You know I don’t blog on a regular basis. I have been on quest for the past few months because 2016 was finally going to be the year that I did something about my weight. A big something about my weight. Why? Because it holds me back on so many levels it is beyond being funny or ironic or nostalgic anymore. It weighs me down. Literally. Physically. Psychologically. And that is no pun intended there.
2/3/16 This is me on my birthday. The angle of the camera is helpful but I look good. For me.
In any case, I just left a really long comment on Colleen Hoover’s blog post where she publicly committed to losing weight and so I decided that I need to come out of the lurkdom I normally keep and say something there as well as here. Read her post (link above) and then my comment below so you know where I am coming from with this blog post. And then, read on.
I have read all the diet books and I’ve tried most of the diets. I have been “overweight” for some time–read “years”. This is who I follow: Dr. Jason Fung. He has his book coming out in mid-March. Here’s the link.
http://www.amazon.com/Obesity-Code-Unlocking-Secrets-Weight/dp/1771641258/
Here is his blog which I think the book will cover all these topics in good detail and what he is getting at. https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/how-do-we-gain-weight-calories-part-1/
This blog post will tee you up to his lectures, which, frankly, is where you should start. It will be overwhelming at first and then you will have a “eureka” moment like I did.
Here is the series of videos where he takes you through everything.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YpllomiDMX0 I watched all six, devoting an entire day and became a convert to his way of thinking.
I bet you are insulin resistant or close to it. Within a few videos | a few hours I think you will be convinced that it is NOT about “calories in and calories out” nor exercise. It is this. Insulin. We have to control insulin and keep it low and prevent it from spiking. For years, all I’ve done is spike my insulin with low-fat skinny lattes and diet soda while my family ate all the fun stuff and people made fun of me for eating a burger without the bun… And yes, it was always half-assed attempts like this and then the swig of a skinny latte or a diet drink that killed my efforts although I didn’t know that.
I’ve been doing intermittent fasting as Dr. Fung encourages for the past three weeks. I’m trying to get my blood pressure down and have it stay there AND lose 80 pounds and weigh 131 pounds again. I’m losing fat (11 pounds so far); and yet, I’m eating fat in my diet while eliminating most carbs and eating in a four to six hour window.
The bad news? Your Diet Pepsi has to go. Sorry. I loved it, too, at one point. The thing is your body treats Diet Pepsi like sugar and it raises your insulin level just like sugars/carbohydrates do and stores this stuff as fat when you are insulin resistant and it doesn’t know what to do with it. Diet Pepsi, low fat foods, sugar and carbohydrates are all probably what is causing you to gain weight or keep weight on. Yeah. It’s true.
Colleen, I have pretty much read every diet book ever written. Seriously, I can send you a photograph of the two bookshelves of diet books I have if you want. Perricone, Summers, Schwarzbein, Adkins, South Beach, etc… Just today I was telling my husband that I feel like I can finally just load up all those books in a box and give them away.
People have shamed me for years saying you eat too much, while I generally skipped the ice cream and cake and had the diet soda drink instead. I tried exercise and took up kick-boxing four years ago and lost weight but not enough. Then, my doctor told me that I needed to do more cross-training beyond the elliptical and kick-boxing and lift weights, too. It was so discouraging; I just stopped everything. No exercise for four years. Everybody tells me to just start with a walk. A walk has seemed like too much. Until recently.
Following an intermittent fasting program has helped me. I actually feel pretty good. Over Christmas, I read a book called The Bulletproof Diet that started me down the intermittent fasting path that led me to Dr. Jason Fung. I stay with the Bulletproof coffee and do the fasting for 18 hours a day most of the time.
There’s something freeing about fasting. You’ll see. All I can tell you is that the intermittent fasting and eating real food is beginning to make a difference for me.
I don’t normally comment or jump in on stuff like this, but I committed to my own fat loss journey and since you are at the beginning of yours I thought I should save you from wasting your time going down a rabbit hole that carries the adage of calories in/calories out, exorbitant amounts of exercise and/or low-fat foods or, God forbid, surgery! DO NOT do that. Dr. Fung talks about that, too. His logic will make so much sense to you. He is curing his patients of Type II Diabetes. Curing them.
Just watch one of his videos. Take an hour for yourself and see if Dr. Fung’s idea of intermittent fasting and keeping your insulin reaches out you like it did me. If you have more questions, please feel free to reach out to me.
Best to you,
Katherine Owen
Okay, whew!! I’ve been verbose the last couple of days. If only I was writing. For real.
I just finished another extraordinary book inadvertently related to fasting titled: Tripping Over the Truth: The Return of the Metabolic Theory of Cancer Illuminates a New and Hopeful Path to a Cure by Travis Christofferson. If you are ready to deal with the truth about cancer and the origins of treatments for the last 100 years and what you should really be doing to avoid cancer or understand why the ones you loved the most died from it. Read this book. It will further convince you of the wonderful benefits of intermittent fasting and teach you that you are in charge of your own health and well-being. Go you!
