In 2016 I went to the doctor and had a conversation that is pretty typical I believe of an American upper middle class man in his late forties . I was 236 lbs. and my bloodwork was high in cholesterol and my liver enzymes were too high. Basically I was over weight and drinking too much. He gave me the usual speech about cutting back and dieting and I listened to him.
I did listen to him sort of , but I did not really want to change my lifestyle that much deep down. So, I half assed it. I went to the gym more and decided to really try the keto craze that was pretty popular and still is. I looked up the Paleo diet and all the science on keto and what the deal was. I like the concept of the paleo diet which is very similar to keto. Our bodies were not really made to eat the way we do in our modern world. We were still cavemen physically for the most part and we should be hunting and gathering fo our food. It makes sense to me. But I still liked my Coors light and was going to work around all the extra calories that come with it.
So I began to limit carbs. I liked Tom Brady's idea of "don't eat it if it is white".Here’s Brady’s personal chef, Allen Campbell, describing the football star’s list of very specific food preferences and no-nos to the Boston Globe in 2016:
"No white sugar. No white flour. No MSG. I’ll use raw olive oil, but I never cook with olive oil. I only cook with coconut oil. Fats like canola oil turn into trans fats. ... I use Himalayan pink salt as the sodium. I never use iodized salt. ... What else? No coffee. No caffeine. No fungus. No dairy." Even certain vegetables and fruits are off limits. Brady doesn’t eat nightshade vegetables such as peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants."
You can check out Tom's diet called The TB12 Method: How to Do What You Love, Better and for Longer.
I got a Fitbit. The link to the Fitbit Charge that I use now, is here if you want to get one. I highly recommend it if you are serious about your new fitness goals and weight loss.I Researched food logging apps and decided on My Fitness Pal mostly because it syncs with Fitbit and free. I remember when they were acquired by Under Armour. Now it looks they were just sold again to a private equity firm. We will see how that goes.
By mid 2017, I had lost 35lbs in one year. Simply using diet and exercise. I went a bit crazy though. I went to the gym at 6 am every morning and did calorie restriction to 1800 calories per day. Because I kept drinking alcohol, I built my whole diet and exercise program around the extra calories. That was one way to go and not the healthiest by any means. But I have to say, once you start learning how many calories are in your food and what you are actually burning at the gym, it really makes things easier. Kind of like trying to find your location just driving around in the general vicinity without an exact map and the address.
I gained it all back and then some by mid 2019. I was 254 lbs at this point. Not so good. This is where it got real for me. I figured out what worked for me. I decided to quite drinking and really learn more about food not just how many calories are in it. And I began to exercise in such a way that worked for my body. And this time, I lost 60 lbs in about a year. In a very specific way. I started doing my Semi Keto Diet. It was not hard once I committed and it worked! I am not too much of a freak about it. I now do not count calories like a crazy person, I do not go to the gym at all hours of the night or morning, and I am in general in a good place with my weight as I have really adopted this new way of eating as my lifestyle not a one time thing. More to come on all this. I will go through the basic details in my new book.
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