How to Lose Weight
Background
Most people that want to lose weight want a simple method stated in a paragraph or less. I will do that for you, based on my own experience. I will assume that you have already gone through dozens of diets and weight loss systems, with little success. But before I tell you my secret, I will give you a little background.
I have also done plenty of diets in my life with questionable success. But invariably I gained it all back and with age, the pound kept on piling up. The problem is that such diets are hardly ever sustainable in time. Maintenance has been almost impossible, until now. This is usually because our diet is heavy in carbohydrates (pasta, bread, rice, and potatoes among others). Further, our working hours and commute leave us very little time to burn the calories we consume. By the time we get home, we are hungry and tired. Then all we want to do is eat, watch TV and go to bed. Then the cycle repeats the next day.
Exercise is essential for our bodies at any age. But what is a good time to do a little workout? In my opinion, corporations should take more responsibility for the health and well being of their employees. They could provide a gym or other facilities and at least 1 hr of free time for office workers to workout. Nevertheless, since we cannot wait until that happens, we have to find time to do it at home. Such as calisthenics or jogging around the neighborhood. Whether you can work out every day or not, here are my suggestions for weight loss.
1. Reduce the carbohydrates in your diet
This sounds easier than it is because most of us are (or were) addicted to sugar. We routinely eat (ate) processed food sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. In my experience, when you are past the withdrawal period, you will find that low carb diets may be quite satisfying. I will include a page of recipes of low carb dishes that Ulla and I enjoy daily.
2. Include a workout routine
Start slow, there is no hurry. The goal here is to create a routine you can follow for the rest of your life. I started with 45 min walks. Now I practice tennis with Ulla for 1 hr every day and another hour of calisthenics and/or weightlifting. The problem is going to be finding the right time to do this. Keep in mind that at first, walking might be all that you can do. But as you lose the weight you will be very naturally inclined to do more intense workouts.
3. Begin Intermittent Fasting (IF)
I know it sounds scary but it should not be. The goal here is to create a new habit. You may start by reducing the number of meals from 3 to 2 and remove all snacks. Because of our sugar addiction, it may feel hard in the first few days. First, you will feel “hunger” at the time you used to have your regular meals. However, if you are able to maintain IF for 21 consecutive days, the hunger will become less and less bothersome. Eventually, it will disappear completely.
The ultimate goal should be to follow the FFFL method: Feast, Fast for Life, meaning for the rest of your life so that you can get a new longer, more satisfying and happier life. This is the OMAD (one meal a day) approach. You will find that the OMAD can be very satisfying and tasty, if only because you have been waiting for it for 23 hours.
Reduce the insulin spikes
Without a doubt, any one of the 3 items above will result in body weight loss. If you cut your carbs, the insulin spike after a meal will be less pronounced. Further, the incorporation of calories into your body fat stores will be reduced. Obviously, if you reduce your carbs, the calories that you have required in the past must come from other sources. This is why the Ketogenic diet has become so popular. I have not used a strictly ketogenic approach, so I won’t specifically recommend it, just be sure that you use the right kind of lipids in your meals: Avocados, olive or coconut oil, and nuts in general. Be sure that the carbs you eat have less sugar and more fiber (greens, especially).
Caloric deficit
Some athletes and bodybuilders eat up to 6 meals a day and these are rich in protein and vegetables. In essence, they emphasize the exercise (point 2 above). Protein can be turned into sugar in the liver, therefore a high protein diet is not appropriate for most of us. Nevertheless, I’d like to think that exercise allows me to eat a little more every day, including some carbs.
But a caloric deficit will be needed for the pounds to come off so you can use up all the glucose you consume and the glycogen stores in the liver and muscle. Being fit is a great part of why I have a happy life, and there is a secret to doing increasingly more demanding exercise (see below).
Low carbs, workouts, and Intermittent Fasting
So if you want to lose weight and still eat satisfying meals every day, you can reduce your carbs and/or exercise more, but if you want to reduce weight consistently, for extended periods of time, you should do both. If you want to reach the body weight you had in your 20’s, be physically fit, and enjoy life, you should do both along an intermittent fasting protocol.
IF to OMAD only
If you think you could only do one of the three, you should incorporate IF into your lifestyle. IF will reduce your insulin spikes to 2 a day at the most. Admittedly, together with exercise and a low carbs diet should accelerate your body weight loss. However, if you really want to change your life, you should consider OMAD (one meal a day). With one meal a day not only will you reduce your body weight, but you will gain muscle. Yes, you will gain muscle, although this seems counter-intuitive. Some believe that “fasting” will put you in “starvation” mode and begin to consume your muscle to sustain your blood glucose. That has not been my experience at all.
OMAD and muscles
After 10 years of OMAD, I have more energy and musculature than ever and feel more inclined to work out than ever before, even more than in my 20’s, when I was a smoker. Why is that you ask? because of the human growth hormone (HGH). Since Insulin is an HGH antagonist, and since I have only 1 spike of insulin in the day, my HGH stays high all night. Since I exercise while in fasting every morning, HGH stays high until I break my fast in my single meal of the day at about 11 am. Since I started my OMAD regime in Nov. 2009, I have felt I have had more energy and more desire to increase the intensity and duration of my workouts. It may appear that HGH contributes to both my muscle building, endurance and intensity of my workouts.
My OMAD transformation
It is worth noting that from 2009 to 2014, I lost 64 lb (29kg) or 28% of my body weight, without altering my macronutrients. I continued to eat bread, rice, potatoes, and pasta. Then as soon as I went back to 3 meals a day, I gained back 6.5 lb (3 kg), so I did what most people would do, instead of what I should have done: I did not go back to OMAD or cut my carbs, I simply began to cut caloric intake.
For a while, my weight went back down, this time to 161.5 lb, but so did my metabolic rate (apparently), so I gained back 10.8 lb! So in the summer of 2018, I went back to OMAD, and I have already gone back to my lows (162 lb). For the first time, I have cut my carbs and increase my fat intake. Even though I am now 62 years old, I am doing more intense calisthenics than ever before. This is a result of my OMAD regiment, rather than some kind of resolution to be fit. With OMAD your body wants to move!
My weight loss plan in one paragraph
My recommendation, based on my own experience, is that you start IF as soon as possible and go slowly from 2 meals to one meal a day. Think of it as your new lifestyle because the benefits (autophagy, HGH, fitness, and body weight loss) will stay with you the rest of your life, and you will feel better than ever before. You won’t even think that you are missing out on the other 2 meals other people eat in a day.
Exercise and workouts will be a natural part of your new life and you will begin to enjoy it, yes this is true. Those of us who were obese at one time, understand the effort that it took to carry all that weight around. Those of us that were addicted to sugar, understand the drowsiness and weakness caused by sugar. Without these, you will have more energy for invigorating physical activity.
Cutting your carbs may be a good idea, particularly if you have metabolic syndrome, are prediabetic or diabetic. But even if you are not, I suspect that a low carb diet will help you reduce weight a lot faster than I ever did. Similarly, do your own research into the Ketogenic diet, because I have little or no experience with it. However, I suggest that OMAD, exercising during fasting and a reduced carb diet may be all you need to enter into nutritional ketosis and experience its benefits.
