Andrew went from overweight to athlete

Andrew McIntyre has a family history of heart disease, so when he was gripped with chest pain at the gym, he lost no time in getting to hospital.

His doctors kept him in for 5 days and ran a series of tests. They were astonished at the results. They were all normal.

Previous diet attempts

A couple of years before, it was a different story. Andrew had made a half-hearted attempt at following the Total Wellbeing Diet book. He had managed to drop his weight from 107kg to 100kg, but he still had high blood pressure and high cholesterol. When he was diagnosed as being pre-diabetic as well, he knew it was time to take his health seriously. He started the TWD again.

"I still couldn’t get my right balance between diet and exercise," he says. "But when I followed a heavy program of weights and cardio each day that my trainer gave me, I achieved really noticeable weight loss."

It was around this time that he took himself to hospital to investigate those mystery chest pains.

"My favourite measure of weight loss had been my belt," he says. "It was taking me 3 weeks to drop a notch. But the normal results from my blood tests were a more meaningful measure. I was always aiming at achieving a good health outcome."

Andrew and his wife Cathy joined the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet online as they had slipped on the diet due to a relocation and an ‘incremental gain in portion size’.

"When I started on the TWD in 2011, it was hard to get information about the GI," he says. "Now that the CSIRO has paired up with the Glycemic Index Foundation, this info is factored in."

Learn More: Low GI diets

Andrew finds the opportunity to monitor his intake invaluable.

"One day I was starving and when I looked back I had only eaten half a portion of protein! The online system provides really useful feedback."