The year 2011 has arrived in full force and so many people are on some kind of diet and exercise plan to help them lose weight and attempt to get healthy. Even my own pastor recently remarked in a Sunday morning sermon that the entire ministerial staff is currently in a weight loss contest a la The Biggest Loser to see who can lose the most weight. He shockingly quipped, “I was gonna do the carb thing to lose a lot of weight fast. But I wanted to eat healthy which is why I decided to count my calories.” Grrrr! I’ve given this man both of my books, but obviously the message hasn’t gotten through to him. Maybe it’s time I take him out to lunch to help educate him on what REAL low-carb living is all about. It’s truly amazing to me how conventional wisdom has taken ahold of our culture so strongly that a lot of people are still convinced livin’ la vida low-carb is somehow unhealthy and that cutting your fat and calories is optimal for health. This just reminds me of the value and importance of the work I’m doing and that we have a long road ahead of us to turn this tide around–this is why I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.
Longtime readers of “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” know that since my 180-pound weight loss experience in 2004 I’ve had a few struggles along the way. From being criticized in 2007 for some erratic weight management to a rapid 25-pound weight gain that I saw in early 2008 after beginning to take creatine to supplement my weight lifting. It’s continued to slowly creep up from there ever since. I’ve had some nominal success doing various tactics like a low-carb product-free diet, eating “sweet” free, my “eggfest” experiment and other strategies. The problem with these was I couldn’t keep them up. By the beginning of 2010, I was up 50 pounds from my goal weight of 230 at the end of 2004 and I put on another 9 or so pounds last year. UGH! If you looked at my low-carb menus blog over that period of time, you’d see I stayed pretty darn low-carb throughout that time. It’s been perplexing to say the least along with some of my fellow low-carbers who have struggled as well.
The silver lining in all of this despite the obvious fat accumulation in my waistline correlating with the weight gain on the scale has been my health markers have remained excellent. My HDL is well above 50, my triglycerides are below 100, my LDL particles are mostly the large, fluffy kind that you want, my heart scan calcium score is ZERO, my blood pressure is normal at 125/75, my A1c is 5.1, my fasting blood glucose is 86, my Vitamin D is over 50 (having it retested and will get the results soon)…like I said, all indicators show I’m doing well with my health. I do a couple of yoga/Pilates classes a week for stress reduction and improved flexibility, engage in weekly competitive volleyball, and referee Upward youth basketball at my church on Saturday mornings. All in all, other than gaining nearly 60 pounds from my goal weight at the end of 2004, I’ve been experiencing all the major health benefits of the healthy low-carb lifestyle. Even if I never lost another pound ever again, that’d be enough for me to keep doing it forever and ever amen.
Nevertheless, how I look is pretty important because people view me as some kind of leader in the low-carb community. I’ve never claimed that position, but accept it as the reality of having a successful blog and podcast on the subject. That’s why I have continued to seek out what the heck is going on with me these past couple of years or so because I would never want anyone to be discouraged from choosing the low-carb way of eating based on what they see in one man. You can’t always see the health state of someone on the outside, but it’s hard to miss when they’re overweight or obese. And our society has conditioned us to believe that being fat is unhealthy and being thin is the epitome of health. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!
And yet, there are still those critics who think I don’t deserve to be heard like this guy a couple of years ago who said people should ignore anything I have to say because I’m so obese. Uh, okay. What I have to say about the low-carb diet is not only based on MY experience, but also the experiences of many others as well as what the science is continually showing us about the benefits of carbohydrate-restriction. Anyone who limits this to body weight alone is severely shortsighted in their understanding of what the purpose of livin’ la vida low-carb is really all about. While weight loss is highly coveted by those who first begin a low-carb nutritional approach, most people quickly realize that it’s just a nice little side effect of eating a healthy high-fat, moderate protein, low-carb diet. The real benefits go much deeper than what the scale is telling you.
Starting on January 3, 2011, I began a new experiment to see what I could do to get my body to match my health numbers and how I feel on the inside. After interviewing literally hundreds of experts over the years with all sorts of ideas and opinions about what is best for fat loss, I have come to the conclusion that there are some basic things that will probably work for me:
1. A very low-carb diet (under 20g daily consistently)
2. Avoiding soy, artificial sweeteners, wheat and dairy
3. Engaging in purposeful intermittent fasting
4. Adding in interval workouts as well as weight training
5. Not obsessing over calories, but being careful not to over-consume them
So if you look at my menus the past few weeks, then you’ll notice these changes. Honestly, it doesn’t feel like a big change to me as I’ve been low-carbing for so many years. But they’re pretty darn huge in their impact on my weight. One of the lessons I learned from my “eggfest” last year was the ease of repeating the same meals over and over again as a means for ensuring consistency and accuracy in my energy intake. With that in mind, I’ve chosen to stick with three very high-quality foods that will nourish me with plenty of healthy fats along with a moderate amount of protein and very few carbohydrates–grass-fed beef, pastured eggs, and coconut oil. I’ve generally consumed about 3-4 eggs cooked in 1 tablespoon of coconut oil and upwards of 1 pound of grass-fed beef with various spices. My meals have been around 9-10am and 1-2pm for the most part allowing me to engage in an intermittent fasting period of around 19 or so hours for maximum impact. And the amazing thing is I haven’t felt hungry or any cravings at all! As for my beverage choices, I have been drinking water and iced tea sweetened with stevia–Splenda is out for now since it is an artificial sweetener. On the exercise front, I’ve added this routine from Dr. Joseph Mercola called Peak 8 a couple of times a week to try to boost the fat loss.
Upon seeing this new routine I’ve started, somebody who apparently has their reasons for hating me personally couldn’t resist the urge to post the following comment on my blog:
I can’t believe people are paying you to run a website as absurd as this one. My 2011 prediction is that you will be back to 295 lbs – 300 lbs in no time with your coconut oil, beef and egg diet. You have been obese for years on your moronic diet and yet you continue to believe it works. Wake up dude, science has put your idiotic diet to bed 30 years ago. You need a real diet, not a bacon and eggs and oil and beef diet.
Nice, huh? It’s amazing how willing people are to bring you down when you’re only trying to do something good for your weight and health in an effort to help others. This person is of course stuck on the notion that consuming fat and animal foods is “moronic” and “idiotic,” so take it for what it’s worth. But I viewed this as a personal challenge and decided to do something I had not originally intended to do. I will keep eating this way every single day through Friday, April 1, 2011 and predict right now that I’ll reach my goal of 230 pounds (or get pretty darn close!) subsisting on just coconut oil, beef, and eggs. CHALLENGE ACCEPTED! This low-fattie obviously has a problem with fat, animal-based foods, or just me personally. Regardless of what leads him to believe I cannot succeed, I will take great pleasure in proving him dead wrong. Don’t miss the conclusion of this challenge that just so happens to end on April Fool’s Day! How appropriate!
By the way, my starting weight when I began this beef, eggs, and coconut oil only diet was 286.8 pounds. I lost 7 pounds the first week, 5.8 pounds last week, and another 3.6 pounds this week for a total of 16.4 pounds in three weeks. I’ve got ten weeks left in this challenge and simply need to average 3-4 pounds lost a week to reach my goal. Even if I don’t quite make it to the goal of 230 pounds, I know I’ll get pretty darn close. And it won’t stop there–if this works then I’m committed to continuing to make it work until I reach whatever weight my body decides to settle into. Follow my journey at my menus blog and wish me well in my quest to reach 230 pounds again.
