This is a well written piece on one man’s battle to lose weight. This is a low carb point of view with some Paleo foundation including taking into consideration topics like weight set points.
Since my 20s, my weight has been slowly working its way north. Every few years, I was forced to confront that I had more than just a couple of extra pounds. I had always assumed that I gained weight due to three reasons:
1. I’m genetically predisposed to be fat (I’ve always had a little extra padding, even as a kid)
2. My work is primarily sedentary, and I don’t get enough exercise
3. I eat too many fattening foods (which is exacerbated by #2).
Over the years, I’ve tried all kinds of approaches to weight loss. Name a type of exercise and I’ve tried it (all but sweating to the oldies, probably). As for diet, I’ve always cut back on total calories, reduced my fat intake, and followed recommendations on finding the right balance between what I eat, and how much energy I burn as the path to losing weight.
The results? In the short term (usually from a month to a year), the weight came off, but it always came back with a vengeance. Each time, I became heavier than before I started losing weight in the first place. I was full of shame, it was disheartening, and I felt I had only myself to blame. Moreover, my metabolic markers, the basic blood lab panels were all in the red, showing figures quickly approaching those indicating type 2 diabetes. Finally, I’ve had enough. Clearly the ‘conventional wisdom’ to weight loss was wrong. I set out to find a different way by looking at the science of nutrition. This is my journey.
I want to share the three most important questions (and the evidence supported answers) that led me to successfully lose weight:
• Why has dieting always failed me?
• Why have I been gaining weight throughout the years?
• What is the best way to lose weight?
Our metabolism is set to our body composition, and any attempts to change it will be resisted by the body’s attempt to regain homeostasis the body’s weight set point.
This all makes sense to me, as my own experience in trying to lose my excess weight mirrors this reasoning (as does the evidence presented). My body was in homeostasis, and any attempt to ‘eat less, move more’ results in my body to fight to get back to its ‘set point’, making weight loss difficult to achieve and maintain.
This explains why, in the short run, my will power (bolstered by the desire to lose weight, and by fighting through the hunger and dealing with a loss of energy) results in some weight loss. However, my experience has shown that this is also unsustainable. I was always proud of the weight that had come off, but reverted to my old eating habits because it simply felt better not to be hungry and tired all the time.
Inevitably, I gained the weight back, and felt that the shame and a lack of will needed to maintain weight loss was my fault. After all, this is the common reason given by most of society (and implied in the standard weight loss advice, referenced earlier): it’s my fault I didn’t lose weight because I lacked the desire, the willpower to eat less, move more; I was greedy and gluttonous – it is my fault.
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Paleolithic humans lived for millions of years before the introduction of agriculture, which brought large scale access to carbohydrates. The human diet was a cycle of feast and famine, gorging on the kill of the hunt, then eating nothing for days until the next successful hunt. Other carnivores naturally follow this pattern (the key difference is humans discovered fire and cooked their meat). Lions will kill an antelope, gorge, then eat nothing for days. In fact, save for domesticated pets, mammals don’t get obese (the exceptions in the wild being species specific: bears will gain massive weight seasonally before hibernating; sea mammals have large amounts of blubber for insulation against the cold sea).
I learned over the years, that simply reducing calorie consumption, or increasing exercise (or some combination) never worked in the long term. Why? Though I was reducing calories, I still consumed high amounts of carbohydrates (and reduced fat consumption even further, assuming it was the dietary fat was what was making me gain weight) even though total calories were reduced. Thus, there wasn’t enough of a change to signal my hormones to access the energy stored as fat. My insulin resistance contributed to the overall signal, and continued to use the carbs I ate (as glucose) to fuel my body. Since body fat stores only convert to fuel in the absence of high insulin levels, and I didn’t cut enough carbs to lower insulin, my body craved more glucose and carbs, thus I was hungry and focused on food.
By just cutting sugar and grains (and given that 80% of processed foods have some sugar in them, cutting those as well), I lost 30 pounds of fat in a couple of months, with no loss of lean mass. By only eating when I was hungry, I naturally reduced the number of times I ate throughout the day (usually twice) which helped reduce insulin levels as well as insulin resistance (by limiting the amount of times insulin was called into action).
After the first 30 pounds, I hit a plateau, and I had to tweak my food consumption (I cut carbs even further, and gave up artificial sweeteners, and increased my fat consumption even more). I’ve lost 50 pounds, with another 10 or so to go (my goal is 20% body fat, reasonable given my age).
At this point, losing the rest of that weight is taking even more tweaking. I believe that enough insulin resistance remains to prevent my body from hitting its maximum fat burning efficiency. The best way to reduce this resistance is to fast intermittently, as the total absence of food gives insulin a rest. There are many ways to do this, but I’ll eat only during a short window of time every day, or even go a full 24 hours without eating. Since I’m fat adaptive (my body is ‘trained’ itself to burn fat more efficiently), I don’t get hungry since my fat cells are providing fuel when I’m not eating.
Moreover, another benefit of eating this way to lose weight is that I didn’t need to count calories for the first half of my weight loss. The increased in dietary fat filled me up, which naturally limited calories I consumed. I likely ate more calories than I did when trying to lose weight by counting calories!
As for exercise, I walk 5-6x/week on the treadmill for a total of around 3 hours per week, with light lifting a few times a week. Since hormones drive weight loss and gain, exercise and CICO play a minor factor. Losing weight on a low carb diet is 80% what I eat, 10% exercise, and 10% genetics (everyone stores fat differently, and some – like me – need to tweak the food consumption composition to lose the last few pounds).
Inevitably, I gained the weight back, and felt that the shame and a lack of will needed to maintain weight loss was my fault. After all, this is the common reason given by most of society (and implied in the standard weight loss advice, referenced earlier): it’s my fault I didn’t lose weight because I lacked the desire, the willpower to eat less, move more; I was greedy and gluttonous – it is my fault.
Paleolithic humans lived for millions of years before the introduction of agriculture, which brought large scale access to carbohydrates. The human diet was a cycle of feast and famine, gorging on the kill of the hunt, then eating nothing for days until the next successful hunt. Other carnivores naturally follow this pattern (the key difference is humans discovered fire and cooked their meat). Lions will kill an antelope, gorge, then eat nothing for days. In fact, save for domesticated pets, mammals don’t get obese (the exceptions in the wild being species specific: bears will gain massive weight seasonally before hibernating; sea mammals have large amounts of blubber for insulation against the cold sea).
I learned over the years, that simply reducing calorie consumption, or increasing exercise (or some combination) never worked in the long term. Why? Though I was reducing calories, I still consumed high amounts of carbohydrates (and reduced fat consumption even further, assuming it was the dietary fat was what was making me gain weight) even though total calories were reduced. Thus, there wasn’t enough of a change to signal my hormones to access the energy stored as fat. My insulin resistance contributed to the overall signal, and continued to use the carbs I ate (as glucose) to fuel my body. Since body fat stores only convert to fuel in the absence of high insulin levels, and I didn’t cut enough carbs to lower insulin, my body craved more glucose and carbs, thus I was hungry and focused on food.
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By just cutting sugar and grains (and given that 80% of processed foods have some sugar in them, cutting those as well), I lost 30 pounds of fat in a couple of months, with no loss of lean mass. By only eating when I was hungry, I naturally reduced the number of times I ate throughout the day (usually twice) which helped reduce insulin levels as well as insulin resistance (by limiting the amount of times insulin was called into action).
After the first 30 pounds, I hit a plateau, and I had to tweak my food consumption (I cut carbs even further, and gave up artificial sweeteners, and increased my fat consumption even more). I’ve lost 50 pounds, with another 10 or so to go (my goal is 20% body fat, reasonable given my age).
At this point, losing the rest of that weight is taking even more tweaking. I believe that enough insulin resistance remains to prevent my body from hitting its maximum fat burning efficiency. The best way to reduce this resistance is to fast intermittently, as the total absence of food gives insulin a rest. There are many ways to do this, but I’ll eat only during a short window of time every day, or even go a full 24 hours without eating. Since I’m fat adaptive (my body is ‘trained’ itself to burn fat more efficiently), I don’t get hungry since my fat cells are providing fuel when I’m not eating.
Moreover, another benefit of eating this way to lose weight is that I didn’t need to count calories for the first half of my weight loss. The increased in dietary fat filled me up, which naturally limited calories I consumed. I likely ate more calories than I did when trying to lose weight by counting calories!
As for exercise, I walk 5-6x/week on the treadmill for a total of around 3 hours per week, with light lifting a few times a week. Since hormones drive weight loss and gain, exercise and CICO play a minor factor. Losing weight on a low carb diet is 80% what I eat, 10% exercise, and 10% genetics (everyone stores fat differently, and some – like me – need to tweak the food consumption composition to lose the last few pounds).
I cut out all grains and sugar, which include (but not limited to) the following:
• Processed starch: Bread (whole wheat as well – its fiber content is limited), pasta, rice, quinoa (yes, quinoa has a modicum of protein over other grains, but still signals the insulin response like all grains), tortillas, etc.
• Starchy vegetables: Potatoes, legumes, corn, yams, etc.
• All sugars: Soda pop, fruit juice, fruit (save for the occasional cup of berries – which have low sugar), any milk or diary with less than full fat (low fat milk, for example, has concentrated amounts of lactose, a type of sugar), candy, cake, ice cream and most processed foods. Though I drank diet soda and crystal light when starting my weight loss, I weaned off them since they trigger sugar craving pathways in the brain.
• Alcohol: Distilled liquor is better than wine (fermented sugar) and beer (contains maltose – a sugar). Mixers are typically full of sugar. However, I’ve personally not had a drink in over a month.
I replaced most of these items with increased amounts of fat (and kept protein moderate). All dietary fat has all three of these types of fat, some more than others:
• Saturated fat: Butter, coconut oil, red meat, whole eggs, dark poultry meat (with chicken skin), heavy whipping cream (great with coffee), most cheeses, bacon
• Monosaturated fat: Olive oil, avocado oil, avocados, almonds, macadamia nuts, olives.
• Polyunsaturated fat: salmon, fish (avoid vegetable oils that have been hydrogenated – referred to as ‘franken-fats’. When consumed as this type of oil, these fats promote oxidation in the body)
Results
So far, I’ve lost 50 pounds, with my body fat percentage dropping from 35% to 23%. I no longer take my prescribed medication for acid reflux, and have retired my CPAP machine because I don’t experience sleep apnea anymore. I take a supplement for the essential vitamins and minerals my body can’t produce. I’ve lost no lean mass (but haven’t focused on building on it – I’ll tinker with my diet to emphasize muscle development when I hit my weight loss goal), and I no longer fit into any of my clothes I started this journey on.
I chose to pursue this weight loss approach because nothing else worked for me, and the science showing how and why the body gains weight was powerful. I decided to share my experience, because I found so much literature, research and studies that contradicted the conventional wisdom and showed strong evidence of success.
Curated article from Linkedin.
