Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Success Spud Story - Shelly Jernigan (Her secret is OUT!)

“If I have to eat another potato I might vomit”.  That’s what I was saying last night as I made myself eat a bowl of mashed potatoes leftover from Sunday.  The too salty mashed potatoes that were made slightly better with some vegan nacho cheese I made from my No Meat Athlete book.  Earlier that day as I was getting dinner ready I realized I had waited too long to eat and was starving…I caved and cheated.  I ate a banana!  I know, shock and horror!  It was the best tasting banana I ever had.  So why am I doing this again?  Oh yea, reset my taste buds, show myself potatoes are not evil sugar monsters, and maybe lose some weight at the holidays.  I talked to my friend and mentor, Shelly Jernigan today and felt better.  She has been here.  Apparently I pep talked her into riding it out during her first month but I don’t remember being nearly as effective in my encouragement as she was.  She has been on the Spud Road for 3 months as of yesterday.  She has lost … wait for it… 35 pounds in 3 months!  Impressive right?  Here’s her story.



Shelly Jernigan lives in Virginia with her 3 daughters and husband Steve.  Prior to the Spud Fit Challenge she was a junk food vegetarian with a really big sweet tooth.  She had already been researching the starch strong plant based diet by following Dr John McDougall and reading his book TheStarch Solution and following the Potato Strong Youtube channel.  She knew potatoes were good for her and saw how others thrived in health and weight loss with a plant based diet including a lot of potatoes.  So when she came across an interview with Andrew Taylor in her facebook news feed she was intrigued.  Andrew was starting a Spudtember Challengehelping others follow a month on potatoes.  She showed it to her husband and right away he said “let’s do it”. 

As she came off of her junk food diet, she experienced the worst symptoms on day 2 with severe headaches and light headedness.  Once she ate potatoes she felt better.  Going into the challenge her goals were to reset her taste buds, get rid of her cravings for sugar and lose some weight.  She has accomplished all three but the biggest surprise so far has been that within 2-3 weeks of eating only potatoes she has no desire or cravings for other foods.  She is not bored with potatoes.  She doesn’t necessarily crave them but she does look forward to eating them every day.  Something she couldn’t say the first week.  (Glad to hear that..)

What keeps her motivated?  How about the weight falling off every week?  And she feels so much better and has much more energy than before she started.  She gets her recipes from the Spud fit ebook and the Spudtember facebook group where others post recipes.  She has shared many with me and I will be sharing those with you soon.  Her plan is to continue with the potatoes through the end of the year and follow it up with the Starch Solution diet with a plant based lifestyle, oil free and high carb. 

As a recovering sugar addict she has joined my facebook group “Journey to Incredible Health” so we can work together to make sweets that are both legal and won’t make us trigger happy.  If you want to keep in the loop on such goodness look it up and request membership.  I won’t turn you down!

Big kudos 👊👏 to Shelly for her amazing journey!  Feel free to facebook her with congrats now that her secret is out!  And as always, thanks for hanging in there with me!

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