A Person We are Proud of: Szilard

Szilárd tells his story in his own words: how encounter with me again after 30 years (at that time we went to the same high school and hung out in a company a lot), and thus how he met keto; he recounts his goals, health aspirations, and successes so far. Read this story guys with love, draw energy and willpower from Szilárd’s story, and in the end support him in achieving his goals with a few good words in the comments below! Thanks

Hi there!

I am Szilard, a husband, a father of three great children, a teacher in a small town in western Hungary and a bar musician on the weekends. Three years ago, due to a serious professional job, I had to work all day in front of a computer for almost three months, in a completely unusual way for me. Because of the poor posture, by the time I finished work, I felt something had become a big problem with my spine and hips. It is also true that at the age of 47 I weighed around 120 kg to a height of 176 cm which was not absolutely ideal. After work, due to my spine problem, I was completely limp for almost a few weeks. There were times when I could only crawl on all fours from the great pains. Years later, it only turned out that my sacrum was stiff, inflamed, and the inflammation from it spread to my hips. Due to the inflammation, the joint fluids disappeared from the hip joint and started to wear out drastically. A year later, the need for a hip prosthesis also arose. I tried every possible therapy. Therapeutic massage, acupuncture, physiotherapy, spa treatment, mud packs, hydromassage, medication, chiropractor, but unfortunately, nothing helped. After two years of taking massive painkillers, on the recommendation of a gastroenterologist, I used a calorie counter to lose 25 kg, approx. in one year. Although I lost a lot of weight, my pain did not decrease, and my liver function deteriorated as a result of taking painkillers all the time.

Before

Luckily, that’s when we found each other again, after 30 years, with Andrea, whom I had known since I was in high school. She now lives in Canada, I live in Hungary, but this great distance did not stop him from helping me switch to the Keto diet. She was very persistent, for which I am very grateful. She wrote long letters about their own keto experiences, recommending and encouraging videos that a low-carb, sugar-free lifestyle can help my condition. Andrea explained me the difference between most diets and keto, why keto is more successful and most importantly why it is healthy. With keto, I don’t lose muscle during weight loss, but just fat, which is a very important aspect for me because of joint wear, as I need even more muscle, which takes the load off the joints. She also said that the keto diet, along with fasting, can renew me at the cellular level and if all goes well, my planned hip surgery could be avoided with it.

Eventually, thanks to my  strictly reduced carbohydrate diet according to keto, I was able to lose some more pounds from my weight. I’ve lost over 30kg so far, and I don’t feel hungry with keto. This hunger  free feeling makes my days a lot easier. With my blood sugar levels dropping and certain inflammatory foods (such as sunflower cooking oil) being abandoned, the inflammation in the hips has almost completely disappeared, which doctors previously could only control with steroid injections. After a couple of weeks, I was able to leave the painkillers. True, I still walk with a stick, but I feel so much better in every way. My blood pressure, uric acid levels, and even my cholesterol levels have completely recovered! I have been living the keto lifestyle for half a year (since April 2021) and I feel much fitter, healthier, younger and really enjoy it!


The most recent shift in my life was the introduction of fasting.
Of course to this too Andrea was who persuaded me, sometimes with very harsh Spartan methods :), but like I did not regret keto, I did not regret fasting as well! 🙂

After

What is Fasting?

Andrea told me about what is the essence of fasting.  During fasting my body stops production of insulin hormone and starts the production of growth hormone. This starts production of stem cells, and a purification process as well, since the body first uses aged, or just defective proteins and cells as fuel. Previously stored fat and these depleted cells are the body’s reserves. This process when the body uses its reserves and creates new cells is called autophagy. This blessed process is still left to us from somewhere in prehistory, when prehistoric man did not have access to food day in and day out and could not eat for days. The hunger of several days, however, did not kill him, but somehow protected his bones and muscles from degradation so that he could remain fast and ready to fight on the next hunt. This is called autophagy nowadays, the body’s self-healing process, when our body uses up old cells, begins to produce growth hormones and create new cells, stem cells. On second thought, when we are sick and have no appetite, we don’t even eat for days, we won’t have any trouble, and in the end we’ll get new strength. This is the ancient cure that was successfully forgotten by us in the modern age.

From fasting, I hope it will help restore my ruined hips, cartilage without any artificial intervention. I can already feel rejuvenated, which makes my wife much happier next to me;)
My wife has also changed her diet, since she sees a lot of positive change in me, and she also is doing the keto program with me. Come on, she doesn’t have to lose weight, but she wants to recover from her severe metal- and other allergies that doctors haven’t been able to cure for years.

How did I start fasting and do Keto?

As I wrote, I had already started my dieting with a kind of calorie count earlier. Switching to keto essentially didn’t cause much difficulty, I just had to exclude high-carbohydrate-containing foods that were not allowed on  keto that I was still consuming. When my body got used to the low carbs, the more serious part could come. I first reset my digestion with a 72-hour fast. I’m not saying it wasn’t painful and that everyone does it that same way after me. Not because of hunger, but because while my body was devouring all the sugar that was still in my blood and finally switching to full ketone production, I had a serious headache for a day (as I learned, this is called keto-flu), which was completely gone by the third day. I did not take painkillers, just drinking water. After 72 hours of fasting, the feast could come, which eventually came out of me like water. It was as if I had a complete enema, it cleaned off my gut. I was completely cleansed and refreshed. Since then, I have eaten one main meal a day and I have 6 hours of time to eat. This method is called Intermittent Fasting. This is to be imagined as an 18-hour period of fasting followed by a 6-hour eating period when I can eat.  During this time, I have allowed my body to produce insulin, of course only not too much, because my keto foods don’t contain too much carbs and protein. I want to keep a 20% protein, 5% carbs and 75% fat ratio. My main meal is a generous, so to speak ready-made feast, with a variety of keto dishes and dessert. For the rest of the time, I’m mostly just pinching a few grains of nuts, almonds, or just a little cheese, but not because I would have been hungry, but I like them.

I’ve tried almost every foods and dessert from Andrea’s Keto World recipe website and look forward to new ones. We use her ideas to diversify our diet. The keto diet is colorful, appetizing, and very nutritious, we love it! We eat a lot better and more varied than before, plus I don’t have to think much about what to pack for eating all day, so it’s even more comfortable, which my wife is also very happy about.


Thanks Andrea! I trust in healing because as you said, “everything is decided in our head!” 🙂

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