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When I was in my undergrad for Nutrition, I was often frustrated with the lack of "WHY" behind recommendations. We would be carefully walked through various guidelines, but it was hard for me to remember these or to make sense of them because the "WHY" and "HOW" was never explained. Thankfully, this lead me on my own journey of self education and pairing my biochemistry, physiology and organic chemistry background with Nutrition to finally make sense of it all.
That's why my goal and mission in life is to help YOU make sense of nutrition and how your body works. This is something Karola experienced that really clicked for her. As you'll learn with Karola's incredibly inspiring story, the WHY is beyond important and it's essential to achieve your goals. Here's a sneak peek of what she has to say:
In general I just LOVE all the science backed information provided! As a scientist myself, I have a hard time following rules if I don’t understand the reasoning behind it. Maybe you can call it occupational illness, but I need to understand why things work the way they do and that includes my food
Check out Karola's full story below and get INSPIRED!
Tell me about yourself!
My name is Karola and I am 33 years old. I’m a german expat living in Canada. I have a PhD in physics and work as a researcher at a university. A lot of the time I’m working at a desk, so having a healthy lifestyle is really important in order to compensate for all the time where I’m just sitting.
Which Program are you following?
I started with the detox week and then transitioned into the 21 day intermittent fasting program. I use the break-fast recipes around lunch time and go through the lunch and dinner recipes one by one for my dinners since I only have two meals a day most of the time.
How did you hear about Autumn Elle Nutrition?
Youtube recommended a video from Autumn’s channel to me and I was excited to see somebody talking about the science behind nutrition so I started to read the blog as well and shortly after joined the facebook group in order to connect with other people that share the same interest in science backed nutrition facts.
What was your wellness goal with the Program?
My main goals were weight loss and having more energy to exercise. Over the last couple of years, I had gained quite a lot of weight and was barely active. One time I had to sprint to my gate at an airport in order to catch a flight and I realised that even this extremely short sprint was bringing me to my absolut limit. So I decided I had to take better care of my body and get back into shape.
What else have you tried in the past to achieve your goals?
During my teenage years, I tried a bunch of different diets, all focused on calorie restriction and often on restricting the variety of foods you eat. I hated every single one of them. I was hungry, I had to eat food I disliked or I got bored of eating the same food over and over again.
In more recent years I had been following low carb diet plans but got frustrated by the lack of background information. Yes, I was loosing weight with them, but I didn’t understand why and I didn’t understand what helped/worked against my goals. I just followed a meal schedule without understanding what was the idea behind it or how I could adjust it to my personal needs.
Did you have any hesitations before getting started?
My main concern was spending money to be honest ^^ I had bought other programs in the past and didn’t follow through with them for various reasons. That’s why it was great to be able to get the basic idea already by watching the videos on Autumn’s youtube channel and reading the blog posts. That way I was able to figure out if the program seems to be right for me without committing to spending money on it. So once I purchased the whole bundle I knew I wouldn’t regret it.
What were the biggest wellness wins that you experienced?
I lost over 25 lbs in about 4 months and went from a size 14/16 to a size 10. When I started the program, I was out of breath after ~5-10 minutes of light biking and now I bike 30-40 minutes about 3 times a week without any problems. The last time I went dancing in a club, I didn’t last longer than a song or two in a row and now I feel like I can dance all night long :-)
I have more energy, I am rarely ever hungry and I spend less time with preparing food, with opens up free time for other fun activities.
What was your favorite meal?
Hands down the Pumpkin Chili Goodness! I usually add either some parmesan on top or some spicy guac. Sooo good! And perfect for making in big batches and freezing. This way no matter what my schedule looks like, I can always have awesome and tasty food ready in minutes.
Did you have a Nutrition Nerd moment during your journey?
Learning why you should have starchy carbs and why out of all times for dinner! One of my main pet peeves with a program I followed in the past was that it told me to eat “at least 5 tbs of starchy carbs each day” but never explained why. Understanding how your blood glucose levels impact cortisol and melatonin production was an eye opener for me.
In general I just LOVE all the science backed information provided! As a scientist myself, I have a hard time following rules if I don’t understand the reasoning behind it. Maybe you can call it occupational illness, but I need to understand why things work the way they do and that includes my food ^^
Are you a Keto Coffee or Keto Tea fan?
Not really. I always drink my coffee black without anything in it so I didn’t feel the need to replace it with keto coffee.
It there anything else you want to share about your experience?
I would like people to know that this program is incredibly versatile! No matter your time schedule, eating preferences, workout plan, it all fits with the intermittent fasting guidelines. And you can always adjust it to changes in your life. It doesn’t feel like a short time diet but more like an actually sustainable change in your lifestyle.
What's your instagram handle so we can follow your journey?
Join Karola and thousands of #AENpeeps around the WORLD with the Complete Intermittent Fasting Bundle protocols! Eat food you LOVE, tailor it you YOUR goals and finally feel GOOD again!
Head over HERE to get started!
Your Nutritionist,
Autumn
Autumn Elle Nutrition
Hi Emily! Thanks for your input! I’ll adjust the original photo sent from Karola as soon as possible to reduce confusion.
Autumn, there is an important clarification you need to make - The dates above the before-and-after pictures will look to an American reader like they were taken a few days apart, but because in Germany we put the number of the day first and then the month, it's actually MONTHS apart. You see, 5.1.2020 actually means January 5th, but an American will read it as May 1st. It could be seriously misleading.