Dr Carmit's Starch Solution Journey

Allow me to introduce myself

My name is Dr. Carmit (pronounced “car-meet”) Brandt and I am a Certified Coach for The Starch Solution Diet. I have a Master of Science and Doctorate Degree in Holistic Nutrition.

I have formal and informal education and experience in Health, Wealth, Style and Life coaching. Aside from the Doctorate degree, I have a financial degree in business and computers. I held a CPA certification which I retired to have more fun. I served in the military and achieved a C (CFO and COO) executive level in Corporate America. I left my corporate life with a “bang” as I helped sell the company I worked for. It was the right time for me to leave the corporate lifestyle and realize my lifelong pursuit of working for myself and becoming an entrepreneur.

My diet story...

I grew up in the Middle East on a Mediterranean Diet with mostly fresh vegetables, beans, fruits and not much meat and a very active lifestyle. I was fit and trim. Once I moved to the United States years ago, I gained weight quickly. I attribute it to the change into the American, Western Diet. Here begun my Yo-yo dieting journey.

Throughout the years, I tried many diets: private diets, guided weight watchers style diets, Adkins, South Beach, Keto, Ducan Diets, diet “pills” that promise weight loss, the low-calorie HCG diet, and whatever new diet of the moment. Some plans were more successful than others, but at the end, I failed to keep the weight off. As I got older, it also became tougher to lose and easier to gain the weight.

I always enjoyed learning and had interest in nutrition and fitness. So, I went back to school and earned my Holistic Nutrition degrees. The Holistic part o the programs focused on ancient diets of the world, plant-based diets, and the pitfalls of our fat rich, over processed foods of the modern, western diet. But even though I studied all of that and knew what is healthy and right, I stayed eating meat, eggs, dairy products, and the wrong foods for years. I was never obese, but I was overweight.

So the Starch Solution journey began...

My younger and beautiful sister have been struggling like me with her weight. We decided to team up and lose weight together and support each other in our weight loss effort. We went back to some diets we knew, like high protein, low fat, 16/8 low carb Keto style diet with minimal success. We could not stick to any of these diets.

My sister landed through social media on a video of a young mother of two who lost over 70 pounds. She stated that she lost the weight and kept it off following Dr. McDougall, The Starch Solution Diet. So, in my curious nature, I started reading and researching about the diet. I found the diet rules for quick weight loss and the calories density charts. They were simple and made sense to me. But...

My first thought was OMG so many carbs. Being media “conditioned” that carbohydrates are fattening and bad, and eating lots of meat protein is good, I was getting fatter just reading about it. I admit, at that point, I did not read about the science behind the diet, but I understood it to be low in fat, a clean diet with unprocessed or minimally processed foods and vegan.

My sister was going to try it for one week and report. She reported feeling great and lost some weight. She also started sending me photos of the meals she created, and they looked so colorful and tasty. She also reported increased energy. I decided to dive in. There was nothing I can lose except weight.

I was petrified about adding and eating carbohydrates. But I got organized, cleaned up my kitchen pantry and made a deliberate change. The diet called for no dairy, no coffee. I decided that coffee with ½ and ½ was my nonnegotiable, so I kept that. Other than that, I stuck to the rules.

The first week, I lost 4 lbs. I was sure I would gain weight eating all these starches. I was motivated. After the first loss the weight came off but extremely slowly, but I kept at it for about 6 months. It was frustrating. I do not know exactly why I “fell off the wagon” and started gaining the weight back. It might have been the dairy I kept in my coffee, or the addition of high calorie density foods into my meals, like nuts, avocados, and oil. I also think that with my enthusiasm, I tried too many elaborated recipes, which I did not have time to cook and prepare. So I failed. Whatever the reason, I was seeing the weight creep up and decided to make a change. My sister was experiencing similar results.

We decided to go back on a Keto style diet. She decided to try a true Keto with meat. I had the notion of doing a Keto Vegetarian / Vegan diet. It was complete disaster for both of us. I tried to calculate the Keto macronutrients and micronutrients and had problems getting to the right KETO balance with the foods I was willing to eat. I quickly knew that the Keto way of eating would not work for me.

So Here I was and am...

I decided that to revisit the McDougall Starch Solution diet. Why? Because it had the foods I loved like fruits, and vegetables. Plus, it made sense. While I understood the concepts from the online information, I needed to learn more about the science behind it. I found the McDougall certification program and decided to invest the money to get certified. As I always say, knowledge is power.

The certification program opened my eyes and made me a believer. So much of it was knowledge I gained in my Doctorate studies, that something clicked and as we say, the rest is history. I went in sort of 100%. This time I gave up the dairy in my coffee. Funny, I think I was having half and half in my coffee. I did not give up the coffee. And... the weight came off quickly.

I also developed a simplified and successful method to eating the Starch Solution Diet way. It’s my Keep It Super Simple (K.I.S.S.) way. I am no longer on a weight loss diet; I am living the Starch Solution lifestyle.