Lee SedonNutrition Coach

My life has been a roller coaster of weight gain and loss. As an overweight child, I started dieting at an early age. Not wanting to accept obesity, and all the anguish that comes with it, I would starve myself in a futile attempt to change my body. Unfortunately, I was oblivious to the fact that I was destroying my metabolism. When I became a teenager, through physical growth and activity, my weight became less of an issue. Then came adulthood, and with it, extreme cyclical expansion and contraction of my waistline. At 23 years of age I became engaged to my wife Michelle, and with my wedding date quickly approaching, I decided to do something about my weight. I bought a YMCA membership and having heard all the hype about how dietary fat is bad, tried to completely cut it out of my diet. I lost 30 pounds in 30 days by eating a low fat diet in a caloric deficit and performing extreme workouts. I did pretty good right? Not hardly! Within a couple years, after a stressful job change, I gained it all back and then some! And so the cycle continued. I would encounter a stressful period or life changing experience, such as the birth of my children Julia and Bryce, and pack on the pounds. When I eventually became disgusted with my body and took action, the weight would come off. Sadly, all of these peaks and valleys were damaging my metabolism and each time it became easier to gain and harder to lose. Thankfully, I was able to turn it all around.

I began reading fitness books and focusing on exercise as a means of becoming fit. After years of working out with minimal results, I had an epiphany: “Without proper nutrition, all of your efforts in the gym are hopeless.” My first real lesson in nutrition came from the e-book Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto. I learned about calories and macro-nutrients, but didn’t discover how to implement his techniques into my daily life on a permanent basis. Another stressful event in my life caused me to gain back all of my weight and more. When the low-carb craze hit America, with the Atkins diet becoming extremely popular, I tried a modified version of it and lived in a ketogenic state for about a year and a half. Results for me were slow and methodical. Resistance training spared my muscle while I was burning fat, and I was able to transform my body and achieve a low body fat percentage, however, mood swings and cravings forced me to look for a different approach. You cannot imagine how wonderful and irresistible freshly baked bread smells when you cannot eat carbohydrates! After a failed bodybuilding-style bulking attempt, when I finally realized I was gaining alot more fat than muscle, I even tried a cyclical diet. Imagine starving yourself in a low-carb state for four days per week while performing brutal high repetition workouts, then gorging in an all out carb frenzy one day per week, followed by two days in a moderate caloric deficit. This was definitely not a lifestyle anyone could follow, it was a diet aimed at short-term results.

My love for food and cooking led me to culinary school where I earned my degree at 30 years of age. Now I had to figure out how to maintain a healthy fit lifestyle while working an extremely stressful and exhausting career as a professional chef, all while surrounded by not-so-healthy food. Luckily I discovered Venice Nutrition. The Venice System teaches you not only how to eat and exercise, but how to stay on track when “life shows up”. Since joining Venice Nutrition, I have transformed my body beyond what even the brutal cyclical diet did for me, and more importantly, I see that this truly is a lifestyle, not a quick fix.
I am often asked why I decided to become a chef. I always reply “it’s because of the look I see on people’s faces when they eat something I created that is truly outstanding.” I guess that means that I enjoy making people happy, which is also why I decided to become a Venice Nutrition Coach. The happiness produced by one meal is nothing compared to what is generated by helping people achieve their goals and change their lives.

lee.sedon@venicenutrition.com