Low Carb Confidential

While there have been a number of reasons I haven’t been writing as of late, one in particular is the kicker: not only have I NOT been maintaining my weight, but I’ve actually gained weight.

And that magic trick I once used to be able to pull off – go on low carb hard and lose 20 lbs in a few weeks – doesn’t work anymore.

Now, I spent a good part of last year chronicling this lack of progress, and really – is there anything interesting in watching a guy fail on a diet?

It’s like watching paint dry. So, I’ve stopped posting for now.

Now, don’t think I’ve given up. At this point in my life – 5 years into low carb, I can’t imagine living any other way.

Nor do I believe that I could live any other way.

I lost 60+ lbs on low calorie diets twice before I found low carb, and when people asked me what my secret was, I told them: learn to be hungry all the time.

What a downer.

Low carb isn’t like that. Living low carb actually lets you have a life – one where going out to dinner is possible, where you can eat foods that taste good, rather than foods engineered to trick you into thinking they taste good.

But…I say all this, and I’ve packed on some pounds. I’m more or less what I was when I came back from my high-carb vacation in January.

So it appears that low carb is failing me – right?

I think it’s the other way around: I think I’ve failed low carb.

I think it comes down to the fact that maintenance is way harder than the more strict stages of a low carb diet. There’s also the fact that my body is more finely tuned to live on a very small amounts of carbs – after 5 years of this, and the reality that I simply have 5 more years of age under my belt, make what once worked, not work anymore.

So, I’ve concluded I need to take a different tack – and part of that is to recognize that some of the rules I could once bend can’t be bent anymore. I spent some time yesterday going over my old weight charts, and reading some of my older posts, and have come to some conclusions, albeit ones I’m not particularly happy to come to, that nonetheless seem to be things I’ll need to do to get to where I want to be – that holy grail of 180.

I started 3/1/09 on this new approach, and while I can’t claim any great success, my analysis of my weight trend was steadily upward – and I stopped that.

So I’m saying goodbye to some old habits that just ain’t cuttin’ it anymore.

Here’s that list:

No Alcohol – once there was a time where I could have a couple of glasses of wine, and it really didn’t impact anything. It doesn’t seem to work out that way anymore. Heck, this blog has some detailed info on the low carb alcohol stall – very detailed. Maybe you youngins’ can pull this off, but I can’t – and I proved it most of last year. I think it finally hit home when I read a stat that said that alcohol can reduce fat-burning capability 73%. I dug up the link, if you like to read clinical research, it’s here.

So if I want to be the weight I want, I gotta swear off the wine. Bye-bye vino.

No Low Carb Bread – I once could pull this off – though it was verboten on most low carb diets. But, a review of my posts, the ones that described my best successes were ones where I didn’t eat the low carb bread. Sayonara, bread – it’s been fun.

Cut WAY Back on Splenda - Some recent studies showed that the stuff messes up you intestinal ecosystem, there’s also been studies that say that the sweet taste still messes up you metabolism because your body tastes sweet and has an insulin response – even though there’s no carbs!

Here’s a quote from a WebMD article on this:

Fowler points to a recent study in which feeding artificial sweeteners to rat pups made them crave more calories than animals fed real sugar.”If you offer your body something that tastes like a lot of calories, but it isn’t there, your body is alerted to the possibility that there is something there and it will search for the calories promised but not delivered,” Fowler says.

While the article describing the study is here, when I actually look for the study, it’s not there. the study is supposed to be here:

“Artificial Sweeteners May Damage Diet Efforts.”"Artificial Sweeteners May Damage Diet Efforts.” Davidson, T.L. International Journal of Obesity, July 2004; vol 28: pp 933-955.

But when I go there – I can’t find it – go ahead, take a look: http://www.nature.com/ijo/journal/v28/n7/index.html

Anyway, I’ve found I do better without the stuff, so I’m cutting back as much as possible.

Avoid Nitrated Meats – Nitrates are supposed to increase the tendency toward cancer – and is discouraged by most ‘authorities’. Oddly, Google ‘nitrates weight gain’ and most of the studies come back saying that the stuff slows weight gain. I would NOT take a strategy that eating bologna will cause the pounds to come off – there’s just too much evidence that the stuff ain’t good for us. Now, you might counter that the same can be said for saturated fat – but the difference here is that nitrates are a food additive, not a normal component of our diets.

I also read my own blog, and when I had given up the deli meats and went more ‘natural’, I saw more weight come off. 

Another fact that really sucks is most vegetables are fed a nitrate-based fertilizer – so unless you go totally organic, it’s hard to avoid nitrates. You can counter this by saying they are different types of nitrates, but I’m not going to overthink this one – I found that less deli meat meant less weight, and maybe it’s the nitrates, maybe not – I’m just focusing on removing them from my diet.

As of this morning, I was 218 – I think that with my new, more strict approach, I’ll lose the weight – I just need some patience.

But I’m not going to bore you with the details. I’ll update next when I’m 210.

Filed under: Articles, Change, Food, Goals, health, low carb, Personal Journal, weight loss