basis. I liked cheese so much, I remember putting slices of American cheese over chocolate chip cookies. It sounds disgusting, but I thought it tasted pretty good.I didn’t know anything about healthy eating or that what I was eating was causing future health problems, which would be the bane of my existence for many years.I was basically healthy and fit as a child despite my very Standard American Diet (SAD). I had friends. I played outside. I had a normal life. Everyone I knew ate like I did. I wasn’t unique.

MY FIRST DIET

My first memory of a diet was when I was about 10 years old. My parents thought was quite cute when one summer day I announced that I was no longer going to eat meat. They had a doctor force me to eat fish, but I stuck with my commitment not to eat animals as much as I could get away with until I was 17, when I randomly decided to try meat again. I didn’t love it, but I slowly started eating chicken again and then eventually other meat products. At 18, I thought I needed to lose weight and insisted on going to a nutritionist. To this day, I still have some of the articles and guidelines she gave to me. The journey had begin, because after that, I was always on one diet or another – constantly researching and experimenting – low fat, low carb, high protein, calorie counting, Weight Watchers, Protein Power, Atkins, high carb/low fat, Six Week Body Makeover, eating for your blood type – you name it! Regardless of my reality, I believed I was overweight. On top of that, I had a chronic heart palpitations and related anxiety that I had lived with since I was a child. I also had chronic pain from hip degeneration, a tail bone injury, patella femoral, and morning neck pain. This was all before I was ever significantly overweight.

FINDING EAT TO LIVE

By the time I was over 100 pounds above my healthy weight, I was hiding from the world and living in misery. I believe I gained the weight from a combination of causes: lack of activity, a sedentary job, depression, chronic pain and my heart condition. It really added up, and I would lose and regain constantly – because every diet helps you lose weight at the beginning. The problem is they are almost all unsustainable and unhealthy in the long-term. I had prayed for help, and it could only be through God that I was sitting in front of the television, at my bottom and at my heaviest that I saw Dr. Joel Fuhrman on PBS talking about Eat to Live. It made so much sense. Yes, he believes we should all be a healthy weight, but his focus was on giving us our health back in the process. It was the first “diet” that focused on every health issue I suffered.

From the first week on Eat to Live, my health and my life changed. Was it easy? No. Changing your perspective, your habits and your entire routine is not easy. It was the disappearance of my heart condition (no longer needing medication) and the elimination of my chronic pain that made me a true believer. Could it be that simple? It really is.  Focusing on nutrient density – greens, vegetables, beans, fruits, berries, nuts, seeds and minimal whole grains – changed my life forever. I was getting the nutrition I needed and ridding my body of fat and inflammation.  While I started the program initially in late 2012, it was in 2015 that I became permanently committed and watched the weight and health issues leave my life once and for all. I am still a work in progress, and the closer you get to your goal, the slower it goes and the harder it is to maintain. This is true regardless of how successful you have been or how motivated you are to reach that mountain top.

BEING ON THE DR. OZ SHOW

During my journey, I was blessed to be invited to appear on The Doctor Oz Show with Dr. Joel Fuhrman. It was an amazing experience to meet the doctor that literally changed my life and to share my story with millions of people who might understand the struggle and be ready to discover their own health miracles. After the show and also being highlighted on Dr. Fuhrman’s latest PBS special, I received communications from people all over the country asking me for help. I am proud to have a chance to serve others who are seeking a better quality of life. As I move forward on my journey to my best health, I continue to research and experiment. I know that I will always find challenges to maintaining my weight and my health improvements, but I will never give up. Learning to eat to live happened out of desperation but continues out of passion and a desire to live pain free. A plant-based diet not only helps you lose weight, but it helps prevent and cure many diseases, rere headaches inflammation and allergies and even drastically impacts your mood, sleep and an abundance of symptoms you thought were “normal.” When you finally find a way to live a medication and pain-free existence that enables you to live fully and in peace, you want to tell the world about your discovery. It is my hope that more people will embrace a diet based on nutrient density so that we can all experience true health! Change your health, change your life!

www.facebook.com/SimplyNutritarian

Twitter: @smplynutrtarian or @darcikingry

Instagram: @darcikingry

Darci Kingry works in the financial industry as a technical writer and is also a certified life coach, nutrition coach and licensed as a master neurolinguistic programming (NLP).