I started writing this post in March of 2023, but somehow haven’t found a way to finish it until December 29th, 2023. The additions I have just made in December before posting will be in bold text. I think it is because I feared I would not be consistent in this method. Another fear I had was that I have a bachelor’s degree in theater and a master’s of science in Instructional Design. I am not a medical doctor so giving health advice seemed like something I was not qualified for.
I went for a physical check-up with my PCP On April 19th of this year (2023) and after looking at my numbers he asked if I was doing anything differently. I said I was and explained a bit of what I have to say in this post. He said, “Well, whatever you are doing it is working. You could teach a class on this.” I agree with him, I don’t know if he knows that I work on learning, but, yeah, I could teach a class.
The main thing I want to stress is simply the weight gain I experienced. I acknowledge that weight gain is only a single measure, but if you are changing habits and are overweight, then weight loss is a good place to start. I am 6 feet 2 inches tall and the most I have ever weighed is about 250 lbs US.
I used the YMCA app to track my workouts and my weight. I managed to get down to about 202 right before our trip to Thailand. This screenshot was taken around June 8th when I was about 208 lbs. So this is what was happening with my weight a year previously to June 2023.
Then while we were in Thailand, (while I was on vacation) this happened.
This is what I looked like before all of this started
And this is what I looked like after.
Below this point is the original post I wrote in May of 2023, I will add more pictures and videos to support my point:
No More Sugar
I have made a promise to myself to explore the concept of consistency in 2023. Most importantly, I have successfully eliminated raw sugar from my diet. Cane sugar, corn syrup, maple syrup, and yes even honey are things that I simply do not eat for now. I will eventually go back on the Maple syrup and the honey I think, but for now, for consistency around not eating honey, they are out. In addition to that sugar has been shown in research to be not much better for your body than vodka, beer, rum, malt Liquor, Milwakees Beast, Nattie, Stag, etc.
“Your liver metabolizes sugar the same way as alcohol, and converts dietary carbohydrates to fat,”
Dr. Hu
“The effects of added sugar intake — higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, and fatty liver disease — are all linked to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke,”
Dr. Hu
So how do I sweeten things, well, the short answer is Stevia or Monkfruit. Even certain sugar alcohols have no calories but tend to confuse the body and still disrupt the insulin cycle. So, for the most part, I don’t eat sweet things, but if I have a sweet craving I use the Steevia and Monkfruit packets I get at Costco.
The first video I watched that inspired this whole health journey is this one:
I understand that Dr. Berg is a chiropractor and not a dietician, but hell I’m an instructional designer, so I don’t have much room to judge. Still what he is saying is accurate, at least for the most part, and I am holding myself up as an example that it works.
While we are on the subject, I would simply like to bring up the point that the “practice” of medicine is still perceived to be an art as much as a science. I believe it was this podcast that explored the concept that the practice of medicine doesn’t look as much at the newest science but more along the lines of “This is how we have always done it.” Or, “This has worked so far so let’s just stick with it.”
Click on the image below to read the transcript and hear the audio.
https://freakonomics.com/podcast/bad-medicine-part-1-the-story-of-98-6/
Consistently Fasting – 16/8 to 20/4
If there is one thing other than sugar that I am consistently working toward it is insulin resistance, or finding ways to reduce the number of times per day my body starts creating insulin. This is a key to health because then when we actually do create some insulin our body reacts more effectively, and when we are not creating insulin our body goes into a rest state. The state of autophagy is when your body cleans itself out. It throws out all the junk, the bad mitochondria that lead to well, cancer.
Autophagy –
Consumption of the body’s own tissue as a metabolic process occurring in starvation and certain diseases.
Destruction of damaged or redundant cellular components occurring in vacuoles within the cell.
OxfordLanguages – Google
As the title suggests I have consistently undergone Intermittent fasting. I have vowed to skip breakfast and have not eaten it for just under 4 months (as of April 2023). I know that skipping dinner would be healthier because it would improve my sleep, but I wanted to start with something I knew I could be consistent with. I wake up and have a cup of coffee, If the day before was rough or a cheat day, I might add some ghee or cream in to make some bulletproof coffee but on a normal day, I only add stevia or cinnamon if anything. Two weeks ago I went for a two-day fast, on Thursday and Friday, and then ate a late breakfast on Saturday. It felt great and I was surprised I could do it.
At one point throughout this entire year, I fasted from Thursday to Sunday. I did not eat anything but water and coffee for over 72 hours. It was intense but overall I really enjoyed it. My fasting this year has ebbed and flowed, but overall I have fasted at least once per week to allow my body a chance to clean out the junk and decrease the chances that I have live cancer cells in my body. As I mentioned previously I have watched a lot of Dr. Berg’s videos, and here is his take on fasting. I like how these videos feel like a course in a classroom and he provides simple actionable advice.
The concept of fasting really did pick up for me later in the year. I can also use this opportunity to share another health goal I set for the year. This one is more about longevity and also focuses on no sugar, no alcohol, and fasting. I often listen to the Ten Percent Happier podcast on meditation. I first listened to the How to Get Fit Sanely series, and I listened to the episode with Dr. Mark Hayman before the others, and after listening to the others I still like this one the most.
I like his concept of having a long health span not just a long lifespan. Live a long healthy life. He also uses research from the blue zones, and he gets a bit carried away with supplements, but I really like his concepts of hot saunas, cold water baths, and eating the fruit of wild stressed plants. I got his audiobook from the library and put it on my phone for my trip to Thailand. Well, both of these books actually.
His message is not really groundbreaking… basically, maximize the nutritional content in your food. Minimize carbohydrates and sugar. Eliminate alcohol. Add small stressors to your lifestyle like working out, hot saunas, and cold baths. This habit activates your recovery systems, but once the repair is completed these systems keep on working. The idea is that this will increase your “healthspan“, not just your lifespan.
I have listened to Young Forever the most and found it very compelling information. Some of the information on nutrition and supplements is overwhelming, but it’s easy for example to remember to eat loads of pomegranate and kiwi fruit. Overall, it is just the principle of what makes you feel healthy, so find ways to stick to that.
I have the audiobook on my phone now so tracks from that book will randomly pop up when I mow the lawn. On one such occasion, there was a statement that Mark Hyman made about how new science is always heavily criticized by the scientific community. He basically claimed that old ideas in the world of science usually die out when those who believe them die. So, paradigm shifts in the scientific world are incredibly slow. What is considered “true science” or “legitamine science” is a relative term and changed throughout the ages.
Now a skeptic would think, “Well, of course, Dr. Hyman would say that how convenient, because he is a quack and he is full of $#!+.”
…And yet another person could hear that and think, well all of these ideas are new and have not all been thoroughly tested beyond a doubt with conclusive controlled studies. That is what you get with new or cutting-edge science. I could give it a shot and see how I feel. That is more what I did and I have to say that it worked for me. People are all different and what worked for me might not work for everyone else. Finding what works for you is what the health journey is all about.
As I mentioned I got into Mark Haymen from the Ten Percent Happier podcast on meditation. They had a Get Fit Sanely series, and I enjoyed all of them. I recommend you check it out!
Of the series these were my 2nd and 3rd favorites:
612. Can You Get Fit Without Self- Loathing? I Cara Lai
614. Your Brain on Food I Dr. Uma Naidoo
Your brain on Food was especially compelling and I share some of the food I crafted later in this post.
I also gave the intuitive eating episode a go. It was very compelling because it was obviously the favorite plan shared by the host, Dan Harris, but it didn’t work for me as well. Intuitive Eating was something I attempted later in the year, and it really led to me overeating and basically eating whatever I wanted between most of November and December. You can look at the chart for the whole year to see the overall result.
So, you can see above that my year was a net loss of 14 lbs. The low point in the middle was July when we visited Thailand and was my main goal to have a trimmed physique. The flat part after that was a result of my 50-Pushups a Day Challenge. Then after that, I listened to the intuitive eating podcast and added cheat days. Then October and November became a cheat month.
Consistently Nice to Myself
It has not always been easy cutting out raw sugar and then not eating for more than half the day. When I first started on this path I was happy to have the guidance of Dr. Eric Berg DC. His videos on the “Healthy Keto” approach made a lot of things fall together for me. Healthy fat is important in this transformation. It is the key to letting go of sugar. This is because our bodies are geared to store energy as Ketones and then burn that energy as fat fuel. Fat is a very efficient fuel for us. Sugar was not part of the equation until recently.
Here is another Dr. Berg plug on how to get started on “Healthy Keto.”
I have added cheat days after implementing “The Four Hour Body” method by Tim Ferris. This has really helped with the psychology of keeping on track with this method. On Saturdays I can eat whatever I want, I still fast in the morning, but I break my fast with foods high in protein, fiber, and healthy fats. There are also extra exercises I can do on this cheat day but I am normally working in the yard anyway so I don’t do them! This concept of how to have a cheat day really worked for me so I recommend checking it out. I mostly just added the workout to my schedule 3 times a week from this method. I have also added carbs that are not “white”, any carb that is or can be white. So, bread, potato, pasta, and rice are out, but yellow corn, sweet potato, or purple potatoes can be eaten in moderation.
Overall the cheat days work well for me as a psychological break, but they often turn into cheat weekends, and then coupled with intuitive eating they become cheat months or cheat seasons. So, they work but they should be used in moderation. If you just eat whatever you want one day a week then you really are not on a real ketogenic diet, because a bad cheat day can kick you out of ketosis for up to 4 or 5 days after.
I would really like to emphasize the workout sessions from “The Four Hour Body” as those helped immensely to use the “Minimum Effective Dose” MED of exercise to stay healthy and save time.
Consistently Well
So, far this health journey has been a journey of learning. It really is about finding what works for me to stay fit, and feel better about myself. I would say that cutting out sugar and snacking are the two biggest accomplishments of the year, but eating loads of vegetables, working out more, and cutting alcohol almost out of the picture have all helped tremendously.
I have also gotten into cooking healthy food at home and post about that a lot on my Instagram account.
Parsley rivals kale in nutrients and has more vitamins K, A, and C, and it is very easy to grow at home.
Amid all this fasting and eating a Ketogenic meal plan, I also got into fermenting foods because why not!?
If you adhere at all to the concepts of probiotics or even pre-biotics then fermented food is a way to cultivate good bacteria that help your gut work properly. I am not sure exactly where I stand on the science of all this but when I eat fermented food I do feel better.
I have been talking a lot about alcohol but have not directly written about it in this post. I had a dry January and that stretched out to 5 months of no alcohol. On Father’s day, June 16th, 2023 I drank a LOT of good bourbon and learned that drinking while you are on a Ketogenic diet has disastrous results. You basically get two or three more times drunker than you normally would. I also gave a few of the new NA beers a shot because they taste good but most of them still have high calories and sugar. Before you roll your eyes, there have been strong developments in vacuum stills that manage to preserve the flavor of the beer while removing the alcohol.
This Samuel Adams was especially delicious but it was actually more of a NA malt beverage, and the calories were just under 100 so not terrible. Still, hands down the NA beer I liked the most and felt the best about drinking was by Athletic Brewing Company.
Let’s just call it what it is. Alcohol is a toxin. It is a poison that destroys every part of your body. It diminishes the body’s ability to produce muscle mass so it is not good for athletic recovery. Alcohol has been shown in multiple studies to have carcinogenic properties. More recently I have read that alcohol simply hinders the mitochondria in your cells which both provide energy to the cells and take out the trash. So, alcohol might make us feel good for some time but at the end of the day, it is just as bad or worse for you as sucrose or fructose.
So, this ended up becoming a long meandering post, but then again, it took me nearly a year to write it. I am happy you made it this far and I hope I brought up a concept or a guru that spoke to you. I would love to hear from you, and more about your personal health journey, and what has worked for you. Please send me a line or reply to this post.
Improvement Dave 