Christine’s Story:
How to Lose 100 lbs Without Starvation or Cardio After Breaking Your Neck

A couple of years ago, Christine Biswabic weighed 278 pounds and wore a size 4X. She was also an accomplished athlete who’d earned a second-degree black belt in tae kwon do and enjoyed stand-up paddleboarding (SUP). But all that extra weight made exercise, as well as everyday movements, a challenge. “I wanted to do SUP surfing, but I couldn’t hop up onto the board to catch the waves,” she says.

“My weight impacted every choice I made every single day—from what I could wear to how I was able to move. It was always a series of adjustments cluttering my thoughts and my day.”

In 2011, Christine began following the SANE eating program. “As I added more protein and other SANE foods, not only did I lose weight, I also noticed a kind of trickle-down effect,” she says. “The symptoms of my PCOS [polycystic ovarian syndrome] improved, my insulin levels stabilized, my blood pressure went down, and my headaches lessened.” She even embarked on a new career—she’s now a certified metabolic effect nutrition consultant, personal fitness trainer, and metabolic fitness specialist, working with people who are just like she was not so long ago.

In all, Christine, 47, has dropped more than 100 pounds and now wears a size 10 to 12 medium. “Today,” she says, “I live SANE! I know what it’s like to feel free, with ease of mobility and an uncluttered mind... and that’s priceless.”

Jay & Jennifer’s Story:
From Biggest Losers to SANEst Winners

Jay & Jennifer Jacobs Lost 295 lbs

Jay and Jennifer Jacobs inspired a nation with their nearly 300-pound combined weight loss while on NBC’s Biggest Loser. While they were thrilled with the results they got from dedicating every hour of their lives to calorie counting and extreme exercise, Jay and Jennifer knew they had to find a more sustainable approach once their lives got back to normal.

As Jay puts it, “I have lost 100 pounds five times. Weight loss doesn’t seem to be the issue. The challenge is keeping it off. That’s exactly what we found when the show ended. It was like our bodies wanted to put the 300 pounds back on. Almost like they had a mind of their own. Little did we know, they basically do! It’s our set-point.”

Seeing the science and shifting their minds from “make the scale and crowd happy for the next show” to “make ourselves happy, slim, and healthy forever,” Jay and Jennifer decided to go SANE. It was a particularly interesting shift for them because they know firsthand that the best way to make the scale smile is to stop eating and to exercise all day. But what about making their set-point smile? What about their health and waistlines for the rest of their lives?

“We knew something had to change, but we weren’t sure what. We knew eating less and exercising more worked short-term, but we didn’t know another option was available for the long term. This is why understanding the science was so helpful for us. After a lifetime of hearing ‘eat less, exercise more’ it’s tough to try anything else unless you know how it’s going to work. Eating more, as long as it’s SANE, is sustainable, enjoyable, and resetting our set-point. We still can’t keep ourselves off the scale completely, but now we’re focused on the rest of our lives rather than the rest of season 11 and couldn’t be happier with the results.”

Cristina’s Story:
Lost 45 Lbs., Finally Got Pregnant, and Managed My Diabetes!

A SANE lifestyle is compatible with plant-based, paleo, primal, low-carb, organic, local, vegetarian, kosher, halal, or virtually any other lifestyle. It’s about eating Satisfying, unAggressive, Nutritious, and in Efficient food. If you would like to add other criteria, that’s no problem.

For example, Cristina is a vegetarian who went SANE by dramatically increasing her intake of nonstarchy vegetables, enjoying plant-based protein, and savoring whole-food fats such as nuts and seeds.

How did SANEitizing her vegetarian lifestyle work out for Cristina? In her words:

I have plenty to eat. I am not starving. On the contrary, I am well nourished and satisfied and feel great all the time. Three months of eating like this has gotten me off a diabetes medication and reduced my HbA1C from 8.3 to 5.7, rendering me diabetes-free. I also was on cholesterol medication, but after I “SANEitized” my eating, my cholesterol went from 220 to 103, and I was taken off that medication as well.

My husband, who is not a vegetarian but humors me and eats what I eat inside the house and orders lean meats when we go out, has lost 32 pounds, resolved his sleep apnea, and stopped having migraines. We both stopped having heartburn, which for me was a daily and painful occurrence—no doubt, starch and sugar related. And to top it off, I have lost 45 pounds in 3 months!

There’s just one more thing: After 5 years of trying, I finally got pregnant! I can’t tell you how excited my husband and I are. You better believe we’ll be SANE for life now.

"Going SANE" isn’t about “you must do this” and “you can never do that.” It is about using simple science instead of complex myths to live better—whatever your lifestyle.

Dr. Britell's SANE Story:
Healing Myself While Having Fun

Dr. Britell Lost 53 lbs and Kept It Off

Cathy Britell likes to say that she’s had two careers: She’s a doctor who specializes in rehabilitation medicine and a musician who happens to be the world champion autoharpist. She travels all over the world giving concerts on this stringed folk instrument and sharing her skills with others.

But for much of her life, she also had a third career: professional dieter and exerciser. “I took my weight seriously for 30 years,” she says. “After all, I’m a physician, and I followed all the medical advice to a T. I tried a very low-calorie diet, I tried vegan, I tried Mediterranean. I worked out on the elliptical for an hour a day. And it only made me sicker and fatter. At 225 pounds, I was obese.”

Then she discovered the SANE way of eating and exercising less but smarter. Right away, the pounds started to disappear. In about 18 months, she reached the goal that had eluded her for decades, dropping 50 pounds and going from a size 22 to a size 14. “It’s so much easier traveling by plane now,” she says, “and I feel much more comfortable when I’m onstage performing. Plus, it was fun to shop for new clothes!”

Looking better is only part of the story. Cathy had prediabetes, but now her blood sugars are normalized, and so are her lipids. She was on three blood pressure medications before, but now she’s on a tiny dose of just one. “I feel better than I did at 50!” she says.

The grandmother of a 2-year-old, Cathy is continuing to become more fit and reveling in her slender, more active life. Her next destination: Florida’s Atlantic coast for a 6-day music festival, where she’s looking forward to meeting old friends, working with new students, and enjoying every moment in the sunshine. “I was always very active,” Cathy says, “but now that I’ve lost the weight, everything seems like so much more fun. I think everyone should give Jonathan’s plan a try—see if it works for you!”