Metabolic and Mental Health
Here’s How Sandra Lost 80 Pounds After Adopting a Minimalist Lifestyle.
A two-pronged approach with six tips to reduce physical and mental clutter to gain better metabolic and mental health with insights from a minimalist lifestyle coach
Purpose of the Story
I summarize a friend's success story who transformed her health and fitness by leveraging a minimalist lifestyle. The main focus is healthy and sustainable fat loss.
An Overview of Sandra’s Core Issue
The first time I met David, Sandra’s mentor and coach, he said nobody ever imagined a hoarder and an obese person would grow up to become an expert in minimalist living and change the lives of many people who suffer from mental and physical clutter.
This is a story of a stylish woman who transformed her sad life with help from serendipitous encounters and taking personal responsibility. In her transition, Sandra dropped 80 pounds and never regained those pounds, staying at her ideal weight.
Sandra was born in an impoverished family supported by a single mum struggling with three kids in a small old house funded by the government.
She never met her dad and grew up in scarcity. Her mum, a chronic hoarder, used to collect materials from rubbish bins, turn them into valuable materials, and sell them in garage sales to create income for her kids. Under her mother’s influence, Sandra collected items that she did not even need and obsessed with them at a young age.
When she became an adult, she ended up being a chronic hoarder and obese. Her psychological issues, which she was unaware of in her childhood and teenage years, manifested as physical issues affecting her lifestyle directly or indirectly.
One day an angel in human form appeared in her life. A career counselor (David) to whom the unemployment department referred her happened to be a psychological lifestyle designer with years of experience in transforming the lives of hoarders as a social worker.
David was a minimalism expert, helping clients remove unnecessary content from their physical and mental environments adding no value to their lives.
David had a holistic approach to life, looking at problems from physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects. His solution for Sandra revolved around solving the hoarding problem with the symptoms of a mental health issue yet manifesting in every layer of her life.
So David volunteered to orchestrate Sandra’s lifestyle transformation, which I outlined under two main topics and six subtopics with takeaway points to make this helpful piece. While David was the main hero of the solution, there were several other heroes that Sandra characterized as angels touching her heart.
1 — Mental Clarity to Focus on Fundamentals
Gaining mental clarity included three major action plans for Sandra covering fundamental needs like nutrition, exercise, sleep, recovery, and fun.
A — A Well designed minimalist eating regime
There was hardly any empty spot in Sandra’s kitchen when David inspected her small home. It was a typical hoarder kitchen. Two other rooms were the same. But David wanted to start the change with the kitchen.
He designed a radical plan for Sandra to sell 80% of kitchen devices and throw the stored food in the pantry. Some can foods were five or more years old. Removing materials from her home was very painful for Sandra, but David has already arranged for a psychotherapist and nutritionist to help her in this unique transition.
While the nutritionist quickly connected her to a charity food organization and monitored her nutrition needs with guidance from David, the psychotherapist was working to resolve her mental issues caused by her hoarding habit in the background.
The eating regime included two main meals covering adequate protein, healthy fats, and unrefined carbs from vegetables, including portion control which was 60% less than what Sandra consumed before. This minimalist eating regime helped her lose ten pounds in the first month, making Sandra feel fantastic and motivating her to stick to the plan.
B — A minimalist workout program
Sandra thought that running and jogging on the second-hand treadmill and using old ecliptic machines would help her lose visceral fat.
But they made a minimal contribution as she used to consume too many calories from excessive eating. In addition, consuming too much food with empty calories caused her body to become insulin and leptin-resistant.
David referred Sandra to Adrian, whom I introduced in my previous stories, including Eliza’s remarkable fat loss journey. Adrian was another angel who appeared in human form in Sandra’s life.
As he did for Eliza, David created a customized fitness program for Sandra, free of charge, as a giveback activity to the community serving disadvantaged people.
The plan included 20 minutes of fasted cardio for the first three months, 30 minutes of moderate cardio per day, two hours after main meals, and 30 minutes of resistance training every second day.
This well-designed and controlled minimalist workout program helped Sandra lose 20 pounds in the first three months. Losing visceral fat, especially in the abdominal area, boosted her confidence and gave her mental clarity. She felt awesome.
C — A minimalist recovery approach
Sandra loved entertainment, especially musicals and theater. She was addicted to getting discounted tickets to shows and waiting hours in long queues just before the shows started.
This obsession increased her stress tremendously. Ironically entertainment was a source of anxiety and stress for her.
David organized the charity organization to get a membership to a few entertainment companies allowing Sandra automatically to get around 50% discounts for their services. This simple shift reduced her stress.
Adrian designed a physical and mental recovery regime for Sandra. The plan included slowing down after workouts and performing 20 minutes of meditation daily.
In addition, David organized a meditation course from the Adult Education Center, a government-funded charity organization for residents.
Learning and practicing daily meditation and collaborating with the members reduced her stress and anxiety significantly. Physical clutter was one of the root causes of her sleep deprivation.
When Sandra’s family doctor checked her major hormones, she noticed that sleep improvement noticeably reduced her cortisol levels and inflammatory markers. Sandra felt restful and joyful as she started having a restorative sleep every night.
After performing this minimalist recovery program, Sandra lost 30 pounds. As this program had the most significant effect, I’d like to introduce the benefits in the subsequent section.
2 — Stress Reduction Leading to Hormonal Balance
A — Reduced elevated cortisol
Cortisol is a stress management hormone. The more stress we experience, the more cortisol the body creates to cope with it.
Elevated cortisol levels for a prolonged time indicate chronic stress leading to chronic inflammation and other health conditions, such as insulin resistance and leptin resistance, leading to metabolic syndrome.
Unfortunately, metabolic syndrome leads to health disorders such as type II diabetes, heart diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, and some cancers.
A review of Sandra’s markers, including her waistline, by the family doctor, indicated the symptoms of metabolic syndrome. She was diagnosed as obese.
David and Adrian provide valuable input to Sandra to improve her sleep quality, learn to slow down, and have more fun with less stress.
The minimalist lifestyle David designed for Sandra helped her achieve these goals. Within a few months, her cortisol levels significantly dropped. Within a year, she managed to optimize her cortisol levels.
Fixing this one hormone made a significant metabolic shift. Her insulin and leptin resistance improved. Her emotional eating stopped, which was the best outcome. Thus she started losing visceral fat from her abdominal area.
B — Made the body more insulin and leptin sensitive
The primary issues for Sandra were insulin and leptin resistance. Her muscle cells did not accept excessive sugar in her bloodstream, growing her waistline.
Her brain did not register satiety signals, so she kept consuming comfort food, especially with empty calories. These two metabolic issues caused her to accumulate significant visceral fat over time.
David contacted Sandra’s family doctor and asked the physician to arrange blood tests and suggested he refer Sandra to the required specialists. After a preliminary inspection, her family doctor noticed that Sandra was at the onset of type II diabetes.
The specialist started Sandra with Metformin to reduce her elevated blood glucose. Then, the dietician specializing in diabetic patients designed a customized diet meeting the minimalist strategy Sandra followed. Within a year, Sandra became more insulin sensitive.
While coaching her in fitness, Adrian also introduced Sandra to a time-restricted eating regime similar to Eliza’s one. Sandra found it easy as Adrian only asked her to skip breakfast.
Adrian discussed the protocol with Sandra’s family doctor and obtained his approval. This regime aligned with Sandra’s minimalist philosophy and delighted her doctor.
She believed that the less quality food she consumed, the better it would be for her health. While this regime helped Sandra lose significant visceral fat, it also made her body leptin sensitive. In the process, she learned the difference between physical and emotional hunger.
C — Increase growth hormone naturally.
Sandra had never heard about the importance of human growth hormone for adults. She thought it was only for kids to grow. Adrian explained the significance of growth hormone for improving her metabolism by recovering her from workouts quickly.
By pursuing a sleep-quality improvement plan, Adrian encouraged Sandra to meticulously monitor her sleep using a smartwatch, continue with time-restricted eating, and skip another meal every other day.
Besides, Adrian designed new compound exercises such as deadlifts, lunges, and squats, increasing the load gradually for Sandra.
When Sandra’s body got more growth hormone, naturally, her recovery times shortened, and she wanted to do more exercise. As her sleep improved, the cortisol levels optimized, further contributing to her insulin sensitivity.
This hormonal optimization helped Sandra lose more belly fat and have a more defined body. At the end of her transition, Sandra lost 80 pounds finding her ideal weight. She never got back to that again. After three years, she also eliminated loose skin happened after significant fat loss.
Conclusions and Takeaways
Minimalism is a philosophy and a lifestyle choice that might improve physical and mental health conditions if implemented with assistance from supportive and qualified professionals such as social workers, fitness coaches, family doctors, dieticians, and medical specialists.
Based on Sandra’s story, I’d like to provide an outline protocol that she used in the takeaway format.
1 — Remove unnecessary materials, including empty calories such as refined carbohydrates and junk food, from the diet.
2 — Consider time-restricted eating with support from medical professionals.
3 — Consider a customized workout regime, especially in resistance training form, with support from qualified healthcare professionals and fitness coaches.
4 — Improve sleep quality by reducing stressful situations.
5 — Instead of attaching to materials, spend more time with people to build meaningful connections and have fun to improve mood.
6 — Always be open and seek help when needed.
This story ends beautifully. After improving her mental and physical health, she continued her education.
Sandra specialized in a minimalist lifestyle as mentored and coached by David. She received free communication lessons from Matilda. As a result, she became outspoken and reputable.
Sandra gained many well-paying clients from reputable organizations.
She built an attractive home based on Feng Shui principles with the money she earned and invested.
She thought hoarding was just a nightmare and only noticed it after being awakened by angels helping her tap into her intuition and dormant talent. She was one of the Healthy, Wealthy, and Happy People Taught Me 10 Valuable Lessons.
Thank you for reading my perspectives. I wish you a healthy and happy life. You might also check the following relevant stories if you enjoyed this story.
Here’s How a Mature-Age Couple Reversed Diabetes and Trimmed Their Bodies with Lifestyle Habits.
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