Weight Loss
Let's talk about weight loss.
Cody introduced me to the Fat Flush Plan, a diet championed by nutritionist Ann Louise Gittleman. At first, I was a skeptic. The Plan struck me as New Age bullshit. This opinion caused no small amount of discord. However, I could not argue with the diet's results, as embodied by Cody after a summer on it. My curiosity grew as time went on.
A few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to try it. My weight peaked at 215 during college. Trying to moderate my diet without any external structure proved unproductive. The cold winter also dampened my desire to exercise. My weight stabilized around 205, but I was still overweight and damn if I didn't like it.
On March 12, I started the diet. The "plan" is divided into three phases. Phase One is a two-week long "flush" phase; your dietary options come from a small selection of food meant to be easy on the digestive organs. Sudden, sharp weight loss happens here, but plateaus after the first week. The second phase, which I have yet to reach, is the true weight-loss phase. Your food options balloon. The third phase is the maintenance phase, which Cody and I both agree is the, "We've finished the diet, yay!" phase.
One main thrust of the FFP is that our modern diets torture our livers, which serve as our main fat-burning organ. Every time we eat something our body is not optimized to handle, it puts extra strain on the liver. For an obvious example of this, drink a dozen tequila shots and see how you fare. There are more mundane foodstuffs that affect us, as well. Two of these are...grain and dairy.
I was beyond skeptical of this at first. Grain and dairy are fundamental foodstuffs for all mammalian life. This could not be true. However, it began to make some sense as I considered it. Lactose intolerance is a widespread issue. Allergies to grain are similar in scope. The FFP posits that everyone is in fact mildly allergic to both. Too mild to produce the noticeable, violent reaction that we often associate with food allergies, but enough to cause the liver to overwork and you to gain weight.
Not everyone is susceptible to both. After some experimentation, I am confident that my grain allergies are negligible. Dairy, on the other hand, is a safe bet. As you might gather, I haven't been perfect in adhering to the diet. This is due to Cody's schedule of late (a visiting sister and a cousin's wedding); Cody wants us to do the diet together so our meal choices are easier.
As a result, I've been pseudo-flushing for about three weeks, and expect to continue for another week and a half. My initial weight of 205.6 is 196.6 as of this morning. This is great news to me; I have not been below 200 for around 2.5 years, and have not been below 190 around 6. I still have a ways to go. The upper-bound limit for healthy weight at my height is 177 pounds. As one might expect, I track all of this in Excel.
My experiences dieting, exercising, and researching have led me to several conclusions. Sharing them is the real reason for this post.
Call it the Ryan Plan to Healthy Living. Give it a shot.
Cody introduced me to the Fat Flush Plan, a diet championed by nutritionist Ann Louise Gittleman. At first, I was a skeptic. The Plan struck me as New Age bullshit. This opinion caused no small amount of discord. However, I could not argue with the diet's results, as embodied by Cody after a summer on it. My curiosity grew as time went on.
A few weeks ago, I decided I wanted to try it. My weight peaked at 215 during college. Trying to moderate my diet without any external structure proved unproductive. The cold winter also dampened my desire to exercise. My weight stabilized around 205, but I was still overweight and damn if I didn't like it.
On March 12, I started the diet. The "plan" is divided into three phases. Phase One is a two-week long "flush" phase; your dietary options come from a small selection of food meant to be easy on the digestive organs. Sudden, sharp weight loss happens here, but plateaus after the first week. The second phase, which I have yet to reach, is the true weight-loss phase. Your food options balloon. The third phase is the maintenance phase, which Cody and I both agree is the, "We've finished the diet, yay!" phase.
One main thrust of the FFP is that our modern diets torture our livers, which serve as our main fat-burning organ. Every time we eat something our body is not optimized to handle, it puts extra strain on the liver. For an obvious example of this, drink a dozen tequila shots and see how you fare. There are more mundane foodstuffs that affect us, as well. Two of these are...grain and dairy.
I was beyond skeptical of this at first. Grain and dairy are fundamental foodstuffs for all mammalian life. This could not be true. However, it began to make some sense as I considered it. Lactose intolerance is a widespread issue. Allergies to grain are similar in scope. The FFP posits that everyone is in fact mildly allergic to both. Too mild to produce the noticeable, violent reaction that we often associate with food allergies, but enough to cause the liver to overwork and you to gain weight.
Not everyone is susceptible to both. After some experimentation, I am confident that my grain allergies are negligible. Dairy, on the other hand, is a safe bet. As you might gather, I haven't been perfect in adhering to the diet. This is due to Cody's schedule of late (a visiting sister and a cousin's wedding); Cody wants us to do the diet together so our meal choices are easier.
As a result, I've been pseudo-flushing for about three weeks, and expect to continue for another week and a half. My initial weight of 205.6 is 196.6 as of this morning. This is great news to me; I have not been below 200 for around 2.5 years, and have not been below 190 around 6. I still have a ways to go. The upper-bound limit for healthy weight at my height is 177 pounds. As one might expect, I track all of this in Excel.
My experiences dieting, exercising, and researching have led me to several conclusions. Sharing them is the real reason for this post.
- Drink water. A lot of water. 8-10 cups per day. I don't mean liquid, or juice, or anything else. I mean water. Period. If you feel adventurous, mix 7 oz. water with 1 oz. unsweetened, 100% cranberry juice. The key here is peeing: the more you pee, the more junk your body washes out.
- Avoid continuous intake of sugar. Some sugar, even a lot of sugar is occasionally acceptable, but never more than once a week. Case in point, I ate four cinnamon rolls last weekend and didn't gain a pound. Sugar is absent from the rest of my food choices, so I can get away with this. Most artificial sweeteners won't cut it, either; Stevia Plus, however, will. Further, "sugar free" isn't a pass. A particular concern of American consumers is the dreaded high-fructose corn syrup. Avoid it like the plague.
- Eat until you feel satisfied, not until you're full. If your body tells you that you are no longer hungry, stop eating. If food remains on your plate, save it for another time. Do not finish your plate just because there's food on it.
- Eat slowly. Hand-in-hand with the previous point, you must eat slowly. If you shovel food into your mouth, your body will not have time to tell you that you do not need anymore. You end up overeating by accident. One moment you are enjoying your meal, the next you feel stuffed.
- Avoid empty food. In other words, avoid food that is pure carbohydrates or pure fat. Your body needs protein is more than anything else. Carbs are useful for instant energy, if you use it. Fat has its own set of uses stemming from necessary fatty acids. The key point is that you need protein. Shrimp, chicken, beef, lamb, tofu&em;whatever floats your boat.
- Cut out wheat and dairy and see what happens when you add them back in. Cut out wheat and dairy products from your diet for a week and then let each trickle back in. Do you feel gassy or see a sudden increase in weight? Odds are good that you are allergic to one of them. Avoid it. Sometimes, completely avoiding it is impossible. None of these rules are inflexible, but you will feel better and weigh less if you avoid them.
- Walk for 30 minutes a day. I'm in the fortunate position that I can walk to work in this amount of time, so I get my daily exercise by going somewhere I would anyway. You don't need strenuous exercise to get in shape, you just need to move around. For many people I know, a sedentary lifestyle is the norm; we are tied to our computers. Finding time to walk non-stop for 30 minutes does wonders.
- What goes in must get used. Nutrition cannot be boiled down to a single formula. But if we were pressed to try, that formula would be: Calories Eaten - Calories Burned = Weight Gained. We burn a ludicrous amount of calories by just living. Unfortunately, we also tend to eat far more than this amount. Exercise helps, as does portion control (see the over-eating point above). If you want to eat more, that's fine; you need to exercise to compensate.
- Strength training burns more calories than aerobic exercise. Once you finish aerobic workouts, you stop burning calories from the activity. With strength training, you continue to burn calories for quite some time afterwards.
Call it the Ryan Plan to Healthy Living. Give it a shot.