It’s a question I get frequently: so what have you been doing? How did you lose the weight? The next question I’d like to suggest people ask is how can I lose the weight? The fact is it there is an epidemic of obesity in America. There are few people who couldn’t shed 50 or a hundred pounds if they just made different choices. In fact there are a number of American epidemics that could or can be reversed by a (radical) change in diet. I was going to say simple, however, the change I made has been difficult to maintain for so many reasons. Then again, so is the prospect of losing half my body weight. When I speak to others about dropping 50% of my body mass I have people look at me like I’m insane. Even my doctor tried to lower my expectations to just dropping enough weight to still be obease. Really! She is extatic with my progress and every indication is that my numbers are almost all good (moderate hypertension and vitamin D deficiency are the remaining issues – unless you add seasonal allergies and asthma). I’m still a huge bag of balls overweight. And that weight isn’t being big boned, it’s carrying too much fat around my middle.
So what you may ask is the magic bullet? What is the source of at least 50% of my weight loss? Putting my body in and staying in a metabolic state called Ketosis. It’s where the body burns fat for fuel instead of glucose. What that means practically is that I consume much more fat than proteins or carbohydrates. Ideally, in fact, I need to consume 70 plus percent of my caloric intake in fats. Yes I know that sounds crazy and my experience has been that it is incredibly difficult to make the change but it is entirely necessary to make this work. And for someone like me, making the switch to healthy carbs is the biggest problem. For the simple matter that I prefer carbs that are nutrient deficient and refined as opposed to nutrient dense and unrefined. What that means is I would choose a couple of slices of bread, a bun, or a big bowl of rice to a gigantic salad or steamed vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower or any number of nutrient dense carbs. But the body turns all of those tasty & easy carbs into sugar and stores the unused portion as fat around my middle. And the liver, in a cruel twist of fate, turns excess protein into glucose to be used for fuel or stored for future use around the middle. So, here’s what the target macros profile looks like:
I’m using an app to estimate my food intake each day. Yes it is a bit cumbersome; logging what I eat every day. But not doing it I tend to overeat. That’s what got me into this mess. I know all this sounds complicated, and it can be. Our western diet is heavily weighted to consume carbs. There are good reasons to believe that restricting my consumption of carbs can have a positive impact on my overall health.
Below is an article identifying some of the many health benefits of a Keto diet. Enjoy.
http://www.businessinsider.com/health-benefits-of-the-keto-diet-2017-12
Half The Man 