Month: February 2017

When I would go to a steak house to eat while at my heavy weight, I would typically order the largest steak I could get (without going broke). This meant an 11 or 12 oz steak at a minimum. Oh, and there would be lots of bread before the meal, a large salad, and baked potato and perhaps some mushrooms and onions on top. Then, maybe a crumble or bread pudding for dessert. And this one one meal.

Today, a typical meal for me at a steak house is a Caesar salad with no croutons, a 6 oz filet medium rare with a baked sweet potato and butter (unsweetened). I may have 6 grilled shrimp added to the order depending on how hungry I am. But for the most part, this fills me up. When I leave, my stomach feels full and my hunger is sated.

What happened to allow me to feel so satisfied after such a meager meal as compared to my former meals? A few things.

First, I no longer eat sugar which curtails my cravings. When I go to eat food, I am no longer in OMG I MUST EAT ALL THE THINGS I’M SO HUNGRY mode. Now, I eat to fuel my body. That the food is delicious is a bonus. I’ve eaten plenty of bland or not-so-awesome meals just to put fuel into my body, and I’m totally okay with that, too.

Second, the food I eat now is more filling than in the past. Bread, which is hyper-nutritious, doesn’t quite fill me up the same way a steak does, so it’s easy to eat too much of it and get a metric ton of calories*.

Third, I eat slower. Not as slow as some of my friends (looking at you, Kenny!) but I try to eat smaller pieces which makes eating take longer to give my body a chance to adjust to the food that’s being put into my body and for it to give me the sensation of no longer being hungry.

Fourth, my stomach is now smaller. It holds less as I’ve learned to eat proper serving sizes. I fill up quicker now eating more protein, and the reduced capacity of my stomach allows me to fill up quicker.

It’s nice to be able to eat normal portions and actually feel full afterward and not feel hungry again two hours later.

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* I know it’s not a metric ton. But it seems like it.

In September 2015, we set out to change our lives and to get healthy. Our short-term goal was to lose weight, while our long-term goal was to adopt a lifestyle that would keep us healthy, keep our weight down, and allow us to do so while enjoying delicious and filling foods. We never thought it would actually work, yet here we are.

It’s not that we were pessimists. To the contrary, we were both very optimistic. But we are realists, and every other “Diet” had failed us before. Even increased exercise wasn’t enough to put a dent into our weight. So you can understand why we had misgivings. What we didn’t have was an understanding of just how important it is to eat right to maintain a healthy weight. We didn’t realize just how much of our weight depends on our food intake.

It seems like common sense enough, yet how many people do you know who are always dieting, always trying to eat in moderation, or working out at the gym 6 days as week only to never get close to what they would consider an ideal weight? I know lots of people like that. Sherry and I were two of them. We couldn’t keep doing that anymore.

Whole30 and Paleo saved us. It’s not hyperbole. Our lives have been forever changed for the better because of these two. I know people who have been successful at losing weight using similar carb-restricted diets, and others who do their own version, so it’s possible that we would have stumbled upon something similar ourselves. But, as I’ve said before, Paleo is just the name for how we eat. We have not begun wearing bear skins and hunting with spears. Yet.

Get past the name or any negative information you may have read or heard. Whole30 and Paleo really do work, and really can change your life in a great way. It transformed us into the people we always wanted to be. Life is so different now; it’s as if I’m living in someone else’s body. The changes are dramatic and positive.

Not many people know there’s a difference between eating for your health and healthy food. The definition of healthy food varies depending upon whom you ask. Someone who believes in a low-fat diet will tell you that whole grains are healthy. Someone who does WeightWatchers will say that everything is healthy in moderation. Adkins adherents will say low-carb is healthy. Someone who has adopted the Paleo lifestyle will tell you that foods containing grains, sugar, dairy, beans, and soy are unhealthy, and that meat, vegetables, and fruits are healthy. All these people miss the mark of what we really need to focus on: eat for your health.

We all have different genetic makeups. Upon reading countless articles by people who have done a Whole30, it is evidently clear that certain foods are bad for everyone while other foods are only bad to people of specific genetic backgrounds. Some people do okay with limited dairy or beans while others do not. The key is that people find what their bodies respond well to, what makes them feel energetic, and what fuels them the most efficiently. That’s what a Whole30 is about for me. Finding what fuels our bodies in the healthiest, most efficient way possible.

Eating healthy food is a trap. Even for those of us whose goal is to eat for our health, it’s possible to eat too much or to allow unhealthy ingredients to creep in over time. I even went the opposite direction: for months, I wasn’t eating enough. I was eating healthy food, but I wasn’t eating for my health. I was’t listening to my body: I had slight persistent hunger, my energy levels were declining, and my weight loss stopped completely. I wasn’t making progress in running (I had hit a wall in my pace), and the runs were getting progressively difficult without increasing distance or pace.

Listen to your body. Don’t get caught in the trap of eating healthy food. Eat food for your health. Find what works and what doesn’t by doing a Whole30. It’ll be one of the hardest things you’ve done, but what you learn from it will benefit you for the rest of your life.

It’s the strangest thing. I ate lots of sugary foods this past weekend and yesterday, I had a bigger than normal dinner. So this morning, at my daily weigh-in, I weighed a good 5 lbs more than I did on Saturday morning. I just shook my head and continued on with my morning routine. I know I didn’t eat THAT much more. The only explanation for it is that it has to be retained water.

After doing a  little reading, I learned something that astounded me:

It is true that excess salt in the diet can aggravate fluid retention, but sugar is more likely to cause the fluid retention in the first place. Sugar is a carbohydrate, and all carbohydrates, if consumed in excess can promote fluid retention. This is because sugar promotes your pancreas to release insulin. Source

Wow. So that makes SO much sense. I tend to retain fluids after drinking alcohol, eating sweets, or eating carbs. Now I understand why. It also makes me feel better. These gains are temporary, and my weight should stabilize and get back down to the new norm within the next few days.

Until then, I’ll be eating very carefully and avoiding any and all sugar or carbs. I know it’s not all about the scale, but when it’s out of whack, I tend to get a bit grumpy.