It's Your Hormones, Doing Hormonal Things.

You've heard the expression, "you can't have your cake and eat it too".   It doesn't really make sense at first.  You can't have your cake and eat it too.  In other words, if you eat the cake it will disappear and you will no longer have it.  You can hold onto the cake, not eat it, and you will have it.  You can't eat it AND have it.   For the sake of this blog, I'm going to pretend that the "it" in this scenario is weight loss.   You can't have your cake and have weight loss too.  But you can have lots of other delicious foods.

I'm been a yo yo dieter for much of my adult life.  When I hit 23, I started gaining weight like crazy.  I was up to 211 about a year into my marriage.   I'm guessing I was around 160 a few years prior, though I didn't own a scale.  So in the summer of 2007 some friends and I decided to do a weight loss challenge.  I started at 211 (with the help of a gallon of water to pad my stats) and finished 3 months later at 176.   It was 3 months of torture.  Exercise everyday and severe calorie restriction.  I didn't really know what I was doing.  Well, over the next months/years it all came back.  Because who can really sustain that lifestyle?  And we shouldn't have to work out everyday just to stay at a reasonable weight. Let alone the fact that chronic exercise can be just as unhealthy as a bad diet.

You simply can't out-exercise a bad diet.

Like I mentioned before, over the next few years my weight crept back up to the 210's, then I'd restrict calories and exercise.  I'd lose about 15 pounds and be satisfied.  But then it would come back.    I've probably gained and lost over 100 pounds over the past 10 years or so.  I got really good at losing the weight I gained.  But it just wasn't right.

So many people find themselves in this pattern.  Some give up and have accepted being overweight.  Some still go back and forth eating and exercising.  But it's not about the "weight".  It's about how you feel and are you healthy, physically, mentally and emotionally.  Weight gain is a sign that something in your life is out of balance.

I would venture to guess that when most people want to lose weight they choose to exercise.  I have a hunch that their mindset goes something like this....."I'm getting fat, I should lose weight.  I need to stop eating so much junk.  I can't.  I love food.  But I can exercise. I used to be athletic so this should be easy.  And as long as I burn more calories than I consume, I'll lose weight.  So exercise it is."

I'm telling you now, this doesn't work.  It may work for you in the short term, but it's not sustainable.  The "cake" that you want is weight loss and you can't have weight loss and eat cake too.  Even if you exercise, it's not practical.  Case in point,  two years ago over the course of about 5 months I ran 6 marathons, 15+ half marathons and about 30 other runs of 5k or more.   I didn't massively over eat during that time frame either.  I didn't lose a pound.   You'd think averaging about 40-50 miles a week I'd have lost weight.  Wrong.  Our brains and bodies are smart.  It sensed a pattern.  I was running almost every day or every other day.  It knew I was using energy so anything I ate, it stored.  It needed every bit of energy I could give it.  I was stuck in a storage/depletion cycle, never actually getting to all the long term fat storage.

Here's the big secret. 

Weight loss is 80% diet.  But it's not just about eating chicken salads, kale, fruit and yogurt.  Anything but.  It's about finding out what type of foods you need to be eating and how those foods interact with your hormones.   When you eat a high carbohydrate diet, that equates to a high insulin producing diet.  Insulin is the hormone that transports glucose from your blood stream and uses it for energy or stores it as glycogen in your muscles and liver.   If your glycogen stores are full, glucose is converted and stored in your fat cells...thus making you, well......fat.   NEWSFLASH.  Fat doesn't make you fat.  Consistently eating  a high carbohydrate diet or snacking every few hours of a with carbohydrate filled snacks,  keeps you in storage mode.  You'd have to exercise an awful lot to keep a balance...and even if you could do that it can lead to insulin resistance.

But I have good news.  What if I said you can have your bacon and have weight loss too?  See, a low carbohydrate diet (100g or less of carbs from healthy sources like leafy green veggies, OCCASIONAL fruit and nuts) will keep you in a low insulin producing diet and engage glucagon.  Glucagon is the retrieval hormone.  It senses the blood sugar is a little low and will stimulate the liver to break down glycogen and release glucose into the blood stream as well as break down stored fat (triglycerides) to use as fuel for cells.   If you go really low carb (50g or less though some will say 20 to be sure) and you'll go into ketosis and burn some serious fat.  Your body will produce ketones for fuel.   In addition to ketones, your body will thrive off your stored fat being used for fuel, as well as exogenous fat from healthy oils like olive and coconut (NOT seed oils like soybean, canola or vegetable oil: these are very inflammatory and your body will not thrive), Avocados, nut butter, grass fed butter, ghee, nuts, cheese, heavy cream....OH and did I mention BACON and EGGS?

And yes.  If you don't eat meat, you can still cut out pasta, bread, sugars, excess fruit consumption, grains, corn and other starches, and add in healthy fats in addition to your leafy greans, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, and cabbage.  This will take a little extra planning to assure proper protein requirements are met, but still possible.  Remember, there are only two essential macronutrients, protein and fat.  There is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate.  That doesn't mean they don't have their place, they just aren't essential as many people suggest.

The even better news.  You don't need to buy some magic weight loss energy product either.  The foods you can enjoy on a low carb/ketogenic/primal diet are incredible.  Not cheap low fat cardboard rice cakes or dried out chicken breast.  Primal isn't a fad.  We've been doing it for tens of thousands of years.

Don't take my word for it.  I challenge you to try it for yourself.  You don't have to exercise to lose weight.  Let me help you do it.  Prove it to yourself.   Exercise for fun, not for weight loss.

Putting myself out there on this one.  This is 5 months of diet. 

A year ago I started a Ketogenic way of eating and lost a little over 30 pounds in about 2 months.  I've kept it off for over two years now with absolutely no problems.   I've never been able to maintain a great weight for myself for this long in my adult life.  I'm 6'1" and 190.   I've also started a support group on Facebook and the small group of friends and friends of friends has collectively lost well over 4000 pounds.

 I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is.  If you are serious about losing weight, I'll meet with you and discuss a plan.  If you like it and are willing to commit to it, we can move forward.  I care about people and their health.  I wasted so much time and energy doing things the wrong way.

I am a certified primal health coach.  Health coaches are simply that.  A coach to help you navigate weight loss and healthy lifestyle practices like minimizing stress.   I won't even charge you anything, though I do have limited space.  I just want to see people take control of their health.

And once you get things all figured out, you'll be able to eat that piece of cake if you want to.  And you'll know exactly what that cake is doing in your body!  Might make you think twice.....