Thirteen Weeks: A Fat Nerd Does Diet
It struck me just a couple weeks ago. I’m 57, weigh 300 pounds, massively deconditioned, verging on type II diabetes if not actually there, and I don’t want to die.
It’d been a hard year. A year ago this week, my mother had a heart attack, and over the ensuring months failed and died, passing away on 11 January, two days before her 77th birthday. Following that, I had a succession of illnesses that put me in the hospital for a day, four times between January and August. One of those times was with pneumonia, and as my friends all insisted on reminding me, “you can die from that!”
A sense of mortality struck me on my birthday, 57 this year; arithmetic started showing up for me. My father died in 1994, at 69. That’s only 12 years older than I am now. Mom at 77, only 20 years older than I am now.
Now, my Dad weighed in the neighborhood of 450 lbs when he died, and he smoked. My Mom, around 200 lbs and she’d smoked heavily, drunk heavily, and generally been rode hard and put up wet nearly her whole life. I’ve got some advantages, since I don’t drink or smoke; on the other hand, I’ve been struggling with my weight since I was literally 6 years old. You can hear a lot of bad diet advice in 50 years.
The long and short of it is that I want to change this and need to change this, and there’s relatively new science that suggests there are better, faster, more efficient ways to change this. So I’m doing an experiment: for 13 weeks, which I plan to start a week from today, 4 November 2012, I’m going to start an experiment where I’ll be keeping a very low carb, more or less “paleo” diet, and doing “high intensity interval training” and “high intensity strength training” two sessions a week. This scheme has good reasons behind it, biochemically and otherwise.
Then I’m writing about it, and I’m going very public with it, so, frankly, it’ll be too embarrassing to quit.
I plan to update here on PJ Lifestyle every Sunday, but I’m keeping a diary and accumulating notes at a Facebook page, 13 Weeks
Buy a Fitbit. It tracks your steps, miles, calorie burn and stairs climbed. Be sure to log EVERYTHING that goes into the pie hole and try to keep at least 1,000 calories deficit between intake and burn. http://www.fitbit.com Best $100 I spent. Lost 40 lbs in 6 months without serious dieting. Best of luck man.
Thanks. I’ll look at fitbit.
Good luck with your journey
BTW: I’m 5’5″ and hit 250 lbs at in 2007. Fed up, I started running. At age 58 I ran a 1/2 marathon in January 2008, at 235 lbs. Then in May had a heart attack and bypass surgery. My Dr. said the running saved my life. Now that my heart is fixed I feel 20 years younger. I have done 3 more 1/2 marathons and am training for another one this March.
Got Fitbit in 2009 and now am under 200 lbs. Please, for yourself and your loved ones make this happen. @ThatsRMann
There is absolutely no doubt that if you stick to your plan you will lose a lot of weight. I would ignore all of the advice to count calories though. It’s not worth it, and you don’t need to do it. Up your fat and protein, eliminate refined carbs, and stop eating when full. Pretty easy!
For me it’s been fitbit+loseit.com+withings scale. Loseit is meal tracking
Site that aggregates the fitbit data & data from withings scale. So for first time in my life I feel I control all variables & have good realtors feedback. See hacker’s diet (free online book) for better deception
I would be happy to send email of what worked for me & what didn’t – ultimately you may just need to experiment .
My Sweet Lady Wife just lost 70 pounds on the Medifast program. As she hit her goal, I decided to try it to lose my 20lb spare tire. I started October 1. 8 lbs to go.
I believe that putting the body into a mild state of ketosis and then keeping it there is the most effective way to lose weight. For losing large amounts of weight over a long period of time I believe that it is crucial to accurately measure BMI (Body Mass Index) regularly. It’s easy fall into a state where you start losing muscle mass, meaning your protein intake is too low. I found that I had to supplement the Medifast meals with an additional ounce of protein each day.
DIsclaimer: I’m no expert. I’m just a 59-year-old guy who’s put on 20 extra pounds during the past 8 years.
ATR, Medifast is a more aggressive step that I might try if this experiment doesn’t work. But I agree with you completely — a low-carb ketogenic diet does seem to be the way to do. I’ll be measuring blood sugar and ketones through the experiment.
I hope you have a good real-world support system for this too.
Have you tried this kind of dietary and exercise program before?
Good luck in any case, I’ll be reading your reports!
Josh, I’ve done a LOT of these things. As this goes on I’ll be
whiningreminiscing about some of them.Best of luck to you!
“…rode hard and put up wet nearly her whole life.”
Haven’t heard anybody else use that euphemism in many years. But then, I too turned 57 recently. Thanks for the flash-back!
- a -
We’re probably just both Colorado mountain boys.
Well, I think you’ve spotted it. Didn’t know you were a neighbor. I have to say that having you, Mr Green and Ms Malkin nearby makes me proud of my Colorful state.
- a -
Yup, born in Alamosa. Lived all over between 78 and 98, spent the whole time saying “what was I thinking?”
Redneck, North Carolina farm boy-turned diplomat, 1 month shy of 56, but grew up hearing this phrase. Got two brothers living in CO Springs and constantly trying to talk me into retiring there one day, but as beautiful as it is, I’d miss the rain and the softness in that southern air too much.
Best of luck on your diet, Charlie. The paleo approach feels right to me, too.
I tried the Foreign Service test but it was more history and less math than I was prepared for. But I think it’s more the “farm” part — city folks think after you finish galloping a horse you park it at the meter and go in to supper.
Virginia, grew up hearing my father use that phrase.
I think some of it depends on which people settled your area of the West.
Allow me to let you know my experience:
I am your same age and your plan IS going to work: I work out twice a week with MaxOT program (heavy weights, max 5 reps, many sets) and I eat like a wolf, but I do not gain a pound. A paleo diet with heavy work out will work to lose weight.
Be prudent though, if you diet too harshly you will get into danger zone, you could risk a general exhaustion.
As in everything, easy does it. Be patient.
Best wishes.
Sorry, I forgot:
start with light weights if you haven’t been using weights for a long time. It will go up fast in a few weeks/months, and you don’t want to risk to destroy a joint.
Any accident causes long delays, start slowly and proceed patiently.
completely agree with the weight lifting theory. the only knock is pain…but once you get a month into it, it becomes part of the lesson. the results will be obivous…increased strength, decreased weight. accept that you can trade 5 lbs of fat for 4 lbs of muscle, and you don’t worry about the specfic net result loss of 1 lb.
love the low reps. the whole purpose is to fatigue the muscle, quickly. rather do it in 5 reps, than 20. I’d start with a set of 8, three times, and then start increasing 5-10 lbs per workout, until a temporary max/sticking point was hit. Then start upping the weight for going to 6 reps.
For the workout portion I highly recommend Crossfit. Crossfit is more than a workout regimen. It is a ccommunity of peoe who are all at different stages in the same walk, all possessing the desire to improve health and increase functional health in a team environment, while encouraging and teaching each other along the way.
I’m in a similar situation as Charlie, but not so much the weight as deconditioned. I have to say WOW to Crossfit. I spent about an hour on the site. Very confusing at first (WTH am I supposed to actually do?!) but I finally got it and plan to pursue the steps. So I thank you for mentioning it.
CrossFit is an acquired taste and not for the late adopter (or recent returnee) of exercise.
As an rehabilitation therapist, I see TONS more injuries from CrossFit training than from any other type of exercise (except rugby). Too many folks do to much too fast, and Crossfit has lots of exercises that are high risk for folks with joint, tendon, muscle and bone issues. Furthermore, there are more than a few CrossFit “instructors” that don’t have the training to recognize injuries or work around them.
Charlie, I recommend Hatha & Flow Yoga (Tamal Dodge’s DVD is excellent) and beginner kettlebells (Amy Bento’s 3 in 1) to get you started. Sprint training (HIIT) and HIST are extremely risky and are NOT the first exercise for people who are out of shape with multiple risk factors.
Get a solid physical, talk to your doctor about what’s right for you and above all, avoid injury. No amount of will power and good intentions will get you past a blown knee or a ruptured disc.
Crossfit looks terrifying, frankly. I’d be having junior high gym flashbacks immediately. I do yoga vinyasa, although not as regularly as I might, and kettlebells ditto. (I love kettlebelling, actually, I’ve just spent four years where there always seemed to be something more important to do.)
I guess one thing about both the HIIT and the HIST is that the definition of high intensity is key; from all the stuff I’ve read, what’s needed is simply a heart rate of 90 percent computed max for short intervals, interspersed with rest intervals for HIIT, and similarly repetition to failure with the weights; I’m going to start with 20 second repetitions, so I will be starting with pretty light weight. I actually am an experienced lifter so I’ll be very careful.
Hope that this regimen works out well for you, Charlie. This is affirming for me, because when I started looking into how to eat and exercise, I came up with pretty much this exact same thing: paleo or basically, no grains, low-glycemic vegetables and fruit, and lots of protein, eaten several times a day in smaller amounts. When I went on a 3-week Elimination Diet with my daughter to try to determine what was making her feel sick when she ate, we went off dairy and gluten. I’m in my 50′s and can’t lose weight to save my soul, but I lost 10 pounds! We both feel MUCH better off the gluten and dairy (except the fermented stuff, like yogurt and cheese).
Along with the Diet, Check out DDPYoga. No need for weights or a Gym. (ddpyoga.com)
trust me.. the catch phrase “it aint your momma’s yoga” is true..
DDP will kick your butt.. your core strength will improve like you wouldn’t believe.
Good luck, Charlie! I’ve known two guys who did this and it worked just great for them, so I’m sure it will work for you.
I admire your resolve in tackling what many would passively accept as their fate. Just remember, “Nothing is written!”
P.S. My sincere condolences in the loss of your Mom.
From one of your earlier posts, I sensed that you greatly respected and admired her, and I think it’s carried over into your attitudes toward women generally, which is perhaps the highest compliment you could ever pay her, and a wonderful way to honor her memory. Anniversaries of losses are hard. But they give us a time to pause and reflect on what a person meant to us, to laugh and remember the good times, rejoice in the blessing of having known them at all, and re-commit to living up to the example they gave. I am sure she would be proud of you!
MayberryLady (You don’t happen to actually live in Mt Airy, do you? I lived in Durham for 13 years) I think it would be closer to say that my mother and I had a complicated relationship, that somewhat resolved in the last 10 years of her life. But I come from a long line of strong women — and my mother certainly was that.
You don’t happen to actually live in Mt Airy, do you?
Shucks, no—I’m sure the milder weather would be heavenly. But at least for now, I’m up here in the rust belt.
I think it would be closer to say that my mother and I had a complicated relationship…
Good thing I’m not trying to make a living as a profiler!
Seriously, Charlie, I believe all’s well that ends well when it comes to relationships, especially with “The Rents” as my sister calls them, even if it takes all the way to the wire to get there. (I stand by my compliment on your respect for women.)
Thank you. A always tell people I’m half woman, from my mother’s side of the family.
Good luck to you! I just “liked” your FB page, and am looking forward to your updates. I am sure that this is the way to lose weight and conquer insulin resistance, although always easier said than done. I lost weight while *pregnant* on a low-carb diet (gestational diabetes), and have been trying to get back on the wagon ever since–never should have had that piece of cake in the hospital after delivery!
Thanks!
None of my beese wax but personally, I think you made the right choice on that piece of cake. And I hope your child knows that story!
Good job Charlie! Stay with it!
Have read Gary Taubes’s books? A lot of good information as to the whys of low/no carb working. Good reinforcement there too.
Absolutely — check the Facebook page, I’ve linked them both.
When you start a healthy diet, one of the hardest things to adjust to is the difference in taste. You’re used to high fat, high salt and lots of sugar. It takes some time for your tastes to adjust a learn to appreciate a new range of flavors. They’ll try to convince you that other stuff doesn’t taste good, but that’s not true. It just tastes different and more subtle. Learn how to use herbs and spices. You can add a lot of flavor that way and a lot of them have hidden health benefits by themselves. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll realize that there is a lot more variety in flavor to be had than just relying on high fat, high salt and high suger. I really enjoy eating a lot more now; it tastes better.
I think you’ll like the Caveman diet. The only hard part is giving up the bread and butter. Just put butter on everything :0!
It really is about the carbs. Give up most of them (totally) especially sugar, flour, rice, starch and you will be amazed as your weight melts off every week even without significantly increasing excercise. Buy ketone pee strips and make sure you are in low/moderate ketosis. (Takes 2-3 days initially)Fats are NOT bad.
Fats are fine, so long as they’re the right kind of fats.
A lot of people will recommend running; a lot will recommend weights. I’ll recommend…..a walk in the park.
Of course, it helps that we have several local parks that have tree-shaded walks with 1-2 mile loops and 300′+ elevation changes…..
Eat plenty of sweet potatoes: delicious, low glycemic.
High intensity interval is the way to go. Ive seen people transform with this. It even works on skinny people desperate to look stronger and more chiseled.it works on everyone.
Youve got the motivation. Youll do fine.
You have exactly the right plan. I’m 47, went from 285 to 195 in a year with those methods. I’m fitter, stronger, and healthier than when I was 20
Charlie, all the best in your effort! I’m a year older than you and followed much the same course in 2011. Like so many others, I have a suggestion: work on your thinking, too. Try The Beck Diet Solution by Judith S. Beck, PhD – daughter of the ground-breaking cognitive psychologist Aaron (Tim) Beck. It’s not a diet, but a detailed course in the application of cognitive psychology to dieting that works with any diet plan. (I, like you, think that the paleo approach, or “paleo-ish” as I now describe mine, has lots to recommend it – but thinking is still important!) Good luck. I’ll be following your efforts.
Hi Charlie! I like your work and wish you all the best in your endeavor. Just a personal story – maybe some of your more meically literate readers can clear this up for me:
Overweight by 20-40 lbs my whole life, I discovered the almost no-carb Atkins Diet at 44, in 2001, and the pounds fell off for all the time that I was actively on it. Mind you, if I’d go off for even a few days, 5 lbs or more would be back on like that and it would keep going up until I got serious again and went almost no-carb
I kept this up for 10 years, getting pretty much down to normal weight (small belly, not big)for my age. Every day’s breakfast was two fried eggs and a hamsteak, snacks were swiss cheese with mustard or mayo, lunch & dinner were largely meat-based with just a small amt of vegetables (no potatos, bread, pasta or rice).
Anyway, I did all of that without exercising and by the time I was 55, I was so fatigued on a daily basis that I went for a full physical, knowing that the one thing that I always got “excellent” reports on was my heart health & blood pressure.
Turns out that my cholestoral was through the roof and that there was blocakage in my arteries. The docs put me on statins, but they did no good till I quit Atkins and started eating much more vegetables, yogurt and fiber cereal. This got the cholesterol down to Very Good levels, and while I never want back to bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, etc I’ve never been able to lose my extra 15-25 pounds either.
On balance, my experience was that low-carb will keep weight off while you’re actually on it – but if heart disease is the cost, it is not worth it. Atkins and all the others claim that low-carb will not raise cholesterol, but my experience is that it does, and dangerously. Had I to do it over again, I would not have spent all those years eating all that meat and protein.
This was just my experience, FWIW. Can any more informed readers address the real relation between high meat consumption and cholesterol/heart disease? Did I mess myself up with Atkins or do you really think it was a coincidence? I’d honestly like some clarity, cause as I said, I come from a really long-lived family with really strong hearts, and I’m the only one now with heart disease.
Maybe not exercising was my downfall. But anyway, Charlie, I hope you find the healthy way to lose the weight and keep it off. Incorporating exercise into your regimen sounds like a smart idea. Be a bit wary, though, of low-carb if ot means stuffing yourself with fatty meats (a la Atkins).
Statins will reduce your “cholesterol numbers” but are only effective at reducing your risk of death if you have serious cardiovascular disease. Really. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20585067 Of course if you had serious blockage then obviously you do have serious CVD.
In addition there are about 6 different types of cholesterol, and unless you had a full lipid workup the “cholesterol test” numbers are essentially meaningless. Cholesterol is actually a hugely complex topic, but a pretty accessible set of articles starts with http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the-straight-dope-on-cholesterol-part-i On of the key elements is that virtually all the cholesterol used in your body is manufactured by your body, as utilizing the sort of cholesterol eaten requires that your body chemically modifies it.
But yeah, modern low-carb diets include lots of things other then meat. Leafy green vegetables, nuts etc.
An interesting book on the topic of low carb diets is Jenny Ruhl’s “Diet 101: The Truth about Low Carb Diets”, which is mostly written from the PoV of someone with significant blood sugar control issues and goes over what the assorted medical studies show about what a low carb diet can do (and not do) to help control blood sugar and weight.
Dr. Joseph Mercola believes that some people are protein types, some people are carb types, and some people are mixed types. I think he believes that most are protein types, and that is why some people do poorly on the Atkins diet. Because of their ancestry, they need carbs.
Dr. Mercola has some nutty stuff on his website, but he has also been way ahead of mainstream medicine on things like probiotics, fats and HRT being bad for women, for example.
Here is a link to what he calls Nutritional Typing and how to figure out which one you are:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/02/26/metabolic-typing-part-three.aspx
Thanks Kevin & Sharon! Will check out those resources…and maybe Taubes’ book, too.
I hope that you will be posting on this website. I read a very interesting diet book, The Hunger Fix, and one of her tenents is that you need to find the truly animating impulse that allows you to deny the “fake fix” of high carbohydrate/high fats. FOr me it is the desire to get obama out of the White House. I have tricked my mind into “believing” that if I eat a carb, then I am ok with obama. Works every time.
I am *so* praying that you’ll have to find another motivator in about a week ….
FWI, I’ll be posting here weekly on Sunday’s, I’m updating the 13 Weeks Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/13Weeks regularly, and unless I come to my senses, I’ll be blogging about it at 13-weeks.com.
Don’t forget the problem of eating out! I find that I typically gain a couple of pounds after a restaurant dinner. It’s the carbs!
The “high intensity interval training” strikes me as a very bad idea. Think about what you’re trying to do… you want to lose weight. A good goal that you will accomplish slowly with the diet. But, you want to accelerate the process by adding intense exercise, which will increase your appetite making you want to eat more. Your purposed exercise regimen is counterproductive to your goal. Besides, at a rough guess, you’re 150 pounds over-weight. Think about your knees, think about the pressure that your excess weight exerts on them, then think about the knee surgery your “high intensity interval training” may result in.
Slow and steady wins the weight loss race. Be the slim tortoise, not the fat hare in rehab with surgically repaired knees (or worse yet, hips). One drastic lifestyle change at a time is enough. Add the exercise when you get close to your desired weight.
Chris, I’ll be writing more about this as time goes on, but there’s pretty good biochemistry to suggest HIIT is more effective than traditional aerobics. I’ve got troubled knees so I won’t be running wind sprints or doing ridiculous calisthenics.
Stop soda’s and all sugary drinks cold turkey
move to 93/7 grass feed beef
eat more lean meats like deer and organic chicken
drink ice cold water, before, during and after you stomach has to heat up the food to break it down.
Eat at a deficit, if you’re not very active eat maybe 1700 calories a day any less and your body goes in to starvation mode and you can risk binge eating.
get a nice protein food supplement drink mix and have one of those between your break lunch and dinner.
eat less processed foods, and eat more veggies and fruits
eat (greek) yogurt and granola for that sweet craving, make sure it has live and active cultures to help digestion, try to find organic because the big names are just sugar with flavoring pretty much.
if you want some good smoothie/food recipes you should check out http://www.draxe.com, he’s a local health dr. that has a talk show on sundays here in TN, he makes getting healthy fun and easy.
I weighed 240 lbs in Jan 2011, I am now 170-175, I haven’t been this small since 7th grade which was 2003! I get to be in my wedding all skinny, and I will get to play with my kids out in the yard and live long enough to see my grand kids.
could not agree more with the first 3 lines here. somehow people get the impression that paleo means it has to be a high fat diet – as in, eggs, butter, burgers, etc – when its just the reduction of sugar that matters. buy yourself a whole elk and eat it over the next 6 months. not only is it far healthier, its actually more tasty than beef (once you start eating elk burgers a beef burger seems like a disgusting greasy mess).
Charlie,
I had a very similar experience – mother was obese and it killed her, father had strokes, older brother had a stroke at 47 (the age I am now). I knew I was staring self-inflicted diabetes in the face.
I went on the ‘stop eating so much, you fat pig’ diet
and started exercising (push-up, sit-ups, and, now, running). I weigh less than I did when I got married 22.5 years ago.
I’ve lost 40 lbs (with more to go) and am enjoying feeling healthy. It doesn’t hurt anymore to sleep or sit in one spot for too long.
You can do it!
Good luck!!
I had gestational diabetes with my first child – pregnant with the second one now so I expect to get it again. We followed a low carb diet, and I ended up losing 15 pounds and delivering a healthy baby. I was surprised that I didn’t crave sweets at all on a low carb diet. I think if we had stayed on the wagon, I’d still be down those 15 pounds.
We called it “The Eat Right and Exercise Plan”, but no matter what you call it, it works.
Best of luck on your transformation.
I’m sure you will get lots of advice on how to achieve your goals. There are probably many ways to get to where you want to go. Personally, what has been working for me is Tim Ferris’ approach: not low carb but slow carb. It is similar to Atkins/paleo etc. but adds slow absorbing carb-containing food such as beans and lentils to the mix. It’s incredibly simple, is very effective and best of all, incorporates a ‘cheat day’ every week. Oh, and it works.
http://fourhourbody.com
DD
Viel Glück und toi, toi, toi , Charlie.
Ich bedanke mich sehr, Gnaedige Frau.
LOST 20 ON IT.
U WILL LOSE ON IT 2!
GOOD LUCK!
Good luck – you’re wise.
I’m 5’7″ and weighed 184. I did Atkins Induction(max of 15 carbs a day) for 10 weeks and lost 40 pounds. I mostly ate Bison jerky and lots of scrambled eggs. I’ve managed to keep the weight off by limiting my carbs. The hardest part is the low energy. Ask your doctor for an amphetamine if possible.
Good on you! My prayers and good wishes for your success, and it *can* be done! Like you, I struggled with my weight my entire life, yo-yoing up and down more than once, thanks to, as you mentioned, bad dieting advice. Last December, I weighted 336, am 53 (now), 5’10″, and in moderate to somewhat poor health. My wife and I started Robb Wolf & Mark Sissen’s Paleo/Primal diet back in January, so far she is down about 35 pounds, I’m down about 75, and it is literally the best diet/fitness & nutrition lifestyle we have ever tried. We are never really hungry anymore, are much more energetic and have managed to restart our walking and hiking activities (that we abandoned due to poor health many years ago), have successfully cut out sugars, grains, and legumes, and often skip meals because we simply don’t want any thing to eat. Best of all, I now fit into “regular” clothes that I can buy off the rack at regular department stores, after bulking up to size 60 sportcoats and 58 pants in recent years.
Back in April, I had emergency surgery for a condition not directly related to lifestyle or diet, and while still recovering (and facing some more surgery soon), I’ve had a far easier recovery and bounced back faster than anyone expected – I actually returned to work just three weeks after this procedure, which involved extensive and involved abdominal surgery. The surgeon credited the serious weight loss and increase in muscle tone for this rapid recovery.
oh yeah delete all of the posts above offering advice. just eat in moderation and excersise – i guess… geez….
I basically undertook a similar regime – reduced carbs (pretty much cut out potatoes, rice, breads, etc); did interval training at gym (2 circuits of 16 machines; 3 sets of stairs – 6m height – before each set). Very slow (avg 2lb / month) but steady weight loss, but also 30 point drop in diastolic pressure. So it does work. Advice I found useful: on those days when you just feel like crap or power out part way through, force yourself to finish your assigned workout duration on a treadmill at a walk – never slip over the psychological threshold of finding excuses to quit early.
Correction: systolic pressure. Diastolic dropped about 10-15.
Folks, don’t get confused by the moderation. Your comments are there, they just have to be okayed by a moderator. I can’t pass them on Lifestyles.
Please, whatever other plan you have, track your calories with something like the Livestrong app. Using that app, plus swimming every morning, I was able to lose 35 lbs., 4″ off my waist, and 30 points off my glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure. It is so important to understand your calorie balance. All the best!
Chaco: I’ve always been able to lose weight when I want to, despite terrible eating habits. Mostly it consists of adding moderate amounts of exercise [I got a FitDesk and it works great for me. I can do email and other stuff while working up a good sweat.] and reducing the carbs. Mostly “no white foods” works for me. No potatoes or rice or bread [and what bread I get is whole wheat anyway] and especially no sugar.
I never cared much for sugar, and now I drink coffee with just a touch of Splenda to take the top off the bitterness, ice water [a lot] with lemon, and an occasional beer [maybe 3 a week]. When I do that, I drop about 1.5 pounds per week and keep them off as long as I keep it up. I’ve found that I don’t really need to count calories, either.
I don’t feel hungry, and don’t have cravings, but that may be an individual thing. I also fast a couple of days a month — nothing but ice water with lemon and coffee. If you can handle that it works wonders.
Finally, a good part of it for me seems to depend on being intellectually active, so I have pretty much quit watching tv. That was when I “snacked” and I no longer do that.
Good luck. Find a diet that agrees with your body and mind, and you’ll do fine.
Oh. After being overweight the past 10 years, I’ve dropped 30 pounds in the last 6 months. Got my physical a couple of weeks ago and the only thing out of the green was LDL cholesterol and it was only mildly elevated. Total was fine.
My doctor says I’m “the healthiest old fat guy” he’s ever even heard of. It’s the diet, I think, and the FitDesk. Get one. Best $250 I’ve spent in a long time.
One of the reasons I’m doing this is that “bo white foods” had always worked for me before, and didn’t last time. Just did the doctor visit and my A1c (basically a measure of average blood glucose) was 7.5. I think improving my insulin sensitivity is essential.
Yes, the A1c is important, and over 7 is a reason to act. But you are . . . may I suggest Life Extension or some similar site, not as a replacement for your doctor, but as an adjunct. We purchase blood tests from them three times a year, which helps us be active in our own health care (not only for my husband’s late-onset Type I diabetes, but everything from my menopause and RA to just general blood levels, Vit D and cholesterol monitoring, among other things). Charlie you are on a great track and you will be amazed and satisfied (kind of in that order) when all these things you’re doing for yourself start . . . working.
Oh, yeah. As above, I’m mostly “slow carb” with a cheat day I practically never use.
Charlie, my wife and I did no carbs for 4 months. She went from a size 8 to a size 2-4; I went from a 35 waist to 32 and from 226 lbs to 190 lbs. (I’m 6’1″). We ate like horses–every piece of bacon in sight; only full-fat blue cheese dressing, please…we were never hungry. I repeat: WE WERE NEVER HUNGRY. We only did one thing that sets us apart from most “dieters:” we never cheated. No carbs. I mean NONE. No sugar, no flour, no junk carbs anywhere.
You can do this, and without a lot of exercise (we do 1-2 gym workouts a week) and without any suffering at all, really. If you don’t eat carbs, your weight will correct itself. It’s inevitable. All you have to do is follow an admittedly counterintuitive approach while keeping faith that Gary Taubes is right.
Gary Taubes’s book is the masterpiece of medical journalism for our era. It is not a diet book, it is a “look at the evidence and draw the obvious conclusion” book. People can argue all they want, but when your wife is wearing her size 2 jeans and our neighbors are looking at her in that particular annoyed way (you know what I’m talking about), the argument is effectively ended.
Good luck!
Best of luck Charlie! But please – PLEASE – do with with medical supervision. (and your insurance may evenhelp pay for it!)
Just saw the doc this morning. BP 120/80 but A1c 7.5%.
Charlie, I am close to your age, have a couple of bad habits, but feel great and am rarely sick, because I love to ride my bicycle! It is easy on the knees and back, and it is as fun as hell. And there is always a great place to ride, even if you have to haul the thing a little ways in your car or truck. If you have hills to go up, DO NOT feel the need to struggle up them. Walk the bike. It’s still exercise. Eventually, nothing will stop you from wanting to crush them with your pedals. Cycling is an entire culture, filled with neat guy stuff like components, gear, and tools. Keep your bike in the house, near the door. It will call to you every time you walk by it. All the best!
Charlie, congratulations on making that discovery and best thought to you on your journey back to health. Consider the South Beach diet, or more precisely, the balanced, good-carb, fat and protein eating habit, and portion control! It’s not too late, and it’s so good to see a loved, well-respected blogger share their journey. You are in my prayers, amigo.
Charlie,
Started Low-Carb approximately 6 weeks ago removing all sugars and most carbs. I will splurge once a week. BP dropped from 135/100 to 115/70 during that timespan. Lost 20 lbs, down to 185. All I do is walk 6 miles every 3 days at a pace of 4 miles per hr. So every three days I walk for 90 minutes. No heavy workouts, just walk. I kind of agree with ChrisS (#24 comment) slow and steady wins the race.
Great to see you doing this. Takes guts to go public with it. Your progress will inspire many!
Ooh, baby, gut I’ve got plenty of!
You may not be able to change after 50 years of this lifestyle without more help. Check out Victoza or bydureon, check your testosterone, or even sleeve gastric bypass. Don’t let anyone talk you out of your goal–even a dr or nutrionist. Keep looking, don’t give up. In the last 18 months, i have lost 36 lbs, the most in my life, at age 50 and as sedentary, diabetic.
Good for you, Charlie. I’m on a low carb diet, too, similar to paleo, but a bit different. It’s a really healthy way to eat and makes you much healthier. Rooting for you on the diet and with the exercise plan.
Once you detox from the heavy carbs, you break the sugar addiction and it gets much easier and your sense of taste changes.
Other helpful books might be The Mood Cure and The Diet Cure by Julia Ross.
Taubes. Gary Taubes. I have lost weight when restricting carbohydrates, and when I have not restricted carbohydrates, I have not lost weight. Anecdotal, yes, but there you go. Why We Get Fat is persuasive, and the govt food pyramid is a prescription for overweight.
Also, I’m firmly convinced of the Taubesian exhortation to increase fat intake.
Note that I’m speaking strictly of weight loss, not of a holistic lifestyle thing. Cold, hard results on the scale. Too much meat or fat or what have you could be potentially unhealthy (though generally overstated, I am convinced), but being overweight is known, for sure, to be unhealthy. At least, it is my working knowledge.
I’d go with weightlifting. Nothing but mechanics using larger muscle groups.
since you are genetically heavy, I am assuming that you were meant to be strong. Even at 57, you could easily be stronger than you have ever been, by 60. by you photo, I suspect that you were supposed to be one of the strongest people on the planet, top 5% easily, but you missed the bus.
if you only do one powerlift exercise…
deadlift. you will convert a lot of fat into muscle, quickly. fat doesn’t consume the food you eat, it stores it. more muscle mass means you have increased you metabolism.
you want to lose weight in a target area. ****good form**** deadlifts will hit your thighs(without requiring too much flexibility) your butt, you back and you abs. please use a weight belt!!!
runner-up:
go with a military press, over bench. more muscles, more core work.
avoid squats. sorry if there are any purists…
(if you get a year or two down the road, and you have had good results with losing weight thru increasing muscle mass, maybe.)
don’t even think about squats, until you are confident with your dead lift.
**************
yes, you will hurt a lot, just on deadlift. ibuprofen(especially the non-liguid gel advil) will help you, a lot. your body will also help you by releasing an opiate response to your pain.
after two weeks, you’ll have pain/inflamation, but once the advil knocks it out, you will feel like you are going on a natural high from that opiate response. and your body will start making more of your ‘personal painkillers’ as you train. a can of foster’s after a good workout…mmmmm.
I suspect that you were supposed to be one of the strongest people on the planet, top 5% easily, but you missed the bus.
You know, it’s interesting you say that, because I have always been one of the strongest people I knew, to the point that I broke a grip test machine in a work physical once.
good luck, charlie!
Charlie, I wish you luck.
I’ve been there – I lost 100 lbs on a calorie restriction + exercise regimen, and 10 years later gained it all back, while eating far fewer calories than I did before the diet, and exercising a lot more.
However, it was a low fat diet, which we now know is a bad idea. But Atkins and variations have done little for me other than allow me to reduce the rate of gain. I hope you have better luck.
Almost any diet will produce weight loss, and if you are strict, a whole lot. I lost 100 lbs in 5 months.
The hard part for most folks is keeping it off – the statistics are terrible (95% failure rate).
Also, recent research I’ve read about shows that calories burned in exercise don’t reduce weight, in general, because you just get more hungry.
Exercise is a good idea anyway, but it really isn’t a weight reducer unless you do it at a crazy level.
I don’t know about the alleged effect of converting fat to muscle and thereby altering one’s metabolic rate, but sadly, I suspect the faulty thermostat that causes the obesity simply adjusts for it. Homeostatic mechanisms are very powerful.
I’m considering gastric bypass – it’s the only thing that has good statistics. On the other hand, it’s a drastic solution and I don’t like the idea.
Also, surprisingly, gastric bypass (not stomach stapling or sleeves, but bypass of most of the stomach and of the duodenum) cures most insulin resistance (which I have and you probably have) – within hours to a few days. Insulin resistance is thought to be a cause of the damage from Type II Diabetes, by forcing insulin levels up (high sugar is apparently not the biggest problem).
But… the sudden disappearance of insulin resistance in bypass patients shows that the standard model of insulin resistance and Type II Diabetes is critically wrong. That’s worth investigating. There are now medical centers doing bypass expressly to treat Type II Diabetes even without obesity.
Anyway, I’m not trying to sell bypass… but I did want to mention it and the surprising findings.
Good luck!
Be very careful with this. I’ve lost over 60 pounds on a low carb diet without a low of extra exercise, but I like eating this way. If you can’t give up bread, desert etc in a few months people often end up eating a lot more fat than they ate before and about as many carbs. That is very bad.
It’s not just a diet. To work it’s got to be a lifestyle change.
Oh, and don’t eat too much protein, it makes your breath and sometime sweat stink. You won’t know it, but everyone around you will.
Why I was inspired by Taubes “Why We Get Fat”, I think you should also look at Jenny Ruhl’s “Diet 101: The Truth About Low Carb Diets”, which covers a bunch of ways that they fail and how to avoid that.
Oh, and don’t eat too much protein, it makes your breath and sometime sweat stink. You won’t know it, but everyone around you will.
You’re assuming that I actually interact with real people, like in person.
Good luck!
I started doing nearly the same thing ten days ago. Our health profiles are similar: I’m 49, weighed 201 lbs when I started, and have been dealing with the adverse health effects of type II diabetes for about six years.
In the first week of avoiding grains/carbs, fruits and forgoing diet soda, I lost four pounds. I kept a carb count notebook for the first week mostly to get an idea of what a day without cravings would look like from a nutritional standpoint and I’ve found that I can eat pretty much all the veggies and meat I wish to and stay at or below 60 grams/day. I haven’t bothered looking at fat or calories at all.
I wish you rapid and lasting success.
My accidental 70 Lb weight loss:
I’m 57, was 270 Lbs and exercise was out (spinal cord injury). I also had advancing chronic kidney disease with GFR in the 30s and going down. Dark Chocolate and fish oil were supposed to help the kidneys, and I figured that I’d be careful not to gain too much weight from all the added fat.
I lost 70 pounds!
I have had normal Kidney function for 2 years.
And even though I still eat 100 grams of dark chocolate and 20 grams of fish oil every single day (yes, that’s 80 pounds of chocolate a year), I maintain my new weight and my lipids look great (triglycerides are 25).
I can only guess that the reason is high healthy fat helped, as well as the combination of cocoa increasing my insulin sensitivity and chocolate/fish oil having zero sodium just absolutely just kills my appetite. My doctor (I don’t have as many now) admonished me to stop losing weight and to make sure to eat enough!
Charlie–good luck. I sympathize, sort of in the same position as you. I have a difficult time losing weight due to insulin resistance.
But please be careful with going very low carb. It can indeed be a good way to lose weight, but it doesn’t agree with everyone, and it’s a lifetime commitment. If you go back to eating carbs after very low carb you’ll blow up again, and have a harder time losing it the next time. This is what happened to me.
What works for me is what I call “half carb” (midway between paleo and SAD). I eat fruits, veggies, meat, and healthy fat. No grains, starches, or refined carbs except on cheat days. My biggest problem is that I’m a food addict and after months on the healthy eating wagon will fall off as bad as an alcoholic on a bender. Still fighting that.
HIIT is excellent, but be careful with it until you’ve lost a bit of weight and are in better condition. It can be pretty hard on your joints.
And finally, thanks to Roger Mann for recommending FitBit. It looks like a great gadget and I’m going to get one!
Again, Charlie, good luck. Keep us posted. Rooting for you!
Go go, Charlie!
But make sure to block all North Carolina readers, otherwise the Food Nazis will come after you for unlicensed dietary punditry.
Hey Charlie…I am sorry for your loss…I have been horrible about keeping up with people, but I saw this and saw it was you and wanted to say thanks for doing this…I will be following your journey and hopefully it will inspire me to join you. *hug*
Thanks, Kitten. God knows I’ve not been a lot better. I’m glad you’re looking in.
Charlie, not sure if you will make it this deep into the comments. Good for you to turn your life around! I wish you the best.
If I can make one suggestion – what you are looking to do is great, paleo, HIIT, HIST are all excellent tools which I more or less use myself. However, ease yourself into the HIIT/HIST, and make sure you warm up before starting the sessions. It would be a shame to injure your joints or tendons (which respond much more slowly than muscle recovery) setting you further back or discouraging you from further losses.
Good luck to you. I’m also 57 and weighed about 255 in early June when I was found to have a torn rotator cuff. So I decided to take the time away from weight training for the surgery/recovery to lose some of my 50+ lbs of excess fat. So far I am down 35 pounds, 18-20 of it in the 9 weeks since the surgery.
As with Roger Mann’s advice above: I am tracking my caloric intake and maintaining 1,000 calorie/day deficit – plus I do about 1/2 hour of light-medium cardio each day.
I have found a great deal of help from keeping things simple enough so I can keep track of my calorie intake in my head during the day.
About 3/4 of the energy we consume is from foods that we eat almost daily. So instead of weighing every gram and referring to a chart for everything I consume, I estimate the caloric content of what I eat, round values up to the next 100, and keep a running tally in my head.
The margin of error from my “system” is small enough that I can make adjustments day-to-day and keep reasonably close to my 2# per week target.
4 years ago, I was 51 and 320 pounds. My mother had died on congestive heart failure, my younger sister was 350+. My blood pressure was climbing, my glucose levels were climbing, and I got winded going up the stairs from the basement.
I used a local weight lose center, followed their program which was, eat healthy foods, fill up on green vegetables, control protein, carbs, and fats. Having the accountability of going in 3 times a week, weighing in, discussing challenges and getting advice on how to overcome them was well worth the investment.
After I had lost 50 pounds, I started cycling again, when I lost 100 pounds I bought a new bike. At 120 pounds I rode my first 100 mile ride.
I continue to monitor my food intake, and balance it with my exercise. I am 55, weigh between 175 and 180. (I use the smart phone app Loseit these days.) I race on the bicycle in the summer, and ride lots and lots (over 5000 miles this year.) I love the life I have now.
Stick with your plan. Tough out the cravings, fill up with salads. If you have a weak moment, get up the next day and get back on program! You can restart your life, and create a new you. You will thank yourself every day when you do.
Don’t overdo it with the exercise. You don’t want to burn out or hurt your back or knees!
With a low carb diet the weight will come off and you will feel better. I know, I did it.
Easy does it!
Charlie,
Your approach is going to work. I want to second all that recommended Crossfit and Rob Wolfe’s paleo diet. I am 68, have lost 30 lbs (from 194) and am stronger than I have ever been in my life. My son owns Longwood Crossfit and I am there at least 3 days a week and I mix in Jim Wendler’s 5-3-1 strength program.
Live well.
Charlie, I started ketogenic about 10 weeks ago. I’m 52, 5’10″ and weighed in over 180 in July, but I have a very light bone structure. I’ve since dropped down to 164. I believe I have ten pounds more to go.
I’ve not been exercising, but am starting this week. Taubes’ recommended against it, at least initially. And I took his advice. But now it’s time to start. I’ll be following HIIT too.
Like you, I read Taubes’ books. Here’s some of what I learned. Initially, you’ll lose a lot of weight very fast. That appears to be mostly fluids stored in fat tissue. After the initial loss, it slows down to a pound or two a week (maybe more for you because you’re a big guy — tall, broad frame; I’ve seen the video of you shielding Michelle Malkin.)
I had some trouble squeezing the carbs out of the diet at first. There are so many ways they can sneak into your diet. For example, nuts are a good snack food, but some have many more carbs, including sugars, than others. Stay away from cashews. Store-bought marinades and salad dressings can be loaded with sugars; I now make my own. I switched from half-and-half to cream. I found myself paying very close attention to food labels.
I found that the leafy greens are vitally important to, uh, digestive regularity, let’s call it. Indeed, irregularity has been the most difficult and uncomfortable side effect of the diet.
The sluggishness appears to come from not getting enough salts. Sometimes, muscle cramps too. The recommendation of drinking a couple cups of broth each day, I just find disgusting. I used never to salt food in preparation or cooking. Now I do it regularly.
Be careful with chicharones. There a good snack food for this diet, but pack so many fat calories that they can overwhelm the fat loss. I cut these out, because I was regaining weight.
Don’t let them tell you that you won’t miss the carbs. You will. I still grave things like fries, chips, pizza, ice cream, but not because I’m hungry on the diet. It’s the taste of sweets and the contented feeling of carbs. I don’t know if that ever goes away. But I haven’t cheated.
Best of luck with this adventure.
Be careful with chicharones. There a good snack food for this diet, but pack so many fat calories that they can overwhelm the fat loss. I cut these out, because I was regaining weight.
Well, I love chicharrones, but not the nasty plastic things they call pork skins in the supermarket, so I suspect lack of availability will be a help.
Oh, BTW, I read all the comments and all the comments on the facebook page, and I love getting them.
I’m someone who is naturally skinny, despite eating a lot of carbs. (I love bread.) So I don’t know squat about diet.
However, I’ve been doing a fair amount of strength and endurance training, and I have a few bits of advice.
1) For cardio, use an elliptical machine. Running on a track or treadmill is stressful to hips and knees, and at our age (I’m 58), that’s not good. Even more so at your weight. (I’m 165, and I feel it in my hip when I run a mile on a treadmill once in a while.) With an elliptical machine, there’s no impact.
2) Activity is important. The calories “burned” in exercise are less important than the increase in general metabolic rate. Get out and do something every day that “pops a sweat”. I warm up by shooting baskets for 20 minutes. That alone is a day’s minimum.
3) Weight training has a cardio impact too. Take your time about building weight, but don’t be afraid to push.
4) Once you get to a reasonable weight level, think about using a bicycle to get around. Get a heavy frame “cruiser” that will support you, with a fat saddle, and mount a good-size basket. Then you can run errands, and it will add a lot to your activity rate.
5) Eat a substantial breakfast, limit your dinner. You’ll have energy during the day when you need it.
(I don’t follow all these rules all the time, but then I’m metabolically weird, I think.)
” I’m going to start an experiment where I’ll be keeping a very low carb, more or less “paleo” diet, and doing “high intensity interval training” and “high intensity strength training” two sessions a week.”
Good for you Charlie. Why wait around year after year, dying a little every day. Get it over with now!
Encouragement, just what I needed.
I’ve been on the low carb/Gary Taubes diet for roughly 2 months and I’ve dropped in the neighborhood of 50 lbs. It’s funny, I’m eating things I just never ate before including bacon and eggs! My doctor is all for it, my blood pressure has dropped AND my cholesterol is down which worried me at first. I basically eat zero pasta, bread and sugar and all I can say is that any diet that allows me to eat hot wings by the dozen isn’t really a diet in my book! I’m looking forward to getting my next round of bloodwork done as my Dr said he might be taking me off the atenolol and simvastatin! Anyone who hasn’t bought the book do it, it’s life changing. Why we get fat by Gary Taubes. Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for pointing the finger at it.
“my blood pressure has dropped AND my cholesterol is down”
It’s crazy, right?
Me too. I eat at least 40g of saturated fat per day* and my LDL went down to 64!
High fat, including high saturated fat is a healthy choice, experts be damned.
And I HAD to stop BP meds as my BP went dangerously low after I switched to high fats.
*I log and track my food intake with CalorieKing.
Add my name to the Taubes lo carb fans. Am 60 and have yo-yoed with decreasing success for 50 years. About gave up. Ran across Taubes via Glenn Reynolds Instapundit & Rand Simberg Transterrestrial Musings. Worked nicely to take 20# off since March. Plateaued since late May. Have played with snacks and other things including pork rinds (Mission Chicharrones being my favorite with a Costco hi fat dip). So I really jacked up the fat which helped kill the snack / overeating impulse.
What I find is that when I eat too many carbs, there is an instant 3 – 5# weight gain that will take a couple days of return to lo carb to take off (all water). So I stay right below that line.
The other fun thing is that I get to drink wine every night – a good solid Cabernet.
Finally regarding exercise. Once you get into this and are feeling frisky, walking would be the first suggestion. And when ready, get yourself a personal trainer to design a weight lifting program over the course of a few weeks. Form is everything with weights and folks are easily hurt. Cheers and good luck.
That instant 3-5 pound weight gain is probably your liver rebuilding its glycogen stores, plus the water that glycogen binds.