How I lost 70lbs and Kept It Off
The below is a write-up on what I’ve learned about diet/nutrition, losing fat and gaining muscle from reading countless books, research papers and other information including experimenting on myself to find out what works best. The goal of this write-up is to quickly tell you what I’ve learned and what worked for me while hopefully saving you money from buying any of the diet programs or books for sale out there. That is assuming what I did works for you but I think it will :)
The short and simple answer of how I lost 70lbs was Keto and IF. Keto stands for The Ketogenic Diet while IF is Intermittent Fasting. Yes there are tons of info online about these diets and way of eating, but I’ve yet to find a quick (and free) summary of how to do it and why it works which I’ll try to explain below. This is not some fad-diet rather a way our ancestors ate for 10’s of thousands of years back when there were no supermarkets with processed foods and sugary drinks.
The Ketogenic diet is a high-fat, moderate protein, low carbohydrate diet. The diet forces the body to burn fat rather than carbohydrates. Intermittent fasting is an eating style where you eat within a specific time period, and fast (don’t eat) the rest of the time.
I’ve always been the ‘husky’ kid growing up while never being lean or skinny. Growing up in a small town in the North East, my diet was influenced by Italian and German heritage. My dad was our cook helped by my mom to preparing foods like breads, pastas and meat and potatoes. Looking back at my diet and pretty much my whole life, it was carb and sugar heavy. I started lifting weights at 16 when I joined the high school football team. This helped to get big and strong but I still struggled with fat loss. I am what you call an Endomorph who tends to gain weight (fat) very easily. An Endo’s build is a little wider than an ectomorph or mesomorph, with a thick rib cage, wider hips, and shorter limbs. They may have more muscle than either of the other body types, but they often struggle to gain it without significant amounts of accompanying body fat. Long story short, I could get strong and muscular but damned if I could lose body fat.
During my life, I have literally tried every diet, pill and weight loss plan out there. Nothing worked. Some of them helped shed a few pounds here and there but nothing worked to really cut the fat down to a normal level of say under 20% body fat and keep it off. That is until I tried the Atkins diet at age 28 then later the Keto diet at 37. Atkins and Keto are similar in that you are eating very low carbohydrates. With Keto, you are told to eat very low carb, moderate protein, and very high fat unlike Atkins which is higher protein and a bit lower fat. So a breakdown of macros on Keto would be 5% carbs, 25% protein and 70% fat. But remember, you still need to have a general idea of what your calories are. Find out how many calories you are burning every day (use a free online calculator) then subtract 800 calories from that to create a calorie deficit not too large and not too small. This in theory should give you a 1.5 - 2 pound weight loss every week. Each 500 calorie deduction is 1 pound loss per week. Goal being to exercise more and/or eat less to be in a calorie deficit while eating in a Keto fashion. I’ll get into why just eating in a calorie deficit (non-keto) wrecks your metabolism and stalls weight loss below.
As I mentioned above, I first started a low-carb way of eating (through Akins principals) at 28 years old. It worked wonders on dropping my fat but I was exhausted all the time. I had very limited energy to make it through the day let alone getting any good workouts in. I did this diet on and off for 10 years as I just couldn’t maintain it due to such low energy levels and being hungry all the time. My body weight also fluctuated greatly as I wasn’t sticking to a solid plan for more than 6 months due to the lack of energy and constant hunger. At 37, I discovered Keto. Keto was similar to Atkins but you are to eat much more fat which provides greater energy levels while keeping hunger at bay. The problem I had with Atkins was the low energy as I was eating all protein and not enough fat to keep my energy levels up and my hunger down. Keto recommends a moderate protein intake as it’s said that too much protein can get converted to glucose therefore triggering insulin which tells your body to store fat. Fat keeps your insulin level low, provides more energy and keeps your hunger suppressed. Just make sure to eat the good fats like avocados, coconut oils, etc.
The key concept is that while in Ketosis, your body is not using carbs/sugar for energy (because there are none) and your body then gets ‘fat adapted’ to where it uses your stored body fat for fuel along with ‘ketones’ produced by your liver. So now you body is entirely running on your stored body fat and ketones thus reducing your fat levels while in-turn losing weight.
The concepts of Keto are to control and lessen your blood sugar levels as well as your overall insulin levels. Insulin is a hormone produced by the pancreas which regulates the amount of glucose (blood sugar) in your blood. It is said that when insulin rises, it signals the body to store fat because overall glucose (sugar) rose. Insulin is triggered to normalize glucose levels and store excess glucose from carbs and sugar to body fat to be used later by the body (hopefully but that’s not always the case as it usually gets stored as fat).
My whole life I was under the idea of I just needed to eat less and workout more to form a calorie deficit. Turns out, eating low calories all the time and being in a constant calorie deficit, really slows down your metabolism. Case in point, the Biggest Loser TV show. Those contestants loss hundreds of pounds by eating only 1,000 to a max of 1,600 calories per day while working out for 4-5 hours per day. But did you ever notice them having a reunion show? No such reunion show ever happened because when they went back to their normal lives, they could no longer workout 5 hours a day or eat in such a low calorie deficit and gained all the weight back plus more. It’s said that 95% of all contestants on that show gained their previous weight back with some even gaining back more weight than they initially had at starting the show. The reason for this is that their metabolisms were destroyed to a point where their bodies weren’t burning sufficient calories and they were hungry all the time from constantly lowering their calories as their weight loss kept stalling. Yes, calorie restriction works but being in a constant state of reduced calories brings your metabolism lower and lower as you keep decreasing your calorie intake to lose weight. It’s a never ending battle to where you’ll never win.
To lose weight and keep it off, without lowering your metabolism, is to eat in a manner to where your body doesn’t trigger insulin therefore does not store fat. Keto is the way to do this along with IF to allow your body to burn excess fat when you are not in a fed state.
Next I want to talk about Intermittent Fasting or IF. IF is simply meal timing to condense your calories in a shorter amount of time allowing your body to lower glucose and insulin while attacking the fat (for energy) in the times you are not eating.
I think everyone has heard of fasting, which is just not eating anything but IF is different. Sure you can just not eat anything and lose weight but it needs to be in a controlled manner to reap all of the benefits and not lower your metabolism. Fasting has so many benefits which I don’t want to get into here (just Google it) but between the fat burning and cellular repair, it’s a very powerful way of eating.
I follow the 16/8 IF protocol where I fast (nothing but water or black coffee) for 16 hours and then I eat in a 8-hour window. So basically I stop eating at 8PM at night and continue eating again at 12PM the next day. During those 16 hours of not eating, my body has a chance to focus its energy on cellular repair and fat burning rather than the digesting and processing of food. I also incorporate a 24-hour fast 3 times per week where I eat/drink nothing but water and black coffee. Black coffee and tea helps to reduce or eliminate any hunger I would get during this time of fasting. You may have heard about the OMAD diet or One Meal a Day. This is the procedure I follow 3 times per week to rev-up the fat burning and overall cellular repair of my body.
My daily schedule looks like this...
Monday
OMAD (One Meal a Day) eating only dinner but still trying to eat up to my calorie limit.
Tuesday
16/8 (fast for 16 hours and eat in a 8 hour window basically eating lunch, a snack then dinner).
Wednesday
OMAD
Thursday
16/8
Friday
OMAD
Saturday
16/8
Sunday
16/8 or I may have a regular day of eating 3-4 meals so my body does not get used to a certain eating schedule.
Some notes on my above schedule are that I eat in a Keto-style daily and try not to go over 25 grams of Net Carbs per day. The 25 grams were derived from 5% of my current 2,000 calorie limit. Net carbs are total carbs minus fiber. I am burning upwards of 800 cals per day in the form of waking, cardio and weight lifting almost every day for a total calorie burn of around 2,800 cals per day. Once I hit my weight loss goal, I will no longer need that 800 calorie deficit and eat closer to what I’m burning per day (2,800).
With Keto and IF, I no longer binge on foods and because of the higher fat, I get full much sooner causing me to eat less in the form of calories. Keto also forces you to eat healthy ‘real’ foods being most other packaged foods contain much sugar and carbs to which you cannot eat. It’s no longer a diet for me and more of a lifestyle way of eating I will continue for the rest of my life.
FAQ's
Why should I mix fasting with keto?
When you are eating 3-6 meals a day, your insulin is always spiked and your body is looking for energy (glucose) from the food you eat. If you calorie restrict, it slows your metabolism in an effort to keep the body in homeostasis. When you fast or eat Keto, your insulin is not spiked (no spike with fasting and a smaller spike with keto), so once your body depletes its glycogen stores, your body turns to stored fat for energy (not glucose from the food you ate). Most of us have plenty of stored fat so the body doesn't recognize an energy deficit and so it doesn't slow your metabolism. That is a simplified and overgeneralized explanation. But this is the way I explain it to people who don't quite understand why I fast AND do keto.
More Information
If you wanted to learn more about fasting and IF, a great book to read is the following book on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2MfIGF2
For more info on Keto with meal plans, I recommend the following books on Amazon:
https://amzn.to/2DhijM4
https://amzn.to/2FF6a56
Here are some great Keto snacks I found:
Keto protein powder with high fat: https://amzn.to/2TQReVk
Keto Snack bars: https://amzn.to/2Dght21
Grass-fed beef sticks: https://amzn.to/2VV4lqx
Keto supplement to help with energy and staying in ketosis: https://amzn.to/2Cr7hlM
To make sure you are doing Keto correctly and truly in a state of ketosis, I recommend testing ketones levels with the below meter. You want to be between 1.5 - 3.0 mmol/L reading on this meter.
https://amzn.to/2SVP7zw
The heart rate watch I use to track calorie burn: https://amzn.to/2MfJObK
The app I use to track my food and macros: https://www.carbmanager.com/
I hope the above write-up helped you better understand this diet and way of eating to really get the results you want. Let me know of any questions or comments by leaving a comment below or emailing me directly (email link at top of page).
