I asked Jonathan straight out on our last call: when you started with me, what was your weight?
“94 kilograms.”
And today?
“Today I’m 83, and I have been under 83 – it fluctuates a little, but 83 kilograms.”
The lowest he’d hit was 82.2. I told him that’s fine – once you finish a program like this, you give yourself a range, you fluctuate between 82 and 84, and when you drift up toward 84 you feel it and think, what have I been doing. He agreed. His longer-term goal now is under 80kg.
“In all honesty, I don’t think I’ve been under 90 for probably 20 years, maybe 25 years. I literally have been carrying the same weight since I was in my mid-20s. I don’t think I’ve been under 80 kilograms since I was a teenager.”
So I did the maths back to him on the call: 11 kilos lost in about 13 weeks, after carrying that same 11 kilos for roughly 30 years.
“That’s correct.”
I asked how that felt.
“There’s so many benefits, not least carrying 11 kilos less is amazing. But now I’m actually sleeping through the night. I think probably for the last 15 years, I’ve been up for at least an hour or two in the middle of the night, every night. I’m just feeling a lot more alive. I don’t get tired anymore, even during the day.”
The drinking went the same way as the weight.
“I was a regular drinker. I wouldn’t say dependent, but regular, and probably regularly drinking too much. Cutting that out has also enhanced my well-being significantly.”
His snoring stopped too – something he’d lived with so long he’d stopped noticing it as a problem.
“Snoring has stopped, that’s right. Getting up in the night to go to the toilet, which was just part of the course for as long as I can remember.”
I remembered him mentioning a dry mouth in the mornings and telling him to try nasal strips. Within three days, his sleep had changed completely.
“Absolutely. Breathing through the nose is basically the optimum, and I do that now without tape. I think it’s all tied in with this whole regime – this whole consciousness, I call it.”
Jonathan travels a lot for work – Darwin and elsewhere – which is usually where a nutrition plan falls apart. For him it didn’t.
“The most significant outcome out of this whole course is having my awareness awakened to what I should be eating and when. In the past I was more of an opportunistic eater – eating when I was hungry rather than planning it. Now if I have a flight, say mid-morning, I’ll have a decent breakfast as late as I can, and that sees me through, so I don’t have to eat the plane food, which is notoriously high in carbs and sugar. I basically try to stick to two meals a day, bookending them as late as I can in the morning and as early as I can in the evening.”
Before we started, blood tests came first – checking there was nothing dangerous to work around. That mattered to him.
“There was a great deal of expertise in your approach, which led me to feel this was a safe thing. A lot of diets out there are quite commercial, mass-produced, about numbers. With you, it’s very calculated on great research. I felt from the outset this was safe, and something I could keep going with. I know people who diet on shakes and packets – I don’t see that as sustainable. I wanted something I could continue for the rest of my life.”
Tracking what he ate, using the Cronometer app, made the awareness concrete – and any problem along the way got answered fast.
“Anytime I had a question about how food was making me feel, whether it affected my sleep or digestion, there was always a quick, simple answer, and a remedy if necessary. I was struggling a little with constipation at one point – straight away it was magnesium, or psyllium husks. Bang, I got them, and the problem was rectified straight away.”
Then the line that surprised him most – after a life assuming exercise was the lever.
“The other thing I wasn’t aware of before I started was how much what you eat is actually everything. I was always under the illusion that if I just ran or did some exercise, I’d counteract the weight and take it off. I’m not saying exercise isn’t good for your well-being, but for me, and the person I am – 95, let’s say 100% of it is what I eat. That was completely news to me at 52. I haven’t done any significant exercise for the 13 weeks it took to lose these 11 kilos.”
Twelve weeks in, he doesn’t talk about it as a diet with an end date.
“I feel like this is 12 weeks of the rest of my life. I can easily adapt to this and manage it. Even going shopping is easier now – I know exactly where I’m going, generally around the perimeter of the store where the fresh produce is, and nothing in the middle. It’s simplified my life.”
