#34: Getting A Second Chance - Renae (@run_renae_run)

In this episode, it is my pleasure to be talking with Renae:

Renae has been very active all her life, being a competitive athlete in Swimming, Surf Lifesaving, triathlons, Volleyball, weight training and body building. Her active lifestyle was the catalyst for her interest in health which lead to her becoming a personal trainer while doing her first university degree to become a Physiologist.

In her career, she developed a passion for preventative health and continued working at a community level and subsequently obtained a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Promotion and a Master in Public Health. Doing this all the whilst, continuing her personal training as a passion and instructing group fitness classes such as Body Pump, RPM, Body Attack, Thump Boxing and boot camps, she then decided to compete in body building figure competitions. However, although looking fantastic and being extremely fit, this ended up having a negative effect on her body, metabolic damage and negative food association.

On 2 January 2013 her life dramatically changed when she contracting Meningitis (only 3 weeks after being made redundant) and ending up being in ICU in hospital and critically ill after her heart actually stopped.

Recovery from meningitis was a very mixed and difficult road, after initially feeling “ok” and wanting to get back to training proved very difficult physically and mentally due to post viral complications she developed. Some days she was unable to even walk 100m, was in pain and bedridden, others she felt fine. Coupled with the fact of still being without work, after 3 months Renae made the hard decision for her health to move back home to her parents to continue to recover, not realising just how sick she had been, was, and was going to continue to be over the coming few years. Wanting to get back to a routine and a career, she decided to go back to University to complete, yet another degree, this time in Accounting and help run the family accounting business.

Over these few years her health was extremely erratic but kept putting things down to “being older” etc. Ultimately she suffered multiple bouts of pneumonia (six in fact), extreme fatigue, dizzy spells including actually passing out, her insomnia was exacerbated by multiple doses of prednisone and other antibiotics, constant fatigue, her post nasal drip got worse, developed photosensitivity, extreme sugar cravings, hormonal imbalances, very high cortisol levels which resulted in adrenal fatigue, stomach upsets, multiple shingles outbreaks, weekly migraines, put on 20kgs and more! Yet, continued to “try” to maintain a healthy life going back to her competition prep diet, her own personal training knowledge by eating the food pyramid and routine training. Nothing was working and she was giving up hope after being diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome, borderline fibromyalgia and was given a prescription for SSRI’s, and at this stage she was just about to hit 100kgs.

Refusing to take the SSRI’s and after binging some podcasts and information from ATP Science where the ketogenic diet was mentioned - a trigger was set and she decided that it’s a last resort and its worth a try because it can’t make her any worse! After doing extensive research reading literally everything by Dr Dom D’Agostino, Mark Sisson, Dr Jason Fung, Keto Connect’s and Thomas Delaurer YouTube channels, she was piecing all her physiology knowledge and ATP Science’s podcast information together for one massive lightbulb moment and started her keto life on 8 February 2018.

Almost 10 months later Renae is migraine free (yes not one single migraine), totally chronic fatigue-free, has no post nasal drip, no more dizzy spells, awesome gut health, adrenal’s repairing, hormones balanced, has completed her first half marathon in over 15 years in a keto state, had NO, yes no, DOMS or muscle soreness or injury, and has lost 20kgs.