Ask the guy who lost 200 pounds in 9 months

[DSeid]

It seems that neither of us percieves the other as comprehended what the other one is trying to say, so I am going to stop banging my head against this particular wall. Instead let me return to the original “Ask the …” mode.

To the the degree you give a shit, what is your concern? Long term health, vanity, dealing with anxiety provoked by fear of imminent death from acute health concerns, or something else?

What things are fun for you to do and are they as fun as they always were?

What do you think you will do when you get to a point that the scale stops moving again?

[SenorBeef]

@DSeid

To the the degree you give a shit, what is your concern? Long term health, vanity, dealing with anxiety provoked by fear of imminent death from acute health concerns, or something else?

The acute health concerns were the primary motivator. I mean, in so far as better short term health also leads to better long term health, that’s a nice benefit, but I’m not thinking in the long term.

Definitely not vanity, I haven’t cared what I look like in quite a long time. I get no ego boost or feeling of self worth from looking better.

I’d like to feel better in general, of course, but that comes down to just how much I’ll feel better for what amount of effort. For whatever reason, last year my attempts at exercise were making me feel crappy. Or rather, I felt crappy anyway, and the exercise just made it more apparent. But for whatever reason, when I started a new workout routine a few weeks ago, I actually feel pretty decent - at least not bad. If my experiences going forward stay in the “pretty decent” range, I could see myself sticking to a long term exercise plan. If they randomly go back to feeling terrible, I probably wouldn’t.

Maybe along the way I’ll pick up new motivations (“hey, it feels pretty good to be in shape again”), but at the moment I’m mostly driven by the rational realization that I need to make a significant improvement to my health rather immediately.

What things are fun for you to do and are they as fun as they always were?

I’ve been out of shape for a few years now, so nothing has really impacted that sort of thing. Yeah, I’d like to be able to be in better shape to do activities (like Wednesday I spent the whole day hiking around doing photography and Thursday I was practically a cripple) but they haven’t been a big part of my life in a long time. So no recent decline in that regard.

What do you think you will do when you get to a point that the scale stops moving again?

I’d work harder to get through it. I’ve committed to the 80 pounds, and I may do more from there, so a plateau would just be a halt to my progress. I can’t just quit at that point, due to my commitment, so I’d have to work through it to keep going. I wouldn’t change my diet - I’m already in tune with what my body needs and I’m giving myself near the minimum I’d feel comfortable with. I don’t know what other sort of plans you could have for that sort of thing.

[tavalla]

@SenorBeef

Actually, that’d be an interesting possibility, because I tend to get a lot more motivated by stuff like bets or grudges or proving I’m right. But it would take a lot to get me motivated, a novelty bet of a few bucks or bottles of booze or whatever wouldn’t do it.

Heard about this one on a Radio Lab episode a year or two back: in the 60s, a woman named Zelda Gamson wanted to quit smoking. She’d tried plenty of times before, never been able to shake the nicotine habit. So she made an agreement with a friend, Mary; if Zelda failed to quit by a certain date, Mary would give $1,000 of Zelda’s money to the organisation Zelda loathed the most in the world–the KKK.

She never smoked again. She hated the KKK, and giving them money was absolute anathema to her. And she couldn’t just fudge it and lie; she had a referee who was in charge of the money in her friend.

Link to the Radio Lab story: there are a couple of commitment websites mentioned in the comments.

[Stoid]

@SenorBeef

There’s no benefit for me of your method over mine. Whatever feeling of deprivement and suffering I have now is minor compared to what I’d feel doing it the conventional way. I’ve tried that before and it’s miserable. Not only is it much more unpleasant, but it takes longer, several times longer, to accomplish the same goal, so the total amount of suffering is staggeringly higher. I can’t really convey how much more difficult it is except to say that I would most likely choose a likely early death over bothering to do it.

It’s not “easy to derail” me. It’s true, once every 4 or 5 months I took a week or two off. (The period when I was travelling was circumstantial and not due to deprivement and caving in). But outside of those deliberate periods, I don’t deviate or splurge at all. I can’t slip up and grab a pizza, it would disrupt my metabolism for days and waste a lot of time. Whereas if I was eating a normal diet, just restricting my calories, it would be easy to find little ways to cheat all the time.

Yes. X1,000.

That said, at some point, I will probably want to transition back to a more conventional diet, for ease if nothing else, and I’m going to have to work something out in regards to keeping eating under control and continuing to stay in shape. But at that point, I’ll have lost a lot of weight, gained fitness and muscle, and would generally find it easier to stay fit.

I hope very much that this is your experience. I will also gently but urgently caution you to manage your expectations.

“I think many people who are anxious to lose weight don’t fully understand what the consequences are going to be, nor does the medical community fully explain this to people,” Rudolph Leibel, an obesity researcher at Columbia University in New York, says. “We don’t want to make them feel hopeless, but we do want to make them understand that they are trying to buck a biological system that is going to try to make it hard for them.”

Losing all the weight you desire, no matter what you do to achieve it, is not going to change you into a completely different person in terms of your body. In fact, the changes you will go through will actually be more towards upping the things about you that make you obese to begin with. For instance:

A full year after significant weight loss, these men and women remained in what could be described as a biologically altered state. Their still-plump bodies were acting as if they were starving and were working overtime to regain the pounds they lost. For instance, a gastric hormone called ghrelin, often dubbed the “hunger hormone,” was about 20 percent higher than at the start of the study. Another hormone associated with suppressing hunger, peptide YY, was also abnormally low. Levels of leptin, a hormone that suppresses hunger and increases metabolism, also remained lower than expected. A cocktail of other hormones associated with hunger and metabolism all remained significantly changed compared to pre-dieting levels. It was almost as if weight loss had put their bodies into a unique metabolic state, a sort of post-dieting syndrome that set them apart from people who hadn’t tried to lose weight in the first place.

Obese peeps either start differently or being obese changes them, I don’t think anyone is sure which it is, (I think it’s both) but what IS known is that we are different. Our bodies and our brains and our hormones do not behave the same way that the naturally non-obese person’s do.:

The most pronounced reaction to reduced glucose levels was seen in the prefrontal cortex. When glucose is lowered, the prefrontal cortex seemed to lose its ability to put the brakes upon increasingly urgent signals to eat generated in the striatum. This weakened response was particularly striking in the obese when shown high-calorie foods.

“This response was quite specific and more dramatic in the presence of high-calorie foods,” Sinha said.

“Our results suggest that obese individuals may have a limited ability to inhibit the impulsive drive to eat, especially when glucose levels drop below normal,” commented Kathleen Page, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Southern California and one of the lead authors of the paper.

And then there’s this

The research shows that the changes that occur after weight loss translate to a huge caloric disadvantage of about 250 to 400 calories. For instance, one woman who entered the Columbia studies at 230 pounds was eating about 3,000 calories to maintain that weight. Once she dropped to 190 pounds, losing 17 percent of her body weight, metabolic studies determined that she needed about 2,300 daily calories to maintain the new lower weight. That may sound like plenty, but the typical 30-year-old 190-pound woman can consume about 2,600 calories to maintain her weight — 300 more calories than the woman who dieted to get there.

Scientists are still learning why a weight-reduced body behaves so differently from a similar-size body that has not dieted. Muscle biopsies taken before, during and after weight loss show that once a person drops weight, their muscle fibers undergo a transformation, making them more like highly efficient “slow twitch” muscle fibers. A result is that after losing weight, your muscles burn 20 to 25 percent fewer calories during everyday activity and moderate aerobic exercise than those of a person who is naturally at the same weight. That means a dieter who thinks she is burning 200 calories during a brisk half-hour walk is probably using closer to 150 to 160 calories.

Another way that the body seems to fight weight loss is by altering the way the brain responds to food. Rosenbaum and his colleague Joy Hirsch, a neuroscientist also at Columbia, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to track the brain patterns of people before and after weight loss while they looked at objects like grapes, Gummi Bears, chocolate, broccoli, cellphones and yo-yos. After weight loss, when the dieter looked at food, the scans showed a bigger response in the parts of the brain associated with reward and a lower response in the areas associated with control. This suggests that the body, in order to get back to its pre-diet weight, induces cravings by making the person feel more excited about food and giving him or her less willpower to resist a high-calorie treat.
**
“After you’ve lost weight, your brain has a greater emotional response to food,” Rosenbaum says. “You want it more, but the areas of the brain involved in restraint are less active.” **Combine that with a body that is now burning fewer calories than expected, he says, “and you’ve created the perfect storm for weight regain” How long this state lasts isn’t known, but preliminary research at Columbia suggests that for as many as six years after weight loss, the body continues to defend the old, higher weight by burning off far fewer calories than would be expected. The problem could persist indefinitely. (The same phenomenon occurs when a thin person tries to drop about 10 percent of his or her body weight — the body defends the higher weight.) This doesn’t mean it’s impossible to lose weight and keep it off; it just means it’s really, really difficult.

@SenorBeef

If for some reason anyone thinks I’m incapable of starting that process after I’ve lost all that weight, if I don’t have the willpower to live the lifestyle when I’m healthy and it’s relatively easy, then how am I going to do it now, when I’m overweight, out of shape, and it’s much harder? Conversely, maybe I’ll flame out, maybe I’ll be unable to maintain a healthy lifestyle once I hit a good weight, but if that’s true, then there’s no way I would’ve stuck with it all the way from 340 pounds all the way down. I’d have quit somewhere along the way.

I hope that rather than switch to some version of calorie restriction without regard for the components of your food, you will transition to a modified version of the low-carb that works for you. Think about why it works for you and why the other methods don’t…fat or thin, trying to contented and effectively eat the way naturally lean people do is probably not going to work for you in the long run. But adding in more vegetables and fruit while still eschewing sugar and flour and simple starches is much more likely to be sustainable both in terms of comfort and weight, don’t you think?

@SenorBeef

Half of this thread has been people telling me that I’m doing it wrong, that I should be doing it the “right” way, that I should be constantly hungry and miserable and maybe after 5 or 10 years I’ll have gotten somewhere. But what I’m doing now is not unhealthy - all markers of my health have improved except cholesterol, but that has a specific cause in that I stopped taking medication that was controlling it before. I’m losing weight, I’m building muscle mass, I’m improving across the board.

And that’s what you should look at for whether you doing the “right” thing.

@SenorBeef

As such, I don’t understand why people keep trying to sabotage me by insisting that I deviate from my current course. I know that’s not their intent, but I don’t know how I can make it any clearer.

Simple…it’s the thing the SD exists to fight…

[PurpleClogs]

I think it’s super that you found a method of eating that works and you feel good on. I too am doing the low carb thing for the 2nd time around. Lost 45 lbs years ago. Now have lost 23 so far in 3 months. It’s slower going this time but I’m determined. I have an unrelated chronic condition for which I’m on lots of medications for and I suspect one or more are interfering with rate of loss.

I too don’t like cooking and tend to eat the same few things repeatedly. I do make lots of chilli, no thickeners. Pretty much just spicy meat with cheese and sour cream. And you’re right about cheating… It’s just not worth the setback! I’m glad to see more low carb & Splenda products being sold in the stores now. That’s a tremendous help!

Fat folks trying to lose get a lot of advice. And one thing I’ve learned is not everyone’s body reacts the same way to carbs, glucose, insulin. There are those of us who have to restrict carbs to lose. There is a huge difference in the quality and rate of success on other plans. Do your own thing and ask naysayers to research the Atkins myths or agree to disagree. Even one of my docs told me “cutting out an entire food group is dangerous”. I just nodded and changed the subject.

Best of luck!

[filmore]

Would you workout more if you had a partner? My gym has a bulletin board where sometimes I see people looking for someone to workout with. Also, checkout the Strictly Platonic section of your craigslist personals. There are often people looking for workout partners.

[SenorBeef]

@PurpleClogs

II too don’t like cooking and tend to eat the same few things repeatedly. I do make lots of chilli, no thickeners.

Chili is actually a really good idea - plenty of ways to make low carb chili. Do you have a low-effort recipe that you like?

Would you workout more if you had a partner? My gym has a bulletin board where sometimes I see people looking for someone to workout with. Also, checkout the Strictly Platonic section of your craigslist personals. There are often people looking for workout partners.

I’ve thought about it as a way to keep myself from slipping, but I don’t know. I like the freedom to do it at odd hours (I usually go to the pool between like 10pm-2am and get it to myself for example). If I get in shape enough that I’m using freeweights and stuff regularly, and I can maintain a consistent schedule, maybe. Not really sure if the social pressure would hurt or help though, just never tried it.

Incidentally, I just discovered today that there’s a term for the workout I did most often - or close enough - circuit training. I didn’t know it was a thing. I just sort of invented it as I went along, trying to increase workload and heart rate while not slowing down, but while giving particular body parts time to recover. I guess “circuit training” varies by technique, but I always did the mix of strength and cardio. Usually set of 8-10 reps of an upper body exercise at around 80% max, same for lower, hop on a treadmill and jog for 3-5 minutes, hop off, another set of upper and lower, hop on the stairmaster, next set of upper and lower on the next muscle group, hop on the bike, etc.

My current gym isn’t particularly set up for this (apparently some gyms are), and I don’t think I could do that sort of thing again until I hit a greater fitness level, or I might just drop dead. But I’ll probably resume that in maybe 2 months if I can keep making good gains in fitness.
Incidentally, some articles I’m reading about it say you should target 60% of your max heartrate while doing this, which seems crazy low to me. The whole point of that sort of thing is to keep your heart rate high, going near max exertion. When I’m excercising I’m almost always targeting the 150-165 heart rate range, which is probably 80-90% of max for me. Is there something wrong with that?

[DSeid]

1. This pressure cooker/crock pot is your easy cooking friend.

One quick easy chili recipe using it, or any other pressure cooker. Add some canned pumpkin puree (not sweetened for pie filling) for some fun and some unsweetened cocoa is also a great twist.

Pork carnitas couldn’t be easier. Cut up a red onion and let it soak in some lime juice while it cooks to eat with it and maybe an avocado, some lettuce (preferably dark leafy kind rather than iceberg) and some tomato wedges and roll up in your low carb tortillas.

Both of these are even better after being in the fridge a few days.

Lots of fast easy lazy sack healthy recipes out there man, many that can be made quick in a batch, frozen into single serving bags and nuked when desired.

2. Heart rate. 60 to 80, maybe 85% of max is the usual range recommended. Once a good fitness base is established higher intensity interval training with some brief rest period between intervals is someting that many find good results with. The higher the intensity the briefer the intervals. Your age would typically have a max HR of around 185 to 190 so 150 is near the top for sustained activity. Another simpler approach is the talk test. Moderate level activity should aim to have you able to talk but not sing. Vigorous activity has you able to get a few words out before you have to catch a breath. Being overbalanced to vigorous activity before establishing a solid fitness base is a set up for injury and probably contributes to feeling like shit afterwards.

[XanderCrews]

Is it true that nothing tastes as good as being thin feels?

[pohjonen]

@XanderCrews

Is it true that nothing tastes as good as being thin feels?

Obviously, no.

[SenorBeef]

@XanderCrews

Is it true that nothing tastes as good as being thin feels?

This isn’t a meaningful dichotomy to me so I don’t really know how to answer the question. I was never fat because I really love food. I suspect that’s true for most fat people. Occasionally I’ll eat for pleasure, but for the most part I just want to do whatever is easiest and quickest to take care of that need. It’s an itch to be scratched, not a process to be enjoyed.

I know people want to look at being fat as a character flaw, as a personal failure, similar to people who drink too much or engage in other types of excess pleasure behaviors. I used to accept to that view, but not really anymore. I think the majority of people apply no special effort to being either fat or thin. They get hungry, they eat. There’s some natural variation to people physiologically that cause them to be hungry more or less often. Edit: I’m sure there are also factors that cause them to eat more or less at a time. Social factors (the perception of normality), availability of different kinds of food (it’s really difficult in the US to avoid food absolutely loaded with empty calories if you aren’t willing to cook for yourself), etc.

If I’m low carbing and not existing myself, I barely eat. Is it because I’ve somehow lost the character flaw that all fatties have where I just can’t resist diving face first into food? No, it’s just that without blood sugar spiking or crashing I don’t get hungry except when my body actually needs the food. Sometimes I have to force myself to eat more because it seems like I’m not eating enough.

If I could somehow magically be freed from needing to eat ever again and that gave me a healthy weight with no effort, sure, I’d take it easily, even though it meant that I’d never be able to eat for pleasure ever again. Because eating for pleasure isn’t a big part of my life at all.

On the other hand, unless you’re so out of shape that you’re suffering other health problems or an inability to do what you want, being healthy and thin isn’t all that great anyway. I mean, sure, it’s preferable to anything else, but it doesn’t seem worthy of really special effort.

[filmore]

In the name of science, would you be willing to try a variety of classes at your gym to evaluate how appropriate they would be for someone with extra weight? Like take a spin class, a yoga class, a Zumba class, etc and see which ones are more or less doable.

There are often people in our lives or on this board who want to start working out, but their size poses some unique challenges. I’ve never been really overweight, so I’m just guessing as to what to recommend. Like, I might recommend a spin class since it’s non-impact. But I don’t really know if that’s a comfortable way for the overweight person to workout.

I think you could offer a valuable perspective. You have worked out at very high levels and would be able to intelligently evaluate the effectiveness of the various classes.

[SenorBeef]

That actually sounds like a good idea in theory, something I could contribute knowledge-wise, and I’ll consider it on that basis, but I really don’t like group settings, nor adhering to a strict schedule. “Spin” is just a group exercise bike setting, right? That’s one of the easier things for a fat person to do, yeah. Basically anything that reduces impact on joints. Since most of your weight sits on the bike seat and not your knees and feet, it feels less unpleasant than something like walking/jogging/stairclimbing/etc.

Incidentally, it seems like I’ve actually put on a pound or two during the last 3 weeks where I’ve been exercising a lot. I don’t think it’s representative of any fat gain though. I’m hoping it’s because when you dramatically ramp up physical activity your muscles store more water, especially if you’ve been sedentary before that. Dunno. Don’t really care about weight that much, and I feel fitter, which is important. It does impact my 35 pounds by June plans though.

I also wonder when I should start going to the pool every day. I’ve been doing it every other day under the idea that I’m so out of shape that swimming is more a muscle building exercise for me now than a cardiovascular one. And when you’re trying to build muscle, it’s best to have a rest day or you’ll overtrain and reduce your gains and increase the risk of injury. Which leaves me 2 options - keep pushing the amount of work I do so it still seems like I’m pushing my muscles, or start going every day. Not sure when/if I should make that transition.

[treis]

@SenorBeef

I think the majority of people apply no special effort to being either fat or thin.

That’s ridiculous. The people I know that are in good shape think about what they eat and exercise at least semi-regularly. I’ve been fat and I’ve been in shape. Which of those I am is directly related to the effort I put into making good food choices and getting my ass to the gym. Being thin is no different than being good at anything. There are some outliers that are good due to inherent ability, but the vast majority are that way because they put effort into whatever they do.

Aren’t you the exact same way? When you put effort into your diet and exercise, you lose weight. When you don’t, you gain.

[SenorBeef]

@treis

That’s ridiculous.

Is it now? Is it ridiculous? Put a number on it. What percentage of people don’t actively go out of their way to manage their weight? If you say 35%, and I say 51%, is my position truly “ridiculous”?

Give me a break.

The people I know that are in good shape think about what they eat and exercise at least semi-regularly.

Who cares? Does this actually even contradict my point? People who actively and willfully manage their diet to be fit are a subset of people who are fit, and people who are fit are a subset of the total population. Unless you feel that people who actively manage their diet to be fit are the majority of people, this doesn’t even contradict what I say.

I’ve been fat and I’ve been in shape. Which of those I am is directly related to the effort I put into making good food choices and getting my ass to the gym.

No shit? People who make good food choices and exercise are more fit than people who don’t? Well how wrong I must’ve been when I totally said this was false.

Being thin is no different than being good at anything. There are some outliers that are good due to inherent ability, but the vast majority are that way because they put effort into whatever they do.

I have no hard data on this, but I think most people who aren’t thin aren’t going to the gym, aren’t making special efforts on their diet - their normal lifestyle just leaves them that way. If I had the sort of level of hunger I have when I’m on low carb instead of that which I have when I’m on high carb, I’d never have been fat in the first place. It’s not because I somehow become a better person with fewer character flaws, it’s simply that I’d respond differently from a changing set of incentives. I wouldn’t be hungry all the fucking time.

Aren’t you the exact same way? When you put effort into your diet and exercise, you lose weight. When you don’t, you gain.

Yes, this again does not contradict my point. When I make no special effort, my natural tendency is to be fat. That’s not true for everyone.

Also, I know it was a year ago when this thread started, but I have asked you kindly, and then forcefully, but please get the fuck out of my thread. You wore out your welcome here when the first half of page 1 was your personal mission to shit all over it.

[DSeid]

And the polls say!

Of the respondents whose BMI falls within the normal weight range, 32% report exercising on five days or more in the last seven, compared to 28% of those who are overweight and 20% of those who are obese.

IOW 68% of those with “normal” BMI do not exercise even three days a week, which seems a bare minimum to qualify as making an effort. Okay, I readily acknowledge that “normal” BMI is a poor proxy for being in “good shape” but the claim was not fit and healthy but fat or thin.

[SenorBeef]

I suspect the people who report being very active are inflated somewhat, people like to exaggerate how much exercise they’re doing.

That’s not the whole picture - I was actually mostly focused on diet - and I was saying that I don’t think most people specifically set up their eating habits deliberately enough to willfully control their diet substantially. Some people eat less, some more, in response to varying degrees of hunger. How much you eat and how much you consider to be normal is also a factor. But even then, those are generally sub-deliberate decisions.

[PurpleClogs]

I don’t really have a recipe that I follow. I just spice on the fly! so these are estimated measurements.
Brown ground beef. I normally do 2 lbs at a time so it lasts for several meals.
Drain off grease.
Add garlic powder 1T, chopped onion 2T (I use dried just for some flavor), cumin 1T (use more and it tastes more like taco meat, which is also good), cheyenne 1/2T (more for spicy), lots of chilli powder 3T , and 1T paprika if you want the red color.
Optional, add 1/3 small can tomato paste
Add couple splashes of water
Simmer 10 mins or so on low. Makes chilli meat, no flour to thicken water for true chilli.
Serve with cheddar cheese and sour cream. If you mix with American cheese it’s creamy chilli cheese dip. Just pretend you have the tortilla chips and eat with a spoon. Rich!
Oh, black olives and avocado are good too.
I can whip this out in 20 mins. Easy!

@SenorBeef

If I’m low carbing and not existing myself, I barely eat. Is it because I’ve somehow lost the character flaw that all fatties have where I just can’t resist diving face first into food? No, it’s just that without blood sugar spiking or crashing I don’t get hungry except when my body actually needs the food. Sometimes I have to force myself to eat more because it seems like I’m not eating enough.
.

I’m the same way! I usually eat only because I can’t take my meds on an empty stomach. Last night I had 3 radishes and a piece of cheese? I did bake some chicken this afternoon so I’ll probably have that tonight but it’s already 11pm and I’m just not hungry.

[SenorBeef]

So I’ve been giving more thought to the long term, as people have been encouraging me to do.

I don’t know what my ultimate goal will be yet. I’m in a phase where, seemingly randomly, something flipped in my brain that makes exercise reasonably pleasant. I don’t often feel that way, so this is sort of an abnormality. It feels that if I were able to maintain my current attitude and outlook about it, I could keep a decent workout plan indefinitely. But I have no idea what caused the current feelings, and it may vanish as quickly as it came on, in which case exercise would become grueling and unpleasant again. So I don’t know. I suspect that if I can meet my goal of 264 by June, I’ll be feeling good enough to extend it. Probably at least 20 pounds, which would leave me at 100 lost, which is a nice number. But I can feel good to keep building on my fitness, maybe I’ll keep it up until I get into the low 200s.

But then what? I think controlling it through maintaining muscle mass and exercise is probably the most practical way to go about it. If I can build more lean muscle mass, then my calorie intake and expenditures won’t have to be watched as closely, and it won’t be as much of a chore to figure out a diet. Plus it’s the best way to still feel fit.

As for diet, what are my options? Continue low carbing but switch to a maintenance diet. Add carbs in until I find that it makes me feel bad/gain weight/whatever, maybe upping carbs until they’re perhaps 30% of my diet. That certainly wouldn’t be ketogenic or anything like what I’m doing now, but it may keep my blood sugar in check enough that I have more flexibility in what I eat and can increase the variety but still won’t develop hunger patterns again that will lead to eating too much.

Some sort of calorie counting diet. This isn’t terribly appealing to me. I don’t want to be hungry on a daily basis, it’s just uncomfortable. Now people will say you don’t have to be hungry if you eat right, and maybe that’s true, but I’m lazy when it comes to making food - I’d rather transition back to a lifestyle where I didn’t have to put that much effort into every meal. Which makes me wonder if it would be better to just eat however I wanted - as crappily as I normally did - and just try to eat less where I can. Combined with increased muscle mass and regular exercise, maybe I could maintain a fitness level that way. That seems like it might ultimately be the most practical compromise.

Some sort of alternating system. Do low carb for 2 months, then eat however I feel for 2 months - or whatever time ratio works out. I’d be perpetually gaining and relosing 10-15 pounds. I wonder about the health effects of the constant transitioning. But it may be practical in a sense - I’d have long periods where I wouldn’t have to worry about my diet. The transition phase is kind of blah, though - for about 3 days switching between it feels pretty crappy. Does anyone have any insight into the health effects of what a plan like that might be?

[voltaire]

@SenorBeef

Does anyone have any insight into the health effects of what a plan like that might be?

Mainly, it doesn’t have to be a dichotomy between no/low carbs and any/all carbs at will. There’s a huge middle ground there where you could gradually reintroduce healthy, fiber-bearing, complex carbs and continue to zealously avoid simple, refined, high-glycemic index carbs.

And FWIW, I’m not one of those people who completely dismisses low-carbing who’s just trying to talk you out of that approach. I actually eat very low-carbs myself, though I’ve never felt the need to (temporarily) completely eliminate them, Atkins-style. For me, it was more about listening to my body’s feedback and learning to eat in a way that made it feel and function better - and that turned out to be that my body feels and runs like shit when I’ve been eating refined carbs, and much better when replacing those calories with fats.