Evidently I have lost 17 pounds since November 24, which doesn’t sound like a lot (and has gone up and down quite a bit) and isn’t immediately obvious to look at IMHO but my clothes fit better, I can wear things I couldn’t wear before, and I can zip up the wedding dress that was going to have to be altered to a corset back!
And seriously, it wasn’t even hard. I keep cheating like a motherfuck every so often with my dear friend Beer and I still keep losing! Honestly, I think most of it is keeping myself from foraging at the candy table at work. Obviously I was picking up a hell of a lot of calories there that I wasn’t even aware of. Hot diggity.
Losing weight is not a mystery, although I’ve never had a weight problem myself.
Carbs, especially refined carbs like sugar, are the culprit. The total calories don’t matter that much, it’s the TYPE of calories that are important.
Fat is full of nutrition and is good for you. Eating fat doesn’t make you fat, carbs do. The body metabolizes carb calories by storing them (as fat) but not so with fat calories – they are burned. Many doctors knew this back in the 1800s, but then government got involved and there went the neighborhood. (doctors knew that it worked, but they probably didn’t know WHY it worked.)
I eat all sorts of supposedly “bad” foods (according to Washington). Plenty of meat with fat, butter, whole milk, cheese, eggs, and almost no carbs other than what is in non-starchy vegetables. The official government food pyramid is upside down. For the past 20-30 years they’ve been pushing “low fat” diets, and son of a gun, obesity is now a huge problem in America.
I’m 5’10" and maintain a comfortable 170-175 pounds.
Yes, of course very little in life is black and white – especially when dealing with the human body. Body chemistry varies, the way people metabolize food varies.
But, in general, consuming very little fat and getting most of one’s calories from carbs signals the body to store the calories as fat instead of burning them. It also causes insulin resistance, leading to diabetes.
A high fat diet satiates one quickly and lasts for hours. In general, pigging out on carbs leaves one hungry a short time later, leading one into a downward spiral of eating yet more carbs, causing more fat storage.
Again, the data doesn’t support this as strongly as you suggest. And a high fat diet isn’t the only alternative to a high carb diet. There is balance; where carbs, fats, and lean protein all work together, and in fact that is the WW plan. It worked for me and it appears to be working for Zsofia.
The 10% goal is an important one. You’re beginning to get into the changes that really make you feel differently. Keep it up!
Fat may keep you satiated, but so does lean protein. I’m a fellow Weight Watcher like Telemark and Zsofia, and I find that a low-fat, mid-carb (but high fiber), high protein diet works best for me. I’m rarely hungry after meals, and when I am, a piece of fruit and a piece of reduced-fat cheese work just fine.
The trick with any reducing diet is to reduce the amount of crap you eat. I eat carbs, but I don’t eat a lot of processed sugar and have cut way down on the bread. Carbs won’t kill me, and they don’t set off any great desire to binge. They’re just part of a good, healthy, well-balanced diet.