Transforming Journeys Part I_Weight Loss Articles

Editor's note: Total Health considers Kat James a long time colleague. Over the years she has shared her journey to regaining her health with us and in turn with readers. In the June 2016 issue (see link below—for readers unfamiliar with Kat we encourage you to go to the link for important background and dietary information) we began this series to update our readers on her impressive story. An additional article will follow in a future issue.

In our June cover interview with bestselling author and nutritional pioneer, Kat James http://totalhealthmagazine.com/Diet-and-Nutrition/Catching-Up-With-Leptin-Pioneer-KAT-JAMES.html, brought you this first of an ongoing series of articles featuring the master hormone leptin, and following (literally and figuratively!) real-life success stories from James' Total Transformation® Programs, which have become renowned for helping people harness leptin's newly-understood—yet mind-boggling—power. From a buffalo lodge in Kansas City, to a Jazz-age mansion in Manhattan, to a trip throughout Costa Rica, we'll be sharing glimpses of transformations-in-progress, such as reality show fitness trainer Shianne Lombard's incredible metamorphosis, below. But first, as a primer on how to harness leptin's power for yourself, you'll want to read the above-linked interview, where James also shares her own journey from near-death to vitality and then lays out her once-controversial, core dietary tenets. Now honed over seventeen years of helping others to achieve the same type of dramatic physical and emotional transformation she'd achieved for herself. We hope these accounts will inspire you (as they have us!) to consider leptin's transformative potential in your own health journey.

The Day Everything Changed: Biggest Loser Trainer Hears James' Radio Interview About The Biggest Loser Study
In spring of this year, the media-blanketing, Biggest Loser study prompted James to appear on several radio shows to rebut what she felt were dubiously-repeated conclusions suggesting that Americans should no longer expect to lose weight permanently without surgery or life-long drugs, based on what she described as "just one group of physically-traumatized season eight Losers who largely regained all their weight and fried their metabolisms after following the false, calories-in, calories-out, fat-free dieting and gym suffering paradigm... completely disconnected with the power of leptin within their own bodies." By incredible coincidence, James' radio interview was heard by Baltimore-area celebrity fitness trainer Shianne Lombard, 39, who was a season three trainer on… drum roll… The Biggest Loser.

Lombard was captivated by James' interview www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSCr3y7eiN8. Shianne was seeking her own health answers in the physically-devastating aftermath of Cushing's disease, which causes a constant fight or flight state of elevated cortisol which forces the upper body to store fat to protect the organs. "People often gain 100 pounds. I was lucky to gain a little over thirty, but as a trainer that can end your career."

Shianne's adrenal gland removal surgery several months earlier had brought on instant menopause, sleep, and mood issues in addition to more weight gain. She'd tried every diet and drug combination to stop the weight gain and relieve the constant anxiety, sleeplessness and dark moods; including stimulants, fasting, "triple workouts," and even brushing her teeth and taking sleeping pills to distract her from her hunger pangs… and more recently, purging. "I knew there was more going on than a 'love of food' and this leptin thing really sounded like a big missing piece, especially when I heard Kat talk about how it regulates appetite, reproductive and thyroid hormones, deepens sleep, and resolved her own serious issues with food, weight, and inflammation." On July 11th Shianne signed up for James' 5-Day Total Transformation® retreat at Buffalo Lodge in Kansas City and began James' phone and Internet-based "pre-program" to begin taking specific supplements and make initial dietary changes to make her transition and time at the retreat more comfortable. "I made it through the headache-y first phase [see this transitional phase at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSCr3y7eiN8] over the next few days. In little over a week, my monthly cycle returned for the first time in over four years, and my mood began to lift, so I started to wean off of my meds. By the time I arrived at Buffalo Lodge on July 22nd my belly had started to flatten."

James' Program location, Buffalo Lodge (www.BuffaloLodgeKC.com), Amy and Mike Billings, pictured, above with their bison herd, created an extraordinary environment and inspiration with their mission http://www.buffalolodgekc.com/our-story/ restoring the bison back to their ancestral roaming grounds with traditional, rotational grazing practices. The location was inspired by the mission of retreat sponsor, U.S. Wellness Meats, an award-winning pastured farming collective also based near Kansas City. Their pastured raw bison, cheeses, and other nutrient-rich products were featured on Kat James' retreat menu.

Once at Buffalo Lodge, Shianne joked that her goal was to get her wedding ring off in six months (it had been imbedded into her swollen finger since early 2013). Two days later she noticed it was shifting and then the next day as the retreat group was all sitting together it flew off. "I lost a lot of fluid and slept better and awoke with a clearer head each day during the retreat. Amazingly, I was surrounded by decadent food and desserts all week but never wanted more than a serving It was surreal to be so satisfied on less and less food. By the time I got home my mood, sleep, and eating patterns were like another person's. I now wake up one to two times instead of five or six even having just weaned off the Ambien, Clonopin, and Xanax I rotated for 7+ years just to get any sleep. I've never been a morning person. I am waking at six with a clear head, which is unheard of. I don't need to sleep in my car during the day anymore or take Adderall just to get through the day. In under a month, I'm off of Abilify, Buspar, and Paxil after 15 years. I've had bouts of nausea and diarrhea, but still felt comparatively great even during the nausea. My labs came back on July 9th with all hormonal numbers going in the right direction. Estrogen went from undetectable to 22 (31 will technically get me out of menopause). I've also reduced my daily steroid requirement by 5 mg, based on how incredible I feel. My electronic muscle tests, calipers, Tanita scale, Myotape, etc., show that I've lost 18 lbs of fat and gained four pounds of muscle since July 11th. That's extraordinary, given that I didn't work out during the retreat and have eaten more decadently than ever. I am seeing with nutrition alone what I never saw happen in so short a time, no matter how much I worked out! The photo of me (see previos page) in the pink dress and my 'after' in my workout clothes were taken about two weeks after I returned home.

"My abs, my arms, my face are all back. I'm no longer embarrassed to tell people I'm a trainer! But if I never lost another pound, the emotional stability and peace with food are what I wouldn't trade for anything. I expect challenges or the occasional slip-up ahead but it is a first for me to have strayed so little from a diet. I will have to navigate continued challenges like eating out and will also seek to minimize the potential side-effects from the steroids I will have to take for the rest of my life do to not having my adrenal glands to produce cortisol in response to any stress. But I am already feeling better now than before my diagnosis and I never want to go back to how it was."

In an upcoming issue we'll share another story from Kat James' upcoming Manhattan Mansion retreat http://www.informedbeauty.com/total_transformation_program_detail_fall.html, then later in January one of our own will experience her retreat adventure firsthand in Costa Rica (you might consider joining us). If you can't join us in person for a retreat, we hope you'll join us here for those transformation journeys ahead.

Background on Kat James
She is an award-winning author, transformational nutrition and beauty pioneer, and nationally-syndicated radio host who's been called "a master of self-transformation" by SELF magazine in response to her stunning recovery from liver, autoimmune, and eating disorders that nearly took her life. Her controversial and pioneering dietary method— now recommended at top neurologic, fertility, functional medicine, bariatric, and metabolic clinics—has left countless dramatic success stories in its wake and been featured at top spas and institutions such as Omega Institute, as well as on "Today," Fox, and, PBS among, others. To learn more about her original Total Transformation® Programs and TelePrograms, radio show on XM/SIRIUS, or her Silver Nautilus award-winning bestseller, The Truth About Beauty, visit her website since 1998: www.informedbeauty.com.

Reality Show Trainer Discovers The Power Of Leptin

Lombard was captivated by James' interview . Shianne was seeking her own health answers in the physically-devastating aftermath of Cushing's disease, which causes a constant fight or flight state of elevated cortisol which forces the upper body to store fat to protect the organs. "People often gain 100 pounds. I was lucky to gain a little over thirty, but as a trainer that can end your career."


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