Eric Blackway: Weight-Loss Program

On Nov 10, 12:57 am, Eric wrote:
Hello, alt.support.diet.low-carb.

I'm 6'2", 33 years old, and this evening when I stepped on my brand-
new scale, I weighed 283 pounds, possibly my all-time high weight.

I have been overweight since the second grade and have been going up
and down in weight since I was 17. When I say "up and down in weight,"
I mean from 280 to 180, the lower number being close to where I want
to be.

Something has to change.

Slowly, over the years, I have come upon ways of doing this that work,
and ways that don't. Three of the ways that work are low-carb dieting,
writing, and reading, so here I am. Reading what others write about
this topic will be a fresh experience. Sharing what I write about
weight, food, and losing one while cutting back on the other is a
frightening idea, but I'm determined to go through with it.

In public, I come off as a perfectly reasonable individual with
exceptionally polished social skills. I'm one of those types who live
a double life, and my weight problem has always been a part of my
private life, in which I am a lunatic. There are reasons for this
duality, but hey, different strokes, as they say.

With this in mind, I feel obliged to warn regular readers of this
group that I'm not holding myself to even an NC-17 rating in this
thread. I've never flamed anyone without provocation and I don't
intend to start now, but I'm not just talking about language.

The story of my weight problem is the story of my life, and it's been
strange. Bits and pieces of it have been well beyond the brink of
garden-variety insanity. I'm going to do my best to be true to that.

So wish me luck, or not. Read, ignore, contribute, or not. Life is too
short and my problem is too pressing for me not to try everything to
do something real about it.

Hi Eric and others in this group. I wish you all of the luck. I have
found at my age (never ask a lady her age! ) and with my busy
scheduke that I don't have a lot of time or will power for traditional
diets. I have a blog that also hopes to offer tips to those trying to
lose weight maybe you could join this blog as well? Check it out and
add your thoughts and ideas as well

http://letsburnfat.blogspot.com/

On Nov 18, 3:00 pm, Doug Freyburger wrote:
Eric wrote:

Doug, I have proof positive that low-carb dieting does control my
appetite in general when it's done right around the 2000-2500 calory
level, but I have no similar indications that my binge cravings are
significantly affected by it. The idea that a nutrient lack may play
an integral part in my binge cravings is medically sound...but I've
been taking Centrum for about five years.

What I take from the Atkins books - Cravings are caused by a
lack of macro-nutrients in the diet. But once in ketosis the carb
cravings disappear. I've never been cnvinced one way or the
other that micronutrients trigger cravings. The other half is
that binges are triggered by food intolerances that cause
addictive behavior reactions. One important aspect of Atkins
is eliminate (restrictive start) and challenge (add back in per
the food ladder) then avoid anything that causes a problem
when reintroduced. The third half is that Atkins ignores the
psych part.

on, but there is also another factor to this that I should share. I'm
one of the guys who have classic migraine syndrome. I go half-blind in
one eye and I know that in an hour-and-a-half I'll have an
incapacitating hemocranic headache that leaves me in a dark bathroom
retching over the toilet. The way that's usually treated, or at least
minimized, is that you carefully log exactly what you eat and your
experiences throughout the day, and then work with a doctor to analyze
your triggers. There are two, for me, chocolate and bright light. A
combination of these two is guaranteed to bring on a migraine for me.
If I do not eat chocolate and I'm careful about my eyes, I only get
about two incapacitating attacks per year.

Atkins claims his process prevents migraines. Before starting I
suffered 3-4 delibitating ones per year. Since starting on 1999-06-21
I have had ONE and that one was during a month extremely off the
wagon. I don't know what my triggers are but whatever I now avoid
must be it.

So I have some experience in documenting "trigger" behavior, and yes,
fifty pounds down the road I'll be thinking in those terms. Right now,
we're still ...

Fifty pounds in versus the 15th day on normal Atkins. Your
body, your science experiment.

You asked Hollywood about the tape measure. In the original
Protein Power book by Drs Eades there is a chapter on the topic.
It's one of the best chapters in any dietary book I've ever read.

There's also a chart that comes with any Bowflex home gym.

Thanks. I think I've read the book, but I'm not sure...that was a very
long time ago in terms of educational experience if it's the same
book. Black cover, gigantic physique on it? Maybe it was _Power, A
Scientific Analysis_ that I'm thinking about, published back in the
90s. Damn good book on powerlifting. The Eades name sounds so
familiar, though...

Migraine triggers are most often refined-carbohydrate foods or foods
loaded with natural sugars. It makes sense that Atkins does do a lot
to get rid of them, but every time I've been on Atkins I've lived in
an area that gets about as much sun as Southern California, and I
couldn't avoid the light, summer or winter.

November 18

Weight: 266.0/Fat %: 37.5%/Water%: 46.0

So far, we're at 10 days and 17 pounds, or, if we discount the
glycogen/water dumping of the first 3 days, about 4.5 pounds in six
days.

Interesting. Increased protein intake has indeed slowed down weight
loss versus previous 1000-calory true Fat Fast diets in my past. The
science behind low-carb austerity dieting is proven out yet one more
time. Strangely enough, even the scale seems to be agreeing with
Benoit. Averaged over time, fat readings have gone down approximately
0.5% and water readings have gone up 0.5%, which is as it should be
since fat retains less water than other types of tissue.

One of the things that is always a temptation but I'm working on
avoiding is, on the night of the stutter-step second-day (when the
scale consistently reflects a loss), I have tended in the past to keep
myself parched throughout the night in order to make sure the weight
reading in the morning is as low as possible. This can slowly sap at
your willpower. So what I do is make sure I drink a lot of water every
day, and when I feel the urge to deprive myself on that second night,
I drink even more.

By the way, everyone, this is my fourth day with no Kool-Aid.
Sucralose does strange things to your digestive process when it makes
up more than a truly trifling part of your diet, and the aggravation
is just not worth it and one of those small, maddeningly annoying
things that eats away at your willpower on a diet like this. I may
drink a bottle of diet soda walking from place to place, but no more
Kool-Aid. I still have the invisible raspberry stuff in the fridge,
and it's not like my Tropical Punch or Splenda is ever going to go
bad.

-----------------------------------------------

This morning the food demon unveiled his latest strategy, or, at least
one of his old tricks re-mainfested. The full-frontal cravings having
been beaten back over and over again, what I think of diet-fatigue
cravings are starting to set in. The food demon has gotten very good
that this. It used to take a lot longer for these kind of cravings to
get started up, but as my body has adapted over previous attempts to
knowing what's coming, the food demon has come to realize that when I
get past a week on any diet, I can be stubborn about busting it for
any craving.

It's not full-on binge cravings, nothing like the screaming desire to
gorge, or the sneaking temptation of, "Oh, come on...eat just a bit
more. It's all right..." (which then turns into a screaming desire to
gorge). It's more like diet boredom and scorn for the lack of variety
of foods in my diet. Not only is it far more logical than binge
cravings, echoing many thoughts of ridicule voiced earlier in this
thread, but it's accompanied by a sinking feeling of tiredness and
general fatigue. Until I start having suicidal thoughts or sink into
fugue states where I stare at the wall for a few hours at a time, I
really don't think it's fair to dignify what used to be called
"unhappiness" or "melancholy" with the name "depression."

It comes and goes, at least, but unless I recognize it for what it is,
another food-demon strategy, I'm a goner. The food demon twists my
head around and I think, "Today, I'll vary the pattern. I'll change it
around a bit and do something different: not more calories, just some
variety. It's OK...for today."

The second I do, the second one thing varies in the pattern of eating
for the day and the carefully-reinforced pathways of habit in my mind
are deviated from, the food demon attacks again with binge cravings of
monstrous proportion. And because I'm in new territory, I'm more
likely to give in to them.

And, of course, I didn't wake up until 12:30 and I didn't eat until
almost three o'clock. Being significantly late on that 2:00 feeding
time, when I eat the 8 oz. of cheese, is almost as bad as being a
minute early.

To think, just yesterday I was relieved that the binge cravings seemed
to have settled down a bit. The food demon was probably just trying to
give me a feeling of false security before he tried throwing the
craving ball instead of running it down my throat.

So, three kinds of cravings so far.

1) Full-on eating-attack binge cravings
2) Temptation to eat just a bit more
3) Diet fatigue cravings

The three work together, one reinforcing the other and turning into
another at moments of opportunity with a single goal in mind, to get
me to eat MORE. Let's see what else surfaces in the next few days,
because, like most dieters I've talked to, what gets me off a diet
tends to be a very subjective opinion on my part once I'm off the
diet. I either tend not to think about it or make up an excuse that is
absolutely ludicrous once I look at my records. That's how I
discovered the correlation between skipping a multivitamin and giving
in to cravings.

On Nov 19, 2:38 am, Eric wrote:

The lifting thing WOULD **** you off. Eh, what can you do.

Not ****ed. Just think you're self limiting with your view point.
It is, of course, your right to limit yourself.

I'll get to the library at some point and see what I can do.

On the subject of limiting/limited and expanded viewpoints and book
recommendations...what should I tell you? _The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions_ is a damn good book and not as boring as most academic
texts or historical analyses. Hegel will bore you to sleep and Marx
was a very angry man? I'm sure you have better things to do and
occasionally, I rue the fact that more of my time hasn't been spent in
a gym and not at a desk.

So, I'm not giving out a recommendation on Taubes as an idle good
book. It's something that you'd find particularly relevant to what
you're
up to at the moment. Again, initial suggest was for expansion of
understanding behind Atkins' understanding. Many on here claim
that Atkins' understanding was deeply flawed. I haven't close read
it in five years, so I couldn't say. Have read quite a bit of other
stuff
since though.

One thing at least that does pertain to the discussion at
hand...adding additional protein/fat calories and no carbs in the form
of meat to the Induction form of Atkins dieting CAN cause me to gain
weight over the course of 2 weeks, but nothing more than 4.4 pounds or
2 kilos in my experience.

Interesting. Is this addition to your normal 3000 kcal non-ketogenic
maintenance diet or to your current style of dieting? Or simply a
straight Atkins phase one? It's hard to really comment one way or
another without knowing what's being added to.

My definition of "metabolically resistent" comes from Atkins's
definition of it. I've lost some weight on a 2000-calory high-carb,
low-fat diet, I've lost weight every time I've controlled my calory
intake, and I tend to maintain my weight on a non-ketogenic diet about
3000 calories per day.

Hrm. So, fat fast and challenge and expand from there. I guess it
doesn't really matter what the start point is, as long as it's flowing
towards better understanding of your tolerances.

It's binge periods that seem to cause me to gain weight, not
nutritional difficulties.

So, again, the core issue. It's ultimately about a behavioral
issue (binge eating) which may be driven by psychology
or biology (as if they're seperate). Ultimately, the success or
failure of your approach is going to lie in your ability to eat
in the real world (not the cheese brick, sick making eggs,
laxative and fake sugar kids beverage (yes, that's a dig at
the smiley pitcher man) world, without bingeing. And you're
going to win or lose on your ability to understand and control
whatever it is that motivates you to binge.

Good luck. That's probably going to be a lot harder than
gagging down "dog****." (Your word, not mine).

Eric wrote:
Hollywood wrote:

Typical. I have a wife. I lift for health. I like to lift. I like it more than
dreadmill. I don't hate the dreadmill. But lifting is fun. Maybe because
I'm stealthy Type A and it feeds that. I dunno. But your view here is
very limited and therefore, very limiting. You're not gonna find many
things better for your attempts at improving your health than resistance
exercises.

The lifting thing WOULD **** you off. Eh, what can you do.

Either resistance or aerobics works better than neither. Both works
better than either.

The best fat loss ever in my life was in Navy boot camp. During that
time I ran 20-30 minutes every evening and marched several miles.
Some resistance training in the form of calistenics but small compared
to the aerobic. Anyone who ever claims that aerobics can't change
body shape has never been to boot camp. But it shouldn't be hard
to find an equivalent story of someone who has lost best with weight
lifting. Either works, both works better.

On the subject of limiting/limited and expanded viewpoints and book
recommendations...what should I tell you? _The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions_ is a damn good book and not as boring as most academic
texts or historical analyses.

But what concepts to learn from the Atkins revolution? "If low
carb is good, then lower carb must be better" may be tempting
but it is false on any time scale greater than about two weeks
(funny how Induction is two weeks). Do not confuse your insistance
that staying near zero carbs is what helps. It's your playing with
fat to protein ratios.

Assorted concepts from Atkins:

1) A calorie is a calorie is a calorie, and calories in calories out,
are both approximations that work well in between low fat and
low carb and they both have reality in any ratio range, but
fat movement is driven as much by hormone control as it is by
fuel useage. And basal metabolism is far more varied than
most think.

2) Carbs are a tool to acheive loss not an enemy, and ketosis
(actually ketonuria) is the lever arm for fat withdrawal. This is
the CCLL concept.

3) Custom plans work better than one size fits all. Again the
CCLL concept.

4) Food intolerances often cause addictive behavior patterns
so do eliminate and challenge to know what to avoid.

5) ... And a few other similar concepts that most ignore.

One thing at least that does pertain to the discussion at
hand...adding additional protein/fat calories and no carbs in the form
of meat to the Induction form of Atkins dieting CAN cause me to gain
weight over the course of 2 weeks, but nothing more than 4.4 pounds or
2 kilos in my experience.

Correction. Water not fat.

My definition of "metabolically resistent" comes from Atkins's
definition of it. I've lost some weight on a 2000-calory high-carb,
low-fat diet, I've lost weight every time I've controlled my calory
intake, and I tend to maintain my weight on a non-ketogenic diet about
3000 calories per day.

It's binge periods that seem to cause me to gain weight, not
nutritional difficulties.

"Eric" wrote in message
...
November 18

Weight: 266.0/Fat %: 37.5%/Water%: 46.0

So far, we're at 10 days and 17 pounds, or, if we discount the
glycogen/water dumping of the first 3 days, about 4.5 pounds in six
days.

Interesting. Increased protein intake has indeed slowed down weight
loss versus previous 1000-calory true Fat Fast diets in my past. The
science behind low-carb austerity dieting is proven out yet one more
time. Strangely enough, even the scale seems to be agreeing with
Benoit. Averaged over time, fat readings have gone down approximately
0.5% and water readings have gone up 0.5%, which is as it should be
since fat retains less water than other types of tissue.

One of the things that is always a temptation but I'm working on
avoiding is, on the night of the stutter-step second-day (when the
scale consistently reflects a loss), I have tended in the past to keep
myself parched throughout the night in order to make sure the weight
reading in the morning is as low as possible. This can slowly sap at
your willpower. So what I do is make sure I drink a lot of water every
day, and when I feel the urge to deprive myself on that second night,
I drink even more.

By the way, everyone, this is my fourth day with no Kool-Aid.
Sucralose does strange things to your digestive process when it makes
up more than a truly trifling part of your diet, and the aggravation
is just not worth it and one of those small, maddeningly annoying
things that eats away at your willpower on a diet like this. I may
drink a bottle of diet soda walking from place to place, but no more
Kool-Aid. I still have the invisible raspberry stuff in the fridge,
and it's not like my Tropical Punch or Splenda is ever going to go
bad.

-----------------------------------------------

This morning the food demon unveiled his latest strategy, or, at least
one of his old tricks re-mainfested. The full-frontal cravings having
been beaten back over and over again, what I think of diet-fatigue
cravings are starting to set in. The food demon has gotten very good
that this. It used to take a lot longer for these kind of cravings to
get started up, but as my body has adapted over previous attempts to
knowing what's coming, the food demon has come to realize that when I
get past a week on any diet, I can be stubborn about busting it for
any craving.

It's not full-on binge cravings, nothing like the screaming desire to
gorge, or the sneaking temptation of, "Oh, come on...eat just a bit
more. It's all right..." (which then turns into a screaming desire to
gorge). It's more like diet boredom and scorn for the lack of variety
of foods in my diet. Not only is it far more logical than binge
cravings, echoing many thoughts of ridicule voiced earlier in this
thread, but it's accompanied by a sinking feeling of tiredness and
general fatigue. Until I start having suicidal thoughts or sink into
fugue states where I stare at the wall for a few hours at a time, I
really don't think it's fair to dignify what used to be called
"unhappiness" or "melancholy" with the name "depression."

It comes and goes, at least, but unless I recognize it for what it is,
another food-demon strategy, I'm a goner. The food demon twists my
head around and I think, "Today, I'll vary the pattern. I'll change it
around a bit and do something different: not more calories, just some
variety. It's OK...for today."

The second I do, the second one thing varies in the pattern of eating
for the day and the carefully-reinforced pathways of habit in my mind
are deviated from, the food demon attacks again with binge cravings of
monstrous proportion. And because I'm in new territory, I'm more
likely to give in to them.

And, of course, I didn't wake up until 12:30 and I didn't eat until
almost three o'clock. Being significantly late on that 2:00 feeding
time, when I eat the 8 oz. of cheese, is almost as bad as being a
minute early.

To think, just yesterday I was relieved that the binge cravings seemed
to have settled down a bit. The food demon was probably just trying to
give me a feeling of false security before he tried throwing the
craving ball instead of running it down my throat.

So, three kinds of cravings so far.

1) Full-on eating-attack binge cravings
2) Temptation to eat just a bit more
3) Diet fatigue cravings

The three work together, one reinforcing the other and turning into
another at moments of opportunity with a single goal in mind, to get
me to eat MORE. Let's see what else surfaces in the next few days,
because, like most dieters I've talked to, what gets me off a diet
tends to be a very subjective opinion on my part once I'm off the
diet. I either tend not to think about it or make up an excuse that is
absolutely ludicrous once I look at my records. That's how I
discovered the correlation between skipping a multivitamin and giving
in to cravings.

Your postings seem more like one from a meth addict. I think you've got
the right idea about restricting your present diet foods to only a few
items. I have read of some other dieters that have beaten down their food
demons by going strict meat and eggs for life. Perhaps you may consider this
route. Maybe you can pick a few protein and fat combinations that are
neutral. I find that eggs are that way for me. I know you don't like them
but you do eat them. Perhaps you're not hungry enough yet to like them. When
I'm hungry, I'll eat lots of them. When I'm not hungry, they don't interest
me. Eggs nutritionally, may be one of the most perfect foods, as it contains
everything it needs to make a whole animal contained in a convenient
package.
There was the case of the "25 eggs per day man"
http://arbl.cvmbs.colostate.edu/hboo...r/eateggs.html

Explorers and Natives in the past have eaten pemmican only for months at a
time. Ray Audette swears by it in his book "Neanderthin". I also make my
own, and like this food for it's advantages as a neutral food as well as
it's shelf life, compactness, and portability. Since it is labour intensive,
it may not be right for you. A fatty cut of steak done rare is as good or
likely better.

Eating could be done just for survival rather than an enjoyable
experience. Find joy in other aspects of your life if food is a problem. You
may also find that controlling this one aspect may make your life happier in
other areas by improving body health and frame of mind. Many people believe
that a person's food choices have to taste great or have lots of variety. If
taste and variety foods are part of the problem, than eating only foods that
you don't like or have a neutral effect may be the answer. You're already
doing it now. Just do it for life.

I don't eat donuts, chips, pop, chocolate, cakes, cookies, potatoes, rice,
pasta, bread and a few other things I can't think of off the top of my head.
These are all foods I can not control just by having one bite. I have no
plans to eat any of them again, or to find fake substitutes for them. It was
a great loss at first, similar to losing a best friend. Now, there are no
cravings. I purposely choose foods that are bland. This is not in agreement
by many low carbers for whatever reason. But it works for me.

"Sometimes in people's search for the best, they overlook the good".

On Nov 19, 12:33 pm, Doug Freyburger wrote:
Eric wrote:
Hollywood wrote:

Typical. I have a wife. I lift for health. I like to lift. I like it more than
dreadmill. I don't hate the dreadmill. But lifting is fun. Maybe because
I'm stealthy Type A and it feeds that. I dunno. But your view here is
very limited and therefore, very limiting. You're not gonna find many
things better for your attempts at improving your health than resistance
exercises.

The lifting thing WOULD **** you off. Eh, what can you do.

Either resistance or aerobics works better than neither. Both works
better than either.

The best fat loss ever in my life was in Navy boot camp. During that
time I ran 20-30 minutes every evening and marched several miles.
Some resistance training in the form of calistenics but small compared
to the aerobic. Anyone who ever claims that aerobics can't change
body shape has never been to boot camp. But it shouldn't be hard
to find an equivalent story of someone who has lost best with weight
lifting. Either works, both works better.

http://thefitnessinsider.menshealth....cret-to-b.html

This post cites study work by Jeff Volek and crew, forthcoming, on
this
very subject. The exercise doesn't really make a difference to weight
loss (at least in this study). In fact, the cardio people lost the
least.
The difference comes in fat loss vs weight loss. The combination of
diet + cardio + resistance is the champ in terms of dropping the fat
pounds. Would have been interesting if they'd had a diet + resistance
group, but perhaps in a subsequent study.

Correction. Water not fat.

Hrm. We can assume with a high degree of accuracy that
this is so. We haven't measured him.

So Eric, how are you doing?

V