In the previous post I outlined my struggle and cycle of weight gain and loss. For the last 3 to 4 years, I maintained a fairly steady weight bordering on a 30% BMI. I was no longer able to outrun my bad diet. I thought I would go back to the teachings of my nutrition education. This is what I had been telling patients for years. Reduce caloric intake; increase exercise. This is the so-called "eat less, move more." The problem was that it hadn't worked. I thought I hadn't been active enough or diligent enough in monitoring my intake. I decided to strictly monitor calories in and calories out with tracking of fitness and exercise and daily caloric burn. I started with the MyFitnesspal application. Based on my BMI, I calculated that I could lose 1 to 2 pounds by restricting my calories to approximately 2000 kcal per day. For a few months, this worked. I actually lost 10 to 15 pounds. When I did exercise, I thought, "I burned some calories so I can eat a little bit more but I'm still under my caloric debt for the day." After a time, my weight reached a steady-state. I'd go up a pound or two here and there and for several YEARS there was no traction despite me adhering to the 1900 cal/day that was calculated based on the lower BMI. I was stubborn and based upon my prior teachings I thought that as long as I kept at it I should be losing weight. It took a couple of minor alarm bells to get me to consider other approaches.
In the beginning of last year, I went to my primary care physician for a persistent cough. At that visit and a follow-up visit, my blood pressure was borderline elevated for the first time. It had been a few years since my labs had been done and my lipids were always slightly borderline. I knew that I needed to increase my exercise, lose weight and improve diet. I wanted to postpone going on any medications for as long as possible.
My first exposure to low-carb, was courtesy of the Adam Corolla show podcast. For many years, a longtime guest is fitness expert Vinnie Tortorich , founder of NSNG (No Sugar No Grains) . My initial reaction to his low carbohydrate, high-fat approach was that this was quackery, and I was quite skeptical. After all, I had nutrition in medical school! So for years I had discounted his information.
About this time, a long time friend who would work with my wife for many years visited. She looked good and had attributed much of her success to the ketogenic diet. It was quite similar to NSNG from her description so I decided to check it out. At her suggestion, I began to read The Obesity Code written by Jason Fung, MD. The book was logical, factual, and laid out the history behind the growing obesity problem in our country. The science was sound and well referenced for those of us in the medical profession, and the examples were relatable to the lay reader. I can go into more detail in a later post, but I would strongly urge any readers who haven't read this book to check it out.
So, since what I had been doing hadn't worked, I decided to give NSNG and the low-carb approach a try. I joined the NSNG Facebook group and downloaded Vinnie Tortorich's PDF. A link to download this PDF is on his website and I have linked it on ourlowcarb.com/. In the coming post, I will let you know how this experiment fared.
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