I CUT OUT SUGAR AND LOST 31KG’
‘ Nalini Naidoo is healthier and more confident thanks to LCHF
For years, Nalini Naidoo’s busy schedule mostly focused on her three kids. Her days were filled by packing lunches, being an assistant teacher at her daughter’s school and running her own baking business. Her love for food, baking and her kids, however, distracted her from the health issue she was developing: over the years, she was steadily gaining weight.
Nalini traces the source of her weight gain to seven years ago when her mother was diagnosed with cancer. Nalini was pregnant with her youngest daughter at the time. ‘I left my job in an attorney’s office to look after my mom. Because of that, and after my littlest one, Gabriella, was born, I neglected myself completely. I never bothered with eating properly or exercising.’
Her son Ricardo’s matric dance proved to be the eye opener she needed. Nalini knew there would be no escaping the camera during pre-drinks with friends and family, so she wanted to find the perfect dress for the occasion – a dress she would feel confident
in. But the search difficult. ‘I couldn’t fit into anything. I was hitting a size 42. That was never me! I was always a size 32 or 34.’
By the time Ricardo’s dance rolled around, Nalini’s wardrobe and confidence issues weren’t the only things troubling her. Severe stomach cramps and backache sent her to the doctor, who told her that it was a direct result of being overweight.
Nalini’s doctor insisted she change her lifestyle, recommending a low-carb diet. But her sudden health issues weren’t incentive enough to curb her habits just yet. ‘I love food and cooldrinks,’ Nalini says. ‘And breakfast, lunch and supper all used to have rice. I have three kids, so we buy a lot of takeaways and snacks for them. And during the day when the kids are at school, I used to snack on their snacks. Biscuits, cakes, chips and chocolates especially. I was a person who could eat a chocolate slab a day.’
Nalini also admits to being able to finish a two-litre bottle of cooldrink a day and taking six teaspoons of sugar in her coffee. As a baker, she also taste-tested the chocolate icing for her cupcakes.
When she got the pictures from Ricardo’s matric dance and found herself trying to crop them to show herself only from the chest up, Nalini realised she needed to make a difficult and permanent change.
Now a size 34 and weighing 65kg, Nalini reveals there were many weak moments and cheat days, but with her family’s help, she stuck to her goals. ‘I had to cut everything down. It wasn’t easy and I cheated a lot in the beginning,’ she says. Nalini’s family even locked any redlist items in a drawer that only her husband, Roland, had a key to.
At one point, things took a drastic turn for the worse. As a result of going cold turkey on all the sugar Nalini had been eating, she started blacking out. Fortunately, that’s all in the past: her body has adapted to no longer being dependent on processed sugar and the blackouts have ceased. And as for that sneaky sweet drawer … she is no longer tempted. ‘In the beginning it was absolutely tough. I felt like crying, I felt like giving up. But I carried on pushing though.’
She’s learned to be kind to herself, and that’s the advice she’d give anyone embarking on the same journey: ‘If you cheat, don’t beat yourself up. Start afresh the next day.’
When she started out, Nalini decided only to weigh herself eight months into her low-carb journey, knowing that scales don’t always reflect the truth. ‘I started in April, but only weighed myself in December 2018. It was more motivating to not know and obsess. I didn’t want to get disheartened and go back to my old ways.’
Now, after losing 31kg and being mistaken for her 14-year-old daughter’s older sister, Nalini isn’t planning on quitting low-carb anytime soon. Her new lifestyle has spread to her family as well: Roland has jumped into low-carb living and joined a gym.