Category: Diet

Diet, Government, Health

MAHA Saves Your Life With Red Dye Ban

You may not realize it, but you owe a huge thank you to RFK Jr. I’m not embellishing at all when I say that he may very well have saved your life. Banning artificial dyes might be a death blow to evil Big Pharma, Big Food, Big Ag, Big Oil et al. and puts us on a road to healthy living. It’s not hyperbole to say that getting rid of Red Dye #40 may cut obesity rates in the United States by 83%. Seriously – you can look it up on Instagram. As the smarmy boss Bill Lumbergh in Office Space often said, “Mmmm, Yeeeah”….

I’m just going to have to say it – RFK Jr. has to be Trump’s worst cabinet pick. Trump got bamboozled by a glorified Wellness Influencer (TM). Well, to be fair he needed JFK’s voting block and figured HHS would be a do no harm consolation prize in exchange. The problem with Wellness Influencers is that they drift somewhere in between uninformed but well intentioned, to full on grifter and snake oil salesman. I was willing to give RFK Jr. benefit of the doubt until I listened to his speech describing his ban of artificial food dyes.

Look, I’m a fan of science. Actual science, driven by the Scientific Method should be the gold standard. And when talking about human health we should rely primarily on human outcome data, not mechanistic, in vitro, or rodent studies to make big decisions. Crazy, right? What do the actual human outcome studies say about something? Preferably a meta analysis of a large number of studies.

This is where RFK Jr. lost me – in his speech he spouts numbers and statistics that are made up and/or completely misleading in order to make his point. He’s the master of conflating correlation with causation and stating it as fact. In other words he uses the exact playbook the Wellness Influencers utilize. He even had a bunch of them there with him – Mark Hymen, The Food Babe, Calley Means. They’re all experts at taking something that has a kernel of truth and using that to extrapolate blanket statements about a particular subject that very few people will ever read the actual studies or ask questions. They get away with it because nobody in the media will ever bother to question them. Why would they – it’s all about health, right?

Here’s the first example that jumped out of RFK Jr. using extremely misleading data. He stated in his speech, “There was zero spent in this country treating chronic disease when my uncle was president. Today it’s about $1.8 trillion annually. It’s bankrupting our nation. 74% of American kids cannot qualify for military service. How are we going to maintain our global leadership with such a sick population?”

Wow, that sounds bad! Of course we should do something! Here’s the sleight of hand that happens – the 74% figure is true (it’s actually 77%). The problem is that in the context of the “chronic disease” he’s addressing, only 18% of kids are disqualified due to obesity or other health issues. The rest are disqualified due to criminal records, drug use, tattoos and ear gages, inability to pass the basic academic tests, etc… So he’s completely misleading the public with a false statistic to make his point sound more dramatic.

In the world of science, that’s malfeasance. He’s a smart guy. I don’t believe it was by accident because he does it over and over again. His speech is rife with that sort of thing. It’s cherry picking data to support your opinion – the classic Wellness Influencer/Grifter move. Once do you start doing that regularly it’s impossible to take anything you say seriously. If he were the run of the mill TikTok influencer I wouldn’t care. I have the choice to believe Gary Brecka, The Glucose Goddess, Bobby Parish, or Dr. Berg if I want. I don’t have a choice when the HHS Secretary is using bad or cherry picked data to make decisions.

His decision to ban his list of artificial dyes is projected to cost industrial production somewhere between the high hundred millions to low billion dollars in retooling, labeling, regulation compliance, and supply chain disruption/procurement changes. The current guess is a 10-15% cost increase passed on to consumers.

All for what? A few nebulous studies that say ultra high doses of some dyes might lead to hyperactivity in kids? Really, that’s it? Ah but the EU banned those dyes, why wouldn’t we? Did you know that many of those dyes ARE used in the EU, just under a different name? Or that many of the “natural” dyes used in the EU are banned by the U.S.? Did you know some of the red dye substitutes the EU uses are derived from cochineal insects (Dactylopius coccus) and that resulting acid is a red anthraquinone glycoside, and is often used as a sodium or calcium salt for solubility. That sounds like a yummy additive for your kids yogurt (it’s in cosmetics as well).

So the first move out of the gate for the MAHA movement is to ban something that I guarantee nobody even thought about prior to this election cycle, to fix an problem that nobody can actually prove is impacting anyone, at an enormous cost to the consumer. Way to go MAHA! But at least my ingredients are “natural” now and not some scary sounding chemical name. Pssst – everything is a chemical, even natural things.

I honestly appreciate that the Administration wants to make America healthy again. It should be a priority. But blaming my obesity on Nabisco and ultra palatable foods is like blaming my speeding tickets on Ford because my car is capable of going 120 MPH. Twinkies were invented in 1930 and the calorie content is the same today as it was then (yes, I looked it up). The reason we didn’t have an obesity crisis back then and we do now is multi-faceted… but I guarantee some mysterious chemical and processing done by an evil food cabal is not the root cause. Lack of physical activity, advertising, portion size, mental health, and body positivity movements come way ahead of chemicalphobia in the list of reasons.

I don’t know what the thinking was behind attacking food dyes as the first priority for MAHA, but it was a bad look. Coming out with a gaggle of Wellness Influencers, pseudoscience, and questionable statistics does not inspire confidence.

I can hardly wait until he goes after seed oils. The Wellness Influencers will be barking like performing seals, overjoyed that they’ve mandated deep frying french fries in beef tallow. It’s all about health you know.

Daily Life, Diet, Government, Health

Are You Sure You Want To Ban That?

It’s the buzzing that I hate the most. The ridiculous LED bulbs I’m required to have makes my tinnitus worse and they flicker in a weird way. We live in a hundred year old house with older non LED compliant dimmer switches and wiring connections that I’m sure aren’t the best. Good old incandescent bulbs worked just fine. Unfortunately the Bush administration decided that in the name of energy efficiency the federal government would ban incandescent light bulbs. An incandescent bulb costs something like .60 cents a day to operate. If I can afford it, why can’t I use whatever type of lightbulb I want? Clearly the government knows better than you. Besides, we have to save all those watts for the mandated electric vehicles we’re dumping on the grid.

Plastic bags. Straws. Vehicle auto-stop. Light bulbs. The government loves to regulate things. The federal register for 2024 is over 100,000 pages. They’ve added over 3,000 new regulations just this year. Every single physical object you encounter in your daily life is impacted by some sort of regulation. Either how it’s manufactured, shipped, packaged, sold, or used is regulated by the government.

As a certified contrarian and libertarian-ish small government person, I want the least regulation possible. I don’t want big brother deciding for me what sort of light bulb I can have. Should the government impose some regulations? Of course. Preventing Walmart from selling schedule one narcotics is probably a good thing. Keeping heavy industrial chemicals out of our waterways makes me happy. The problem is that regulations are a slippery slope. You start with good intentions and the next thing you know you have ridiculous EPA mandated plastic gas can spouts that nobody can operate. (I’ve spilled way more gas filling my lawn mower with those stupid spouts than I ever did with the old school ones)

Mrs Troutdog and I had a discussion about this last night in the context of RFK Jr. and banning “poisons and toxins” from our food. She’s all for it. MAHA all the way. Fuck that yellow dye number 5. She was not pleased that I didn’t agree. My argument is that you need to be careful what you wish for. The law of unintended consequences is always a factor.

Take RFK Jr’s desire to force soda companies to remove high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and go back to “regular” sugar. Sugar sweetened coke (Mexican coke) has more calories and more sodium. Is that really what you want? Do you really think people consuming multiple sodas a day are worried about HFCS? If you think I need to be protected from HFCS, what’s next? There is no dose of alcohol that’s healthy. Alcohol has a higher health cost to the nation each year than drinking soda and HFCS. Should we ban alcohol? How about tobacco? Apples contain cyanide. Time for an apple ban? Perhaps we should mandate maximum serving sizes at restaurants? Nobody is allowed to serve more than 800 calories per plate. Why is Starbucks even allowed to sell a 600 calorie Frappuccino? So sorry Dunk’n Donuts, your time is up. Americans are fat and unhealthy, so clearly we can’t be trusted to make our own health decisions. It’s time for big daddy government to step in.

I celebrate the idea of a secretary of HHS promoting a healthy lifestyle. I’m all in. But do it via aggressive information campaigns and labeling, not bans. Especially not bans based upon sketchy pseudo science. (I’m looking out for you maligned seed oils)

You can’t be protected from everything. Sometimes humans intentionally make bad choices. We drink. We smoke. We eat too many calories and don’t exercise. We don’t wear our seatbelts. There isn’t a single person in this country who thinks any of those things are good for us, yet we do ’em anyway. So the question is how much should the government protect us from ourselves?

In a perfect world we’d go back to foods that have been completely stripped of any type of preservative, additive, coloring, and flavoring. No hormones, antibiotics, or pesticides. 100% natural everything. Cook the way our grandparents did. Combined with limiting portion sizes and exercise, we’d be a healthier nation for sure. But here’s the dirty little secret – you can already do that today. You control the products you choose to buy. You decide how much processed food you consume. If you can afford it you can source all your food from local farms and shop at Whole Foods exclusively. Cook everything from scratch. It’s entirely in your control to drink only natural spring water from recycled glass bottles. If you think HFCS sweetened beverages are unhealthy… then don’t drink them.

I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure if you’re consuming enough Fruit Loops to reach toxic levels of yellow dye number 5 you have other diet and health problems. Government bans aren’t going to save you. Arm people with information and knowledge, encourage healthy behavior, reward the health care system for promoting preventative strategies… then get out of the way.

People will make bad choices. Darwin always finds a way to thin the herd. I’m ok with that. But if Secretary Kennedy steps in and messes up the taste and color of my Cheez-It crackers, I’m going to be pissed.

Daily Life, Diet, Health, Motivation

How Old Are You?

I’m a sucker for a good quote. While on a hike yesterday I was listening to a podcast and heard this:

”The greatest predictor of age is how old you think you are”

Time to rewind a bit. It’s been an… odd summer. To be honest, probably longer than that. Weight has been slowly piling on. Motivation has dwindled. Life events, real and imagined, got in the way. There were a couple of unexpected surgeries (my first!). One of which left me with foot pain that has been pretty significant. For a while I was sure that I would not be able to ever mountain bike or ski again. The result was me sitting in a chair for most of the summer, feeling sorry for myself. And eating. And more eating.

If you had asked me in August how old I felt, I would have given you a number ten years older than my actual age. Fat. None of my clothes fit. Everything hurt. Tired all the time. Zero interest in doing anything to actually improve my situation. I played zero golf all summer. Did not ride my mountain bike or the motorcycle. A few walks in the interest of rehabbing the foot was the sum total of my activity. In short, I was in the express lane to becoming an old man.

It’s interesting, that quote above is not a new idea. I keep a running list of quotes, sayings, and thoughts that I think might be something interesting to write about. I went through my list a few days ago and found this one I wrote down a year ago:

“How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you were?”

That quote is from the 1920’s. This concept of your perceived age is not new. Why that first quote resonated with me is that several years ago if you’d asked me how old I felt I would have given a number ten years younger than my age. A twenty year swing in perceived age. That hits hard.

The good news is that a little bit ago I started the process of reclaiming my health. That process sucks. It hurts. It’s demotivating because you see no progress. You’re basically just hungry and sore all the time. And then all of a sudden, the number on the scale starts trending down. Cardio starts improving. I found a way to ride my bike without pain. Energy improves. I’m able to do long backcountry hikes again.

And the best part… when I heard that quote while listening to that podcast, I can honestly say I now feel my actual age rather than older. I have an impedance scale that calculates your metabolic age based on a bunch of factors. This morning it reported my metabolic age matched my actual age for the first time in a while.

The takeaway is that the pithy quote is true. You really are as old as you feel you are. The important part is that it’s up to you. Your age feeling can go both ways. Would you rather feel older or younger? Making a noticeable change takes less time than you think it will. You just have to start. Granted, the motivation to get started is easier said than done. If I had the secret sauce to making that happen, I’d be a very rich social media influencer.

I think it’s worth honestly asking yourself – how old do you feel? If you’re not happy with your answer, make a change.

My goal these days is no longer a weight target or to achieve some physical sport or endurance goal. It’s to get back to feeling ten years younger than my actual age. Because if I feel younger, I’ll act younger and do things like a younger man. The rest will take care of itself.

Daily Life, Diet, Health

It’s A Problem Of Volume

The numbers are just depressing. But because of those pesky laws of thermodynamics, you can’t escape them. You can’t cheat them. The numbers don’t lie. One pound is 3,500 calories. To lose one pound a week you need to create a 500 calorie deficit every day. That’s it. No more or less complicated than that. Create the deficit and you lose weight. Go over and you gain. Simple, right?

The depressing part is that we’ve lost all sense of volume. While the internet has convinced you that seed oils are the devils work, the real problem is that you and I have no real concept of how many calories we consume. Our serving sizes have become ginormous. When you see what an actual serving size is, it no longer looks like it’s enough food. I’d still be hungry if that’s all I ate!

I start every morning with the full intention of tracking exactly my caloric intake. For example, this morning I resolved to eat a much smaller breakfast than normal. I made three scrambled eggs with a little bit of cheese and some avocado. Healthy, right? When you measure out the actual amount of cheese I used and factor in the butter I put in the pan, my breakfast was 800 calories. That’s approaching almost half of my daily calorie budget to hit my calorie deficit. Like I said, depressing. Because of that breakfast volume, I can now only have a small piece of steak and some broccoli for dinner. That will give me just enough calories to include a protein shake mid-day. That sucks.

Oh sure you can buy yourself some extra calories with exercise, but not enough to make up for the volume we normally eat. A three mile walk or a strength training session in the gym burns maybe a couple hundred calories. It gets you a little room in the calorie budget, but not much.

I live in a state of perpetual food guilt. I have a constant mental running total of roughly how many calories I think I’ve eaten. I bargain with myself all day long. I’ll eat this protein bar or half cup of skinny pop popcorn now, and then I’ll eat only half the steak tonight. I’ll have a beer with dinner, and I’ll just skip breakfast tomorrow to make up for it. It’s gotten to the point that I dread the idea of going out to dinner with friends. A restaurant menu is now just a list of things I can’t eat. It’s mentally exhausting and leads to never ending cravings. I don’t know what the answer is.

That’s not true – I know what the answer is, I just can’t seem to get there. For me, it’s an issue of activity. Being busy. When I was at my thinest I worked three 12 hour shifts in a row. I chose to eat only one meal a day on workdays. It worked because as a nurse I was so busy during my shift there was no time to think about food. I left the house at 06:30 am and got home at 8:00 pm and sprinted all day. It was easy to ignore hunger. I ate a massive meal when I got home, but it was still probably only 1200 calories at most. That gave me my weekly deficit. On my off days I was crazy active and busy. Trail running and mountain biking every day. I was too busy to think about food.

Now I’m home all day and for various reasons I have not been as active. Oh sure I do an activity almost every day – skiing, a workout, or a hike with the dog. But not with the intensity I used to. And I’m left with a lot of time to think about the pantry and fridge. Wondering what I can cut out tonight so I can have a bowl of popcorn now.

So it’s clear that I have some problems to solve. The first is to get a handle on exactly how many calories I’m consuming. It’s time for at least a few weeks of weighing and measuring everything. I need to understand portion size and stop eyeballing volume. I should probably meal prep, but that just sucks. I might need to resort to a pre-made, calorie controlled meal service. Anything to keep the volume in check.

Second, and probably most important, I need to find a way to get busy again. Out of the house and away from the fridge. A day full of activities so I’m not thinking about being hungry. Truly a first world problem.

It’s crazy how powerful the food addiction is. Any addiction, I suppose. The moment you decide to tackle the problem, your brain goes into overdrive and decides to remind you all day long of the very thing you’re trying to quit. Breaking that cycle of thinking about and craving something is one of the hardest things to do mentally.

So, we’re ready to start a new week. As the old saying goes, “If it can’t be measured, it can’t be managed”. Weighing and measuring everything.

Meanwhile, I’m off to a family Sunday brunch and trying to ignore all the food. Sigh. How did we get to this point?

Diet, Health, Motivation

I Used To Be…

We were hanging with friends the other day and one of them said she wanted to do a four-peak hiking challenge this coming year to get back in shape and improve health. She wanted to know if I’d be willing to do it with her so we could motivate each other. It only makes sense that she’d ask me because I am descended from Vikings. I am a Norseman! My ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and across the Old West. I come from hearty outdoorsman stock. I am practically Daniel Boone and Davey Crocket, reincarnate.

As a former trail runner who had no problem knocking out an 8-12 mile run in the mountains, I looked at the list of peaks and thought no big deal. Yeah, I’m not in shape at the moment but give me a few weeks and I’ll be back in form. After all, I’m a trail runner/mountain biker/backpacker/motorcyclist who’s comfortable in the mountains. Except that I’m not. I used to be… This year, more than any other, the reality of living in the past has hit me hard. I used to do all kinds of athletic things. I used to be in pretty good shape. I used to run and mountain bike and ski. The reality is that it’s been at least three years since that was true.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that this has not been my favorite year. Was it challenging because of my weight and fitness? Or did my weight and fitness being in the crapper make the year a struggle? Chicken and egg, I suppose.

It’s hard to admit Father Time has caught up with you. I haven’t bounced back from surgery like I thought I would. I went skiing a few days ago and my legs were destroyed in just a few runs. I’m super sore after workouts – I tell myself it’s because I had surgery, but deep down I know it’s because I haven’t been doing anything for a long time.

It’s clear I’ll never been Davey Crocket again. I don’t know if I’ll ever be a “real” mountain biker or trail runner again. But that doesn’t mean I can’t be massively better than I am now. I’m not sure my joints could take running at this point. But I bet I can be a damn good hiker again. It’s doubtful I’ll ever descend or ride the bike at race pace again, but I bet I can get back to being a good climber and endurance rider for my age.

As we get ready for the new year, I feel good about ’24. For some strange reason, the last time I lost a bunch of weight and got in shape, I decided to start during the holidays. Arguably the worst possible time to try and watch your diet and exercise. When I made it through the holidays and kept up with my diet goals, I felt proud of myself and energized to keep it going.

Oddly, I’ve done the same thing this year. I didn’t mean to, and had forgotten that this was the same timeframe I started the last go ’round. Something snapped in my head after Thanksgiving and I said to myself, we’re done with drinking calories and we’re going to pay attention to diet. I’ve managed to avoid the typical binges during holiday parties so far and feel good.

So we’re doing better with diet and we have a physical challenge with four peaks to work towards. I feel like 2024 is going to be the change I needed.

As I was talking to my friend about getting ready for hiking, I mentioned how important working on balance was. As I thought about my own advice, I decided I needed a balance goal to work towards. So I decided to learn a new skill for ’24 to challenge myself and work on balance.

It’s a move on the bike called a “manual”. If you’re a kid it’s probably no big deal. At my age, I think it would be a significant achievement. I see some tumbles in my future, but as long as I don’t break a hip it’ll be worth it.

So there we go. We’re going to move on from remembering what I used to be, and instead focus on what I can be. Damn, that’s poetic. Almost T-shirt worthy.

So Merry Christmas, Chanukah, Festivus, or whatever it is you celebrate. Let’s make 2024 a good one!

Diet, Health

Yum, Fermented Milk

I had a follow up meeting this week with my gastroenterologist to discuss strategies to fix my gut issues. Two things jumped out at me from the discussion. The first was weight loss. The doc is a very fit guy who’s into brazilin jiu-jitsu. We’d been talking about diet, and he laughed and said, “these days I have to be careful about who I say this to, but losing just ten pounds would make a huge difference in how your gut feels”.

What struck me is not that I could lose some weight (I already know that), but that in today’s day and age he has to be careful about telling someone that. It’s sad that we no longer want to hear the truth. We want to be told to take this one pill and it will fix everything. In reality, we’d all be better off if doctors felt like they could freely tell their patients that they’re a disgusting fat-body and it’s time to do something about it. Unfortunately, that would offend our delicate sensibilities and someone would probably sue for damaging their self-esteem.

The second thing he said is that people don’t understand how long it takes to repair the gut microbiome when things go haywire. He felt it was going to take six months to a year to get back to normal. He said he laughs when people say they can remove a particular food or try a diet for a week or two and think it will do anything. Several months is the minimum to see real change. He said the gut is incredibly complex and we still don’t understand much about why it gets out of whack.

My official diagnosis is post-disease IBS. I contracted something at some point, and it threw my gut into a downward spiral. When we originally talked, I’d said Covid was the last time I’d been sick. He didn’t initially think that was the cause. When we met this time, he said he followed up with some research and studies are starting to show that Covid is having an impact on gut health. Interesting.

Anyway, as a part of repairing things we talked about foods and supplements I should be taking. Big amounts of protein, wheat dextrin fiber, yogurt with live cultures, and fermented foods like Kefir. I had to Google kefir. I’d seen it in the store but didn’t know what it actually was. It’s fermented milk. Uhhhh… I don’t know if I can do that.

When I was in my early twenties I worked at a restaurant. During my break I was in the habit of chugging one of those mini cartons of milk. One fateful evening, I grabbed a carton and started drinking it down like I was shot gunning a beer. The carton as almost empty before I realized the milk was… chunky. I ran to a garbage can and vomited up all that spoiled and curdled milk. I haven’t drunk milk since.

So you can see why I’d be a little hesitant to drink fermented milk on purpose. I think I’ll put that on the back burner for now. Besides, it turns out sauerkraut has the same benefits. I like sauerkraut. I like hot dogs. I could do a sauerkraut dog a day. What could go wrong with that?

Cool, Diet, Health

Take This One Supplement

It’s funny how us humans seem to be predisposed to fall for the “one magic pill” syndrome. You know, the “eat this one food to lower your blood pressure” or “do this one exercise if you want tight abdominal muscles” sort of articles. I’m just as big a sucker as anyone else, even though I pride myself on being skeptical of… well, everything.

For example, just the other day I’d watched a podcast that talked about the importance of Zone 2 training. That’s the sweet spot for fat burning and building an aerobic base. Roughly 75% of your max heart rate. I’d forgotten I’d read an entire book on the subject at one time – “Training for the Uphill Athlete“. I immediately went out an did a fast power walk in the hills. I kept my pace to mostly just below starting to breathe heavily. I felt great when I was done and vowed to ensure I’m getting a minimum of three days a week of this type of exercise.

Me, being me, I immediately blew an hour researching heart rate monitors. Which are more accurate, chest straps or wrist/optical sensors? Should I just get a cheap Fitbit, or bite the bullet and get a dedicated running watch like the Garmin or Coros? After all, if I’m going to embrace the Zone 2 training I have to have a way to see what my actual heart rate is. Don’t I?

And then I came to my senses. At my level of conditioning, whether my heart rate is +/- 10 beats from whatever 75% of my max heart rate is will make zero difference. My conditioning is so far from what it was when I was running, anything I do is a benefit. An hour of effort at just below heavy breathing is close enough. When I’ve dropped weight and my cardio is sufficient to slow jog without breathing hard – then I’ll think about figuring out what my actual heart rate is.

I do this all the time to myself. I’ll see a YouTube video about some piece of exercise equipment and suddenly I have to have it. Meanwhile I don’t have the strength to do just basic bodyweight stuff or simple lifts with kettlebells. Some specialized piece of equipment isn’t going to magically make me stronger at this point. It’s like folks who spend gobs of money on carbon fiber this or that to shave grams off of their bicycles when you can just go lose a few pounds.

If you follow guys like Joe Rogan or Jocko, they’re always pushing various supplements for improved performance, brain function, strength gains, etc… I don’t disagree with the value of many of those things, but in most cases it’s tiny incremental improvements. That might make a big difference if you’re an athlete – but not much for the average person. You’ll make a bigger difference in how you feel by dropping the extra weight, eating real food, cutting the alcohol, getting stronger, and getting a good night sleep.

When you are at 15% body fat, running a respectable 10K time, and can crank out pullups and heavy deadlifts… then small incremental things make a difference. Until then, save your money.

P.S. In researching running watches, I stumbled upon the world of sleep trackers. The Whoop strap and Oura ring. Clearly my problem all this time has been not knowing how much time I spend in each sleep cycle. If only I knew that one simple thing, my training would improve exponentially! Researching now…

Diet, Health

Keto Fixes Everything

A quick update on going back to keto. Ten days ago I wrote about being forced to return to the diet I have a love/hate relationship with. Because I have a medical reason to stay motivated, the transition has been relatively easy. It took two days to get back into ketosis (the body does remember, even after several years). I’ve been maintaining 1.2-1.4 mmol/L every day, with spikes to 1.9 mmol/L following exercise. I’ve dropped 11 pounds. All-in-all, a good start.

So that’s it, keto fixes everything right?

Ah… no. The stomach issues I’m dealing with are slightly better, but certainly not gone. I probably feel better because I’m not binge-eating chips, cheese, bread, and I’ve lost some weight. I’m not convinced food has been the source of my woes.

But, but, you lost weight with keto. Isn’t that reason enough to stay on it? Sorry, but keto didn’t cause my weight loss. You dump a bunch of water weight initially when you first get into ketosis. And… the magic of a caloric deficit. We went out to eat with friends and I had a burger, no bun, a small salad instead of fries, and iced tea instead of a beer. I’ve been eating breakfast and then skiing all day (every day) and not eating again until dinner. I’ve had a huge calorie deficit combined with daily high intensity exercise. It’s not rocket science.

So why bother? Just go back to eating carbs.

A few reasons. I made a commitment to stick with this for a month so I can legitimately tell my doctor if foods are contributing to my symptoms. Second, keto makes maintaining a calorie deficit easy. Independent of my gut issue, I need to drop another 20 pounds. At this point I’ll do what it takes to achieve that. If keto keeps me on track, so be it. The other big reason is that when in ketosis, I don’t have the major hunger pangs if I don’t eat. I can ski all day and not get that bonk feeling I would on a heavy carb-based diet.

But it’s hard, I admit. I turned down going to pizza with friends last night. I honestly didn’t think I’d have the willpower to sit in front of a steaming hot pizza and not indulge. I feel bad because friends and family are offering to change the food they serve to something I can eat. I appreciate it, but I don’t want others to have to change their eating habits for me.

I wish I knew why food discipline is so hard. We have an unopened bag of chips in the pantry, along with pretzels, and popcorn. I probably walked into that pantry ten times last night and stared at those forbidden items. Fortunately, I held out and opted for drinking a crapload of water. If I wasn’t worried about dropping out of ketosis… I guarantee I would have splurged.

So, keto it is. At least for a month. I have no idea what happens after that.

Diet

Keto, Again?

I honestly didn’t think I’d be back here. I rode the keto train for a year and a half. I was strict, lost a ton of weight, and generally felt pretty good. Probably not coincidentally, I was also more active during that period than I’d been since my twenties. I know shocking, isn’t it? Low body fat and active every day… and you feel great. But I finally burnt out on keto. I was sick of paying attention to everything food related. I constantly craved mashed potatoes, fries, and pasta. I wanted to enjoy a beer once in a while.

So, I decided to “take a short break” from keto. And here we are almost three years later. I put back all the weight I’d lost, plus some. Fatigued all the time. Lost all the cardio I’d had and struggle to mountain bike and can’t run. And I’m now dealing with some serious gut issues. So now what?

My gastroenterologist wants me on a low fodmap diet for a minimum of a month, while we do some other testing. Looking at the foods you can’t have I realized that keto with some changes to veggies I’d normally eat, covers the fodmap diet. I know keto well. I know that I can make keto stick. So the words I never thought I’d say again came out of my mouth – It’s time to go back to keto.

I do not believe all the hype about keto. You don’t burn any more fat than you would with a carb based diet. I don’t think, for most people, it addresses insulin resistance magically. Studies show that you get the same impact simply losing weight, improving blood pressure, and exercising – regardless of which diet you choose.

Keto worked for me because it is restrictive. The act of counting carbs and daily blood tests forced me to pay attention to calories. As I started losing weight I exercised more. The more I exercised, the better I felt. Before long I was burning so many calories running and cycling, I struggled to consume enough food. Eventually, I was dropping 2-3 pounds a week. This was not a miracle of ketosis. There’s only so much steak, chicken, and broccoli a guy can eat. It was a calorie deficit, made easy by the lack of food choices.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there are some benefits to keto for the average person. The big one for me was becoming fat adapted. Moving easily into ketosis when glycogen stores are low, prevented the massive hunger pangs and cravings I’d have when my fuel was primarily carbs. It enabled me to exercise in a fasted state and avoid the “bonk” when glycogen ran out.

For whatever reason, I lack the willpower to maintain a calorie deficit with carbs. There are too many things to eat, and the hidden calories keep adding up. I find myself constantly hungry and snacking. Some people have the willpower to simply count calories and lose weight. That’s clearly not me.

So here we are. Back to keto. Back to my love/hate relationship with the diet. Unfortunately, I don’t feel that I have a choice at this point. It will be interesting to see what I think about it this go-round, since I’m doing it for a different reason. My strength trainer is going to hate me. He’s not a fan. But on the plus side, I’ll finally be eating the amount of protein he wants me to consume.

Today is day one. Ketones were 0.3 mmol/L this morning. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes me to get back into ketosis. Will my body remember fat adaptation? Or am I starting from scratch with a week-plus of keto flu before dropping into ketosis?

It’s only been a few hours and I’m already craving pesto sauce pasta and nachos. The struggle is real.

Daily Life, Diet, Health

Let’s Go To The Numbers

I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. Somehow this blog turned into nothing but writing about my (lack of) health and fitness. I don’t know how that happened and it wasn’t my intention. But for some reason, 90% of my few followers have some connection to the health/nutrition/fitness industry. I don’t get it. Write about some current event or a political issue, and crickets. Write about how many cookies I ate last week, and I get new followers. I find it bizarre. Anyway, clearly you asked for it, so let’s go into excruciating detail about my numbers.

As part of this years revolution (not resolution), I’ll be tracking my weight daily. I want to see how things fluctuate with food and exercise. I use an impedance scale (this one if interested) which provides a number of stats. First off, yes I know they are not a precise tool. The non-weight numbers tend to fluctuate quite a bit from day to day. But as a way to watch trends over time, I think it’s a fine tool.

A side note on interesting observations… I’ve been using the scale on and off for a number of years. Out of curiosity I went back to when I was at my leanest and most cardio-fit (was doing tons of mountain trail running). At that point my body fat was 17.5% and lean muscle mass was 132 lbs. I wasn’t exactly Viking warrior material – more like Chris Froome cyclist physique.

Fast forward to today. Body fat is, well… an embarrassing 26.8% I know, I know, we’re working on it. But here’s the interesting number. I’ve been lifting weights seriously for about four months now. Muscle mass today is at 147.8 lbs. A 15.8 lb gain in lean muscle mass! Now I don’t think that’s a super accurate number, but it has been steadily increasing over the last few months. Given my age and the back issues I’ve had recently, I’ll take muscle mass and core strength improvements over body fat%.

But we’re all vain creatures (if we’re honest) and I’m tired of struggling to button my jeans, so the body fat number is important. The official weigh in was Jan 2. Here’s what the numbers show:

Jan 2 food/exercise: several eggs + bacon; string cheese, grapes, a few pretzels; tri-tip, salad; a big piece of cake; went downhill skiing for the day.

Jan 3 weight increased .2 lbs, no change in body fat%.

Jan 3 food/exercise: stuffed bell pepper + cheese/sour cream; plate of Chinese food; big handful of chips; another plate of Chinese food; 1 small piece of chocolate; Split and carried wood up a flight of stairs for 40 minutes, went cross country skiing.

Jan 4 weight increased 2.4 lbs and body fat increased .4%

What the hell? So frustrating. Zero alcohol, nothing crazy calorie-wise (well, cake), was pretty active, and I gain 2+ pounds. This is why people get so frustrated dieting.

Here’s my guess – Because I cut out alcohol, I’ve been pounding fluids. Water, coffee, and 3-4 “vitamin waters”. It doesn’t seem like I’ve voided commensurate with overall fluid intake and I’m sure the Chinese food had tons of sodium. My theory is that most of that weight gain is fluid retention. Maybe? Unfortunately, the scale says my water percentage has actually gone down, so I don’t know what to think.

Obviously, the answer is to go back to tracking calories (I use this app) and map that to the scales data and watch the trend. Once I see a clear trend with calories to weight loss, I can create a bunch of known calorie meals and plan for the week. Remember – revolution, not resolution. Systems, not goals.

Sigh… why is this so hard? I want to go back to my twenties and the steady diet of burgers and nachos just to keep weight on.