“I discovered the ketogenic diet after many failed attempts at losing post-partum, gestational diabetes pregnancy weight following the traditional calories-in, calories-out approach. I finally accepted the hard truth that I couldn’t out-run a bad diet (even a calorie-restricted diet, coupled with tons of exercise). Keto was quit successful for me at first, and man, I was all-in!
I had a lot of advantages when diving into keto that should have ensured lasting success. I was a former college athlete and loved exercise of all kinds. I was not a picky eater, and enjoyed cooking and trying new recipes compliant with the ketogenic lifestyle. I acquired every keto gadget and tool available: blood and breath ketone meters, continuous glucose monitors, miscellaneous keto paraphernalia (such as top notch kitchen appliances for cooking, cookbooks, etc). I also had a great support network online, and several friends and my parents who had converted to keto and had stuck with it. Most importantly, I have a Ph.D. in Cell in Molecular Biology and am a practicing scientist of over 20 years, so I was able to delve deeply (via books, journal articles, and hundreds of hours of podcasts) into the science of insulin resistance, metabolic disorders, exercise science, sleep science, brain health, nutrition, and understand the complexities. Optimal health should have been virtually guaranteed.
Yet, despite my initial success with keto and healthy living, I ended up failing, and failing hard. After losing 30lb with keto initially, I gained back 40lb! My decline first started with overeating keto foods; primarily nuts and other keto-friendly snacks. But those keto-binges slid into occasionally “treating” myself with non-keto foods, which I rationalized that I could “intermittent fast it off” or “exercise-off” the next day or so. Before I knew it, I neck deep in a pattern of disordered eating, and it was awful. I felt terrible about myself. I felt like a huge fraud. I kept trying to get back on track with keto foods, but eventually I had to face the main issue wasn’t just what I ate, but why. Working with Jessyca helped me peel away the layers of my seemingly innocuous eating habits to reveal a lifetime of patterns centered around ED. I’m happy to say that I’m on the road to recovery for good. I have stopped obsessing about the scale and ketone levels, and have started focusing on over wellness and mindfulness. Kicking ED to the curb is truly the secret-sauce to lifelong successful relationship with food.”
Thank you for all that you have done for me. You are an inspiration!
Wanted to take a minute to thank all the wonderful coaches out there for all they do, especially mine! Every week Jessyca lifts me up, encourages me, and makes me become a better version of myself... She helps me dig in and see all I’m capable of... She’s always there when I need her and gives so much to so many of us... So a sincere thank you... You are an amazing lady and fabulous coach, Coach Jessyca!
I'm so thankful seeing results already, and cant wait to see what the future holds. My thyroid medication was decreased for the first time, I'm starting to feel a lot better. My coach is Jessyca McDaniel Reynolds. With her amazing help and support from my husband, I love the changes I'm making and the changes that are happening to my body.
In September of 2017, I found myself sick, depressed, overweight and with ZERO energy. I was diagnosed with hashimotos hypothyroiditis and clinical depression. When I say I had NO energy, I mean I had NO energy. I would sleep 11-12 hours a night and barely be able to move from the couch. I was authorized a full-time work from home schedule because of this extreme lethargy. I was almost house-bound and completely isolated. I can specifically remember only being able to leave the house to run one or two errands (max) and then having to rush home to sleep or rest for the remainder of the day.
My weight had ballooned 30lbs in the last year and despite my chronic calorie restriction, I could not shed a pound. This took a heavy toll on my depression and self-esteem. I had no idea what to do. I had no true concept of what health and healing could look like for me. I remember that at the time, I thought a sugary processed protein bar and a diet coke was a healthy meal! I had suffered with an eating disorder, chronic restricting of calories, since I was 19. I was terrified to eat more than 1200 calories a day and all my food choices were centered around the fear of gaining weight. Yet, there I was, heavier and sicker than ever. In April 2017, I started kickboxing. I could barely walk after my first class and spent two days on the couch recovering. For months, I struggled through classes, barely feeling better. Worst of all, I could not shed a single pound of excess weight.
I was introduced to keto and recommended to join the ketogenic success FB group by a friend at church. I tried on my own to follow the groups suggestions and enter things in my fitness pal, to minimal avail. Finally, my intuition nudged me "get a coach." I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what this journey would do for me mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. I had no idea how much healing was in store!
The first time I met Jessyca McDaniel Reynolds, in September 2017, I flatly told her that I had an eating disorder back in college but that was long gone and over now. I was dead wrong and in complete denial. Over the next two years, Jessyca McDaniel Reynolds and I would face every fear, every lie, that kept me in bondage to restricting my food. I had caused great metabolic damage by restricting myself to between 1000-1200 calories for decades. And, spoiler alert, it wasn't even working! I had no idea what true hunger was. I couldn't trust myself or my body. My body and I were not friends. There was no love. I punished myself and tried to gain my self worth through food and my body image. I was in so much bondage I could not imagine the life I have today. I didn't trust her completely. I didn't trust her that I could trust my body and myself. I didn't trust that this would work for me. But, I had a mustard seed of faith that this process might work so, I kept going.
As my body adapted to all these healthy fats, my energy soared. My clarity and peace of mind returned. I slept less but deeper. I could do so many more things! My workouts skyrocketed. Then, naturally becoming fat adapted my body introduced me to the miracle of fasting. I was so satiated from all the healthy fats I could go long times without eating. Fasting became a natural and beautiful way of life. My fear of food diminished as I began to trust my hunger cues. My ketones were flying and I felt like I was too. I didn't know it was possible I could feel so much better. About six months into keto, my thyroid medicine was reduced and then eventually eliminated. My thyroid levels are all now in normal range. My depression has lifted and my energy is solid. I live a full life and hardly ever struggle with my energy.
My journey has not been perfect. Some days I want to back to my old drug of choice - control. It's a daily battle. I want to control what I am eating in order to be enough and to look a certain way so I can find the belonging and acceptance I crave. But, that voice is now muted. I know that control never delivered on its promise to make me feel worthy. It was a destructive foe. Now, a new voice has begun to take precedent. It is my recovery voice. It tells me that whole, beautiful healthy ketogenic foods are my friend. That I am already enough. That I can trust my body, and enjoy my life.
Now, I celebrate what my body can do now by kickboxing four times a week and enjoying other exercise such as weights and yoga (who would have thought exercise could be enjoyment rather than punishment).
I thought I was joining this to lose weight. What a sadly small view I had of what was possible. Instead, I gained the peace, the belonging, the acceptance and most importantly the FREEDOM, I never knew was possible or that I needed. In addition, I have shed the excess weight. But that is no longer my obsession. What is most important to me is the freedom and physical health I have gained. The self-confidence and the loving relationship I have with my body is worth more than any image or number on a scale.
You inspire me everyday! Endless thanks to Jessyca McDaniel Reynolds for being my fellow ED warrior, coach and dear friend.
*Note- If you struggle with a slower thyroid or need to take medication for mental health that causes weight gain, I want you to know this: Keto and Fasting can work for you too! And, you can maintain a healthy weight. I was terrified of this but my experience proves it is possible.
Every week Jessyca lifts me up, encourages me, and makes me become a better version of myself... She helps me dig in and see all I’m capable of... She’s always there when I need her and gives so much to so many of us... So a sincere thank you... You are an amazing lady and fabulous coach, Coach Jessyca!
Jessyca is my “Metabolism Whisperer.” With her help, encouragement and wisdom, I have lost over 60 pounds. When I started this journey, it was all about losing weight, but let me tell you what I have GAINED through working with her...confidence in myself and my abilities to set and reach measurable goals. I am able to play with my daughter again. I can RUN again! When I started keto, I couldn’t even walk around the block without feeling defeated. I have gotten rid of depression and anxiety and addressed disordered patterns of eating and thinking that have haunted me since childhood. I have gotten off of two medications (for high blood pressure and an anti-epileptic that had become toxic to my liver). Jessyca has helped me weather so many changes in such a short time...selling my house, a cross country move, a career change, supporting a loved one with metastatic cancer, navigation of unhealthy relationships with people and with food. Jessyca has been an invaluable partner and inspiration to me on this journey. She holds me accountable. She helps me identify disordered behaviors and helps me find new ways of looking at things. I am fitting into clothes and sizes I haven’t worn in 20 years! When I think about my experience with keto & Jessyca, it’s with profound gratitude, because I really feel as if I gained my LIFE back. I am a happier person and mother. Jessyca is knowledgeable, resourceful, empathic and she will be in the trenches with you helping you reach your goals every day. You will definitely lose with keto, but you will gain so much more than you ever imagined with her coaching.
Choosing a coach was no small deal for me. When I read through the list of struggles
that Jessyca had faced, I was drawn to her. I felt like she would be somebody who
could really understand. Feeling excited, yet apprehensive, I signed up with Jessyca.
She gained my instant respect when I showed her some supplements that I needed
to take that would make a keto diet harder to implement. She researched them all
on her own and presented me with a plan. That impressed me! All went pretty well
for the first month…until I binged…and hard! Fear and shame kicked in immensely
at this point.
I hesitated, not daring expose my issues, nor myself…but I reached out to her in
blind faith. “How do I stop,” I asked. Jessyca spent some time with me explaining a
truth that would change my life forever: the concept of ED. I had a lot of respect for
her already but now she had earned my trust. I knew following this situation that
this time, it would be finally different. I was going to get healthy!
Throughout this journey I have learned so much. I learned out that unless I deal
with all of the ‘stuff’ that made me want to eat, I would just undo everything I had
worked for. I learned ‘why’ I binged and what I could do about that. I learned to eat
when my body needed food rather than when I was simply hungry. I learned how to
say ‘no’ to the things that would harm me and ‘yes’ to the healthy things for my
body. I learned how to dig down deep and expose the lies that I was believing and
causing me to eat in stress. I learned to recognize my disordered thinking regarding
food and how to change the old patterns.
I started off at 194 pounds in a size 1X. Six months later I have lost 52 pounds and
currently wear a size 10! I look at myself in a size medium, with a waist, and I can’t
believe it is me. The feeling is beyond amazing!
I have the best coach ever! Jessyca has been there for me every step of the way and
through all of the changes that I have needed to make. It’s been really hard work
but I know I am never alone. I thank God for leading me to her and for His work
through her. I could just cry with gratitude! I gained more than a coach – I gained a
friend!
I have the best coach ever! Jessyca has helped me in so many ways! Yesterday was a
milestone! 50 pounds lost and the lowest I’ve weighed in seven years! I’m done from a size
1X to a size 10 in six months! I’m not done with my keto journey yet, but oh the work I have
had to put in. This has not been easy! At all! I have had to text Jessyca a zillion times with
things that make me want to binge and fall off of the deep end. I’ve had to learn to deal with
the reason I had become overweight in the first place and how not to go back to that place
again. I've had to fight through feeling like a problem and also feeling less than. Both
feelings that cause me to binge. All of those contributed to who I was before. Our weekly
phone calls are the highlight of my week! They deal with the why I got this way and the
behaviors that lead me down the path to that person I was. Now, though, I feel like my
outside is beginning to match my inside, the person God made me, and that’s an amazing
feeling! As for my goal, I’m getting closer to fitting into a dress for my sons wedding! With my
understanding, inspirational and amazing coach’s help, I know I can do this! I thank God for Jessyca and for His work through her!
As hard as it may seem, you can do it! Jessyca McDaniel Reynolds helped me get to my goal of losing 100lbs for my sisters wedding by last month. Trust the process. You can do it! Thomas A.
When I found out about Keto in November of 2016, I approached it like every other diet, compulsively, lol: calculated my macros, bought all the books they recommended, signed up for every keto page I could find and bought all the “necessary” ingredients for my kitchen. By December I was “doing Keto” and lost about 7 pounds. But that was it. It all stopped. Without any viable coping skills for real weight loss, I had no idea what to do, or how to manage my disappointment and anger at myself for “failing” yet again.
But I did know one thing; I was coachable. When I had someone to work with as well as answer to, I thrived. By January 2017, my decision to find a coach led me to looking through the coaches’ bios, and Jessyca’s experiences and pictures resonated with me instantly.
After a year of coaching, I can’t say it any differently. ** If you can let one person see you, truly see you and the reasons why you binge/purge, or eat compulsively, and fully trust they will do right by you, chances are you can let others see more of you and not spend so much time trying to hide everything...Once this happens, those secret reasons do not have that paralyzing grip, so the need to binge/purge is not there.** I wrote this shortly after I started working with Jessyca and it still stands true for me today.
Jessyca’s endless patience and support gave me the structure and the space to lose 35 more pounds and many years of guilt and shame about my body, my emotions, and who I am as a person. I am still working towards my goal, but do it from a much healthier frame of mind than I ever thought possible.
I cannot say enough good things about working with Jessyca - to sum it up, she has changed my life profoundly for the better! Her support, encouragement and guidance has been priceless as I continue to reclaim my health. In a crazy world of weight loss charlatans looking to turn a buck, Jessyca is the real deal. Her coaching is worth every penny and is truly an incredible value. She has not only helped me lose 125 lbs (we are working on the last bit!) but she's also given me sound wisdom on finances, relationships and my spiritual life. She will always tell you the truth (in love!) and I'm grateful every day that she decided to make coaching her career. Listen to her, follow her advice - and success is practically guaranteed!
Good results today. After 4.5 months Keto I put up a 7.3 Hemoglobin A1C, a big improvement over the 10.2 I put up in late November. Secret for me was a weekly call with the awesomest coach alive, Jessyca Reynolds, just sticking to the plan, getting it all in the diary and not getting on a scale. Ever. That weigh (haha) I’ve avoided judging/condemning and self-congratulating, things I kind of always did 4.6 months ago. Planning to close my eyes, put my fingers in my ears and start humming show tunes next week when I get on the scale for my physical. Life is definitely better these days.