Introductions

Well, how to start?... I had never thought about doing a blog before, and it would be just another thing to take precious hours of my precious time in this planet... my really precious time! But, in response to all requests, I started a blog to talk about my story and nutrition! I started this blog in February 2012 in Portuguese, because I'm Brazilian, but I have seen that many different countries started to look my blog. "I know, there are Brazilians everywhere!", but, even so, I thought it was going to be a great idea to start writing in English too.  Plus, I have many friends that don't speak Portuguese! So, from now on, I'm going to "TRY" to start translating all old posts and the new ones to English!

I'm a nutritionist, a specialist in Clinical nutrition, and the most important thing, I was an obese child and teenager! During teenage years, when everything in life always involves drama, I decided to lose weight! I tried every single crazy and famous diets you can imagine. There was one where I could only eat pineapple, and I can't even hear the word PINEAPPLE  anymore without my stomach starting to hurt! And of course, I started to do some exercises too! But even with these crazy diets, I would manage to lose some weight (and I lost, sometimes 5-6lbs in one week), and I would put this weight back on because I couldn't stand those diets for a long time (I even had some nutritional deficiencies), or I was experiencing bouts of abrupt mood swings. "PLEASE! Don't take all my carbs away!". Don't know how my parents didn't kick me out of the house!

Tired, hopeless, unhappy, blah, blah, blah (you know, teenagers!), when I was sixteen I started using some diet pills! YES!!! With a doctor's prescription of course! I tried every diet pill you can imagine (the famous Sibrutramine, Anxiety pills, Amphetamines, Diet formulas with laxatives, diuretics and tons of "miraculous" herbs which the only effect was an annoying need to go to the toilet 50 times a day). I confess, some pills helped, a lot, but every time I stopped the treatment, I would put some of the  weight back on! And I can't finish this subject without mentioning the side effects, Ha! Luckily I didn't have many, but some included rising blood pressure, an increase in heart rhythm, headaches, nauseas, and others... sometime not even the effect I was waiting for, lack of appetite!  BUT, on the other side, I had some really bad mood swings, and my good moods, sweetness and patience (of which I don't have much!) were leaving me along with my weight!

Does it mean I'm against Diet pills? NO! No way! Sometime they're necessary, but it has to be with a doctor prescription and associated with a good diet and exercises! If it wasn't for these changes in my lifestyle I would never lose 55lbs and the most important thing, without putting it back at some point! Do I ever put on some weight? Of course I do, I'm not a teenager anymore, I'm 30, "Ohhh, THE 30s", but never more than 8lbs, and most of the times just 4lbs. And every time I put on weight, I get back on diet and start to lose it again!

It has been almost 14 years since I lost all that weight and today, as a nutritionist for 8-9 years now, I can pass my experience and knowledge to everyone that needs/wants to lose weight or wants to have a healthy lifestyle. And I must say, I'm not one of those "extremist" people that ONLY eats healthy food. I love some junk food, sweets, beer and I didn't stop having it... I just know how to balance it! Important thing to say: Miraculous diets, Miraculous pills, Voodoo, Magic, does not exist!!! Well, maybe... But not for losing weight, otherwise everybody around the world would be walking around with perfect bodies, or at least healthy bodies and we wouldn't have these high obesity rates!

Nobody believes me when I say that I lost all that weight... so, after a long time, I had to go find my old pictures to find out something to prove it! Looking inside old boxes with tons of old pictures (a little break to laugh, you know: the 80's)  it was hard to find a picture of the time I was really overweight. Understandable, isn't it? And the rare ones I had this really grumpy, awful face. And of course, most of the pictures didn't show my entire body! The first picture (1998) was one of the rare ones I've found (you can see I wasn't even looking at the camera, it was probably taken without me noticing it) and I had to wait more than 10 years to face it! The last picture I'm using is what used to be one of my pair of jeans!