I was accidentally right all along?

Thanks to Dr Tamsin SportieDoc, I am currently half way through reading a very interesting book indeed.  Since I decided to try to lose weight back in 2006, I've been very interested in food, nutrition and the sciency bits behind it.  And it seems like we've (Western society) been swinging to and from the more useful answers over the years: "fatty food is bad!" -> "carbs are bad!" -> "eating fat makes you fat" -> "refined sugars are more evil than crack!" -> "low fat diets!" -> "low carb diets!" -> "nuts are too fatty and make you fat!" -> "eat a handful of nuts a day!"...

When I decided to change my lifestyle and eat differently to firstly lose weight and then keep it off, I reduced my energy intake in the understanding that if "energy in > energy out", you put on weight and the converse of "energy in < energy out" and you lose weight.  And, in the process of doing that I accidentally did something right.  I ended up quite dramatically reducing the amount of carbohydrate I was eating (almost no bread, no pasta pretty much ever, not much potato/rice/starchy veg) and lost a load of weight.  Yes, I also reduced the amount of cheese, butter, oil I ate and had almost no nuts or seeds ever, but I also almost completely cut out alcohol and sugar too.  I also ended up eating quite a lot of nuts and seeds at the tail end of last year, in an attempt to get some more variety and hard-to-get minerals into my diet, which co-incides with another drop in weight and body fat levels.

This is not an image from the book,
but illustrates one of the main points
that insulin inhibits lipolysis (part of
how fat changes from stored
to usable fuel in the body)

I can't explain the theory in the same way as Taubes and nor could I in a few lines of blog post even if I were good at reducing things to simple facts.  The thing is that there's a lot of scene setting and examples that he gives in the book that get you thinking and questioning before he explains what (he and a number of people) believe to be going on inside the mammalian body with what goes in and the effects on body composition and overall body-weight.

I can recommend that you get hold of a copy either in print or digital form and read it.

Having listened to MrTOTKat talking about some of the endurance sports podcasts he listens to, where they've covered topics like ultra-runners running on very little fuel which is mostly not carb-heavy and teaching the body to use fat as a fuel for endurance sports, I was finally given that push by Taubes' book (though I'm only half way through so far) and I'll be testing out some of the theory over the next few weeks, in a very unscientific way, to see if by tweaking and refining my existing pretty reasonable diet I can better control my body fat and then maybe even reduce reliance on carbohydrate as a fuel in the longer term.  Let's see!  If the theories hold up, I should be able to do it with no genuine hunger at all (though I may well have cravings, but that's tough boobies and I can deal with that just fine).  If the experiment yields a positive result, I may well have to go and re-write a bunch of my pages on weight loss and maintenance.  I sincerely hope that is the case!

Hungry hungry day

The problem with rest days, apart from occasionally really wanting to hit the gym (not today, though, I really felt like I needed a day off), is the hunger. I'm still aiming for a bit of deficit at the moment, 2lbs to shift to be happily in the middle of my preferred range but it'll take a few more weeks to get there as I'm taking it slowly but it stall means that on rest days, the total is a bit low and I do get a bit hungry. I am careful to keep eating little and often, but sometimes it's a bit difficult.

There were a couple of new things I wanted to try today; my mid-morning snack came from a "kiddies" range by Eat Natural, called "lunchies". There are two flavours that I can find at the moment and today I tried the yogurt, strawberry and mango one:-


...which was absolutely delicious! There are very tangy berries in there that counteracts the sweetness of the yogurt; the only problem is that its over too soon! I guess the point is that it's a small portion for children. But at around 100kcals, it should be fine for an adult snack too. 5 bars in a pack, so it's a good thing that I like them.

The next trial was an afternoon fruit hit:-


...which also comes in a variety of flavours and is simply a mix of pureed fruit. No added flavouring, colouring, sweetener, water, juice... nothing. Not very filling, but it works out as 1.5 portions of fruit & veg and this one was certainly really nice. 2 other flavours to try and I think they may work -really- well as a Bellini purée with sparkling wine.

Having been a bit hungry all day, I opted for some comfort food for dinner in the form of a chorizo, chicken, courgette, butter bean and tomato stew with cous cous:-



Spicy (added smoked paprika) and garlicky. Very warm and filling. Hunger beaten :o)

Back to the gym tomorrow though!

B - greek yogurt with 1 scoop and fruit compote
S - yogurt, strawberry and mango "lunchies" bar
L - salad: lettuce, sweet pepper, capers, chicken fillet, lemon juice and black pepper
S - "pulp", Apple Strawberry and Blueberry
S - beef jerky
D - stew: tinned tomatoes, courgette, butter beans, leftover roast chicken, chorizo, garlic and smoked paprika

Calories (kcal) [kcals to maintain weight (inc. exercise)	1382 1795]
Protein (g)	132.6 (39.7%)
Carbohydrate (g)	138.8 (38.9%)
Fat (g)	31.7 (21.3%)
Fruit & Veg	9.8

I may have over-done it on Wednesday

I did my new routine in full for the first time on Wednesday and had to guess some of the weights as the markings are different on the machines in my new gym compared with the old one. Two days later and my shoulders are still really quite sore, even to the touch. I did get a sports massage yesterday but it didn't get to the sore bits on the tops and fronts of my shoulders. However, the knots around my shoulder blades are a lot better than last time.

Anyhoo... too sore to swim yesterday and too ill to do anything today (which is good as my shoulders are definitely too sore and weights training would have been a bad idea). My throat is sore and partially closed, making me feel queasy a lot of the time, but eating seems to quell the vileness so I've been eating all blimmin' day. If my throat improves tomorrow, I'll go to the gym, if not, I might go for a gentle swim, but the showers at the local gym aren't all that warm so it's not an enticing prospect.

I think I need to go back to posting my food and nutrition stuff here as it's been slipping and I've been convincing myself that I've been eating non-trivially less than maintenance calories (including exercise calories) and it's simply not the case. I'm hoping being more public about it will make me see that better and maybe get some hints from people on alternative foods to help even out the hunger throughout the day. I've got very used to my breakfast, morning snack, exercise, chocolate milk after exercise, lunch, early afternoon snack, late afternoon carrot and houmous, dinner and sometimes supper. I've got very used to eating pretty much every 3 hours throughout the day and on plain maintenance kcals with no exercise, that's pretty hard to do.

I -have- been losing fat, slowly, but I'm keen to get to my target, dammit! 1.3% to go and no access any more to the fat monitor that I've been being measured with for the last 5 months. I have tried to compare it with the one I bought - a "proper" full body analyser, 4 point bio-impedance jobbie - but I can't tell whether it is simply offset at 1.8% higher than the one at my old gym, or whether it's more complicated than that. I suspect the latter, mostly seeing as bio-electrical impedance is very sensitive to hydration levels and electrode positioning, but what can I do? As long as I'm consistent going forward, that's what matters. So, I will assume a 1.8% offset and work from there.