Warning – this post talks about weight loss. If this is triggering to you, skip it. I know we all have different relationships with food and our bodies and I encourage you to do what works for you. However, I wanted to share something that has worked for me in case it can help people. You may not agree with what I share, heck, I would not have agreed with what I did a year ago – but here we go!!
I have wanted to write this post for months – but also weight loss struggles are deeply personal. It is more than a physical struggle. It is also a journey fraught with emotion. My weight has been something I have struggled with since I was a child. I have struggled to have a healthy relationship with food and to appreciate my body for all the wonderful things it does for me and I have struggled (and mostly lost the battle over the last 20 years) to maintain a healthy weight through much of my life. I know many people have it worse than me. I know people struggle with eating disorders – which I haven’t really (unless you consider overeating a disorder). I know people struggle with more weight gain than I have – but the weight I had to lose was not insignificant and the extra weight WAS impacting my health.
My Story
I have always been pretty active. I love to bike and hike, and have often been a pretty diligent fitness class participant. So when people say, “exercise” I just think – check! I have also gotten pretty good at listening to my body and not overeating when I am full. I was avoiding things that were high in fat and calories and had tried counting calories and/or “points” off and on for years. I DO struggle with sweets and snacking. I love chocolate. Even that though, I had gotten pretty selective with so that I only ate things I really enjoyed – I could say no to a sugar cookie or cake or things that I didn’t deem “worth it”. However, even with all of these accomodations, I was holding mostly steady or gaining a bit over time, but hadn’t successfully lost weight for years. You can imagine the frustration of doing all the things that you feel like you are taught to maintain a healthy weight and to continually feel like you are failing at it. So after seeing several friends and family members lose significant amounts of weight, I singled out the one who I knew had not had weight-loss surgery and asked her what she had done. She referred me to a PA at a metabolic clinic where she had been going – so I made an appointment.
A year later I am down 46 pounds and have completely changed my understanding of nutrition and how to lose weight. I still have some weight to lose, but it no longer feels daunting because I know what works!! So, I’m here to share what has worked for me (as well as shed light on what hasn’t worked for me) over the last many years. The PA I saw did some blood work at my first appointment and told me that I had “insulin resistance”. I would love to explain all of the science to you – but I’m not a scientist and can’t do that very effectively. However, if you are interested, Benjamin Bikman has a lot of information on YouTube, Instagram as well as books he has written that talk about insulin resistance, why it makes us sick and how to reverse it.
During my first month I was told to cut out sugar, white flour and rice and add in some supplements and electrolytes. I was also told to prioritize protein. There was no counting or measuring. In ensuing months we moved closer to an extremely low-carb, high protein diet (similar to keto, but with emphasis on healthy fats), learned to check ketones, learned about the importance of sleep and introduced some intermittent fasting. I had regular blood work done along the way as well as using the “InBody” scale periodically. This measures body composition to make sure I wasn’t losing a bunch of muscle and to track my visceral fat levels. I also read the book The Obesity Code by Jason Fung {Aff. link}. He focuses on how our hormones control our weight rather than the calories in/calories out model I had believed all my life.
I had heard about the keto diet before but had always dismissed it as just a really unhealthy way to lose weight. After seeing all the positive changes to my body after following this diet for almost a year, I no longer feel this way. Learning that calories and fat don’t matter has literally turned everything I thought I knew about nutrition on its head. However, it has been the key to unlocking the weight loss that had eluded me for years. I have tried all the counting calories and points programs. I really wanted to believe that I could have a balance of healthier, low-calorie type foods and some of the higher sugar treats I craved and still lose weight, but I finally had to admit to myself that it hadn’t worked.
Within a week of changing my diet, my knees quit hurting. Sugar is inflammatory, so while I thought it was the extra weight I was carrying that was causing my knee pain, it was actually the inflammation – and I saw improvement even before I had lost much weight. I didn’t notice much difference in ease of activity last summer, but as it is warming up this year, I have definitely noticed that I am getting less winded and I am just really enjoying hiking and biking a little more easily!!
I am looking forward to finishing the weight loss portion of my journey so that I can add some foods like fruit back into my diet regularly – but I have had to resign myself to the fact that sugar is just not good for my body, and that I need to be careful with the types of carbohydrates I consume if I want to maintain a healthy weight.
Having watched people close to me gain and lose weight many times over the years, I know that this will be a life-long struggle for me. During the holidays I started eating sugar again, and it has been a struggle to get back to eating truly low-carb. I still fight sugar cravings daily and know that the statistics say that keeping weight off long-term is difficult. However, right now I’m able to convince myself that fighting that battle on the daily is better than fighting the health battles I may have to deal with if I don’t stay on top of this.
Weight Loss is Not a Cure-all
That said, I have a few health issues that people like to blame on obesity (or at least tell patients that losing weight will help), that have NOT improved as I have lost weight. In the past I was unwilling to get help for some of these problems because I would tell myself that I just needed to lose weight – so I should do that before seeking help. After losing weight and not seeing improvement, I wish I had taken care of those things earlier. So, if you are carrying more weight than you think you should, don’t deny yourself medical care thinking that you don’t deserve it until you lose the weight you think you should.
Conclusion
If you still think that calories matter, and you prize things that are low-fat, maybe it’s time to look a little deeper at some of the research about high protein and low-carb diets. It just makes sense to me now, but I literally walked around in a state of shock for about 6 months as I watched the numbers on the scale steadily go down eating things that I had always believed to be “bad for me”. Does my story resonate with you? I would love to answer any questions the best that I can – post in the comments below!
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