Slammin Salmon Guide, Sam Baird's, Transformation Story

Sam Baird I learned about Sam from my husband. As an avid fisherman, he, like thousands of others followed high-school cohort, Sam Baird, on social media. Sam’s Slammin Salmon Guide Service and “anti-pro blend” scent brand has given him much respect and credit in his fishing niche. I can’t say I ever took notice, more than to marvel at how many Kokanee his guide service consistently pulls out of Lake Chelan… and then it happened, Sam Baird turned my head.

It wasn’t his fishing, although he is a master at his sport, it was his weight loss journey that eventually piqued my interest. “Look at this guy!” my husband kept saying, “He’s losing so much weight. He looks great! Some Keto thing.” I looked at the pictures. Sam Baird was a shrinking man, shaking off excess weight at an astonishing rate. When he posted that he was nearly a hundred pounds down, I knew I had to meet him. We met at Starbucks, but Sam didn’t order. Keto is his secret to weight loss success and there is no room in the plan for the carbs Starbs pedals.

True to an expert guide, Sam made me feel comfortable from the start. Conversation came fast and easy and in no time, I too felt like I’d known Sam since high school. Sam graduated in 1997 as a strong athlete at 225 pounds and the world was at his finger-tips; but injury after injury and the curse of time got the best of him. Twenty years later he was an angry, sick, depressed and morbidly obese man, weighing in at 352 at his highest. Sam admits he knew he was in poor health and avoided doctors, but was eventually diagnosed with fatty liver disease and was on his way to an early grave. He felt defeated but continued to drink a case of Mountain Dew a day, put on his charming, albeit, fake smile and trudge through one miserable, painful day after another.

In the summer of 2018 Sam’s son came out of the closet and also cut sugar out of his diet. The transformation was swift and obvious and his son’s courageous journey motivated Sam to realize change is possible and there could be more to life than the misery he’d become accustomed to. Sam credits his sixteen year old son as that initial inspiration, but the Keto cult is what eventually got his fire burning.

Almost by accident, Sam stumbled across a movie called, “The Magic Pill.” Rage woke him up and fueled a desire to change his life. The Magic Pill, a pro-Keto documentary on the evils of the modern American, high-carb, low-fat diet turned him on to a new way of thinking about health and food. On January first of this year, Sam Baird, with the support and participation of his partner, joined the movement.

Food... Keto is all about food; high-fat, low carb foods to be precise. Sam eats a diet that is 75% fat, 20% protein and only 5% carbs and those are strictly from vegetables; no fruit, no sugar, and most difficult of all for the donut loving sportsman, no breads of any kind. Drinking changed too, water immediately replaced that case of soda and today Sam regularly drinks a gallon of fresh, clean water a day. The only other liquids allowed are his bulletproof coffee in the morning, a mixture of coffee, butter, cream, MCT oil and sugar free syrup, and the occasional, very occasional, drink of clear liquor.

Luckily Sam loves to cook and coming up with delicious Keto recipes is a fun challenge he gladly takes on. He often posts his beautifully plated, tasty meal concoctions on social media. Viewers palates are constantly piqued by his meat and veggie treats like: grilled asparagus with Parmesan, cauliflower rice, Keto-friendly BBQ beef burritos in cheese, folio wraps, marinated chicken breasts, pork rind and Parmesan breaded Kokanee fresh from Lake Chelan, to name just a few.

Elimination of many foods obviously affected Sam’s caloric intake, reducing it from an estimated 3500-4000 calories a day to just around 1000. Some challenge that Sam’s weight loss is more likely attributed to the mass caloric drop than Keto, but he respectfully disagrees. One of the principals behind Keto is that throughout human history we’ve been hunter/gatherers and didn’t consume large amounts of calories each day. A lower daily caloric intake is more like what the body is designed to manage. Sam says 1000 calories are plenty and the high fat diet leaves him satiated. He says he’s not even hungry through the day.

Today, only five months from the beginning of his journey, Sam is down 112 pounds. He feels stronger and more virile than he has since he was in his twenties. His sex drive is back where it used to be, and each inch he loses in his belly seems to grow his manhood the same amount he said with a playful smile and bob of his eyebrows. Then, he spoke in all seriousness and sincerity, he truly feels like he’s living life again; he’s energetic, he’s no longer mad all the time, he’s free from aches and pains he expected to deal with for the rest of his life and is learning to adjust to life in a thin man’s body. Keto is a lifestyle he has embraced and he won’t go back, no matter how great the food temptations get. He much prefers a healthy, thin life to the miserable fat life that used to be his. Sam likes that Keto doesn’t require a strict fitness regime but he still aspires to add in some strength training after getting to his goal weight of 200 pounds. Once achieved, he wants to build back to a muscle-heavy 225.

Sam’s encouragement to all is that if he can do it, anyone can. It’s OK to admit not being ready to make a change yet, it will happen when it’s supposed to. He assured me that even with the substitutions and challenges in finding Keto friendly foods all the time, it’s actually easier than people might expect. He guarantees that the trade-offs are worth the effort and a better life is just on the other side of making the change to live a healthier life.

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