Month: July 2016

My wife and I had 45 minutes to kill on Sunday morning after we arrived at the Farmer’s Market too early, so we decided to drive around our part of town to find something to do. As I was driving, I realized that all the places I normally would have taken us to prior to us having adopted the Paleo lifestyle were all cafe’s, bakeries, or restaurants. This made me think about how much our culture revolves around food as the center of our social lives.

The reality is that it’s not just the center of the American culture; food is at the center of all cultures. Regardless of which side of the world you are from, food plays a central role in our social gatherings. Whether it’s the big family-style meal of the Italians, the roasted pig in Filipino culture, or the barbecue cookout style of Southern Americans, a common theme is the feast. I love family gatherings, but the temptation of all-day grazing can be very hard to overcome, especially if there are Paleo-friendly offerings. During our Fourth of July party, all the food was Paleo, yet I grazed all day. Each time I grabbed some food, I justified it by telling myself, “This is good for me. I can have just a little bit more.” And then I ate a little bit more. And then a little bit more again. This can be troublesome.

Of course, one day of eating a lot won’t kill you, nor will it derail you, but it will slow your progress, if you’re working toward a weight loss goal. It can also be demoralizing to someone who is trying to eat better. It can make one feel like they were weak and failed in being resolute to eat not just good foods, but the right amounts. All of this is okay; as I’ve said in previous posts, you have to live your life and socialize. From time to time, you have to take part in our culture’s events, and they involve food.

But what about when you want to go out with your spouse, friends, or workmates and just have a little fun? If you ask someone if they’d like to go somewhere to hang out, most of the time it’s assumed that you want to catch lunch, dinner, or drinks. Typically, I can find Paleo options almost anywhere, but it’s not fair of me to expect others to always go somewhere I have options. Some of the most “fun” places people want to go have no Paleo options. This puts some severe limitations on the types of places we can go to socialize or kill time as the overwhelming majority of these places are definitely non-Paleo. Of those that are, they typically offer a subset of food that are Paleo compliant, or are quite expensive. What is the Paleo adherent to do for fun on a Sunday morning?

Aside from the farmer’s markets that are a Paleo toy store, my wife and I have found shopping, or more precisely, window shopping to be a good option. Of course, this can become expensive when you find something you absolutely couldn’t live without. There is also coffee and tea, but as my wife isn’t a big fan of either as a form of relaxation, this isn’t a good option for us. There are museums, historical sites, parks, and other activities that can be taken part of that don’t involve food, but these involve more planning, more distance, and money.

The bottom line is that if you want to do something socially in our culture, it likely will involve food or drink, and most of the available options will be non-Paleo. It will test your resolve, and you will be tempted. From time to time, it’s okay to have some non-Paleo food. It won’t kill you, and it won’t make you lose all the progress you’ve made overnight. Just remember that moderation is key in both the serving sizes of non-Paleo dishes you eat, and in frequency of allowing such non-Paleo eating or drinking occurrences.

Do you have any suggestions for Paleo-friendly activities to help you kill time? Pokemon Go! has been fun, but in the Texas heat, it’s mostly a nighttime activity.

I used to love eating just for the sake of eating. Even if I wasn’t hungry, eating was a way to alleviate boredom, or to get some quick satisfaction. If something was bothering me, eating would make it better. Stress? Solution: eat! If I had some time to kill, a good way to do it was to eat. Now that I only eat three times a day, this has been a weird thing to get used to.

Some people subscribe to the “Eat many meals throughout the day” idea of nutrition. While there were studies that suggested it might be better for people to eat to ensure their metabolism was high as the person ate all day, all subsequent studies have shown that this is not the case. Your metabolism is what it is regardless of whether you eat once or seven times a way. What matters is the total amount of food you eat be equal or less than the amount of energy your body needs through the course of a day.

The reason I mention the “Eat many meals throughout the day” idea is because it would seem that this would be a solution for people like me who used to love eating for the sake of eating. I disagree. I think it would be more akin to putting a bandage on an amputated arm. Changing the behavior is what will allow us to get past using food as entertainment, and changing that behavior means eating at normal, set times.

I do not snack anymore. Ever. I will replace a meal with another meal if necessary, but I do not snack between meals. I refuse to do so because I recognize in myself that it’s a slippery slope. It really is an addiction for me; I love eating. Even when I eat my regular meals, I have to eat slowly to allow the signals from my stomach to make it to my brain so that I can feel full. If I eat too quickly, I find myself still hungry. After I complete a meal, I drink some water to help my stomach feel full. I then set my mind to not eating until the next mealtime.

So far, it’s worked for me. I also attribute my successful weight loss to the fact that I don’t snack and I don’t “cheat,” or as I call it, sabotage my progress. I know people who do have snacks in the afternoon, and if that works for them, then cool. It doesn’t work for me. It’s not an indictment on anyone else who is a snacker; I just can’t do it. It literally derails my mindset and opens the door for more consumption, and I can’t allow that to happen.

A strategy I’ve used to move past the craving to eat because it’s fun (and not because I’m hungry) is to keep busy. Whenever my mind wanders to eating between meals, I find something to occupy my brain. While at work, it’s tackling another project. If I’m at home, I find something to do, whether it’s home maintenance, cleaning something up, or engaging in an activity I enjoy. Either way, as long as I’m actively engaging SOMETHING, it gets my mind off the desire to eat as entertainment, and before I know it, I’m not craving to eat anymore.

I want to point out that this is different from the sugar cravings. When I get one of these eating cravings, it’s based on boredom and not on hunger. My stomach isn’t wanting food; my brain wants the entertainment value from eating. It took a while for me to learn the difference, and by the end of my first Whole30, I was able to recognize when the sugar cravings ended and where the boredom cravings began.

I still enjoy eating. It’s still one of the most pleasurable things for me, but I limit it to mealtimes. I am very strict about it, but it’s what works for me. It’s up to everyone to find what works best for them, but don’t be surprised or complain when your weight loss is slower or stalls if you’re snacking. Another reason I don’t snack at all is because I noticed a correlation between afternoon snacks and my progress slowing during my Whole30. I found I was able to do without a snack after three days. It felt weird the first few days, but after the third day, I was able to get past it and not die.

None of this is easy. That’s why so many people struggle with it. But it is within your grasp, and well within your power to eat to live instead of living to eat. Try to stick to the three meals a day, and power through the afternoon snack craving. After a few days, it gets better. It did for me and many others I know. You can do this.

I remember reading about or hearing about friends or family members who started a new fitness regimen or eating lifestyle and I would nominally consider doing the same but invariably passed. Then, weeks or months later, as these people would start posting or talking about their successes and progress, I would think to myself, “Well, here I am, and the same amount of time has passed for both of us, yet they have improved their life while I’m no better than where I was.” The point was that had I also started something, anything at all, I would have been better off as well.

Today, I was talking to someone who mentioned that they couldn’t believe how much weight I’d lost in so short of a time period. I told them that it didn’t feel like it was so fast to me as I went through it. I didn’t really notice a difference in how I looked until I had lost 80 lbs; that change seemed to me to happen overnight. Before or since, I don’t see much difference nor do I feel much difference. However, the point of it was that they happened to say to me, “Wow. If I’d have started something when you did, I’d probably weigh a lot less than I do now.” Hearing that reminded me of that voice I used to hear in my head every time I came across someone I knew who was in a similar situation as I was health or weight-wise and then they experienced a transformation while I did nothing and stayed the same.

The reasons for eating better are myriad (another favorite word of mine; I like that I had an opportunity to use it here) and can be quite personal. I have mentioned my own reasons, and I received messages from people who said that they were in the same boat. I also received numerous messages from others who told me that their reasons were very different, but in the end, they ended up in the same place I did: lost a bunch of weight and got healthier.

Rock the boat

The easiest thing to do is nothing at all. If you are overweight or suffering from weight-related maladies and you do nothing, you’re going to keep having those problems until one of two things happen: you decide to do something about it, or you die. Our health doesn’t magically improve on its own. Medicine will keep symptoms at bay, but if you’re heavy and unhealthy, you will stay unhealthy as long as you’re heavy.

The more difficult thing to do is to take action. However, there are varying degrees of action you can take, and my experience involved very little in the way of physical work. Of course, it did mean a lot of mental discipline, motivation, and dedication toward a goal, but in my experience, it’s the easier way to go. Coupled with the fact that weight loss is 90% diet and only 10% exercise, it only made sense for me to concentrate on the 90% first.

The best thing to do is to take action through diet, exercise, and a good sleep pattern. Of course, people who are unfit due to being overweight will have a tougher time with the exercise, but believe it or not, just walking when you’re overweight expends a lot of calories. Getting any exercise at your heaviest is better than sitting on the couch. I tried to at least get in 7500 steps a day from 290 lbs to 190 lbs. Now, I do kettle bell swings and try to get in some walking and light jogging when I can.

Find it within yourself

I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect anyone to adopt a strict lifestyle if they’re not ready. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect anyone to make any change at all if they don’t believe in their heart they are ready for it. You have to be ready to commit fully to reaching your goals otherwise you will only waste your time and be disappointed in your lackluster results. If you aren’t ready to go all-in, wait a bit. Make a plan, think about your reasons, and when you are ready to fully commit, do it with all your heart.

Whatever it takes, get there. Find the motivation and dedicate yourself to it. Life is worth living when you’re healthy and able to do anything you can think of. I can’t imagine nor would I accept gaining back the weight I carried before. I don’t ever want to feel that limited ever again in my life.

Both Whole30 and Paleo say you can and should eat fruit. Whole30 says to eat as much fruit as you want because it’s healthy for you. So, I agree with them for the most part, however, much of what you learn on a Whole30 is how your body reacts and responds to different foods. My experience has been that fruits high in sugar slowed or halted any weight loss progress I was making and allowed the sugar cravings to linger longer. It is true that natural sugars are better for you than processed sugars. However, it’s still sugar, and eating them with abandon is still a bad idea.

The largest factor I’ve noticed between my results on my Whole30’s and after adopting the Paleo lifestyle and the results of others is that I eat very little in the way of fruits. It’s not because I don’t like them, but because I’m avoiding all the sugar. Like I said earlier, I’ve noticed a very distinct slowing of weight loss progress or even stopping my progress completely whenever I eat foods that have lots of sugar in them. I am not eating anything with added-sugar, processed sugar, or cane sugar, so it’s not that. Bananas will stop my weight loss for days.

Sweet potatoes has a lot of carbs, yet doesn’t stop my progress. Why is this? I don’t know. Part of the problem is that everyone’s body is different, and while I have heard of people who ate beans the entire time they lost a large amount of weight, I could never do that because my body strips every bit of sugar out of the beans and puts it right into my gut.

What’s good for the goose…

I have tried to hammer this point home on my blog since day one: my results are based on my experience with my body, genetic material, and environment. Your results will vary from mine. My wife, who has a different genetic makeup (but surprisingly similar, it turns out), has experienced many of the exact same successes and challenges I have with the same foods. So, for us at least, if it works for her, it’ll likely work for me and vice-versa. On the flip side, what stalls her weight loss typically stalls mine as well.

So, what about you? Can you eat a bunch of fruit and lose weight and have success on a Whole30 or Paleo diet? Possibly, but that’s because there are so many other factors involved. Like I wrote in this post, the amount of food and the type of food are both factors (along with sleep and physical activity) that will affect your progress toward a weight loss goal. If you eat a lot less meat and more fruit, it may work out for you. Remember, in both Whole30 and Paleo, you don’t count carbs, calories, or anything for that matter. You eat good, whole foods that you make yourself from natural ingredients that don’t include grains or dairy. If you get lots of sleep and get some physical activity, you will be healthier. If you eat in proportion to your activities and get solid rest, you will make progress and likely even lose weight.

But I’m kind of obsessive about losing weight right now, so I monitor many areas and watch my data points for trends so I can adjust the inputs to continue to lose weight. Why?

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

My body at 190 lbs is not the same body I had at 290 lbs. It works more efficiently now, has lower caloric needs, and because there is less damage the body is fighting, even the metabolic processes are working more efficiently. For me to make steady progress, I need to constantly evolve my inputs to ensure I continue to lose weight. This is where a lot of people fail on diets. They figure, “Well, I lost x number of lbs doing y, so if I stop losing weight, more y will make me lose more lbs!” This is flawed logic, but unfortunately, a natural conclusion to come to. If we are driving a car and we press the gas pedal and get to 35 mph but want to go 55 mph, we press on the pedal more. Makes sense to me, too.

Except it doesn’t work that way. That’s not how any of this works. Our bodies are complicated machines that are performing complex chemical reactions every second. These processes make up what we are as living beings: taking in fuel, processing it into energy, using that energy to get more fuel to process into more energy, etc.

Another thing I’ve noticed now that I am at a lower weight is that smaller inputs have a greater impact on my weight. This makes sense to me. When I weight 250 lbs, eating a banana may have only slowed my weight loss. At 190 lbs, it stops it for three days. This tells me if I want to eat bananas and continue to lose weight, I need to maybe have half of one. That is, if I really want bananas, which is rarely true. I love banana bread, and bananas are good and all, but I can’t say I’ve ever been a banana-hoarder. Now strawberries and blueberries are another story. I love those!

The point here is that for Sherry and I, fruit are a part of our diet, but we’ve limited them and eat more in the way of vegetables. On a Paleo diet, you’re supposed to have protein, fats, and carbs. The carbs we eat are supposed to be good carbs from fruits and vegetables. However, fruits are more dense in carbs, and ultimately, too many can throw your balance out of whack. If you’re into Paleo for healthy living and not for weight loss, this will be much less of an issue. I plan on incorporating far more fruits into my diet once I reach my final weight loss goal, but until then, I have to keep them limited to ensure a steady rate of progress.

We have a new Twitter account! Instead of using my personal Twitter, I’m now using my @ThePaleoMarine account. You can follow me by following this link.

Also, our giveaway is in full swing! You can win one of three Paleo Cookbooks just by following on Twitter. If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can open one quickly, easily, and it doesn’t obligate you to anything at all.

Click here to enter the giveaway!

Thanks to all who have already followed me!

In my talks with people who have tried and gave up adopting a healthy lifestyle, they cite lack of motivation as one of the key reasons they were unable to keep it going. People assume that because I’m a Marine, it’s easy for me to set my mind to something and just do it.

That’s true.

Just kidding; it’s not. It was just as hard for me as for anyone else to keep my head in the game and stick with it, work through the hunger pangs, or the pain. The path of least resistance is to just give in to the cravings and eat or to just eat whatever I want at mealtime (or have as many mealtimes as I want!). But that wasn’t acceptable to me. I had set my mind to being successful at weight loss and at adopting a new lifestyle for the rest of my life.

The keys to adopting a healthy lifestyle

I think that was the first key: “Dedicate yourself to it for the long-term.” You have to be all-in psychologically. You have to really want this just like you have really wanted anything else difficult to accomplish in your life. The more you want it, the more you will sacrifice to get it done. Changing your diet will bring about some discomfort and even pain. It’s easier to get past that when you know what’s on the other side. That’s where the next key comes into play.

The second key was to read as much as I could from people who were doing what I wanted to do. For those of you who read Reddit, this subreddit for progress pictures was very inspirational to me and led me to learning more about Paleo and Keto. Seeing all these people doing so well, making such amazing progress really inspired me and kept me motivated. On those days when I felt like I wasn’t seeing or feeling any progress, I’d go to /r/progresspics and look at the pictures. Seeing other people make progress over 3 months, 6 months, a year, etc really helped show me that it was going to take time, but that time and effort were worth it.

A third key was support. I talked about support from a partner or spouse, but it could just as easily be friends, or through social media: forums, subreddits like /r/paleo or /r/whole30, Facebook groups, or a local gym. Any group of people doing the same thing as you is always going to have a different angle on the same process and can help you get through some of your tough spots. Interaction with these people can be key to keeping yourself motivated through the rough patches.

There is no fourth key.

A fifth key is to accept that you’re human and that every now and then, you will have to eat something not in your lifestyle. The main point here is to:

1. Limit the amount
2. Limit the frequency of these non-lifestyle meals
3. Don’t beat yourself up for it afterward

It’s hard enough to be on a new lifestyle while breaking free of the old habits and the stranglehold the bad foods had on you without making things harder on yourself with guilt. I know so many people who have had a day when they went off the rails and they felt so bad about it, they quit the diet or the lifestyle. It happens; just get back up, brush yourself off, and make the next meal a good one. And the one after that. And so on.

We are all motivated in different ways and for different reasons. The trick is to find yours. Some people need someone yelling at them. Others find the quit and calm inner peace to guide them to a goal. Others yet find motivation by reading what others have to say (I love those people!). There are those who are motivated through rewards while others are motivated by deprivation. Whatever your motivation jam is, find it and rock it. Once you identify that, you can do anything.

I know; easier said than done. If it were so easy, we’d have all finished everything we’ve ever set our mind to. But I don’t think that’s true. I think if we never really got motivated to do something, it’s because ultimately, it wasn’t that important to us. Anything truly important I’ve ever wanted to accomplish, I’ve done. I am sure you’re the same way, too. So find it, that reason that you need to get healthy or to lose weight. Is it for your spouse? For your kids? Grandkids? Want to see grandkids? Want to be able to go mountain biking, hiking, skydiving, or just take a walk around the block without pain? Then use that and motivate  yourself with some rewards, or do what I did: set smaller, periodic goals. I had little celebrations with each goal I reached. No, they didn’t involve cupcakes or rum, but they were great motivators to keep me going.

Never underestimate the power of a goal met. It’s contagious, and you will look forward to achieving more of these milestones as you reach them.

Anyone who has embarked upon a journey to lose weight has encountered the dreaded plateau. That dreaded place where, regardless of how well you eat, how well you sleep, and how much exercise you get, your weight stalls at a certain weight (and in some cases, inexplicably goes up!). How do you stay motivated through it?

I consider all the other factors involved with getting healthy and put the goal of losing weight to the back of my mind. There are many measures of good health including blood test results, flexibility, mobility, fitness, clothing fit, and clarity of mind, to name a few. When I am on a plateau, I think about these things and when I do, it makes me realize that I’ve come a long way, that my health is better now than it has been in over 20 years, and that just because the scale isn’t moving, it doesn’t mean that changes aren’t happening in my body. They are.

I’ve discussed in previous posts that for me, I either lose size or weight; very rarely do I lose both at the same time. Now that my weight is approaching my final destination, I find that the weight is coming off more slowly and that my size is reducing equally as slowly. This is okay, as the amount of weight I have to lose is much less now, and while the number of pounds I have left to lose may be small, the rate at which I’m losing weight is still pretty consistent when taken as a percentage of the whole. Where losing 20 lbs in the first month was a great weight loss rate, now that I’m 100 lbs less, losing 5.8 lbs in a month is still pretty darned good. Considering I have less than 25 lbs left to lose, I’m okay with this. Would I like a faster rate of weight loss? Sure! But I want to do this in a healthy manner, and so far, my body has been doing a great job of adjusting to the new weight.

I’ve been asked many times if I have a lot of extra skin now that I’ve lost all this weight. I have a little bit in some places, but not nearly as much as I thought I would, honestly. I have seen photos online of people who have lost large amounts of weight and I was afraid of the spare skin problem, but frankly, it hasn’t really been an issue for me. For one, I have only lost 100 lbs, and also, it was over 10 months’ time. Most people with lots of spare skin have lost over 100 lbs and typically in a shorter period of time.

Plateaus are never fun when you’re trying to make progress, but by looking at the bigger picture, you can find aspects of your health to motivate you. As long as you’re eating good foods, eating the right amounts, getting solid sleep and getting some exercise, your plateau will end.

If a plateau persists after a few weeks, perhaps take a look at the inputs and see if something needs adjusting. Maybe portions sizes crept up, or sleep amount has declined. Maybe that dinner treat that has a lot of fruit in it is the culprit. Remember, fitness and weight loss are like a formula. Sometimes to get the result we’re looking for after a plateau, we have to adjust the variables in the formula. I’ve had to do this a few times with the amount of food I was eating and quickly saw the results I was looking for. Also, once I added some physical activity into the mix, I was able to jump right off that plateau and back into progress territory.