I Shrank!

I’ve lost a lot of weight at least three times in the past. Make that four times. The first was in college when I came down with a bad case of tonsillitis and couldn’t eat. I dropped down to 158lbs, which was skeletal. It hurt to sit in chairs because I didn’t have any padding. The second was in grad school. I was around 260lbs, good for weightlifting, but unsuited to the life I was intending. I lost the weight over the course of a year by limiting my meals to one plate. I was eating at a school cafeteria and wasn’t able to snack, so this worked well. I only needed the discipline during the meal, and then if I was hungry later, it was too bad, because the cafeteria was closed!

The third time was about five years ago. I was again around 260lbs. This seems to be the limit where strength is maximized; thus the temptation to get back to that weight! The A1C came back high, and the fasting blood sugar was about 115. This is pre-diabetic. Type 2 diabetes runs in the family, and so I dropped a bunch of weight through nutrition coaching (Thanks Robert) and pure will. It wasn’t fun, but I managed. There were a lot of days where I was very crabby because of what I couldn’t eat. Most unpleasant!

The fourth and likely last time was completed today. I again was chasing PRs, and in the last great push towards glory I managed to squat 605. It was indeed glorious, especially for a 50 year-old man. I never managed to pull 600+, but I got under a bar with 605, squatted down, and stood back up again. Whatever else happens, I’ve got that! “We’ll always have Paris.”

Then came the great global clampdown, the restrictions on freedom, a move from one state to another, and the strength started to wane. Two years ago, in January of 2023, there was a Medical Event, a congenital heart defect that caused a tiny little stroke. Not my fault! Blame my parents. Nevertheless, it was in my interest to keep the vasculature as clear as possible, and that meant that I was again going to have to lose weight. This time I took a different approach, and it was much easier.

I had read Benjamin Bikman’s book about insulin resistance. I wasn’t ready to take all of his recommendations (he likes the ketogenic diet, which I haven’t done yet), but I did use intermittent fasting. I usually don’t eat in the mornings, unless I’ve got a lot of physical work to do that day. I don’t eat breakfast. I’m not hungry in the mornings, and a bit of coffee or decaf makes even any little bit of hunger go away. I did eat breakfast on the days I was running a chainsaw down the fence line, but otherwise, I’m pretty good until about 11am. I then try to get all of my eating done by 3 hours before bedtime. This improves sleep and blood glucose/insulin levels. It also has the practical result of reducing the discomfort of the diet. After all, I’m eating all of my calories within 7 hours! Even if I’m only eating 1800 calories a day, it’s still 257 calories an hour, which doesn’t feel at all like deprivation.

Another benefit of the intermittent fasting is that satiety signals get upregulated. The standard American diet (SAD) has you dealing with a lot of carbs all the time. Even if your metabolism is healthy, you’re having to pump out a lot of insulin all day, and this seems to down-regulate your leptin, which is a hormone that signals satiety to your brain. Thus you tend to feel hungry all the time. If you can go longer periods without eating, you’ll find that you can go longer periods without eating. As Aristotle says, act in a virtuous way to make yourself virtuous. In this case, temperance leads to temperance.

This was working decently, but I was still hungry, especially in the evenings. I was still eating the standard American diet, just less of it. Then I encountered the Means twins (they aren’t twins, just brother and sister) on Tucker’s podcast. Casey made the case that it’s not only the energy content of food that matters, but the processing of the food. In particular, processed food has almost no fiber. This means that whatever carbs are in the food will be digested very quickly, causing blood glucose spikes, which can lead to all sorts of bad things. If you doubt me, just ask your favorite AI to tell you about the links between “insulin resistance” and any disease you can think of. Alzheimer’s, PCOS, cardiovascular disease, cancer–all have at least a strong correlation with insulin resistance. Remember that I had already had borderline fasting glucose numbers. The doctors never recommended anything to me, but the fasting glucose consistently came up in the pre-diabetic range. So, I read Casey’s book Good Energy and took her advice to get a Continuous Glucose Monitor.

This is a small device that goes in the upper arm and transmits interstitial blood glucose measurements to your phone in real time. The day I put it on I found out that I was spiking nearly to 200, after eating pasta. This wasn’t good! I got instant feedback that I was riding a metabolic roller coaster. Over the next few weeks I learned what meals were good, and what were less good. It was almost like a video game where I eat, check my phone, and then make a mental note on how well I did. Note that if you go to levels.com, they’ll do that assessment for you.

What did I learn? That bread and rice were to be eaten sparingly, and preferably with protein and fat. Pinto beans don’t bother me at all. Black beans are pretty good but not as good as pinto beans. Nuts are great! I have been eating lots of pistachios, walnuts, almonds, and cashews. I measure them out and make a meal of them. Note that they are quite expensive unless you buy them in bulk. I get them from Costco, and the price per calorie comes out to be about half of a Quarter Pounder from McDonalds, which isn’t too bad. I’ve started eating hippy food, chia seeds and quinoa and sprouted pumpkin seeds and mustard greens. I also learned that if I walk after a meal, the glucose spike can be blunted. As I write, I’m walking on a foldable treadmill that I put under my standing desk. If the family makes pasta and I eat some, I can just come in here and turn on the treadmill or go to the gym and do my squats, and I’ll get it leveled out.

Here is the most important discovery. I’M NOT HUNGRY ANYMORE. Like, not at all. The combination of intermittent fasting, eating unprocessed foods, and monitoring the blood glucose level has nearly killed any craving for food. I eat because I want to eat, not because I have to eat. I think many of us think we’re hungry, but we likely aren’t really hungry. Recovering that knowledge and allowing your biochemistry to function correctly makes eating a healthy diet easy. At least, it did for me.

This is an n=1 experiment, and your mileage may vary, but it worked for me just like all the hippy food moms said it would. I may have to buy Birkenstocks!

Whatever you think of religion, any organized religion worth its salt has fasting as a part of its practice. Reaching the state of detachment from one’s stomach is a very good thing. It doesn’t mean that you don’t enjoy food. I would say that you enjoy it more, since it’s not merely filling a compulsion or scratching an itch, but is more of a rational choice. You can think of the religious teachings on fasting to be the folk wisdom of biochemistry and signaling hormones.

I’m writing this on the day MacroFactor told me that my trend weight hit my goal of 190lbs. Now I’m supposed to eat 2250 calories. I honestly am not sure how I’m going to do it. I know I won’t be hungry, and that’s a good feeling.