13 Weeks: Week One — Endorphins Are Our Friends
* * *
The 13 Weeks Experiment
I’m trying some of the most recommended — and coincidentally trendy — diet and exercise approaches for 13 weeks, and seeing what happens. You can follow me weekly here on PJ Lifestyle, and see my daily thoughts and updates on the 13 Weeks Facebook page. I first announced the experiment here; you can find the start of this first week, and some really embarrassing “before” pictures, here.
The eating plan, such as it is, is very simple. I’m attempting to:
- eat 200g of protein every day (by the old bodybuilders rule of 1 gram per pound of desired body weight)
- eat around 200g of fats every day (giving a ratio of about 60 percent calories from fats and 40 percent from protein)
- eat no more than 30g of available carbohydrates (which is total carbs minus fiber carbs) every day.
This is what’s known, technically, as a “high protein, high fat, low carb diet” (duh!) and has proven effective in several incarnations for weight loss.
This is not your usual doctor’s idea of a reducing diet, although its history goes back to William Banting’s Letter on Corpulence. The history of diet and obesity is complicated, and you’d have to go far to find a better source than Gary Taubes in his Good Calories, Bad Calories, and Why We Get Fat. But the gist is this: traditional ideas of simply limiting calories — the “thermodynamic model” — have never worked very well; Taubes has collected a lot of scientific literature to show what has worked well, and to propose that refined carbs, in particular refined sugars, are the underlying cause of at least a very large part of obesity, and strongly implicated in hyperlipidemia (“high cholesterol”) and the increasing incidence of type II diabetes.
One thing to notice is that I explicitly haven’t mentioned calories; that’s because I’m treating calories as incidental. In theory, this should come out to be 2720 calories a day, but so far, I’m almost never close to eating this much; it works out I’m usually eating around 1800 Calories.
The science of low-carb eating is very interesting, but the upshot of it is that if you take those refined carbs out of the diet, and make no other changes, a very large proportion of people lose weight.
Because of some other problems, I’m completely eliminating wheat for the moment.
Exercise
Along with the eating plan, I’ve added two kinds of exercise:
- high intensity interval training
- “super slow” repetition weight training.
Again, there are many variants but the gist of these is also simple: in high intensity interval training, you do something exercise-ish and go like hell for a short time, then rest for a short time; repeat several times; do this once or twice a week. In theory, it’s only necessary to do it once a week, but it’s really hard to get to really full intensity as a beginner, so I’m experimenting with various approaches 2-3 times a week. Since a single session only takes about 10 minutes, this isn’t an awful commitment.
I did martial arts for many years, so after some experimentation, I realized that a really good choice for me is to beat the hell out of a heavy bag, going just as fast as I can, for 20 seconds, resting for 10 seconds, then going again for a total of four sets. This is called the Tabata method.
I described the weight training a bit above, but let me summarize again. I’m doing large-muscle compound exercises: squats or leg presses, upright row, lat pull-downs, and some others I’ve not really settled on yet. (I’d like to add deadlifts but I’m afraid.) What’s different is that I an doing “super slow” repetitions to failure. That is, for each exercise, I use very heavy weight, and move it very slowly, so that the concentric (contracting) phase of the motion takes about 10 seconds, and then the eccentric (lengthening) phase takes another 10 seconds, completing one repetition. I pick a heavy enough weight that between 6 and 8 repetitions my muscles completely fail — I can no longer keep moving the weight at that speed. So, for example, this week I did leg presses with 400 pounds on a Nautilus leg machine.
– whenever possible.
I go to my doctor quarterly for a simple check-up to monitor my cholesterol and cholesterol medications because I have coronary artery disease and a constellation of things which go with it. Last June, I stopped eating wheat and wheat flour. Rather like a religious dietary practice, it simply cuts out a great deal out of your diet and dietary decisions. The decision is simple, but not, at first, easy. Replacing the calories previously provided by carbohydrates necessarily requires the increase in protein and fat consumption. This I did.
A few weeks ago, I visited my doctor. Although my weight was not down, yet. My cholesterol numbers improved incredibly as the result of removing wheat and wheat flour from my diet. My overall cholesterol number was 80—-substantially below recommended range. If, at my next blood testing, my numbers are still terrific, my doctor will have to substantially reduce the medications he prescribes me.
The funny thing about my last meeting with my doctor was that when I told him I had increased my fat intake, especially my saturated fat intake, he put his head in his hands and sighed. You might say that his orthodox belief is that saturated fat is the devil who will kill me. Yet, my blood work-up showed a radical improvement.
Like you, I recommend Gary Taube’s writings, “Wheat Belly” by Dr. William Davis, and also the movie available on Netflix called “Fathead”. It turns out that “healthy whole grains” may have been the problem and not the solution.
“It turns out that “healthy whole grains” may have been the problem and not the solution.”
I think it’s eventually going to come out that the people feeding us “whole grains” for all these decades (with the full assistance of the federal government) have been orders of magnitude worse than the villainous tobacco industry.
Recently I’ve been wondering if the whole-grains bit is intentional. The powers-that-be know that it isn’t all that healthy, but they have no choice but to promote it because there simply aren’t enough agricultural resources to feed the populace on a higher-fat, higher-protein diet.
The food pyramid, rather than based on bad science is actually designed to serve a specific agenda: To keep the populace fed on low-cost calories.
Yeh, I know, conspiracies are silly. I keep telling myself that, then I look back at my 40+ years of a food-pyramid-based diet and compare it to the amazing change in the last 4 months to a fat/protein diet. Feeling 10 years younger, going from borderline obese to ‘normal’ BMI, all mundane health problems gone. Why has this been a ‘secret’ for so long????
The origins of the food pyramid lie in the Defense Department. We needed bigger soldiers, people were not getting enough food. So, carb them up! Bad for you, yeah, but at that time, most folks worked on the farm, so at least they could work some of it off.
National security, not health, was the prime concern. That may change now, an obese, tired, diseased soldier is useless too.
I saw an analysis, a high protein diet IS possible, for the majority of people, if we convert the grainfields to pasture land. It takes some doing, but it can work. And, we have refridgeration now.
I never stuck with any exercise plan until I changed it to be sure that it was done before the rest of the day started.
The best thing I ever did was to change my exercise time. Im not a “morning” person by any measurement but once I switched my exercise time to first thing in the morning, I had a huge increase in the amount and quality of exercise. For any exercise plan to work, it has to be repeated regularly. For me, that was a problem with time management. Work always has a way of screwing up my committment but getting exercise out of the way well before the time that anyone else is even out of bed, solved that problem.
I get up at 5:30, and go out on a 6 mile walk/run. I get back to the house about an hour later. Now its 6:30, I shower and eat and its only 7:00 am and Im done! I’ve exercised for the day! Its like cheating! Now it doesn’t matter what happens during the day, I’ve already finished the exercise component.
Keep it up charlie!
You may not be into cooking, but perhaps as winter looms and with it the lure of comfort foods and the danger of falling off the wagon, you may find these simple veggie recipes worth trying.
If you like eggplant, Baba Ghanoush is an easy to make veggie dip that’s much lower in carbs (and kcals) than hummus. You can grill the eggplant for the characteristic smoky flavor, but in winter or to save time you can get pretty close by laying peeled slices, brushed with olive oil, on a foil-lined, low-sided baking sheet and roasting them for about 45” at 375 or ‘til soft and very brown.
Not necessary to turn it, but do let it get cold on the sheet for easy removal. Blend or process with a couple of gobs of tahini paste, some pressed garlic cloves, lemon juice, more olive oil (“cold pressed” are the words to look for), and salt to taste. Can be thinned with a little water if it sits around long enough to get thicker. Hard to stop eating and a very satisfying way to get your veggies in while watching sports or movies.
As a variant, you can also just top the eggplant slices with slices of your favorite cheese during the last few minutes—provolone, brick, whatever—and eat as a side with meals.
On your Velveeta cheese sauce, try making it with ½ sour cream, a pat or two of butter, a dash of cayenne, and maybe even a small dollop of Grey Poupon. Takes it up a few notches.
Cauliflower as a substitute for mashed potatoes works pretty well too. Steam, mash with butter, a little ½ and ½, salt and pepper, a few shakes of Parmesan if you want, and a dash of nutmeg. At this point I actually like to spread it into a gratin-style or low-sided dish, top generously with shredded cheddar, and bake it in the oven for ca. 30—45” at 350. You’ll never miss the Mac ‘n’ Cheese with this in your repertoire. (Also makes a great topping for Shepherd’s Pie, If you’re into those.)
Finally, you can create a wonderful dish with a couple of those rotisserie chickens (but read labels ‘cause some of them are injected with flavoring broth that includes that seemingly ubiquitous all-American additive, sugar).
Get a nice big skillet that can go into the oven and sauté some rough-chopped onion, celery, mushrooms, green pepper, and broccoli florets in butter while you pull the meat off the chix and break into bite-sized pieces. When the veggies are crisp-tender, spread them to the sides and melt a block of cream cheese or Neufschatel in the center. Add some pressed garlic, salt and pepper to taste, and some chopped fresh or dried basil—or any other herbs of your choice. Add the chicken, blend well, top generously with paprika (and Parmesan, if you want—I find these two things are good substitutes for the buttered bread or cracker crumbs that give a nice crust to such dishes) and pop in the oven for anywhere from 30 to 60”. You get to enjoy the aroma of a tantalizing meal filling the house while you go do something else. Company worthy, too!
Just keep going, Charlie. We are all so in your corner…and admiring your bravery. (You’ve taken me back to my younger days when the boys I had crushes on called me “Fatso” in the cloak room, and I used to cringe in shame when the clerk in our best store used to take one look at me and point imperiously and in a voice that was sadistically loud, “The ‘Chubettes’are over there!”) Before you know it, you’ll be proudly sporting a transformed physique (and more importantly, those great vitals) and “How Do You Like Me Now” just might become your secret favorite song, as it is mine.
Thanks! Some of those recipes — the Shepherd’s Pie idea, for example — sound pretty good. I am a foodie and not a bad cook at all, although I tend not to cook when it’s only for myself. (That’s what the George Foreman Grill is for.) The broccoli cream cheese thing sounds good too.
BTW, just did the chicken and broccoli thing and at your suggestion added Grey Poupon to the sauce. Excellent. 4g carbs.
As an endocrinologist I heartily recommend Taube’s works.
Theodore, I’d really like you to keep track of this or join us on the Facebook page; I’m trying to at least keep consistent with the real science.
Agree with comment of #1. Walk. A lot. My wife walks 40 miles a week with our Husky-Lab mutt, Jazz. I had a massive M.I. and 4x bypass at age 39 + other cardiac stuff. I am 55. I have outlived my father.
Good luck and keep at it.
Charlie,
In regard to the hit training less is more…I am 49 and I can only tolerate 2 really intense weight training sessions per week. Really intense weight training is strong medicine – I recommend a very moderate amount (in terms of total volume)
Please, please, please read “art and science of low carbohydrate performance” by Phinney and Volek. Get yourself a ketone meter and start measuring your blood ketone levels. It will add a level of precision to your low-carb diet.
The use of a ketone meter is sweeping the nation – I believe when the test strips are cheap enough that everyone will use this simple finger-stick test to determine the correct amount of carbohydrates and protein to consume when on a carb restricted diet.
Peace
Joe E O
Can you recommend a ketone meter? I’d not seen them before. I hope I can do both glucose and ketones with one stick.
There are two on the consumer market that I am aware of. The Nova Max Plus and the Precision Xtra. They are both available via Amazon.com. I must warn you that the test strips are somewhat expensive – but the value is that they will show you when you are in ketosis and actually effectively implementing a low carb, moderate protein high fat diet…
Peace,
Joe E O
get yourself a rowing erg– best exercise, gets the endorphins up without damaging the knees.
You think you feel great now? Wait till the first time you see some muscular definition in the mirror where there used to just be flab. That’s going to feel fantastic.
You’re off to a great start. Keep it up and you’ll be needing your first new pants by Christmas.
Congratulations, you have taken the first steps to a new lifestyle. I started about 8 months ago. 2 Years ago I started serious cross training with heavy weights. (guided by a great trainer) Got stronger, felt better, but my weight remained stable over that 1.5 years. Went to the Doc, blood sugar at 102, was warned to cut carbs. Now after 8 months of watching carbs I am down 45 pounds and back into 34 pants. My wife and 10 year old, built like me, joined the program. We stopped granola and yogurt in the morning going to a cooked breakfast, cut back on bread and increased protein in general. He lost 10 lbs in a couple of weeks and his “sugar belly”. I can’t believe I fell for the whole low fat, carbo loading BS from the 80′s. I think the Government food pyramid is poison…keep it up, takes about 1.5 months to really notice a change. Don’t get frustrated by plateaus and you may have to start taking fiber pills, I did.
Cranky is my favorite dwarf. I’ve tried to live life according to his example.
Done pretty well at it, too.
Keep up the good work, Charlie! I’ve been on an almost identical regime to yours since last January – low carb, interval cardio, super-slow resistance training. I had ballooned 15 lbs. but I’m now back to my fighting weight with a BMI smack dab in the middle of “normal”. You might like my recipe for low-carb blueberry ice-cream. 1/2 C. half&half mixed with 1/2 C. heavy cream mixed with 8 drops liquid stevia. Stir in 1 C. frozen wild blueberries until ice crystals form (about 2 min.) Enjoy!
It’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but a daily 30 minute swim (say, 1500 yds) can literally give you 30 years of high-quality life. I regularly see octogenarians and older keeping up essentialy the same training regimen they have had for decades. Not too many other exercise methods you can say that about.
Ron, I used to love to swim. one driver was I thought swimming would be a good choice, and I couldn’t do a lap without putting my feet down.
My husband was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 2005. His blood sugar was in the 400s and he was in his mid-60s. He promptly became my science experiment. The upshot: we used Richard Bernstein’s books on diabetes management which is practically identical to Taubes’ diet. I tested husband’s blood glucose before and after every meal for a whole year (spreadsheets and all). He went from the high 300s and 400s to the 100-110 range after a few months on this diet. He’s maintained that since (we don’t do the glucose test as much anymore, just spot tests now and then).
The worst thing about this is the monotony of the ingredients you are left with to make a meal. How many ways can you cook your eggs with your bacon? At one point, my husband was starting to hate meat. We had to become more creative in preparing the dishes. Fortunately there are several low carb forums (fora?) on the net, and people are eagerly exchanging recipes. Everyone is trying to figure out a low-carb way of making old favorites and mostly succeeding.
From them we discovered Dreamfields low carb pasta (5g “net carbs”; I did test his glucose before and after eating this, and no spike) that we prepare with homemade alfredo sauce, as well as low-carb baking products from a company called netrition.com. His breakfast is now a choice between eggs/bacon, eggs/sausage, lc muffins, lc waffles, or lc bread. There are also lc fruit spreads and syrups that taste very much like regular ones. I also found a lc English muffin recipe that takes 2 minutes to cook on the microwave. We also eat a lot more seafood these days.
One thing that I discovered during my learning phase: the American Diabetic Association had no idea what it’s talking about (at least in 2005) and that every recipe it suggested spiked my husband’s blood sugar a hundred points or so. That’s when I educated myself (instead of just relying on “experts”) and found our way to low carb dieting to “cure” my husband’s diabetes without taking medication.
Good luck on your experiment. I think it’s very interesting.
we used Richard Bernstein’s books on diabetes management which is practically identical to Taubes’ diet.
You know, this is basically what was recommended generally as a diabetic diet up to the 60′s.
I was sure you were exaggerating about the ADA’s web recipies! Sure enough, their “breakfast muffins” recipe has 41 net carbs per serving, and the recommend 2-3 servings.
No wonder we have a problem with diabetes in the USA! This is the equivalent of AlAnon people sponsoring the bar at their weekly meetings.
I actually burst into tears after two weeks of following the ADA diet for my husband because his blood glucose remained elevated. If I remember correctly, the recommendation then was to eat lots of fruits, vegetables and low-fat stuff. Turned out to be the complete opposite of what we needed to do. (Low fat processed foods actually have higher carb content to compensate for the absence of flavor-enhancing fats.)
Not long after I decided that the ADA diet wasn’t working, I found Gary Taubes’ piece at the New York Times from more than a decade ago on why we are fat (this was before he published his popular books on the subject, I think). I have some background in metabolism (biochem engineering), and it all made sense to me. I pretty much followed that trail to Bernstein’s books on diabetes. Worked so far.
Great to hear it’s going well for you and that you are feeling good doing it.
I’ve had a similar reaction….I’ve been on a ‘Taubes’ approach since July and the biggest change was not the weight loss, but the noticeable improvement in how good I felt. I wonder if I’ve been wheat-intolerant and never knew it.
Three bits of personal experience I want to pass on:
Definitely keep up with the physical training. The one thing I’ve noticed in myself is that I don’t seem to be as strong as I was. Unless the intramuscular fat was providing strength, I think I’m losing muscle mass. I’m working to boost my strength training regime to counteract that.
Watch out for appetite fatigue. It hit me about 6 weeks in and my calorie intake dropped off significantly to the point that I started to not feel well. I simply wasn’t hungry and didn’t feel like eating the same old stuff. In retrospect, I believe it was due to an inadequate repetoire of low-carb food awareness. I had to learn a variety of new recipes to maintain appetite interest. I re-tried foods I never cared for and found that they now appeal to me strongly (poultry dark meat, sardines, avocadoes, sour cream). The body is smarter than the brain sometimes. I’m starting to see a similar thing happen now that winter is coming and hibernation instincts are kicking in. It’s not that I crave carbs (far from it), more that I have little to no interest in eating greens. It’s a lot of work to be researching and learning new recipes and foods to eat.
Include some low-sugar fruits. a few berries in a salad or tomatoes in an omelet. A small can of V8 can be a very nice lower-carb nutrient pick-me-up.
I’m definitely noticing when I’m lacking in the red-orange food group.
Good luck!
You might want to check out the books written by Dana Carpender.
She has one on low carb cooking using a crock pot that makes it really convenient to prepare.
Hey Charlie,
With those gastric complaints, you should get ahold of either The Special Carbohydrate Diet by Elaine Gottschall and/or Gut and Psychology Syndrome by Dr. Natasha Campbell McBride. They are pretty similar to what you are doing, Atkins/Paleo, but specifically tailored to gut issues. And will give you a lot of information. Also, The Mood Cure by Julia Ross is pretty useful if you have any mood issues along with your gut issues. I also saw this recent article which might be of interest: Could a leaky gut be making you fat?
http://chriskresser.com/could-a-leaky-gut-be-making-you-fat
Also, don’t use bouillon cubes, which are awful for you, full of gunk like MSG and processed to the max. Make traditional meat and chicken broths. The reason for making the broth is that traditional broth has plenty of gelatin, which supplies collagen to your intestinal walls and helps to heal them. And you can use that for the base of a lot of cooking.
Endorphins are definitely are friends in healing. If you need extra ones in the short term, you can buy some DL-phenylalanine (called DLPA for short and available at any health food store) and take them in AM.
Also re the GERD problems, you could actual have too little acid in your digestive system. I recommend reading:
http://www.amazon.com/Why-Stomach-Acid-Good-You/dp/0871319314/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352750425&sr=1-1&keywords=stomach+acid+is+good+for+you
I started taking an HCL pill before meals and my acid reflux went away. Not sure whether it was the new low carb non-wheat diet or the HCL pills but my stomach seems happier. Good Luck
I’m a carb-aholic. I grew up with lots of bread and incredible pastries and desserts. I’ve even gotten to the point of making my own fancy bread and desserts because I can’t find reasonably priced (and tasty) alternatives in the US. I *love* to bake. Giving all of that up would be extremely difficult. So I’m wondering, for a girl who loves carbs and really gets a lot of enjoyment from the process, do you recommend completely eliminating carbs such as wheat, or would severely limiting it work too?
Also, I’m not a big meat eater and whenever I’ve gone on a diet similar to this, I get weak (head spinning whenever I get up, etc). I’m always borderline anemic and don’t tolerate iron pills very well. Any suggestions?
Good luck Charlie and I hope this works for you!
For the borderline anemia, do a google search on veggies with a high iron level, also cook and eat liver and cook food in cast iron pots. You can also get iron in an IV at the doctors, which bypasses the gut and many people find that much easier to tolerate.
Emmster – I had the light-headed feeling too when I started low-carb this summer. Ideas: set a glide path into low-carb, rather than all at once (for example, quinoa instead of meat, etc.); use the bottled water that contains electrolytes, and drink lots of it; and use salt freely on food. For me, the problems with light-headedness went away completely in a few weeks.
Emmster, that’s called “orthostatic hypotension”, which means “I get dizzy when I stand up” but it’s ever so much more scientific. Usually, that’s a result of low blood volume; as everyone and their sibling has said, water and electrolytes are the basic answer — water to fill up your blood volume, and salt to slow how quickly you pee it away.
Thanks folks! I don’t like salt, so maybe I just need to use more of it. My doctor actually recommended I increase my salt intake because my BP is usually rather low. Maybe I should listen to her! I do drink a lot of water already (about 3L/day).
There are other high-sodium foods, some of which aren’t “salty”: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/25/high-sodium-foods_n_840016.html#s257379&title=Breakfast_Cereals
Charlie
Sigh, another site I’ll have to bookmark so I can check back regularly
. I have (very loosely) followed a low carb diet for about a year now. I try to average under 35 grams per day. That gets easier as time goes on. Like you my primary goal was not to loose weight but I weigh 35 pounds less than I did last year at this time. This is despite an arm surgery last spring that severely limited my activities all summer. Another benefit is that my psoriatic arthritis is much better than it was when I started. Have no clue whether that is due to the weight loss or the diet change. MikeP definitely has a point about V8 juice, Clamato juice also works well.
Charlie, I’ve read Why We Get Fat too and can’t recommend it enough. I was diagnosed as type II myself just after turning 50 (I’m 53 now)despite having no family history of it and not even liking sweets.
My weight had been creeping up slowly but surely for years and I just thought it was a normal part of getting older. At the time of my diagnosis I’d gotten up to 187 pounds at 5’11″ tall. I was exercising regularly, 3 days a week, 2 hours a time at the gym, but mostly concentrating on cardio. I was doing some light weight lifting but the majority of the time was spent on an eliptical trainer. I did 60 minutes and 900 calories. If I hit 60 before 900 I kept going to 900. If I hit 900 before 60 I’d go until I hit 60 and I couldn’t understand why my weight kept creeping up.
I have a pretty strong aversion to taking medications of any kind and didn’t want to be taking more than I already am so I asked my doctor what I could do and he told me to cut out pasta, potatos, rice and bread (I added beer to the list myself). I did as he said and I lost 40 punds over 6 months, most of it in the first 3. I changed my exercise routine to emphasize weight training to build lean muscle mass and follow a similar strategy to yours, over-lift, three sets to failure. At this point my weight floats around 145 lbs and my blood sugar often, but not always, falls into normal range or just a bit high and my latest A1C was 5.8. This is without medication. I spend half the time I used to at the gym and have also taken up yoga.
I eat until I get full (which is pretty fast, I was never a big eater)and don’t count calories. I eat as much meat, chicken (skin-on)fish, butter, cheese, eggs, bacon and green vegetables as I want. The only concern I have about fat is to make sure I”m getting a good balance of Omega 6 and Omega 3. My latest lipids had my LDL in the mid 80′s, HDL around 70 and triglycerides at less than half the uh-oh number (with the help of Lipitor, unfortunately).
There are a couple of other books I have read that I can recommend to you. First owuld be “Real Food; What to Eat and Why” by Nina Planck. One of her source material books is “The Schwarzbein Principal” by an endocrinolgist named Diane Schwarzbein. Just reading the introduction to that will upend the received wisdom on nutrition (it’s an Amazon look-inside book, so you can). Last, I found JD Johannes’ “Fit for Combat” helpful in getting the exercise part figured out. My biggest challenge right now? Finding pants that fit. I’m back to the 29 inch waste I had when I graduated from high school. It’s a good problem to have.
Good luck to you
29″ waist. Gah!
I’ve got 25 inch thighs.
And years ago, when I was lifting heavy and racewalking I had 28 inch thighs….
Good luck, Charlie.
Was surprised to see in this weekends ADN (Anchorage Daily News) an unusual story about a local scientist trying to analyze the 2 varieties of bacteria in the guts of Arctic Ground Squirrels, in efforts to see if they could lead to helpful methods of obesity control in humans. Just for anyone interested allow me to provide a link:
Study links arctic ground squirrels to human obesity
Ahh — can I buy Alaskan squirrel meat in GA so I can increase the amount of those gut bugs?
And would it be sold in the VARMINT or in the CRITTER freezer case in the meat department where “shopping is a pleasure”?
Here’s what always worked for me, and I would say spectacularly so.
First of all, a set time limit is no good. To exercise without damage, you listen to your body. You start in baby steps and work up. Do what your body lets you do. If you use it, regularly, it’ll come up to where you want it, but you can’t force it.
In this regard, nothing is better than a bicycle. It’s one of the few exercises where you can vary one ride wildly from charging up hills (when you get to that point) to resting, while staying on the edge of what you can, and cannot do. It makes you stronger, but most importantly works the heart and lungs. Biking will make your shoulders, legs and forearms like iron.
Eating: my regimen when trying to loose weight is start the day’s eats with a late big salad and then eat whatever you want. You’re subtracting calories right there. And a person should eat everything. Food doesn’t hurt people, a non-functioning body can’t eat all food.
Drink lots of milk. I once had my bone density measured and it was the highest they ever saw. Much of that is also strengthening your bones through running, biking, skipping rope, hiking, etc. All of that can be done by taking baby steps. I once started a regimen of stomach crunches by doing 25 a day, and slowly increased it to 1,100 a day – but no pre-plan – my body said what to do. I once started skipping rope and running for literally only a minute or two and a fifth of a block, and worked it up to skipping rope indefinitely and running almost 5 miles. Baby steps, not a pre-planned schedule. You could hurt yourself doing otherwise.
The worst thing you mentioned is the weights. Don’t do it. Other than small weights like maybe 20 lbs. just don’t do it. Big weights at worse will hurt you and at best are counter-productive for what you want to achieve. I’d recommend calisthenics, leg-lifts, push-ups, reverse sit ups, etc.
Sometimes make up an exercise, or do one strangely. I used to lay on my back with my feet flat on the floor and simply hold my pelvis up – steady. Good for the back, legs, butt. I started slowly, 5 min. and would do that for an hour.
Last: yoga. I swear by it. Not the mumbo-jumbo, but the relaxing breathing technique while holding a pose and the part where you work out imbalances in your body, i.e., disc in lower back. Good for strength and flexibility.
My motto: Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps, cross-train, cross-train, cross-train. Baby steps to giant ass-kicking steps at the end. Roaring, growling charging up a 3 city block hill on a bike off the seat and going around a 3 mile ’round lake four times maxed out the whole time, your legs burning the whole time. But the first day; ride the bike around the block and come back.
I forgot one thing: walk. Walk and walk and walk. In my life, I have never found a limit to the number of miles I can walk. At 44, I walked completely around Batur Volcano, down in the caldera. A guy with me, an Australian hiking bush guide, had his feet give out and we had to hold up for the night.
At 44, I walked 100 miles in the Guatemalan jungle along uneven paths in one week. Walked from early morning to late afternoon if it came to that. Some days our destination was closer.
At 44, I climbed a number of massive volcanoes with a full pack.
At 57, I played frisbee on the beach, running and jumping after it like I hadn’t aged. I have gone through a number of getting-back-into shape periods in my life. I know what will work. Walking is great baby-steps and you can add elevation to that as it suits you. Start small – very small.
Another substitute for the bouillion is plain water, a dash of lemon or lime and a little sea salt. My asthma medicine severely dehydrates me and I had to give up all the caffeinated drinks in order to prevent severe leg cramps. This solved the hydration issues.
After reading Taubes’ book and thinking it was so much snake-oil – but unable to refute any of his biochemistry nor the studies cited – I decided to put it to the test. As an Engineer, that’s what I do. My calories in vs calories out was a massive fail. I could be 8,000 calories short for a week and GAIN weight.
So I reduced my carbs to around 60ishy a day.
And lost weight rapidly. If I’m under 60, I lose weight. If I’m under 120, I stay mostly the same, shading towards gain or loss depending up on how many carbs. If I’m over 120, I gain. Exercise makes little difference. Calories consumed makes little difference. Only carbs made much difference – I’ve spent the last 5 months playing with it and can only conclude that Taubes’ is right and I was horribly, massively wrong.
I’m down from 191 to 167 and still dropping, easily, heading for my weight goal of 160. My blood work went from borderline to bad to excellent across every category.
Methinks the government has been LYING to us – but for a reason. I can only imagine, about when the food pyramid came out (and predictions were for mass starvation in 10 years), folks running an analysis as to the amount of land, fuel, and feed required for 300,000,000 people eating a high-protein diet as well as what greater longevity would do to the Social Security system, job picture, etc, and deciding that switching to easy to produce, easy to store, long-lasting carbs would be much ‘healthier’ – for the Nation as a whole, if not for individuals.
Orion
Read “Good Calories Bad Calories” — there is a very good case made for high-carb being a sort of information cascade, in which a small group attained enough power in the scientific/government-funding community to enforce an artifical consensus. Taubes started looking at diet when he noticed as an editor for Science that lots of papers contradicting the pure thermodynamics, high-carb recommendations were being published, but not having any impact.
Taubes’ covered that in Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It, but it just didn’t ‘ring true’ to me – Too many people could refute it with too many studies…I dunno. I just figure they could do the math on population growth longevity, (now invalid) production models, and go “uh oh…” They could then throw their weight behind the high-carb folks.
Eh! ‘Scuse me – I need to go replace the tinfoil in my hat and hide from the black helicopters that are following me! ;-P
Orion
That’s why you should read GCBC — he does the literature search at length and lays out the arguments fully.
Congratulations on your plan and best of luck as you implement it. I took on a similar venture over a year ago and have recently hit the point where I’ve lost 30 lbs and nearly 15 points off of my body fat percentage. I feel better than ever before and did it with little exercise. I walk every day with my dog, but really don’t have a set schedule other than that. At some point I’ll add in a bit of HIT and weight training again, but for now the transformation has been really outstanding.
I do something similar to Taubes, but with a paleo bent. cutting out wheat not only reduces your calories getting rid of the wheat fits better with what our genetic structure can tolerate and digest.
The other thing the paleo world thinks about is making sure your ratios of omega 3 and omega 6 are more in balance than they typically are in the modern American diet. Once you lose the fear of fat it becomes a question of getting high quality, healthy fats. Things like pastured beef tallow, lamb tallow, or pastured lard (I love berkshire lard!) are outstanding alternatives and taste better than any seed or vegetable oil. Outside of those, coconut oil is also a great thing to have in your kitchen.
Congratulations Charlie!
I’ve been on a low carb regime (25 gr/day max) for about 8 months and generally feel great and have lost a bit of weight, although that was not my main goal either. I mostly wanted to get rid of the fat around my midriff and that went away very quickly. I don’t bother counting calories or protein/fat totals, just eat mostly meat, cheese and high fat cream and yogurt. Many days I’m sure I eat less than 1K calories; the ketogenic metab just eats body fat for the rest of whatever calories are needed for the day. Unless I eat nothing for a day or two I never feel hungry.
I abandoned bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, ice cream, fruit and fruit juice cold turkey and haven’t missed them at all. Cucumbers and celery with sour cream have replaced them.
I came up with a great recipe for high fat tzatziki: 10% Greek style yogurt, cream cheese, herb/garlic crumbed feta cheese, cucumbers, olive oil, lemon juice and chopped mint leaves. Vary proportions of the ingredients to taste. It’s fairly expensive to make this, but it tastes great!
Best wishes to you.
First off, congrats on doing anything to control your own destiny. That’s always the first step. I, too, have been following a similar approach for the past month, but for a slightly different reason. At 40 years old, 6 feet tall and 210 pounds, I was probably what most Americans would consider “normal” weight. But the issue for me was energy, mood, and testosterone. My whole life, I’ve hardly been a “mellow” guy– I’ve always been really competitive. But recently, poof. My drive was gone. ( And not just my competitive drive.) Tried the hormone-replacement thing, and no improvement. So I switched to a low carb diet, and a HIIT weight-based training program. I’m on day 29 at the moment, and the results are ridiculous. Down 20 pounds. Down 7% body fat. Strength increased by at least 20%. It’s nothing short of miraculous what limiting carbs to 25g on non-training days and 75g or so on training days has accomplished.
The other effects are amazing, too. Elevated mood, increased focus, and… my wife is very, very happy.
I’m also combining this with an intermittent fasting protocol, which includes a weekly cheat day. So the best part about it is that on that day, I can pretty much eat as much as I want of whatever I want (sugar and carbs included)– and still lose weight and add lean body mass.
It’s nothing short of miraculous to feel this different in a month…
If you are going low carb (and especially if lower calorie, which as you say is not really the main goal but sometimes happens), the first week’s weight loss of 6 lbs is likely “water” weight, lost through diuresis. Not that it’s a bad thing, but it’s unlikely to continue to later weeks. You’ll observe that if you “take a weekend off” and eat carbs, you’ll gain 5 lbs super fast, then when you go back on the program during the week, the 5 lbs will drop off by Wednesday. It’s an interesting experiment.
I know you don’t want to get hung up on calories, but keeping track of total calories is incidental to tracking of protein/fat/carbs. You can also estimate calories burned in exercise, though that is usually inaccurate. But this allows you to really understand your body’s basal metabolic rate and how it responds to your diet and exercise regimen over time.
PS I relied on Muscle Milk Light (160 cal, 20g prot, 5g carbs+5g fiber, plus vitamins and minerals) as a “snack” or breakfast/second lunch replacement to really get me through. Unlike most protein shakes it is really smooth and tasty, and pre-made (and cheap from Costco).
Yeah and I gotta agree with the Walking crowd. Walking 12k steps/day (pedometer), in addition to weights, will definitely make a huge difference. I would do my phone calls, listen to music, and think over problems during this time, so it is not “wasted”.
Something else to keep in mind:
Of all the ways to measure your progress as the weeks go by I’d say the one that is the least useful, by far, is the scale. If you continue weight training (which you should) it’s entirely possible that you’ll only see minimal weight loss. The reason is simple: as you’re losing fat you’re adding muscle, but the scale can’t tell the difference. If you don’t think about what you’re looking at it can be discouraging to look down after a month and see you’ve only lost a pound or two.
I’d ignore the scale almost completely and rely on the tape measure and bloodwork, plus the easily observable things like your bench press getting better and better.
Charles: Just want to let you know you are my inspiration. I am following you and hope to inspire my 14 yo dtr to start soon. She loved “Fathead” and it is just a matter of figuring out how to de-program yourself. I haven’t had the guts to get on the scale yet, but after 4 days my outline feels different. Somehow, the alfredo sauce makes me forget those carb cravings. Weird.
I perhaps missed someone saying that monitoring by an MD is essential — and the ol’ stress test too to give you rates for your heart.
I had my MI while walking ON THE TREADMILL at a very reasonable walking pace.
Be careful with that weight lifting. Some moves actually cause the heart to momentarily stop. Its equivalent to opening a window that is stuck. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valsalva_maneuver
The people around you should be trained in CPR (a 3 hr. course once every 2 years or so). I also recommend the purchase of an emergency defibrilator machine.
I had an esophageal problem a couple years ago that presented like a heart attack, so I’ve been stress tested and cardiologisted and all that.
(Hont: if you’re a middle aged man with really bad indigestion and tell people at the ER that you have chest pain, you get really quick service.)