For years, Megan Ellam struggled with weight, hovering around 220 pounds for most of her adult life. She tried Weight Watchers, fad diets, eating “clean,” healthy vegetables, and grain-based diets, but nothing worked. In her late 20s, she started gaining more weight; by 30 she stopped menstruating.
Finding the Root of the Problem
Megan thought that undergoing surgery for endometriosis twice that caused her to stop menstruating. Endometriosis surgery is a laparoscopic surgery in which the surgeon makes a small incision near your belly button and fills it with gas to view your internal organs with a laparoscope, a thin tube with a video camera. From there, any abnormal growths are removed. Megan had endometriosis, which is essentially the abnormal growth of tissue within the womb which is associated with severe pain and fertility problems.
However, even after the surgeries, she continued gaining weight. She visited multiple doctors until one finally told her something surprising, “You’re going into early menopause.”
She was surprised. “I was only 30-years-old! It was a massive shock for both me and my long-term partner Dave.”
The couple began focusing on getting her back in control of her body despite consistent weight gain. She said, “By 40, I reached an all-time high of 242 pounds. No matter what changes I made to my diet, the weight just wouldn’t shift.” The doctors didn’t know what to tell her, so she started exercising with power walks twice a day, a daily swim, and weekly boot camp sessions. She didn’t lose the weight, but she did gain horrible foot injuries.
A Bad Situation Getting Worse
Her general practitioner eventually referred her to a sports doctor who informed her that she had Achilles tendonitis (the inflammation of the Achilles tendon), bursitis, swelling and inflammation at the joints, and a massive heel spur, the formation of a hook-shaped bone on the back of the foot.
The specialist was more concerned with what caused the issues and suggested a hormone imbalance. After a few tests he confirmed that she was insulin resistant. Instead of her body breaking down all those carbs and her cells using them for energy by insulin uptake, her “fatty” liver was resisting the action of the insulin, and her cells weren’t getting any energy.
Diagnosis and Road to Health
“I finally had the answer to all my years of weight battles,” Megan explained, “Upon researching the best diet to combat insulin resistance, I learned that I should avoid sugary foods, refined carbohydrates, sweet drinks, and even fruit.” She began the ketogenic diet with high-fat, protein-rich, low-carb foods. Almost instantly she lost weight; 8 pounds in the first week alone!
Over the next few months, Megan stuck to the ketogenic diet and consistently lost an average of two pounds per week. In six months, she lost nearly 60 pounds!
With new motivation, Megan began sharing her journey and experiences on a blog. This evolved into the establishment of “Mad Creations,” a food and cookware company, by Megan and Dave. Even Dave took up the diet and lost 66 pounds, gained muscle, and felt better than ever! Megan believes the ketogenic diet changed her life. “Now, I’m the healthiest and happiest I’ve ever been and love being an ambassador for the ketogenic diet. Hopefully I can help others change their lives, just like I did.”
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The content on this website should not be taken as medical advice and you should ALWAYS consult with your doctor before starting any diet or exercise program. We provide nutritional data for our recipes as a courtesy to our readers. We use Total Keto Diet app software to calculate the nutrition and we remove fiber and sugar alcohols, like erythritol, from the total carbohydrate count to get to the net carb count, as they do not affect your blood glucose levels. You should independently calculate nutritional information on your own and not rely on our data. The website or content herein is not intended to cure, prevent, diagnose or treat any disease. This website shall not be liable for adverse reactions or any other outcome resulting from the use of recipes or recommendations on the Website or actions you take as a result. Any action you take is strictly at your own risk.
Dr. Rosmy Barrios, MD is an aesthetic medicine specialist whose work focuses on patients who are treated for obesity, metabolic syndrome, and other weight-related issues through nutritional analysis, keto diet programs, and supporting medications.
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