Eric Blackway: Weight-Loss Program

"Eric" wrote in message
oups.com...
THE FIRST DAY

November 10, 12:38 pm

Well, I wrote my first post yesterday, so I'd better pony up today
with the particulars of my diet. First of all, morning weight-in. I
was at 279.0, 38.0% fat and 45.5% water. The scale gave me two pluses,
which means that I am OBESE. Something must be done, or I feel there's
a very real chance that the next step will be bariatric surgery. I
would like to avoid that, if I could.

I intend to eat eight ounces of cheese every day, along with a multi-
vitamin and 23 grams of additional protein from a wonderfully cheap
source of whey protein powder that I found at my local supermarket.
Eight ounces of cheese will give me 64 grams of protein every day.

In the first week, at least, I'm going to mix the powder with a cup of
whole milk, which will add 6 more grams of protein but 12 more grams
of carbohydrates. I'm also going to suck down some psyllium husk
laxative, to the tune of one full tablespoon, which adds 12 grams of
carbohydrates. The cheese will give me 8 more grams of carbohydrates
for a grand total, in my first week, of:

12 (laxative) + 12 (milk) + 8 (cheese) + 2 (protein powder) = 34 grams
of carbyhydrates

While protein will be at:

0 (laxative) + 8 (milk) + 64 (cheese) + 23(powder) = 95 grams of
protein

I'll swill all the Kool-Aid I can handle, sweetened with Splenda,
which means less than 1 gram of carbohydrates per half-gallon.

Yes, this diet composition is essentially a low-carbohydrate, protein-
sparing fast. I'm worried about potassium amounts and am going out
today to get my hands on a serious supplement, but does anyone else
see anything else that could kill me?


Sounds kind of off-the-wall to me. Protein sparing is usually done under a
doctor's supervision. I'm just guessing here, but I don't think a doctor put
you on a cheese, kool-aid and laxative diet.

Two things: first, I'm rooting for you. Second, if you haven't already, read
a decent low-carb book like Protein Power or Atkins.

It looks to me like you're going way out on a limb with a weird diet that
you probably can't maintain. If you're serious about this, and I think you
are, take a few days and come up with a reasonable plan that you can follow
and go from there.

Here are some links you may find of interest:

Stillman's
http://www.lowcarb.org/stillman.html

Atkin's Induction
http://www.atkins.com/articles/atkin...eptable-foods/

protein sparing:
http://www.drblythe.com/weightloss/chptr6txt.htm

Just my .015

Mike

On Sat, 10 Nov 2007 22:44:46 -0000, Eric
wrote:

THE FIRST DAY

November 10, 12:38 pm

Well, I wrote my first post yesterday, so I'd better pony up today
with the particulars of my diet. First of all, morning weight-in. I
was at 279.0, 38.0% fat and 45.5% water. The scale gave me two pluses,
which means that I am OBESE. Something must be done, or I feel there's
a very real chance that the next step will be bariatric surgery. I
would like to avoid that, if I could.

I intend to eat eight ounces of cheese every day, along with a multi-
vitamin and 23 grams of additional protein from a wonderfully cheap
source of whey protein powder that I found at my local supermarket.
Eight ounces of cheese will give me 64 grams of protein every day.

In the first week, at least, I'm going to mix the powder with a cup of
whole milk, which will add 6 more grams of protein but 12 more grams
of carbohydrates. I'm also going to suck down some psyllium husk
laxative, to the tune of one full tablespoon, which adds 12 grams of
carbohydrates. The cheese will give me 8 more grams of carbohydrates
for a grand total, in my first week, of:

12 (laxative) + 12 (milk) + 8 (cheese) + 2 (protein powder) = 34 grams
of carbyhydrates

While protein will be at:

0 (laxative) + 8 (milk) + 64 (cheese) + 23(powder) = 95 grams of
protein

I'll swill all the Kool-Aid I can handle, sweetened with Splenda,
which means less than 1 gram of carbohydrates per half-gallon.

Yes, this diet composition is essentially a low-carbohydrate, protein-
sparing fast. I'm worried about potassium amounts and am going out
today to get my hands on a serious supplement, but does anyone else
see anything else that could kill me?

First -- welcome to the group.

Second -- what plan is it that you're following? Why don't you just
eat real food?


--
BlueBrooke
254/225/135

On Nov 10, 8:41 pm, BlueBrooke .@. wrote:

First -- welcome to the group.

Second -- what plan is it that you're following? Why don't you just
eat real food?

--
BlueBrooke

Thank you for your welcome.

In answer to your question, because real food doesn't work for me, and
it never has. I like real food, and I tend to eat more of it than is
good for me.

But Jesus Christ, who can afford "real food" that would taste
acceptable on a low-carb diet? Once you get into making low-carb
sauces and pounding down low-carb meals from the animal kingdom...holy
damn, the price tag mounts up! We're talking at least six dollars a
day if you try to eat 2000 calories in meat and fish with some level
of variety. That adds up to some serious bread, doesn't it?

Speaking of bread, once I get into "real food" and not food that
convinces me I'm on a diet when I'm on a diet, the separation in my
head between "I'm eating real food" and "I'm on a diet" quickly gets
blurry, especially in the first stages of a low-carb diet. Somehow,
when I'm consuming a cheesy medium-rare half-pound patty on a plate,
it reminds me that I'm missing a decent kaiser roll.

Putting it on some ultra-special preservative-reeking soya cracker-
wannabe ain't gonna cut it at that point. (That might fall under
someone's else's definition of "real food," but not mine.)

Being on an easy diet, for me, is kind of like being on an easy plan
to quit smoking. I've done it three times, and it does get easier each
time, but the second I start trying to make the experience anything
less than a clear separation between me and the puffies, everything
goes to hell.

And judging from the fact that going by the accepted wisdom provided
by dieting gurus means that 95% of people who lose weight on diets
simply regain it again in five years, I think that there might be some
logic to what I say. As far as I know, there is very little research
that actually targets "what losing it fast" and "losing it slow"
means. If you look at studies, an element of exercise is always
involved, as well as an element of behavioral modification. My
conclusion based on the suspicious regularity of these recurring
elements in the advice that we all tend to suck up like mother's milk
is that there is really very little difference in the failure rates of
those who lose it fast and those who lose it slow, as long as
carefully planned elements of both behavioral modification and
exercise exists. To prove that, of course, we would have to have
access to raw data, and that data is firmly in the control of the
powers that be, the ones that have all the money and the power, and
preach to all of us about how to live life on their terms.

Based on these observations, I think it's far more likely that the
reason why losing weight is so frowned upon by nutritionists is that
you very simply can't tell people of all ages and backgrounds that
they should lose weight fast. Some older individual is going to kill
himself, and it's very easy for even one good lawsuit to establish
liability and wipe out the profitability of any diet plan.

In general, the same holds true for all marketed exercise programs,
and even things like the US Navy's delayed entrance program. To be
frank, a forty-year-old could probably follow the preparation plan our
salty dogs lay out in their DEP manual to get ready for boot camp.
Since the military doesn't recruit anyone above 28, well, you can see
the absurd logic behind detailing a TEN WEEK program that takes an
average 20-something from walking 40 minutes a day 4 times a week to
running 30 minutes three times a week.

The idiot-fix is in. The Navy's primary goal in telling you to go as
slowly as that is to AVOID GETTING SUED, not to actually help you.

Atkins proved to my satisfaction long ago that the American Medical
Association is most definitely in the pocket of well-organized
multinational agribusiness, so I have a lot of suspicion when it comes
to following any kind of accepted wisdom in dieting. If it's been
documented, if it's been proven and confirmed, I'll try it, but start
taking steps away from that, and the next thing you know, you're
playing games with yourself that you can live with just a few
cigarettes (oops, I mean dietary slip-ups) a week, and then you're
back where you started.

But Atkins is in the same boat as the rest of them. One poor *******
dies and their spouse runs to a well-funded and well-connected
personal injury lawyer, and poor Dr. Atkins is B-R-O-K-E.

So I'm trying to eat about a thousand calories a day, with a less than
20% caloric intake from carbohydrates. I'm a bit worried about
vitamins, but as to keeping this going for something like three months
and dropping ninety pounds...now that's a challenge worth fighting
for. This is, with the simple addition of more protein, the Benoit-
study dietary ketosis diet detailed in Atkins. A peer-evaluated,
proven plan under the unflinching terms of the scientific method, as
Atkins goes on to show and I have scoured old medical journals to
confirm.

Now the issue of losing weight, when it comes to me, seems to be food
addiction before any other. Not genes, nor willpower, but addiction.
And the addict, caught in the throes of addiction, does not make
positive choices on a day-to-day basis, which is more or less the only
reason why he is typically called an "addict" and not a "role model."
The addict's brain does not function solely according to the dictates
of logic and reason, just like everyone else's, but in an overt way
that leads to a lack of socioeconomic success and personal
fulfillment, as defined by our society.

I have seen this pattern of behavior over and over in myself, and I'd
be willing to bet anyone reading a low-carb newsgroup has as well.
When it comes to addiction, be it physical or psychological, there
comes a point where you simply HAVE TO STOP. The commitment you make
to stop is not about logic. It is about a furious "NO!" thrown out
into the everlasting, uncaring ether that exists despite you and your
puny self, a determination to not give in and do what is easy but
choose instead what is right.

And that, in its turn, could be said to be the essence of faith,
commitment, or even love.

And that, for me, leads to the inescapable conclusion that I really
have to stop enjoying food, enjoying eating all I want, and
relentlessly rearrange up some of the wiring in my head to make things
lead to different places. I have tried other times in the past, and
half-finished the job, but the food demon has returned to climb once
again on my back and sink his relentless claws into my shoulders. I am
quite certain that the food demon will kill me, unless I finally
manage to throw him off and wrestle him into eternal submission.

Once again, thank you for your welcome.

On Nov 10, 8:10 pm, "em" wrote:

Sounds kind of off-the-wall to me. Protein sparing is usually done under a
doctor's supervision. I'm just guessing here, but I don't think a doctor put
you on a cheese, kool-aid and laxative diet.

Two things: first, I'm rooting for you. Second, if you haven't already, read
a decent low-carb book like Protein Power or Atkins.

It looks to me like you're going way out on a limb with a weird diet that
you probably can't maintain. If you're serious about this, and I think you
are, take a few days and come up with a reasonable plan that you can follow
and go from there.

Here are some links you may find of interest:

Stillman'shttp://www.lowcarb.org/stillman.html

Atkin's Inductionhttp://www.atkins.com/articles/atkins-phases/phase-one/acceptable-foods/

protein sparing:http://www.drblythe.com/weightloss/chptr6txt.htm

Just my .015

Mike- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

This is the beauty of a newsgroup, isn't it?

I've read Atkins cover-to-cover at least fifteen times. I've looked up
Atkins's quoted research in Lancet and the BMJ, and he's telling the
truth. And I have never, never managed to lose weight slowly and
patiently on some nice-n-easy "take it off in 7982 weeks, lose a pound
every fifteen weeks, we go slow" diet. I sincerely doubt I can:
there's something about that whole mentality that screams "masochist."

Nope: the only way that has ever worked for me to actually lose weight
is to dive in and fight the food demon head-on. Well-meaning attempts
to regulate weight loss at half-speed and three-quarters speed seem to
require the same amount of willpower for me as the off-the-wall diet I
am describing.

A pound a day, every day, is the only way it's ever worked for me,
insane as is sounds. I suspect I'm not alone, however.

Now, maybe that is my problem. Maybe I need to learn how to accept a
less-enthusiastic approach to dieting. Maybe I need something entirely
new, a balanced weight-loss program that leads me by the hand down the
road to weight loss bit-by-bit, come on, honey, you can do it, rah,
rah, rah...

Or maybe the whole mentality that says "lose it slow" is a crock of
****, fed by doctors frightened by lawyers in sharp suits.

This is the beauty of a newsgroup, isn't it?

Eric wrote:
THE FIRST DAY

November 10, 12:38 pm

Well, I wrote my first post yesterday, so I'd better pony up today
with the particulars of my diet. First of all, morning weight-in. I
was at 279.0, 38.0% fat and 45.5% water. The scale gave me two pluses,
which means that I am OBESE. Something must be done, or I feel there's
a very real chance that the next step will be bariatric surgery. I
would like to avoid that, if I could.

I intend to eat eight ounces of cheese every day, along with a multi-
vitamin and 23 grams of additional protein from a wonderfully cheap
source of whey protein powder that I found at my local supermarket.
Eight ounces of cheese will give me 64 grams of protein every day.

In the first week, at least, I'm going to mix the powder with a cup of
whole milk, which will add 6 more grams of protein but 12 more grams
of carbohydrates. I'm also going to suck down some psyllium husk
laxative, to the tune of one full tablespoon, which adds 12 grams of
carbohydrates. The cheese will give me 8 more grams of carbohydrates
for a grand total, in my first week, of:

12 (laxative) + 12 (milk) + 8 (cheese) + 2 (protein powder) = 34 grams
of carbyhydrates

While protein will be at:

0 (laxative) + 8 (milk) + 64 (cheese) + 23(powder) = 95 grams of
protein

I'll swill all the Kool-Aid I can handle, sweetened with Splenda,
which means less than 1 gram of carbohydrates per half-gallon.

Yes, this diet composition is essentially a low-carbohydrate, protein-
sparing fast. I'm worried about potassium amounts and am going out
today to get my hands on a serious supplement, but does anyone else
see anything else that could kill me?

I don't know, but I have to say I enjoy my bacon and egg for brekky and
steak and salad for dinner

Eric wrote:
But Jesus Christ, who can afford "real food" that would taste
acceptable on a low-carb diet? Once you get into making low-carb
sauces and pounding down low-carb meals from the animal kingdom...holy
damn, the price tag mounts up! We're talking at least six dollars a
day if you try to eat 2000 calories in meat and fish with some level
of variety. That adds up to some serious bread, doesn't it?

You can get lots more variety in at a lower price tag if you use eggs as
a major source of protein. You can cook eggs a bazillion different ways.

Also, you add a LOT of variety with veggies too. There's a lot more
choices in nonstarchy vegetables than there are in meats.


Speaking of bread, once I get into "real food" and not food that
convinces me I'm on a diet when I'm on a diet, the separation in my
head between "I'm eating real food" and "I'm on a diet" quickly gets
blurry, especially in the first stages of a low-carb diet. Somehow,
when I'm consuming a cheesy medium-rare half-pound patty on a plate,
it reminds me that I'm missing a decent kaiser roll.

At the beginning, that makes sense. When I do induction, I eat pretty
much nothing but meat and eggs to get me over the hump.

But if you're going to low-carb for life, you need to think in terms of
real, every-day food you can live with long term.

Kaiser rolls never come back into it for me; the burger is *permanently*
bunless.


Based on these observations, I think it's far more likely that the
reason why losing weight is so frowned upon by nutritionists is that
you very simply can't tell people of all ages and backgrounds that
they should lose weight fast. Some older individual is going to kill
himself, and it's very easy for even one good lawsuit to establish
liability and wipe out the profitability of any diet plan.

You don't have to be old though. Google for "rabbit starvation".
Anyone can suffer serious deficiency diseases.


So I'm trying to eat about a thousand calories a day, with a less than
20% caloric intake from carbohydrates. I'm a bit worried about
vitamins, but as to keeping this going for something like three months
and dropping ninety pounds...now that's a challenge worth fighting
for. This is, with the simple addition of more protein, the Benoit-
study dietary ketosis diet detailed in Atkins. A peer-evaluated,
proven plan under the unflinching terms of the scientific method, as
Atkins goes on to show and I have scoured old medical journals to
confirm.

A multivitmain is decent insurance whether you're dieting or not. And
fish oil tablets if you don't eat fish regularly.

It really depends on how you do it... and the studies don't show
differences between someone who eats the same stuff, just small portions
of the carby stuff, vs. people who replace the starches with vegetables.

Personally, I eat so much more veggies low-carbing that I don't think of
it as a less nutritious way to eat, but a more nutritious way.


Now the issue of losing weight, when it comes to me, seems to be food
addiction before any other. Not genes, nor willpower, but addiction.
And the addict, caught in the throes of addiction, does not make
positive choices on a day-to-day basis, which is more or less the only
reason why he is typically called an "addict" and not a "role model."
The addict's brain does not function solely according to the dictates
of logic and reason, just like everyone else's, but in an overt way
that leads to a lack of socioeconomic success and personal
fulfillment, as defined by our society.

I don't find food addictive except carbs. Once past the
induction-stage, cravings don't hit much. During the withdrawal
process, I will overeat a lot, but not once the cravings subside.

The only real exception is nuts and nut butters; I can very easily
over-do those calorically. Strangely, something like almond flour,
which is the in-between state from whole nuts to nut butters, doesn't
spark the same sort of tendency to overeat.


I have seen this pattern of behavior over and over in myself, and I'd
be willing to bet anyone reading a low-carb newsgroup has as well.
When it comes to addiction, be it physical or psychological, there
comes a point where you simply HAVE TO STOP. The commitment you make
to stop is not about logic. It is about a furious "NO!" thrown out
into the everlasting, uncaring ether that exists despite you and your
puny self, a determination to not give in and do what is easy but
choose instead what is right.

The thing is, you can cut carbs to nada, but you can't cut food that
way. It's not like smoking or alcoholism, where going cold turkey works
cause you do have to eat.

The trick is to eat stuff that doesn't kickstart the addiction.

For me, bread and pasta are ALWAYS going to cause problems, regardless
of how long I go without them or how much weight I lose.

I just don't ever binge on tuna and salad. It doesn't happen.

You have to find out what foods work that way for yourself.


And that, for me, leads to the inescapable conclusion that I really
have to stop enjoying food, enjoying eating all I want, and
relentlessly rearrange up some of the wiring in my head to make things
lead to different places. I have tried other times in the past, and
half-finished the job, but the food demon has returned to climb once
again on my back and sink his relentless claws into my shoulders. I am
quite certain that the food demon will kill me, unless I finally
manage to throw him off and wrestle him into eternal submission.

IMO, an awful lot of it is biochemistry.

The type of hunger that kicks in when I eat carby foods is painful and
can wake me from a dead sleep, it takes a LOT of willpower to overcome that.

Whereas the hunger I experience on low-carb is such a minor feeling that
I often get distracted and forget to eat all day.


--
http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/

Eric wrote:
Nope: the only way that has ever worked for me to actually lose weight
is to dive in and fight the food demon head-on. Well-meaning attempts
to regulate weight loss at half-speed and three-quarters speed seem to
require the same amount of willpower for me as the off-the-wall diet I
am describing.

A pound a day, every day, is the only way it's ever worked for me,
insane as is sounds. I suspect I'm not alone, however.

OK, that's worked in the past to take the weight off.

But if you're having to do it again, maybe what you need is not so much
to learn how to take the weight off as how to KEEP it off.

Your current plan doesn't seem to address that issue at all. Skip the
kasier buns until you're lean, eat them again until you're fat, etc.
That's the yo-yo thing, and all studies show that's less healthy than
just staying fat in the first place - you'd be better off not dieting at
all.


Or maybe the whole mentality that says "lose it slow" is a crock of
****, fed by doctors frightened by lawyers in sharp suits.

The advantage to losing it slow is you learn how to eat for the rest of
your life.

But hey, go fast if you want to - it's your body.

--
http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/

Eric wrote:

I intend to eat eight ounces of cheese every day, along with a multi-
vitamin and 23 grams of additional protein from a wonderfully cheap
source of whey protein powder that I found at my local supermarket.
Eight ounces of cheese will give me 64 grams of protein every day.

In the first week, at least, I'm going to mix the powder with a cup of
whole milk, which will add 6 more grams of protein but 12 more grams
of carbohydrates. I'm also going to suck down some psyllium husk
laxative, to the tune of one full tablespoon, which adds 12 grams of
carbohydrates. The cheese will give me 8 more grams of carbohydrates
for a grand total, in my first week, of:

12 (laxative) + 12 (milk) + 8 (cheese) + 2 (protein powder) = 34 grams
of carbyhydrates

While protein will be at:

0 (laxative) + 8 (milk) + 64 (cheese) + 23(powder) = 95 grams of
protein

I'll swill all the Kool-Aid I can handle, sweetened with Splenda,
which means less than 1 gram of carbohydrates per half-gallon.

Yes, this diet composition is essentially a low-carbohydrate, protein-
sparing fast. I'm worried about potassium amounts and am going out
today to get my hands on a serious supplement, but does anyone else
see anything else that could kill me?

If you really want to do a PSMF, I suggest Lyle McDonald's book on the
topic. He knows a heck of a lot more about biochemistry than most diet
authors out there. While he points out that a PSMF isn't the healthiest
choice, he does discuss how to do it as healthily as possible. Sort of
like giving clean syringes to drug addicts.

You're probably not getting enough protein here cause your body needs
more without carbs, as it converts protein to glucose in the absence of
dietary carb. The pysllium isn't providing glucose cause our bodies
don't break that type of fiber down. So your protein is probably low,
but Lyle's book witll address that for you.

Also, while the diet isn't as low in fat as it could be if you're really
wanting to cut the calories to the bone, you need to be eating the
essential fatty acids rather than just piles of cheese. You'd be a lot
better off with tuna than with cheese, less calories and more of the
essential fatty acids that you need. But at least add some fish oil
tablets to the diet.

Lyle's book is he http://rapidfatloss.lylemcdonald.com/

And you're still going to have to figure out something to do about
maintenance as this is absolutely a short-term diet for maximizing fat
loss, not a way of eating for life.

--
http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/

Eric wrote:

Yes, this diet composition is essentially a low-carbohydrate, protein-
sparing fast. I'm worried about potassium amounts and am going out
today to get my hands on a serious supplement, but does anyone else
see anything else that could kill me?

Lite Salt is the cheapest way to supplement potassium.

If I were doing your diet (I'd be more likely to be doing Lyle's
though), I'd seriously add a multivitamin and some fish oil also.

--
http://www.ornery-geeks.org/consulting/

On Nov 11, 12:56 am, Eric wrote:
A pound a day, every day, is the only way it's ever worked for me,
insane as is sounds. I suspect I'm not alone, however.

Snipped to the Core of the Matter

I'm not gonna comment on the cheese, Kool-Aid, and laxative
diet. It's probably not sustainable, was clearly not designed to be
so, and will therefore, not work in the long term.

The thing that I'm going to talk to is more about the mentality.
Since you are here, are NC-17/X rated in your posting, and
getting the ++ on your scale, I am going to suggest that you
probably don't have much of an idea of what works for you.

Yes, this pound a day, every day, approach has moved the
scale for you in the past, but equally clearly, it has also moved
the scale back up, and probably with interest, once you moved
on from it. Clearly, that's not what you really want, otherwise,
you'd just do it, and not be on usenet. There's the beauty of
usenet.

IFF: you are serious about making real changes and ending
your double life (whatever: Billy Joel is right about the Stranger,
all lyrics, all situations), you are going to have to find something
sustainable. That is, by necessity, going to be slower. Probably
1/7th of the speed of a pound a day, every day. Maybe slower.
But that's the price you pay for the worthwhile changes. On the
upside, it's probably gonna be easier than doing flaxseed,
kool-aid (I cannot think of many things more useless to consume)
and cheese (I love cheese, but 8 oz a day would make the flax
something like a necessity, and lots of people stall on cheese
anyway).

At any rate, I wish you the best. I'm sorry this may be harsh. But
what you're doing to yourself, both food wise and mentality wise is
probably not the most useful course for you.