83 Pounds Lost Giving up Sugar and Healthy Grains
Hi there, Andrew Anderson, and today we have the pleasure of speaking with Sarah Amonn from Zelko Aesthetics. And we’re going to talk about her journey on changing her eating habits and maybe a few other things. And again, this is the 10 minute interview. So, we’re going to get a lot packed in here. I’m going to hit the start button and we’re on. Sarah, thank you for coming on today.
Awesome. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to share my journey.
Me too.
So I’ll tell you what, I’m going to be quiet and you go ahead and tell us how you got to where you are today.
Right on. So, long story. I’m going to make it short. My biggest thing with getting to where I was, what was truly detoxing my body from all sugars, wheats, and flours. I started the journey January 12, 2022. And I have lost 83 pounds so far. Whoa. Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. Whoa. I started it right after I had my last child, and it was time, you know, I let the weight kinda accumulate through pregnancies and didn’t put myself first which is easy to do, I think, for any mother.
And yeah, I took time. I went to a facility in Minnesota, I’m located in Milwaukee, that really focuses on detoxing your body from sugar. It’s called COR. They focus it on, it’s a 12 step program, so it’s focused in recovery and they view sugar addiction and flour and wheat the same as alcohol and drugs. And that was appealing to me. I’ve been sober for 12 years and in recovery and in the world. So it was. It was appealing to me to hear and see it pitched that way.
Can I interject something here and maybe you’ll get to it, but for everybody who hasn’t doesn’t know this, sugars, they have the same impact on the same part of the brains as heroin, cocaine, even alcohol, all the addiction. They hit all those synapses and they are just as damaging and people don’t realize that. So, go ahead.
Yeah, I think even almost more damaging than some of the addictions out there. So yeah, I’ve been living a really good life, but putting some weight on through pregnancies and life and realized that I had to, sugar doesn’t work for me like at all. So, after I went to COR, I came out and I just gave it my all.
I had a strict food plan. It’s a little maybe more strict than a basic keto food plan. My food plan includes weighed and measured foods at every single meal which now is easy for me to know and do, but in the beginning it was a struggle to. There’s a lot to really take on with like, okay, I can’t just grab something to eat, I have to plan my meals and have everything ready for my day which in the end made it so much easier to be prepared that way. But, yeah, I have my, I have three meals a day. I have two snacks a day. My snack is typically a greek yogurt, plain, no sugar with six ounces of berries. That’s like my go to. So, like the biggest thing for me is eating to nourish my body and give my body the strength and energy, you know, it needs to to live my days and that’s, I pack a lot in a day.
Awesome. Yeah. So, having a plan and having structure are important in pretty much any endeavor I’ve ever tried in life, and especially with what you’ve done too. Specifically, do you have a carb limit? Do you, count that at all? Do you have a, where you’re…
I don’t have a carb limit. What I do is I do six ounces of protein. So my protein is usually just a grass fed beef that I make. I do three ounces of a starch. My starch is usually a brown rice or I’ll do a piece of Ezekiel bread. And then I do eight ounces of vegetables and my vegetables I usually do a tablespoon of butter or oil.
Okay, cool. And you mentioned Ezekiel bread. Can you tell us why you use Ezekiel bread rather than the healthy whole grain?
Yeah, whole grain and whole wheat and blah blah blah. Yeah, because for me, it’s the cleanest bread that doesn’t trigger anything, that it’s clean. For me, it doesn’t cause inflammation. I don’t notice any shift in my body when I eat Ezekiel bread,
Right.
So, it works.
So, the key here, because I used to have a healthy whole grain business until I, you know, figured out what was going on. It’s primarily for people to know it’s from sprouted grains. It’s after they’ve lost a lot of their toxicity. So, that’s why Ezekiel bread is, if you’re going to eat anything, that’s the one you should do.
So, so along with the weight loss, you have to feel better physically. How did it impact your mental faculties though, and like your mood and everything else?
Totally. So, it changed literally everything. I mean, like everything, it changed how I sleep, how I wake up, how I work out, how I mother, how I work. I mean, it gave me so I have so much more energy now. I’ve always been an energetic person.
I’ve always lived a super “healthy organic” life, you know. So, I’ve always been the holistic world, but I would be organic sugar, you know, and that’s still sugar no matter what. So, it still wasn’t, you know, doing me good. I also don’t eat any artificial sugars at all. Just my preference. So yeah, I don’t ever have mind fog, like ever have. My mind is always clear unless I’m dead tired after the end of my day, but otherwise, I just feel alive again, and I’m ready to take on anything that comes my way because my mind is right because my body’s right. And that for me is the most important.
Right. I call the phenomenon Sixth Gear because you get in there, you don’t feel like you’re just grinding through your day. And the reason why I had, I was eating three pounds of sugar a week in my coffee.
And so, when I made the transition, it was like, if somebody had told me how good you could feel like you did, I would have never believed him. I would have called them a liar. There’s like no way I can have this much energy from the time I get up until even if I have to pull a 12 hour day, I am still rocking and rolling. There’s no mind fog. Depression’s gone. The moodiness is gone.
Yeah, that’s huge, you know. And that transition of like how I feel. Like when I see people eat now, I’m like, Oh, you know, I got such a, it makes you tired. It makes me feel like crap. And like, I almost forget what that feels like because when you eat to nourish your body, it’s a different feeling after.
Right.
So, would you say this is what impacted your relationships? Probably? For sure. Your mental attitude? Absolutely. You’re probably, I don’t want to get, but your activity with your husband, you know, the physical activity? And how about your bank account? That’s what I always ask too. Did it help your bank account?
Yeah, for sure. It did, definitely. I’m not buying garbage and I’m working harder, you know, at my job and making more money. So yeah, it definitely has.
Go, figure. Yeah, that’s one of the things that people don’t realize. And that was one of the reasons why I done it. Someone else had said, “Hey, listen, you start doing this, you’ll make more money.” I’m like, are you crazy? Why not though? I made a split second like that. It’s true. So, you’re going to feel better, but you know, you’re going to have more money in your bank account ’cause you can think more clearly. So, we’ve 15 seconds left.
What other advice could you tell someone that Wants to do this?
I think my biggest advice is just take action and do it, you know. Even if you start slow, you’ll get there, but like take the action to put the sugar down. It’s the biggest, for me, that’s the biggest killer is sugar. That’s in everything. It’s literally in everything. Like my food plan is so basic but it works.
Right. And I’m assuming you don’t buy boxes of things.
Nothing. No. Everything that we eat in my family, and my kids eat this way. It’s how I cook, and you know, I’m thankful to pass that down to them.
Right. Yeah, because it’s going to change their, whole lives. Did they like it too?
Yeah. In the beginning they were like, you know, “Mom, I want my chicken tenders,” and blah, blah, blah. But like now it’s just, it’s what we do. You know, my husband too, it’s what we do. And we don’t think about it anymore. It’s just how we eat. We don’t eat out. And if we do, we eat at a clean restaurant.
Awesome. All right.
So, we’re right at the limit there. Sarah Amonn, thank you very much, and we’ll talk more later. I appreciate this.
Thank you. Yeah, for sure. For sure.
