Down Eighty: Lies and Weight Loss

I stepped on.  The reading two hundred ninety eight pounds.  The next thing I heard "Wow, George I didn't think you were that big.  Nearly 300 pounds."  I can't lie it cut deep.  Out of all the guys that got on the scale at our factory that day I weighed the most.  This was event one that made me realize I was "FAT".

Shortly afterwards I went through the pain of passing gallbladder stones.  When they took an MRI.  My urologist says, "Well you have passed the kidney stones but come in for a chat."  I stop by and he shows me the video and starts in on me.  All I heard was "Here's some fat, there's some fat, every wheres fat fat....."  This guys was about my size on top of it.

The good news is that I had already changed my diet by that point and had dropped ten pounds.  The bad news is that the first thing I did was take my butt up to White Castles after leaving his office.  Fortunately that was the fat man's death row meal. 

I began a regimen of cardio and what I thought were healthier foods to lose the weight.  I easily dropped another five pounds but after that nothing.  I increased my cardio and dropped my calories nothing changed.  I kept telling myself I was building muscle but that was just good old mental masturbation.  The good news is that an event would soon change my life. 

My seventeen year old cousin moved to town.  He lifted weights and asked if I would work out with him.  It was a little weird because I have him by twenty years but I agreed.  Thank goodness.  Lifting weight helped me shed twenty five more pounds and now I was honestly building muscle.  I thought I was looking good and dedicated myself to achieving a six pack.  No, it hasn't shown up yet.   I was still 27% body fat after lifting.

In terms of weight loss I had plateaued again.  I could tell that the image in the mirror was improving so I wasn't overly concerned.  Then the second myth holding me back died.  The myth that fat makes you fat.   Not only only is that not true but carbs are the culprit behind insulin which is the hormones that induces fat storage but it turns out that carbs also made me act a fool, literally. 

A little side bar to explain.  Excuse me.  Through exercise I had calmed my mind enough to discover that I had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).  I am all over the place mentally I had never noticed it before working out.  Now it seemed like I could sense the breakdown so I went to a therapist and sure enough he diagnosed the condition.  I can't lie I'd been warned I had the problem throughout my life but like my weight I'd ignored the warnings.  One of the things that helps defeat ADHD are good fats and carbs just flares up that crazy mind.

The next change I made would help solve my issue with ADHD and lead to losing another forty pounds.  This change was to get on a ketogenic diet.  In the next six months I would go on a calorie surplus to repair my metabolism and mental health.  Then I would cut calories again to drop another forty pounds.  So you might be asking, "How many pounds did you put back on when going on a calories surplus?"  The answer, "Zero".  There were days that I ate in excess of five-thousand calories and I didn't gain a single pound to my morning weight.  In fairness a lot of the sustained weight can be contributed to intensified workouts.  I was spending 90 to 120 minutes in the gym 5-6 days a week.  This was probably over doing it because I ran into some recovery issues.

Now for the problem that you might have with my achievements.  I would estimate that ninety percent of people do not have the will power to change in the way I have.  You have got to be able to take the necessary actions and suffer a bit.  The most amount of will come through the dreaded "Keto Flu."  There is not that much suffering if you consume plenty of water, salt, magnesium and potassium.

So the two big lies that modern nutrition tells you are, "Do cardio to burn fat", and "Fat makes you fat".  A third lie is to eat often or fasting is unhealthy. 

Strength burns fat consistently and strength is achieved by weightlifting.  Do you want to prove this to yourself.  Go in the gym and look around.  Where are all the fat and skinny fat people?  Where are a majority of the fit people?  There may be some crossover but I can guarantee you the one or two muscular people on the cardio equipment spend a majority of their time with weights.  Don't look for the exception. 

Next let's address the claim that fat makes you fat.  Fat doesn't cause insulin to release into your system but carbohydrates do.  Guess what hormone signals the body to store fat?  If you said insulin, good job.  When you are burning carbs as energy your body is going to store some of what you have eaten as fat and then send out that hunger signal so you eat more and store more fat.  The cycle is vicious and seemingly inescapable.  Many of us are insulin resistant and store fat when we eat carbs.  It's simple to test the concept just stop eating carbs.  The initial weight loss is water weight but you'll achieve stasis where your weight doesn't budge unless you have a calorie deficit.  In that case weight will be lost. 

Finally a lot of us have been told to eat often to maintain metabolism.  That might be true if you are eating carbs but not when you are a fat burner.  When you burn fat your body doesn't distinguish between calories consumed and stored.  You simply run at your metabolic rate.   When you are not utilizing resources to digest food your body repairs for up to three days.  We are built to go without food.  It is by design.  This follows common sense.  There is a winter and food is not always plentiful.  Especially when it has to be killed.  Before agriculture the animals being eaten fought back so meals were't easy to come by.