She lost 105 lbs at age 68

"It's so quiet," whispered Ohio grandmother Stacy Cronin Pattison, as she settled on her couch for a little soul searching. After years of caring for her late husband through dementia and cancer, she'd been a widow for exactly eight weeks. Now my own health is giving out, she thought. Serious kidney issues had landed her in the hospital. And ever since surgery to 'upgrade' old weight-loss surgery had been scrapped due to near-fatal complications, she'd been getting heavier and making all her other problems worse-degenerative disk disease, arthritis, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, fibromyalgia, migraines, glaucoma and more. Stacy hurt all the time, struggled to move, couldn't sleep. I don't want to become a burden on anyone. I want my family to count on me, not the other way around. She wondered: Is it too late for me to get better?

- Allison Nemetz

As tears welled in Stacy’s eyes, she could see the photos of her kids, grandkids and great-grandkids around the room. She took a deep breath. You need to make more memories with them, her heart said. She had to at least try to turn her health around.

A retired nurse and lifelong yo-yo dieter, Stacy kept eating fast food and mac ’n’ cheese, but also started doing research. Eventually, she found Ken Berry, M.D., on YouTube. Drawn to his plain-spoken manner, she watched a marathon of videos. “A low-stress, low-carb approach triggers changes in our body chemistry that kill hunger, turbocharge fat burn, even soothe inflammation,” he said. He made it sound so doable, Stacy was excited to start.

Getting results—and relief

Stacy decided to use what some call ‘dirty keto.’ That meant tracking what she ate, keeping carbs under 20 grams per day, but not worrying about nutrition beyond that. So she could enjoy low-carb quesadillas, hot dogs, even keto candy. “Eat until you’re pleasantly stuffed,” Dr. Berry had urged. “Calories don’t matter.”

Though Stacy hated the scale and didn’t weigh herself, her waistbands quickly got looser. Her pain lessened. And most amazing of all: “I’ve finally stopping thinking and dreaming about food,” she shared with her son, Gerard. “This might be working!”

Making her own rules