It has been 24 months since finishing active weight loss drive and switching to the maintenance mode. Readers of The Time Machine Diet know how it was formulated – food, meal timing, exercise and all that. Naturally, a lot has changed since then. I described most of the changes as they came. It’s time to put them all in a single post for your convenience – and mine, since I will be able to refer to a single post instead of tracking down scattered bits and pieces. So here it goes.
diabesity
Fruit in Our Diet
How many times have you heard “fruit’s so healthy,” vitamins and fiber, where else do you get it if not from fruit,” and the killer argument “fruit is totally Paleo, our ancestors ate it so why vilify it”? Not that I want to vilify it or suggest staying away from it, but there is some balance to these often heard claims that must be provided. Let’s start with this latter statement, regarding our ancestors eating it. Here are two problems with this.
Cheat Days – Yay or Nay
Cheat days – one of those topics that pop up constantly and cause flare-ups almost every single time. As much as all nutrition-related topics tend to cause strangely disproportional emotional outbursts, some matters stand out even more, and this is one of them.
Every time someone asks for a guidance or offers an opinion, you are likely to see one of these:
Podcast with Jimmy Moore
This is going to be a very short post. My podcast with veteran health podcaster, blogger, international speaker, and bestselling author Jimmy Moore from “Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb” just got published at Fasting Talk With Jimmy And Friends. Hope you enjoy it!
Cholesterol, Triglycerides and Weight Loss – Non-Scale Victory
Before we get to the essence of this post, I must warn you: you are about to go down the rabbit hole. This whole field of knowledge is full of controversies and contradictions. Everyone knows there is this scary substance in our blood called cholesterol, and we need as little of it as possible, right? Oh, and everyone also knows there is bad cholesterol and good cholesterol, right? Well, just start researching it, and these seemingly commonly acknowledged notions suddenly become so very non-obvious, you might regret ever getting interested. However, we are after real health here, right?
Potato Diet Experiment
If you are from the low carb camp, your brow just went up. Yes, you read that right – potato diet. What on green Earth is that, you ask? Well, you probably heard of egg fast, fat fast or bacon fast – days or weeks of eating just one foodstuff. This is it – potato diet is like potato fast. My eternal curiosity got me to try this weirdest diet of all, for the whole of 3 days. I was interested to find out about it for a while, ever since I’ve read the theory behind it, many personal accounts of success, and even a lukewarm endorsement from the #1 low-carb website in the world, believe it or not.
Calories, Macros and Weight Loss
Battles are raging on the internet. Flames are all over these scorching hot topics. Do we need to count calories or can we eat to our heart content, as long as macros are right? Which macros are right? How much fat? Is there a limit to consuming fat bombs and putting butter sticks in our coffee? To every meek “I do everything by the rules, yet don’t lose a single pound” there is a scolding “You must be doing something wrong, because it worked for me,” cheerful “Continue doing it, it will work,” or consoling “You are getting healthier, that’s what matters.”
Mindful Eating Introduction
The concept of “listening to your body” is commonly mentioned and seems intuitive. In reality, though, it can introduce a lot of confusion if taken literally. Really, when our body says “Gimme more sugar!” – should we listen to it and obey? When we strive to eat till satiety, don’t we set ourselves up for a failure since we usually feel full noticeably later than we actually get out fill? Finally, when our body reaches for another handful of peanuts or pretzels in a bout of mindless munching in front of TV, should we listen to it?
Healing by Rebellion
Nutrition Advance has published my article “Healing by Rebellion.” It illustrates the challenges you are likely to encounter seeking the remedy for the obesity and diabetes. Please give it a read!
Is type 2 diabetes reversible? For one man, the answer is yes. In his own words, here’s the story of how Vadym Graifer freed himself from diabetes by tearing up the rulebook.
During my teenage binge-reading phase, I stumbled onto a slogan that left a strong imprint on an impressionable young mind:
Don’t swim with the current.
Don’t swim against the current.
Swim to where you need to be.
It sounded attractively rebellious, mature and self-reliant. I loved it. For a good reason too, as it turned out 40 years later.
When can you believe the studies?
We are being bombarded with study results from every which way on daily basis. It’s impossible not to notice a few patterns in this never-ending stream. They flip-flop more often than a politician trying to appease various audiences; one day we read about red wine preventing heart disease, next day they tell us the opposite. Cheese goes from bad to good to tolerable in moderation, milk follows the suit, and don’t even get me started on red meat. You must eat your breakfast according to one study even if you are not hungry, until the next one tells you to stop it at once. Saturated fat kills you on sight or cures most of the known diseases. It goes on and on.