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MEET THE KROCKS: We are a married couple who started on a life-changing whole food, plant-based weight loss journey in June 2018. To date, we have lost over 270 pounds combined and we aren’t done yet! Read Our Story
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When we started out this journey back in June 2018 with two weeks of potatoes, I never imagined I’d be here writing this one year later. I thought we had a semi-decent shot at changing our lives, but let’s be honest… we’ve failed PLENTY of times in the past, so I wasn’t super confident.
It is hard to believe we’ve been at this for a year now! We decided to put together the video above to talk about our one year weigh-in and also discuss some of the non-scale victories that have come along with our weight loss.
One Year Weigh-In: How Much Did We Lose?
On June 22, 2019, we woke up and completed our one year weigh-in. It was also the 12th anniversary of the day we first started dating, so June 22nd definitely goes down in history as one of our most important dates!
You might remember, back on June 22, 2018, we started out this journey just shy of 800 pounds combined – Brian was 514 and I was 285.
My original “goal” for myself was to get back to the weight I was when we got married in November 2011. I have been overweight my entire life, but in the few years leading up to our wedding, I had lost about 100 pounds and was at the lowest point of my adult life. I think I weighed somewhere between 160-170 when we got married, so my first “goal” was to get back to around 165.
I honestly never thought I’d be able to get there within one year. When we weighed in, I knew I would be pretty close, but I was really surprised to see that I had hit EXACTLY 165.0 on the one year anniversary of our start. It still baffles me… the world works in mysterious ways!
This put me at a total of 120 pounds lost.
Brian hit the scale next and he was hoping for a nice, even number as well. He doesn’t have any “goals” in mind when it comes to weight loss… he just wants to get healthier and live a better life.
His final one year weigh-in was 355.2, for a total loss of 158.8 pounds! Not too shabby 🙂
Confession time… we actually weigh ourselves nearly every single day. We know it’s not a great idea, but it is what we do. We started using this super cool watermelon notepad at the beginning of our journey. We keep it hanging in our bathroom, and each day we weigh ourselves and write it down. Well, we don’t ALWAYS write them down, but this is our super fancy system.
The funny thing is, when we wrote down our weights on June 22, 2019, we used the final space on the last remaining page of that notepad. SPOOKY!
Since we (obviously) didn’t have our weights recorded in any fancy apps or spreadsheets, we decided to get with the times! You all know by now that I am a total nerd and love math, so we spent an hour transcribing the data from our crazy notepad papers to an Excel spreadsheet.
I decided to make a couple of line graphs to plot out our weight loss over the past year. We found it interesting how similar our lines are! You can see that we’ve had a few bumps along the way (…more on that in a future blog/video), but we were very consistent with each other.
I was also interested to see how evenly spread out our weight loss was over the past year, so I calculated how many pounds we lost in each month. Then I made that into a little bar graph just for extra fun 🙂
As you can see, December was not great LOL!
The funny part is, we actually did lose about 10 pounds each in December, but we took a little “vacation” from our whole food, plant-based lifestyle from 12/25-12/31 and gained a lot of weight over that week. Bad idea! We aren’t perfect! It’s a work in progress. Luckily, come January 1st, we got right back on track and lost all of that extra weight (and then some).
Even if you have slower months or mess up, don’t jump ship completely! You can turn it around and ultimately, this isn’t a race for us. Over time, we will make better decisions and hopefully live a happier, healthier life.
The last thing we did on June 22, 2019 was get an updated photo. We have been re-creating this weird bathroom mirror pic from time to time, and this was a great chance to see just how far we have come.
Our combined weights are now 520 pounds… just 6 pounds heavier than Brian’s own start weight! We have almost erased me entirely… mind blowing!
Non-Scale Victories: What Did We Gain?
This journey hasn’t been all about just numbers. A lot of people (ourselves included) get hung up on the numbers and forget to look at the bigger picture. There are SO many other benefits that come along with losing weight than just hitting a particular number on the scale.
Neither of us had super urgent health issues when we started, but we both saw the writing on the wall. My doctor was increasingly concerned about my blood pressure and had me monitoring it at home. I was consistently in the 140/90 range. Since we started this new lifestyle, I am happy to report that my blood pressure has gone back down to the normal range!
Both of us had blood work done near the beginning of our journey, and we both had elevated liver enzyme levels, indicating the start of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. I have been re-tested and my levels dropped back down to normal within a few months of starting this lifestyle. Brian is due for his blood work soon and I expect to see similar results, but we will keep you posted!
Another “victory” for me has been getting my acne under control. I have struggled with it my entire life, and eating a whole food, plant-based diet has certainly helped. I still get break-outs from time to time (mostly when I eat things I shouldn’t), but I would say it is at least 80% better.
I have also struggled with anxiety and depression for most of my life. The last few years have been especially difficult for me. Losing weight and getting my life under control has helped me so much. I still struggle with the anxiety… and honestly, doing this blog and our YouTube channel have added a whole new level of anxiety. The big difference is that now I am in a place where I am open to getting help. I will be recording an upcoming video about my anxiety and depression, so let me know if you have any questions I should cover in that!
Obviously any time you lose weight, moving around will generally become easier. I am MUCH more active now than I was a year ago. Before we started this journey, I was constantly in pain after walking even short distances. Now I take my dogs on 90+ minute walks frequently and rarely get tired. I can go up stairs without getting completely out of breath. Brian is also a lot more active these days. At 514 pounds, he could barely make it through a few hours of grocery shopping without having back pain.
Brian isn’t someone who has struggled with depression, but I could tell the weight was wearing down on him before we started this journey. He is so much happier now! He still has a long road of weight loss ahead, but I know he feels better knowing that he has this part of his life under control.
For Brian, one of the biggest non-scale victories has been fitting into places! When we go to concerts, he no longer has to get moved to a different seat because he can’t fit. When we go to restaurants (although we rarely do now), I don’t have to scope the place out to make sure he will fit if we end up in a booth, etc. We were on the train the other day and I was amazed that both of us could fit in two regular seats (instead of taking up three or more between the two of us).
These are just a few of the “victories” we have celebrated over the last year, and I know there are so many more to come! As we look at the year ahead, we can’t wait to share our journey and hopefully inspire others to find their own path ❤️
If you are on your own weight loss journey, please leave a comment below and let us know what victories you have celebrated – on or off the scale!
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Hey guys! Happy Plantiversary!! Appreciate all the info, humor, recipes, and realness you’ve provided on your various platforms. Wondering (without being too nosy) how much more weight you each would like to lose? Also, I noticed Ray Cronise retweeted your update/thank you recently. Have you been in contact with either Fuhrman or Penn regarding your amazing progress? Congrats again on all of your victories LARGE & small. They are truly very inspiring!!
You guys are amazing! I love watching your updates on YouTube and seeing your progress. I hope I can learn to be successful like you are! Keep it up!
Thanks Debbie! We really appreciate it 🙂
If you plateau or get discouraged, try eliminating ALL nuts. Joel Fuhrman is the only nutritionist who requires nuts. I suspect is incorrect reasoning goes something like this, ” Seventh Day Adventists are some of the longest-lived people, and they eat nuts. Therefore nuts are required to help you live long and healthily.”
In reality, nuts are mostly bad for you because they are loaded with inflammatory omega-6 nuts. Look at the recommendations of Jeff Novick, Dr John McDougall, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr Neal Barnard, etc-the guys who REALLT know their stuff. They all say NO NUTS. To increase your omega-3 intake, eat 1-2 T a day of ground flax seeds. Drop the nuts, and lose more weight. We get all the fat we need in the whole plants we eat, including fruits.
We honestly don’t eat a TON of nuts – probably not even the 1oz day most days! I do enjoy them as an bit of crunch/flavor in my salads or a tablespoon of nut butter with my breakfast.
I would read this before acting on this not so sound advice.
https://www.drfuhrman.com/get-started/eat-to-live-blog/168/the-attack-against-nuts-and-seeds-getting-nuttier-all-the-time
It seems to me like you all are doing great and basing your diet choices on sound research and information, so keep up the great work and stay healthy! Thanks so much for sharing your journey 💗
I know this is a late comment, but just to correct that… in case others read this in future… those doctors most definitely do not say NO nuts… they say to limit them or avoid them for maximum weight loss. I have read their books. Nuts are treats according to Dr. McDougall and that seems a fair way to put it. They are rather fatty and high in calories, but there are also good oils in them too. Walnuts in particular have heart benefits and would not be surprised if other nuts did too in some future study. I just felt it was important to clarify, to be fair to the doctors.
Congratulations to both of you!!! I just began following you and am really happy to have found your down to earth and real blog and YouTube channel.
I’d love to know more about the first 3-4 months of this journey and how you delt with portion control and cravings and social situations. Also, about alcohol.
Anxiety … I have a few family members who suffer with anxiety and sleep problems …. it’s so hard being on the outside and wishing you could offer some sort of help for them! Jessica …. you’re doing awesome in your video’s though and you are being so much help to so many people … you don’t even know the scope of the distance your message is reaching! Keep it up …. both of you are helping so many!!
Hello! Thanks for commenting 🙂 Sorry for the delay in our response – we are slowing going through everything! We will definitely cover some of that in future videos. We never really drank alcohol, so that was one thing we didn’t have to give up! We eat foods that we can have a ton of without worrying about portion control as much… like the giant salads. Going for a higher quantity of the less “calorie dense” foods like non-starchy vegetables has helped keep us full. Definitely want to do a video on eating out / in social settings! Thank you for the kind words 🙂
Love you both (and the dogs and Peef!) You’re an inspiration to all of us trying to eat a healthy WFPB diet. Thank you so much for your humor and wonderful recipes. I always look forward to watching your YouTube videos. Congrats on your weight loss!
Thank you so much Denise! 🙂
I really enjoy your vlog. I have been on my own doing a WFPB lifestyle for years and I wish I had someone to share it with, it would be so much more fun and easy! (My husband is a hardcore carnivore and processed food lover – but still in good health🧐)
Hi Danielle! It definitely helps a lot to have a partner, but there are also a ton of people on social media doing this, so we found that following along with others has helped us a lot 🙂 We have made some great friends along the way!
So inspiring! I watch a lot of your videos. I didn’t know you started this a year ago. Love the before and after shots. You are such a creative couple. The side view of you two looking at each other is terrific! Thank you for posting it all.
Thank you Jodi! 🙂
I just recently started my wfpb lifestyle. You guys are so inspiring! Thank you for sharing your journey to better health and weight loss. I can’t wait until you do another update on your weight loss!
Do you think you’ll wait another year or could you do one at the end of this year?? I’m excited for you to do that again!!😃
Hmmm good question! Not sure! Maybe at the end of the year?? 🙂 Thanks for watching!
Now that you’ve lost so much weight and look a lot thinner, why don’t you both go get a makeover or something. You’re looking a bit scraggly.
Just beginning my plant based journey and discovered you guys on YouTube. Congratulations on your success and thank you for great meal ideas.