One of my guys at work retired this week. We had a cake. I wasn't going to have any, but I did. Oh man it made me sick. lol Which is a good thing I guess.

That's one thing I've noticed and been quite pleased with, with the low to no sugar, low to no carb diet... not to delve into "TMI" stuff, but my... how can I say it, time spent on the throne has been quick and tidy since changing my diet. After the cake, oh dear lord, it was anything but.

Every once in a while I'll have just a little taste of what I've "been missing". And without fail I'm disappointed with it every time. Also a good thing.

Similar thing happened to me with my son's birthday cake. Americans eat a ridiculous amount of sugar, when you stop eating and drinking it constantly, then have some, it's crazy how it feels.

quote:

Originally posted by arcwelder76:
Similar thing happened to me with my son's birthday cake. Americans eat a ridiculous amount of sugar, when you stop eating and drinking it constantly, then have some, it's crazy how it feels.

Yup. It's really quite amazing, when you give up the regular sugar intake, to find out just how incredibly sweet everything is made.

The "breakfast bars" I've been eating since I discovered them are Costco's Kirkland brand. Only 1g of sugar. Nothing else I eat has much sugar added. My wife bakes "low-sugar."

I haven't had a piece of typical sugar-laden store-bought cake in over two years--since the last person before me retired and they had a cake at his going-away thing at work. I still liked it, but not like I used to, and I don't miss it.

According to the Omron hand-held body fat measurement thing at my gym (I know: They're not accurate) I've lost about 3% body fat in the last couple months. It now pegs me at 22-23%, which their chart on the wall says is "good to excellent" for a man my age.

I'm aiming for under 20%. I was 15% when I retired. (Measured by that device, the more sophisticated device at my old gym, and estimated by my ex-body-building friend.)

I appear to be dropping about one pound of weight per week. That's with muscle mass gain.

Being a carb addict, I try to stay off carbs virtually 100%. But I sometimes slip, which usually results in binge eating and a struggle to get back on the wagon.

But something interesting I've noticed the last couple sugar binges, I get severe leg cramps, relieved only by drinking lots of water.

I'd like to say that intermittent fasting is getting way easier, but..



Beneficial sure, but not any easier with practice.

quote:

Originally posted by apprentice:
I'd like to say that intermittent fasting is getting way easier, but..



Beneficial sure, but not any easier with practice.

Increase your fat intake and cut out that amount of carbs.

I've been in shape for the majority of my life. Basically always ate 5 small meals a day and worked out 5x's a week. As I'm getting older I'm finding it harder. I recently switched things up and doing the 16hr intermittent fasting. I'm now eating 3 meals between 10am and 6pm and it's working. I started to do a 30 minute cardio 3x's a week as well. At my heaviest ever, I never made it over 200lbs.

If you're not weight-training, striperkid, I suggest you add it to the mix. Some argue weight training is even better than cardio for fat loss, because muscle burns energy (read: fat) even while you're at rest.

Plus weight training helps fend off osteoporoses.

After the first 2 weeks of fasting, 12.5lbs down. I know, I know, it's water weight, but it's gotta go at some point and it still counts on the scale.

Fasting has not gone as planned, as I usually make it about 22 hours before the more intense "feed me now" cravings start. Eating low carb has helped. I messed around and ate a couple chips with queso dip on them at the mexican place the other day while out with the fam, and I was twice as hungry twice as fast. Lesson (re)learned. Plan is to gradually move up to the 36 hour fasts 2 or 3 times a week, but that has yet to materialize.

Extended Ketogenic Diet and Physical Training Intervention in Military Personnel. 3-16-2019 - [ ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ ]

Abstract
INTRODUCTION:
Ketogenic diets (KDs) that elevate ketones into a range referred to as nutritional ketosis represent a possible nutrition approach to address the emerging physical readiness and obesity challenge in the military. An emerging body of evidence demonstrates broad-spectrum health benefits attributed to being in nutritional ketosis, but no studies have specifically explored the use of a KD in a military population using daily ketone monitoring to personalize the diet prescription.

MATERIALS AND METHODS:
To evaluate the feasibility, metabolic, and performance responses of an extended duration KD, healthy adults (n = 29) from various military branches participated in a supervised 12-wk exercise training program. Fifteen participants self-selected to an ad libitum KD guided by daily measures of capillary blood ketones and 14 continued their normal mixed diet (MD). A battery of tests were performed before and after the intervention to assess changes in body mass, body composition, visceral fat, liver fat, insulin sensitivity, resting energy metabolism, and physical performance.

RESULTS:
All KD subjects were in nutritional ketosis during the intervention as assessed by daily capillary beta-hydroxybutyrate (βHB) (mean βHB 1.2 mM reported 97% of all days) and showed higher rates of fat oxidation indicative of keto-adaptation. Despite no instruction regarding caloric intake, the KD group lost 7.7 kg body mass (range -3.5 to -13.6 kg), 5.1% whole-body percent fat (range -0.5 to -9.6%), 43.7% visceral fat (range 3.0 to -66.3%) (all p < 0.001), and had a 48% improvement in insulin sensitivity; there were no changes in the MD group. Adaptations in aerobic capacity, maximal strength, power, and military-specific obstacle course were similar between groups (p > 0.05).

CONCLUSIONS:
US military personnel demonstrated high adherence to a KD and showed remarkable weight loss and improvements in body composition, including loss of visceral fat, without compromising physical performance adaptations to exercise training. Implementation of a KD represents a credible strategy to enhance overall health and readiness of military service members who could benefit from weight loss and improved body composition.

Nice post K2!

And it is an actual "scientific" study as opposed to all the self-reported survey garbage.

With a Keto study, compliance doesn't matter (or not knowing if compliant) because they tested blood every day, they either were in ketosis or they weren't.

I'm nerdy enough to be really interested when the new food guidelines are released in 2020. I'm expecting a major change, the USDA was sent a lot of study info on low carb studies and the studies de-bunking the fat is bad, red meat is bad BS out there. They requested it of Nina Tieholtz and she sent it to them...we'll see!

The USDA nutritionists who developed the 1st "food pyramid" actually did a good job...except their version was overruled and totally changed to cater to special interest groups, namely big sugar and the grain industry. I'm hoping the grain, sugar, dairy, meat, and vegan lobbies are all big and strong enough now, that they cancel each other out!

I got back on the wagon last November. I was getting stronger, but my weight was remaining pretty much constant (which does reflect some fat loss). More importantly: My waistline wasn't shrinking much--if at all.

Beginning of February I concentrated on eliminating as much cheap carbs as I could and added interval fasting. (16-18 hours, once or twice a week.) Improvement, but not a sea change. Beginning of March I declared war: No more cheap carbs--incl. an almost total suspension of alcoholic beverages.

Result: I've lost ±five pounds since the beginning of the month and my waist is perceptibly smaller.

I made no other changes in my diet. E.g.: I've been eating as much as I otherwise like.

Update: This morning, getting ready to don a pair of the 36" waist jeans I've been wearing and thinking they'd become quite loose, I tried on a pair of 34" waist jeans. Fit perfectly! Whoo-hoo!

Since the beginning of November, six months ago: Weight down by ±12 lbs. Waist down by 2". Body fat, by the Omron body fat analyzer at the club, down from ±25% to ±21%. (Though, having lost fat, gained muscle mass, and still dropping ±12 lbs, the body fat loss has to have been much more than 4%.)

I believe the trick, for me, was being utterly persistent with two things: Weight training and sugar/alcohol abstinence. Increased muscle mass meant burning more calories 24x7. Cutting-out the non-nutritional carbs made my body burn more fat for energy.

Nice work to all that are seeing benefits.

Ensigmatic, I think I know what you mean by "cheap" carbs, but could you please elaborate
on what you cut out and what you substituted or increased?
Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by apprentice:
Ensigmatic, I think I know what you mean by "cheap" carbs, but could you please elaborate
on what you cut out and what you substituted or increased?
Thanks.

Pretty much just cut out nearly all sugar (candy, chocolate, cakes, pies, donuts, etc.), high-carb snacks such as potato chips, and nearly all alcoholic beverages. I substituted nuts (mostly peanuts and almonds) for snacking--and kept even that to a minimum, and drank nothing but water for refreshment.

Note I wrote "nearly all." My wife made me a cake for my birthday. I ate that. She also made a really nice cake for Easter. I ate that. I did binge on chocolate, poor chocolate, at that, in the week leading up to Easter and on Easter Sunday. I had the occasional beer or two and the occasional whiskey.

The point is I did none of those things on a regular basis any more.

Thanks.
Pretty much how I have been trying to live as well, glad it wasn't something entirely different.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
I got back on the wagon last November. I was getting stronger, but my weight was remaining pretty much constant (which does reflect some fat loss). More importantly: My waistline wasn't shrinking much--if at all.

Beginning of February I concentrated on eliminating as much cheap carbs as I could and added interval fasting. (16-18 hours, once or twice a week.) Improvement, but not a sea change. Beginning of March I declared war: No more cheap carbs--incl. an almost total suspension of alcoholic beverages.

Result: I've lost ±five pounds since the beginning of the month and my waist is perceptibly smaller.

I made no other changes in my diet. E.g.: I've been eating as much as I otherwise like.

I have done a pretty good job of cutting out the garbage (you really need to research just about everything you eat because everything seems to have sugar added). Cutting out alcohol is my fail. I just like red wine too much It is amazing how much better you feel by cutting back on sugar and staying hydrated.

quote:

Originally posted by dave7378:
Cutting out alcohol is my fail. I just like red wine too much

I know the feeling. I really enjoy a beer with dinner, or out on the patio on a warm summer day. Also my occasional tot of bourbon, rye or Scotch. But alcohol is a killer, calorie-wise.

Any one of a beer, a double-shot of whiskey or a glass of wine is going to run around 125 calories. "That's not much," you might say. But it adds up.

Besides: I haven't cut out alcohol permanently. It's a measure I've taken to get my weight and shape where I want it. Once I get there I'll slack off a bit, until and unless I see the trend reversing.

I’m gonna join ya’lls party, I think.

6.5 years ago I weighed somewhere around 470 at 6’3” when our first child was born. That provided the motivation. We changed the way we looked at food, and even changed what we considered food. I began working out doing intense (for me) circuit training classes. I mixed in a few boot camps at the same circuit training place, learned a lot about nutrition and about myself. In the process I got all the way down to 299.5lbs at my lightest.

At that weight I had approximately 230lbs lean muscle mass and while I had a ton of flab still, I was dang strong with really good cardio reserves and really great movement. I then realized my goal of weighing 220lbs was never ever going to happen. That was probably a 18-20 month journey. I did a half marathon at that 300lb mark after only 9 weeks of jogging... 0 miles to 13 in 9 weeks. It was a terrible thing to do.

Kids 2 and 3 came along, along with a season of traveling. Our lazy ways returned. So did almost all of the fat.

I got north of 450 again over the last 3 years. It’s amazing how easy it is to do that. And terrifying. I don’t know what I got up to because my scale only goes to 448 or so.

I’ve been easing back into healthy eating, and using 3x a week physical therapy as a spring board/motivation to start exercising again. I tried going back to the circuit training, but I can’t. At my weight my knees can no longer handle it. I did too much damage to them the first tine around between the 5-6 times a week hopping around that studio and the 9 week foray into jogging. They just hurt.

So I started at a traditional gym, combined with the PT and eating like I used to. I’ve been on about 1800 calories for several weeks (plus/minus a few hundred) on a 50% protein/30% fat/ 20% carb ratio and was doing fine. Since starting lifting weights on Monday I’ve been starving the last few days despite the sane food intake, so that’s a good sign. My metabolism is starting to tick up.

We got this.

I have been absolutely shocked at the speed in which consistently working out for the past couple of weeks has had an impact on my blood pressure and my resting heart rate.