Contrary to popular belief, you can get all your nutrients, in better form, mind you, from animal products.
Saturated fats and meats have never been shown to cause heart disease or weight gain. In fact it's been proven since the late 50's that dietary cholesterol does not raise blood cholesterol. For that matter dietary fat has never been shown to be the cause of adipose tissue, body fat.
I've been studying nutrition for a few years now. Started by first learning about what everyone is generally taught, then when I realized it is absolute bunk and has never been proven I delved further into the abyss of nutrition.
Science has never proven what you've been taught to believe, bit what has most certainly been proven is the true culprit of obesity. Whether or not the nutritional field of experts chooses to admit they're wrong or not.
Obesity is a hormonal dysfunction.
You absolutely cannot exercise weight off.
You absolutely cannot semi-starve your weight off without much problem and, as you've already seen here, difficulty.
The two hormones that have clearly been proven to simulate fat storage are insulin and cortisol.
It's never been about calories, exercise or "calories in, calories out"
Resolving cortisol is relatively easy in comparison to insulin if you've been obese for quite some time. Find ways to destress, exercise IS good for this, and get enough sleep. That will reduce cortisol. (I could go much deeper but I'm really trying to keep this short)
Insulin however is difficult to even approach because it will be different in everyone. The first and most significant way is to remove any REFINED carbohydrates from your system. I'm not trying to advocate Atkins or some other named version of the low carb diets here, simply because there is no understanding in the public of their true methods. I'm actually trying to inform you here.
For most people if you simply eliminate anything that's refined or processed, you'll lose most if not all of your weight. Let me reiterate again, fats are not bad. In fact they're great for our bodies. So in exchange for removing those refined carbs like white: breads, rice, sugar, well, just about anything white. All sugars and any sweetened drinks. Desserts go without saying.
If your a person can't lose it all by just doing the above then you need to go a step further. Remove all snacking and any item of good that most people consider snacks. Generally, if it's in a wrapper, or individually wrapped, it's highly processed, probably loaded with sugars or refined carbs. It's garbage for you.
Then there are people that need to go further than this. This is the range of people that are considered pre-diabetic, or have been obese for many years or morbidly obese. Insulin for you flows from your pancreas, literally, at the thought of sugar. I'm not exaggerating, I do mean literally. It's like a Pavlovian response. For those of you, who are like me, even fake sweeteners illicit an insulin response.
Example, if I even eat a meal that's 80% fat and 15% protein and just 5% of the total amount includes carbs that aren't greens, I will stall in my weight loss. I can be steadily losing 2-3lbs a week and I'll have a coke zero and I'll only lose 1 lb or even less that week.
I've played around with this on me for two years now. I eat one big meal at breakfast and a tiny meal around 3pm. Doing this is the only way to keep my insulin levels low enough that I'm continuing to lose weight. I do this intermittent fasting so that even if my body does illicit an insulin response with the meal there's ample time for it to fall naturally.
When I eat 3 meals a day, I'll stop losing weight, despite still being about 40lbs overweight.
I eat virtually zero carb. Honestly I will take in less than 10g of carbs at the most any day. If I drink nothing but water, and eat this way, I continue getting healthier. If I drink something with a fake sweetener, weight loss either slows or stops altogether.
I hope none of you gents are in the boat that I am.
While all this may sound crazy, the research is out there, the doctors are becoming more known. The real science is coming through, but unfortunately you still have to seek it.
On the good side, if you can control your insulin, you can eat all the good stuff you want. (I really did try to keep this short, sorry)
I am glad I have lost the weight I have and 20 pounds lost in 3 months is a good start, but a start none the less to where I need to be. The GF and I were talking this morning and little things like a walk around the neighborhood after dinner are the types of things we need to include every day along with eating better. There is only one week left in this competition and I am a little disappointed I didn't reach my personal goal, but happy with the bigger picture. 