I’ve lost 68.3 lbs since August 31st. That’s a lot of weight to lose in less than 5 months. It is impossible to not notice anymore, and every single person I’ve talked to who hasn’t seen me since August of last year has been surprised by my new appearance. My wife receives the same attention.
Here is a photo of us in 2012, and again a week ago.
I’m cynical when it comes to the diet industry, because I honestly don’t think they don’t want you to succeed. I know people who did Weight Watchers 5, 10, and 15 or more years ago, and they are just as fat or fatter than they were before they started. I think they want to keep you on the teat, so to speak, so that they can make more money off of you. What evidence leads me to believe this? Look no further than today’s news where Oprah tweets, “Eat bread. Lose weight. Whaaatttt?” and then she posts hash tag, “#ComeJoinMe http://weightwtch.rs/oprah.”
Guess what. She’s making money off this, and so is weight watchers. On top of that, the advice she’s giving is literally setting people up for failure. If I were to eat bread, I would sabotage all the progress I’ve made so far. Could I lose weight with Weight Watchers? Probably. How about Weight Watchers and bread? I firmly believe that I would not be achieving the great weight loss rate I’m experiencing right now if I were on Weight Watchers and eating bread. There’s no way.
Now, I’m not willing to try the Weight Watchers and bread diet as an experiment. I don’t trust the science there, and I think that Oprah is doing all people struggling with weight and healthy living a huge disservice to pad her already over-stuffed wallet with shitty advice. She’s preying on those who are the most vulnerable: people who are overweight and looking for any way to lose weight. Oprah presents it as an easy way, hence the “Eat Bread. Lose Weight” quote.
Do you really want to help your fans, Oprah? Stop shilling and be honest with them. Carbs are the enemy, and avoiding the subject for personal gain is doing more harm than good and is morally reprehensible. Shame on you!
“When you lose weight, you lose fat cells.” This is not true.
“When you exercise, you burn fat.” Also not true.
These two false statements are in not only advertising you see for all the wonder diet pills, supplements, and exercise videos out there, but have been burned into our brains by an education system that was being fed bullshit from the government that was, in turn, being paid to spew this bullshit by the different food lobbies.
Milk does a body good. Remember that huge campaign in the 80’s? Turns out that milk isn’t so awesome for the body. But the government said it was, so it’s true, right? Well, when you find out that the milk lobby paid for that entire campaign, things start to get muddy a bit. (Source)
So, who can we believe?
I receive a lot of personal messages on Facebook from friends who are inspired by my weight loss and want to know what I am doing. Like I said in my last post, I have an internal and unwritten script that I use, and I go through it with everyone. Some people who have asked me for info have gone on to start their own journey towards being healthy. Others… well, they are still looking for the easy way to lose weight. They are waiting for the magic pill that will just make the weight go away without any effort or suffering at all.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but it’s not going to happen.
(Trigger warning: following the MORE link will display images that may make people struggling with food images have a hard time with sticking to their commitment to eating right. If you are one of those people, please don’t click MORE)
Now that I’ve lost over 65 lbs since August 31st (that’s less than five months for those following at home), I get lots of questions from people. The most common is, “How did you do it?” followed by, “What’s your secret?”
There’s great news! First, I can answer how I did it, and second, there’s no secret!
After dinner, which was a delicious Tex-Mex Paleo Casserole I wrote the previous blog entry about, my wife and I watched some TV shows together, and after she went to sleep, I went to play some computer games and catch up on some reading. For some reason, my mind kept wandering to eating, something that hasn’t happened to me in a long time. Months.
What happened? What is causing this? Turns out, it’s a quite simple answer:
There is a point at which cutting calories will work against weight loss because consuming too few calories (or too few meals) leads to increased appetite and low satiety as your body prevents starvation. (Source)
Sherry made this Paleo Tex-Mex Casserole that is also Whole30 compliant last nigh for dinner. She was hesitant at first because the ingredients list were a bit strange to her considering what the end result was to be, but I’m so glad she persisted! It turned out to be absolutely delicious! The different vegetable flavors complimented each other and the overall combination worked so well together that we both had to go back for a little bit more. Fortunately, there’s not much to it, although it does take a fair amount of work for prep (as does most any food that is made from scratch and is good fro you).
We wondered aloud as we ate our dinner whether this would have been something we liked before we embarked on this latest journey to good health and started eating better. After some discussion, we were of the opinion that since we’ve cut out sugar and most carbs, it has probably reset our taste which makes foods like this far better. However, as someone who regularly enjoyed eating vegetables and different foods, I’m fairly certain that this would have been something I would have enjoyed pre-healthy lifestyle.
I meant to take photos of our dinner, but it was so good, I forgot. Sherry also made me an amazing omelette for breakfast and she made butternut squash soup with sausage in it for lunch. I was completely spoiled today by her and her amazing cooking. Oh, and the best part? It was all healthy!
One of the toughest things about learning to eat well is finding something to eat when you don’t have the time or energy to put together a good meal. One way to prepare for this is to make meals you can freeze or put in the refrigerator for a few days that can be ready in a moment’s notice. My wife and I do this on the weekends so that we can have some snacks or easy lunch/dinner during the week after a particularly rough day.
It’s funny to look at. When people post this, we giggle because we know we’ve been there or done this before. However, this kind of stuff actually makes me sad for people who want to lose weight because it tells me that they recognize that they’re fat and just can’t muster the inner strength to do something about it. Posting stuff like this is a cry for help. It’s a person saying, “Look world, I need help to lose weight. Give me something I can follow!”
Good news. With some minor mind-hacks, you can do something about it and be able to live with your decisions with little pain.
I know a lot of what I say is blunt. I am not being super tactful, nice, or sugar-coating anything. I’m not beating around the bush, or any colorful colloquialism you can find for someone who is talking around the truth. My kids told me when they were young that they thought I was always mad when I was sitting at my desk or working on something. I told them that I’m not mad; that’s my resting face. When I would smile at them, they would tell me that they wished I would smile all the time because my face looked better that way. It was sweet of them, and I remember them sitting me down to tell me this when my daughter was six and my son was four. They were cute.
Paleo Marine 