How I Lost 40 Pounds By My 50th Birthday Using intermittent Fasting Episode 207 with Sophia Paliov

In this episode of my Six Weeks to Fitness podcast, I interview Sophia Paliov to discuss how she used Intermittent Fast and a low-carb diet (Keto), to lose 40 pounds in 4 months. Sophia has been in the public relations industry for over 27 years. She is the owner of SPPR-LA, a lifestyle, hospitality, beauty & fashion pr firm out of Los Angeles, California.

 Growing up and most of her adult life Sophia has never had an issue with weight. In fact, people thought as a child and teen at times she was too thin.  Sophia grew up always walking to school mostly and would take five days a week ballet and tap dance classes during her childhood years and into her early teens and remained at a good low weight (120-124) all the way through her late early thirties. 

 Around the age of 33, Sophia started to gain weight due to a lot of stress (cortisol) due to personal family stressors (father diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer) as well as eating way more processed foods and also dealing with some fibroid issues which has to be balanced out with stronger birth control. 

In 2010 at the age of 38 Sophia's father died and by that point, she found herself about 15 pounds heavier even though she had begun to eat less processed foods and cut out a lot of her sugar. But the stress along with hormonal issues due to her fibroids still slowed down her weight.  Soon afterward, Sophia's mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and for the next 8 years till her death in 2018, Sophia's weight fluctuated. 

 In 2015-2017 she began a serious weight loss journey and workout regimen by working out to a lot of cardio and doing low carb/gluten-free lifestyle.  She got down to her goal weight of 127 and held it there till a workout injury in April of 2017 halted her progress.  At that point, her mother's illness had severely progressed and by early 2018 Sophia's hormonal imbalance caused her fibroids to produce super heavy bleedings which kept her from doing heavy workouts. 

 By June 2020, Sophia had ballooned up to 165 pounds and was miserable.  With surgery scheduled for that same month to deal with the fibroids, Sophia was finally able to get her hormonal balance in check; slowly.  But, as the months went by the drive and determination to get back to her comfortable weight just was not there.  She knew she had to make changes again and to get motivated to start moving her body but kept pushing it off.  One day a week or two of working out just was not cutting it at almost 50.  In April of 2021, Sophia saw a picture of herself in leggings and a tight top and just was floored at how bad she had gotten.  It was that instant that triggered her to get motivated again and to know her WHY.  She knew that she had to lose weight and that going low carb/keto would again be part of her life (which she has always done on and off), but she also knew outside of work she was missing something - she had to implement her WHY.  She did not want to end up like her mom with Alzheimer's and even prior to that walking with a walker, she also feared cancer, so doing what she loves to do, Sophia stayed up at late hours and researched longevity, weight loss and found Intermittent Fasting. Ordering the book "The Complete Guide to Fasting" by Dr. Jason Fung, Sophia read it in two days and then just dove into more research on fasting, deepening into keto and the importance of protein, weight training, cardio and of course the magic of fasting. 

 By October of 2021 just in time for her 50th birthday Sophia had lost her weight and reached her goal weight of 129, and to this day she fluctuates between 125-129 with a steady amount of muscle gain.

 Her philosophy is not about just losing weight, but how you go about it and she always asks others to know their WHY. "It's not a diet, it's a lifestyle."