Well, I hope whatever you took from the book helps you.
You’ve only read a portion of the book, right?
I’m about halfway through. Why, you think it’s suddenly going to change in the middle and say: “Haha! Just kidding! Eat fewer calories and exercise more! Just messing with your head to see if you’d fall for it!”
When I started working with a trainer and nutritionist and we went over what I was eating, he agreed that I was doing most things right. But the one thing he emphasized, and emphasized big time, were sugars. And I’m not talking about sweets, because I eat no candy, cakes, cookies, ice cream – nothing. I had already switched all my carbs to whole grain and limited the frequency with which I ate them (whole wheat pasta maybe once every week and a half, no white potatoes (replaced with orange yams), no white rice, etc.).
But I was getting sugars in places I wasn’t looking for sugars, like milk, juice and ketchup. He replaced my morning cereal and milk with yogurt with protein powder and fruit. He said “don’t have a glass of orange or apple juice, have the actual apple or orange. You get far less sugar and all the fiber and vitamins.” I thought having homemade salad dressing of fat-free mayo with ketchup and relish was good. Except that the ketchup and relish are full of sugar! So from then on it’s been good Extra Virgin Olive Oil and vinegar or lemon juice. Occasionally I mix something like mustard in to emulsify it so it’s thicker, but nothing with sugar in it anymore. He also had me add organic coconut oil (in moderation!) to my diet, because it is a medium chain triglyceride fat that is absorbed by the liver and metabolized in a way that provides greater energy. So I took out the sugar and added more fat and lost 15 pounds. Who knew!
And as I said in my previous post, I was eating, not calorie counting. Eating a lot. And never hungry. But just cutting out “hidden” sugars and adding 2 snacks a day (one protein and one fruit) kept me from overeating at mealtime, kept my metabolism more stable and kept my blood sugars in balance.
Don’t forget to look into taking Chromium Polynicotinate.
I think the Steorn guys want to hire you.
Basically, you have heard what you wanted to hear, and now you are happy. Fair enough.
You’ve been overweight for the better part of 50 years, and you’re complaining that you haven’t seen results after just a few weeks?
And you think pre-diet your average calorie intake was 2,200? If you just stayed in bed all day, you’d still burn 1,800 calories or so. I doubt you’d get to over 300 pounds eating just 2,200 calories a day; that just doesn’t compute. I suspect you’re seriously under-estimating how much you were eating.
A calorie deficit of 250 calories a day plus 250 calories worth of extra exercise, and you should, on average lose a pound a week. Easy peachy.
But it’s going to take weeks, if not months, before you see real, sustainable results, and given your history I assume you’re fully expecting to stay on some sort of weight management plan for the rest of your life. So why the rush? Eat less, exercise more, and you will lose weight. Be confident that you’re doing the right thing. Stay the course, and don’t get too bogged down in the immediate day-to-day numbers.
One thing I don’t quite understand - you said that due to ‘various changes in your life’, you lost 70 pounds - from 340 to 270, in your late 40s. Clearly, you’re able to lose weight, since you did it once already. What changes did you make, and why don’t you just replicate those changes?
Stoid, your book sounds an awful lot like a book I read about 8 years ago (the title of which is escaping me), essentially, it recommended a low/zero carb type diet, plus supplements, Omega Fatty Acids, plus a cleansing tea. The goal was to give your body the stuff it may be missing, and get it into ketosis
It worked well enough but I couldn’t stick with it…getting into ketosis is an effective way to burn it off, but MAN to you miss carbs after awhile.
The problem is that it’s not a simple problem, but folks want to simplify it…and there’s money to be made in selling solutions.
Just keep doing stuff and you’ll eventually find something that works for you, I suspect in the book you’re reading that one of the X things you’re doing will actually be the source of your weight loss…whether that ends up being a low carb diet, a vitamin deficiency, or some other aspect that curbs your hunger (heck, could be psycosomatic) but if it works for ya, it works for ya.
Stoid, how are things going? Have you seen any quantifiable changes yet (clothes smaller, scale lower, knee feeling better)?
I have a really lowbrow suggestion to try. It isn’t about changing what you are doing per se or about what is the right way to diet but it is a motivator. I thought this was pretty stupid when I tried it but it did help me.
Take two jars. Every day when you do something positive for your health, add a white marble (stone, whatever) to one jar. If you do something unhelathy, add a black one to the other jar.
You can decide what the healthy and unhealthy things are (for me, the healthy was exercising, eating within my calorie limits and drinking my water and unhealthy was bingeing out on something).
After a while, there will be a large stack of white marbles in one jar and just a few black ones in the other.
I know it doesn’t help you to decide what you should be doing but it might keep motivated to stay on a healthy track.
You’re exactly right. Because what I wanted to hear was the truth. That’s what I always want to hear, that’s how I ended up at the Straight Dope. Of course I always hope that the truth and my desires coincide, but if they don’t, I still choose truth, because that’s what serves me. The truth prevents wasted time and effort.
For anyone else who wants the truth, read the book. It’s not a diet book. It’s an investigation by a science journalist into *what science knows. * In other words, facts. Truth. Reality. And for many of you, you will be stunned. You might even be angry, because you will learn how much truth you have been denied because other people didn’t like not only what they heard, but what they tested, research, and proved - so they denied it and told us all lies.
I’m sure anyone interested in this subject at all questions why an explosion of obesity has exactly coincided with the “widely accepted” “knowledge” that fat is evil and grain is good? Why is it that ever since we were told that calorie counting and exercise would solve our fat problems and signed up for exercise and the food pyramid, we’ve gotten fatter than ever before, both individually and collectively? Developed virtually epidemic diabetes?
Well, read this book and you’ll find out. That we’ve been lied to because the people who tell us this stuff either ignored what they knew was true because they proved it, or actually didn’t know what they were talking about to begin with.
You’ll learn that the science behind fat isn’t actually controversial in and of itself, it’s pretty straightforward. You’ll learn that even people who want really badly to prove that their belief system in a plant-based lifestyle is the healthiest have occasionally been forced to publicly admit they were completely, utterly, thoroughly wrong. (That’s more than an hour long. It’s mentioned in the book thusly: "When he (a lifelong vegetarian) described the triumph of the very low carbohydrate meat-rich diet, he called it “a bitter pill to swallow.”- Watch it, excellent information.)
I almost hesitate to share the following, because it runs so contrary to what we think makes sense, to what we think should be right, and most importantly what we THINK we know, it might make you instantly reject the book. But trust me, the beauty , the thrill of this book is how incredibly well-researched it is and how much perfect sense it makes. It leaves no stone unturned, it explains every little thing in terms of the real biologically proven facts.
Including: (this blows my mind, but it’s thoroughly explained) if you replace the carbohydrates in your diet with an equal quantity of lard, you will actually reduce your risk of heart attack.
That’s all about LDL (the bad cholesterol) and HDL (the good cholesterol). You see, carbohydrate rich diets (including “good” carbs) lower HDL cholesterol. The good kind. And do so with such consistency that researchers consider low HDL a “biomarker” for a carb-heavy diet. Fancy that.
There’s lots and lots and lots more. But it boils down to this: carbs make us fat, as well as creating or worsening all the diseases we associate with obesity: heart disease, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc.
And the reason this is a relief is because I knew (and I proved) that simply watching calories was bullshit, unless by “watching calories” you mean “spending a lifetime in semi-starvation”, which is what it requires. Learning that the scientifically legitimate way to control my weight does not demand extreme hunger and deprivation is definitely a relief.
BUT… that doesn’t mean the solution is easy. Far from it. Yes, I love meat. I love fat. But not exclusively. As I’ve said several times and so have others: it’s very difficult to give up carbs or even to enjoy the meat and fat without the carb accompaniments - I generally like most meats best when I can eat them in concert with bread or rice or pasta. All by themselves they are far less enticing.
I also love sweets and fruit and juice. I might be able to pull off the fruit, I hope so, but I will have to be careful.
I love all kinds of food. Restricting myself as severely as I must to lose weight will not be at all easy. But I know it will be easier than starving, and it will definitely be easier since I now know it’s actually healthier for me, since health is my biggest issue at this point and at this age. I’m hoping I will be successful with a less severe restriction and that I will be able to indulge sometimes without triggering an addiction reaction I will find hard to control.
So if you want to know the science, the facts, the truth, read the book. It is bursting with incredibly fascinating information that explains everything.
But if you want to continue to think you “know” without actually testing that knowledge, makes no difference to me. (Although I do strongly urge my fellow sufferers to read the book before you continue to beat yourself up about your weight or keep trying harder by starving and exercising more. You’ll just be torturing yourself unnecessarily.)
And if you want the Straight Dope on fat “straight up”, read the book that preceded it, “Good Calories, Bad Calories” which was evidently a heavier slog for the average bear because it was far more densely packed with details about the science.
Oh, and yes, I’ve gone on low carb diets many times. But like everyone else, I was skeptical even when it worked about the science and whether it was healthy or not. It is definitely counterintuitive and counter to what we’ve been told. But again, that’s why this is such a great book… it explains it all, so now I can go low-carb with peace of mind about what I’m doing and a far more in-depth comprehension of exactly how it works, so I can figure out how it will work best for me and what my body is actually doing.
Really? Come on, now, that is not the nature of true scientific inquiry. The nature of true scientific inquiry is to accept that there is all kinds of evidence for and against a lot of things, and people draw different conclusions based on weighing that evidence. But, they might not have all the evidence at hand - and if you’re not a nutrition scientist or expert, how do you truly know what research this book may or may not be overlooking or ignoring? You don’t - which is why the true nature of scientific inquiry is to adapt and incorporate new information - not call ‘‘bullshit’’ on the old information on the basis of a single book.
I was just diagnosed with insulin resistance and high cholesterol two weeks ago, and I’ve been steadily losing weight and exercising for over three months. I was already eating a fairly low amount of carbs and I was still diagnosed IR… I haven’t had refined carbs on a regular basis since like, 2008. I’ve been losing weight at an astonishing half pound per week, with periods of up to one month of not losing anything. Yes, it’s hard. There is no magic bullet. I will tell you that I bought about 4 books premised on the argument you’re reading right now, and I will admit it has changed the way I think about carbs… but never at any point did I reject the body of research that came before it… I balanced it with what I already knew.
I will also note that since changing my diet to lo-carb or whatever it’s supposed to be now that I have to eat low-glycemic, I lost two pounds in one week. And I feel like absolute shit. I’m not physically capable of eating enough on a high-protein diet in order to sustain my high-intensity exercise regimen. I’m in bad shape, been to the doctor three times in the last month and all sorts of blood tests. I’m basically non-functional right now despite doing everything ‘‘right’’ … so you never know when your body is just going to throw you a curveball, science be damned.
Except…for the umpteenth time: the book is all about “the body of research” and what “the body of research” says, and has always said, is that carbs make us fat, not excess calories. Along with a lot more detailed stuff about how the body regulates fat and uses food, etc. That’s exactly the point of the book and what I’ve been saying repeatedly: this isn’t new. We do not and **have never **“known” what we assume we know about low fat/restricted calorie/high carb eating. The science isn’t there. It never was.
Everything we’ve been hearing, repeating, assuming…all bull. All assumptions. All extrapolations from weak data. And frankly, mostly embraced because it coincides with the “fat people are slothful gluttons” belief system. (A big part of what the book explains is the biological processes that drive fat people to eat more or move less or both, and conversely, lean people to move more and eat less.) And all pretty new…mostly the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s. Prior to that, it was understood in many ways, ranging from simply intuiting it to research showing it, that carbs made you fat. Going back decades, even centuries. And the things that changed that had nothing to do with science.
Actually, I suggest you read this book with special attention paid to what it says about exercise, you might find your answer there.
Some people seem to need to careen from one thing to the next like a pinball. The new is the best thing ever. The old is absolute rubbish, until the next new thing. And some people take very little convincing to reject the old because it doesn’t suit them.
Scientific? No. Pretty common in humanity? Yeppers.
Well, don’t leave me hanging. What does it say?
Well, I hope the truth works out for you. Me? Im not much for easy answers, so Ill pass on the book (wonderful though it may be) and stick with going to the gym every few days and trying to eat less rubbish. (crazy I know)
Hey, if it works and you are sticking with it, that’s all that counts.
But please…it’s not an easy answer in any respect. It’s just a real answer. Part of the truth is that it’s pretty much impossible to reverse obesity without doing something uncomfortable and doing it consistently.
Thank goodness the information in this book isn’t something remotely new, and is more scientifically proven than the “new” information that crowded it out.
A lot of things, not easily summed up. Remember this book is a simplified version of a more science-y book. You should read it. You should ESPECIALLY read it because you are living low carb after being diagnosed with insulin resistance! You are someone who absolutely needs to get a full understanding of what’s going on in your body, and exactly how the nutrients are being used and moved around your system in response to your eating and activity. Seriously. And especially because you are not finding yourself feeling very good.
This book does not tell you how to eat. It gives you a very solid grounding in how your body functions, how it stores and uses calories, fat, protein, carbs. With that knowledge, you can design what works best for you. Maybe the plan you were given isn’t the ideal one for you, and understanding the way things work in your body will help you make some adjustments to your eating or activity that will help it work better.
But a quick quote from the book (that you really need to read the book to understand):
Were you aware of the information? If not, it’s “new” to you.
Thanks for your response. I may very well read the book because I’m getting kinda desperate at this point. I have been really sick and nobody knows why. I already know that exercise isn’t really for weight loss (though it seems to play a role in weight maintenance), I mostly exercise to manage a very persistent depression and it only seems to help if I do it almost daily at a high-intensity. Also, I just like it.