Hi Iām Lola, welcome to my website Lola’s Life Lessons.
A little about me… (ok a lot about me, why…because it’s important for you to understand how I got from point A to point B.)
I am a married working mom on a weight loss journey. I have a teenage daughter. I love creating videos on youtube. Just google Lola’s Life Lessons Youtube to find me. I am grateful that I am able to work from home. Welcome to my lifestyle blog.
This website is about support, diet, weight loss, fasting, health, and wellness. I love to experiment. I have tried various diets such as the carnivore diet, intermittent fasting, one meal a day, alternate-day fasting, and the snake diet. I also love to review supplements. If you are also on a weight loss, health or fasting focused journey. Then you will love my website.
My weight loss success started quite accidentally. The summer of 2017, I was comfortable. Years before I had tried all the diets. I would lose weight and then gain it back. I had given up and decided that this was my weight. I had come to a place of acceptance. I thought.
Later that summer I noticed that my acne had increased. I noticed swelling around my eyes. One eye more than the other and the jeans that I was able to fit in was now tight. Now, this was my fault, my uniform of choice was leggings and they grew with me. I can honestly say that I didn’t realize how much weight I had gained and there was no way that I was going to weigh myself. Not in this lifetime.
I saw some youtube videos that bragged about the benefits of drinking one gallon of water a day. I decided to try it for one month for my skin. I made a youtube video documenting my journey. I am so happy that I made that video because I now have a video that marks my starting point which is so important to me. You can see that video here. 30 day water challenge
One of the side effects of drinking a gallon of water a day was weight loss. The swelling around my eyes decreased a tiny bit and my acne improved slightly.
Alongside many water challenge videos, I saw thousands of videos of women speaking about the benefits of apple cider vinegar and weight loss. I had used apple cider vinegar years ago for my acid reflux but I didn’t know it was used for weight loss too. I thought ok, I’ll give it a shot. Shockingly, I was successful. Here is the recipe I used: 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar, one tablespoon of raw honey, one glass of warm water. I drank two of those for about a month. I was successful my tight jeans were not as tight. You can see my recipe here. Apple Cider Vinegar Recipe
While I was taking apple cider vinegar I had been taking black seed oil, I even made a testimonial video about it. You can see it here. Black Seed Oil Review - 1 year journey! One of my youtube subscribers asked me if black seed oil aided in weight loss. Hmmm…I thought and I began my research. I found out that many people had amazing results.
I started taking black seed oil and apple cider vinegar specifically for weight loss. I realized there was hope for me. My formerly tight jeans showed me the proof I needed. I realized that black seed oil and apple cider vinegar were working for me but I didn’t want to focus on eating diet foods. I still wanted to eat whatever I wanted when I wanted.
The decision that changed my life: I finally stepped on the scale saw my number…167…sigh. I had lost weight and the scale said 167! What did I weight before I decided to step on that scale? I had let myself go. Geez! I weighed 172 pounds when I was 9 months pregnant. This was when my intermittent fasting journey began. It began July 17, 2017. Weeks earlier, the weight was coming off slowly but I wanted to speed things up. Using Blackseed oil as an aid to weight loss showed me that there was hope for me. I could actually lose weight. The results pushed me to do other things too. Black seed oil/Apple Cider Vinegar/Omad/intermittent fasting worked together for me to get the results that I desired fast. Omad is one meal a day!
My omad/intermittent fasting protocol: I started by having my last meal at 6 pm. I noticed that I was actually fasting for 14 hours because I would eat breakfast at 8 am. When I mastered 14 hours of fasting. I moved on to 16 hours, and I ate my first meal at 10 am. Weeks later I was actually fasting for 18 hours and then I would have my first meal at 12noon. I guess you are seeing a pattern here. Anyway, then I fasted for 18 hours and had my first meal at 2pm….and so on. It did this for weeks. At the start of this, I found it incredibly difficult, you see, my past pattern was: I would eat from the time I woke up until I went to sleep. I did this also at the start of my weight loss journey. Yep, that’s a lot of calories. Could that have contributed to my weight gain? Hmmm
I had progressed to eating one meal a day. While doing omad I still ate whatever I wanted but I ate in a timed eating window. Which was usually a 1 to 2-hour eating window (dinner). All of my calories for the day was consumed in one sitting. No counting calories, just eating until I was full. In the beginning, I was eating a lot of unhealthy food. I would eat until my stomach was so full that it was upset. However, I was still losing weight. I decided if I’m going to eat one meal only. The meal had to be somewhat healthy. Doing intermittent fasting, the weight melted off fast. I lost 17 pounds in one month. Seeing this result gave me so much motivation. I decided that I would post my meals on Instagram. I found so much support there. It was unreal. I’m so happy I did that I now realize that documenting my journey helped many people. You can see my meals here on Instagram/lolaslifelessons.
Once I had reached my goal weight of 135 pounds. BTW I am 5’5 inches tall. I wanted to eat healthier foods and my new goal was to maintain this weight loss. My research led me to keto. The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate diet that in medicine is used primarily to treat difficult-to-control epilepsy in children. The diet forces the body to burn fats rather than carbohydrates. Keto has absolutely helped me to maintain and even lose a bit more weight. Keto brought me to 130 pounds. So a five pound weight loss.
Fast forward to 2018, I am currently experimenting with the carnivore diet. What is the carnivore diet? It is a zero carb diet. The only requirements are that you eat meat (mostly steak) and drink water. So eat when hungry and drink water when thirsty. I guess you could call me an omader, intermittent faster, and newbie keto/carnivore. I also still doing intermittent fasting. I still take my supplements of apple cider vinegar and black seed oil daily. My starting weight was approximately 167 and current weight is 130! So a loss of 37 pounds in a very short period of time. I went from a size 14 to a size 4 in a span of 3 months. I have managed to keep the weigh off.
Fast forward to 2019, I have quit the carnivore diet because it was not something I could do on a long term basis. I found myself constantly craving other foods. I did find myself having some setbacks with my weight. However, I also went back to what worked for me originally. I went into more detail in this video here. Why I quit the carnivore diet. Currently, I am still open to try new supplements because black seed oil and apple vinegar really helped me. I hope they helped you also. I hope to bring you more product reviews on health and wellness supplements that I really love.
I have learned during my journey that balance and flexibility are key. It’s important to be open to learning from others because the answers are out there. Once you make the decision. I mean really make the decision. Anything is possible. My advice: take lots of before picture and videos, and listen to your inner voice and let it guide you. I have noticed that everyone’s journey to success is different. So do what works for you.
Why a website? While posting on Instagram, many of the community have asked me to share my recipes, restaurant reviews and overall journey which have led me to start this blog. I love food, photography, and cooking. My dream job would be to travel that world trying different foods and exploring. At this point, it’s about the experience….living life and being the healthiest and happiest me.
Cheers,
Lola
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