Paleo/primal success and failure

Since February 2006, I successfully lost 45 pounds or more three times. Except for the first time, I lost the weight using paleo/primal eating habits. The second time, I used intermittent fasting (IF) twice a week, for 18-36 hours, depending upon how long I could hold out. I exercised towards the end of the fast to maximize fat burning. My workouts were about 20 minutes of interval strength training. The third time, I lost the weight mostly by diet, without a serious exercise program.
The first time, I lost 50 pounds via diet and exercise (mostly walking). Between 1994 and 1999, I had done a lot of weight lifting and swimming. I was under 200 lbs. at the time, and added quite a bit of muscle, so weight loss was not much of a concern to me at the time. The whole diet yo-yo has frustrated me, but I keep trying to reset and try to achieve lasting success.
The reasons for failure: fast food, ice cream, and lack of exercise. The mindset that I'll eventually get around to losing my weight again, just not today, is a denial of reality which can only go on for so long. As Ayn Rand said, "You can avoid reality, but you cannot avoid the consequences of avoiding reality."
Now, the consequence is that I'm facing type 2 diabetes, so the stakes have been significantly raised. I've seen quite a number of success stories of people using a paleo/primal diet and exercise approach, who were able to reverse diabetes and return to normal levels. I prefer to do that than to depend on medication in the long term.

Updated the first couple of paragraphs to more clearly describe previous successes.

Highs and Lows

Earlier this week, I wrote about my progress two weeks on, including the yard work I'd started. My overall energy has been a major improvement, since I've eaten mostly whole foods and avoided non-Paleo ingredients (except non-skim dairy). I haven't had the post-meal slump or the bloated feeling (typical of processed carbohydrates and too many calories). But I've been having a few off days, which I think are mostly due to my sudden increase in activity level, as well as sleep deficit.

Not having had much intense exercise for about a year, I'm finding it a bit harder to recuperate. When I'd been exercising twice a week for several months, I had little more than mild muscle soreness the following day (maybe a bit worse when I added new types of exercises hitting different muscle groups). Being over 40 makes it even more difficult. Despite having added a lot of fat over a year, I'm still benefiting from the workouts I did before my lapse. I feel just fine when I'm hard at work pulling weeds and lugging around my new toy. I filled up my 5 cu. ft. wheelbarrow about 3.5 times with the weeds I stooped over to pull or gathered up with a metal rake. My Ryobi power head is only 10 lbs., plus the weight of the attachments. However, my yard was seriously overgrown and I was having trouble getting the hang of trimming and edging precisely, especially since it provides much more power than I'm used to with electrical trimmers. So it probably took me twice as long as it should have. I definitely felt the effects in my forearms and hamstrings.

It didn't help that after eating the Sausage and Cabbage Stew for dinner one night and lunch the next day that I had intestinal trouble and felt like I'd been kicked in the gut by a horse for almost a full day. My wife had similar problems. We don't know if it was because the cabbage was overcooked or if the Herbs de Provence (which we had never used before) had some ingredient, like lavender, which triggered a reaction. I had cooked a basic version of the stew (just a few spices) a half dozen or more times since I got the recipe from Richard Nikoley's Free the Animal website. I never had any digestive trouble before. Then again, our trouble could have come from a totally unrelated source. The good thing was, I ate very little food once I did get sick and by evening the next day I was feeling great again.

I purposely work in a fasted state and I suspect that's a big part of why I feel great at the time. Now, when I go into ketosis from fasting (or cutting way down on all carbs), I embrace the feeling. Before doing Paleo with Intermittent Fasting (IF), I would get a panicky feeling after not eating for too long and fell for the "low blood sugar" myth that going too long without food was harmful to my health. Also, I would drink "sports drinks" during exercise and eat "power bars" (might as well be candy bars). As nearly all Paleo Diet or Evolutionary Fitness websites will explain, it makes no sense that human beings must have a rigid, 3-meal-a-day schedule to be healthy, or to fuel up before a workout. Our ancestors fished, hunted, and gathered what was available. When they ate varied due to chance and circumstances, as well as according to the seasons. They had no artificial refrigeration, grain silos, or oast houses. They went hungry until they found their next food sources. So, not only did they not drop dead from hypoglycemia, but the most work they did, the greatest physical effort, was done when they had gone without, perhaps for days.

Not only do I understand this intellectually, but my body feels quite comfortable with throwing out the modern notion of breakfast, lunch, and dinner at scheduled hours. I'm still working on being more attentive to my hunger as I do eat when I'm not hungry sometimes. I know part of that is habitual, "nervous" eating. Junk food, such as processed carbohydrates, do have an addictive quality, which certainly contributes to habitual eating, even when not hungry. But sometimes, I get excited about a particularly tasty meal and can't wait until I'm actually hungry. One of the things about cooking from scratch most of the time and having improved my cooking skills is that I really enjoy most of what I fix. Luckily, these temptations aren't too much of an obstacle.

Another bad habit I need to break is staying up late and getting less than eight hours of sleep (sometimes as little as four or five hours). As I've increased my activity, I should be getting more sleep to help recuperate. When I do get more than eight hours on a night after exertion, I recover much better. When I don't, I have a greater chance of feeling sick, or just taking longer to feel normal again.

Two Weeks

About two weeks in and I feel much better. My energy is much greater and more consistent (the post-meal drugged feeling is going away). My "fat pants" are starting to get loose again. I can feel my muscles "coming alive" a little bit. I don't have that bloated, swollen feeling all the time.

Exercise: I've done some work and heavy lifting in my yard and house (it's amazing how things get overgrown and cluttered when I get fat and lazy). Overall, I have been moving around a little bit more, too. Due to my schedule and the list of things to do for work and around the house (yard work and cleaning, once again), I haven't scheduled time for formal workouts. I'm planning on starting that within a week or two. There are about three more days of weeding, leaf mulching, pruning, and trimming to do this week, so I'll have plenty to keep me busy. While I do plan to start doing 2 intense workouts per week, like I did before, I'm more concerned with diet these past two weeks, ending my seemingly addictive consumption of junk food.

Fasting: I've fasted a few times for slightly less than 24 hours. The last time was before and during the yard work I did for several hours Sunday. Working in a fasted state makes me feel like I did last time I did the Paleo diet. Like riding a bike, my body quickly adapted to the change, without any negative feeling this time.

Food: I'm about 85-90% sticking to the diet I plan to make permanent. I have been able to resist the junk, with increasing ease. I estimate I'm eating about 70-80% Paleo (if you exclude dairy from what you consider Paleo). I plan to keep dairy in my diet, which probably accounts for about 10-15% of my calories now. I've been eating some legumes (pinto beans, chick-peas, and a few peanuts), which have some negative nutritional content, but I plan to eat those only occasionally.

I would like to have only strictly organic foods, but I don't yet know of any stores which carry meat or dried fruit which are completely unpolluted. The sausage, bacon, and dried fruit I eat do have nitrites/preservatives. The beef & eggs are not grass fed/free range (I'm guessing).

Cheats: My "cheats" have included a few tortilla chips (with pinto beans I cooked and guacamole I mixed), movie popcorn, a few breadcrumbs my wife put in a meatloaf, some rice and beans at a Mexican Restaurant while travelling, and 85% cocoa organic chocolate (which I eat with pecans and dried apricots). I plan to make the Green & Black's chocolate my consistent, occasional cheat.

Weight: I'm down to 230 lbs.. My morning weight two weeks ago was 235. I did weigh myself once in the evening (so it's "unofficial") and saw an eye-popping 240. The older I get, the easier it is to add weight and the harder it is to reverse that. Telling myself that I can lose my weight again, that I'll get back to eating healthy "soon" but putting it off has been very costly.

Getting Back on the Horse

I've been reluctant to write this post for several months. This blog has been untouched for over a year, during which I lapsed. Now, I weigh at least 10-15 pounds more than my former maximum weight. It's horrible and it's my fault. (More here if you want to know my personal background.)

Look at the success stories of people on the paleo/primal/evolutionary/whole food diets, especially those doing Intermittent Fasting (IF). They are strong evidence of what works.

My success doing that diet, and then my failures not doing that diet are also strong evidence of its effectiveness.

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Here are the mistakes I made:

1. Skipping my workouts, from a few less workouts to none in a matter of a couple weeks. That is crucial because exercise helped tremendously to keep me feeling good, full of energy, and less hungry.


2. Stopping Intermittent Fasting (IF), since workouts go along with that.


3. Not cooking for myself for all my meals. Sometimes had one or two healthy meals, but started substituting fast food (at first, throwing out the buns on a hamburger, the tortillas for tacos, and such.) Fell into old patterns of just eating fast food as is--maybe not for every meal, all the time, but enough to sabotage the meals that were healthier.


4. Indulging in junk food snacks for dessert or late-night snack. Big Mistake! Ice cream was my Achilles Heel. Cookies, candy, pastries came soon after. Said screw it, thinking I could give them up any time and go back to sensible eating. (Sounds like an alcoholic or drug addict, huh?)


5. Fell prey to addiction to junk food. Willpower became less effective, which was maddening. Had stupid pity parties, wallowed in guilt, and tried (ridiculously) to eat my way out of stress. It's a vicious cycle, in which my stupid choices kept making it harder to escape.

The short version: I stopped being active and ate junk.

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Excuses excuses: My diet failure is my fault and only I can fix it. Sure, a few things were made worse by external stressors (job security in a time of big cutbacks where I work, frustrating, melodramatic tensions between us and our teenager, a few illnesses and a tonsillectomy). But most of it was directly or indirectly because of my poor choices. At least on a previous diet over a year before I tried paleo+IF, I had one good excuse: medicine I took for a few weeks (unbeknown to me) dramatically increased hunger and that didn't wear off after I stopped taking it. I don't have that excuse this time.

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Doing the paleo+IF thing made it much easier to deal with hunger and was actually enjoyable, rather than drudgery.

At this point, I could continue to feel guilty, self-destructive, gluttonous, and pitiful but no amount of excuse making will stop this. I've got to make a change now before it ruins my health (I've already got pre-hypertension).

I've been trying to eat paleo (or paleo-ish) meals the past few days, which could be the start of another round of losing multiple tens of pounds, getting below 200, and feeling physically and mentally better. The next step is to exercise, which is tough to start, but quickly beneficial to curb temptations. Now, this blog ought to be called My Diet 540°, to be more accurate.

I also plan to blog here to record how things are going. If you read this and don't see me posting, please feel free to send me e-mail to ediafono at the gmail dot com address. Any words of encouragement would be more appreciated that you can imagine.

Diet Yo-Yo

This post is mainly for my own benefit. You can skip it unless you're really curious. I'm tired of trying to do math in my head to figure out what years I did what sort of diet and exercise programs.

I have another article in which I try to analyze my diet successes and failures as a part of identifying lessons learned. I've taken the details out of the other article and put them here, which I hope makes the other post more interesting to readers:

Late 70s, early 80s

Jogging a mile or two several times a week. Included sprinting. Usual PE and playground activities at school. Cycling and exploring woods for fun.

1983

Started smoking. Would continue until 2004, though I did quit for months at a time.

Mid-Late 80s

Got lazier and lazier. Ate more and more. My friends and I would have contests to see who could eat the most pizza at a buffet.

Late 80s, early 90s

Cycled occasionally. Lifted weights occasionally. Played racquetball and softball. Too sparse to make much difference.

Early 90s

Ocassionally cycled on trails and steep inclines (upper Hudson valley). Joined weightlifting club for many months. Played racquetball occassionally. Only the weightlifting had an appreciable benefit.

Mid 90s

Drank, smoked more, ate more, did nearly no exercise.

Late 90s

Quit smoking for longer periods (used patches and gum). Joined gym and did aerobic machines and weightlifting machines. Played racquetball. Learned how to swim enough to do laps, so I could swim multiple times a week. Weightlifting, again, had most benefit. Swimming also helped quite a bit. I estimate I lost about 10-25 pounds, but I honestly don't remember the numbers now.

Early-Mid 00s

Smoked, drank, got very little exercise. Ballooned in weight and struggled to do basic activities. Tried Atkins for a couple weeks, but had trouble dealing with hunger.

2003-2004

Struggled with quitting smoking. Succeeded in Mar 2004. Increased hunger, unfortunately.

Feb 2006-Jul 2006

Lost almost 50 lbs. Walked miles most every day. Reduced caloric intake. Avoided sweets and other junk snacks (mostly). Tried (ignorantly) to limit fat. Fasted for short periods of time and felt a bit of a "high" from the ketosis, in a good way.

Aug 2006-Sep 2008

Medicine I took for a few weeks made me super hungry (which I didn't realize until later). Threw me off track. Walked only occasionally, ate more and more junk food. Gained back weight.

Sep 2008-Mar 2009

Paleo/evolutionary/whole food diet with Intermittent Fasting (IF). Lost 45 pounds and felt wonderful. Did not struggle with hunger as with other diets. Felt alive.

Mar 2009-Mar 2010

Tapered off diet. Gained back the 45 pounds, plus 10-15 more. Occasionally tried to restart paleo diet, but resumed no-exercise, unhealthy food lifestyle each time.

Mar 2010-early 2011

Restarted paleo/IF diet again. Lost about 45 pounds again.

early 2011-Apr 2012

Tapered off diet, gained back the weight.

Apr 2012-May 2014

Had several bouts of illness.  Was bedridden a number of time for up to several weeks. Lack of exercise resulted in more weight and loss of stamina.  In Feb 2014, blood tests indicated prediabetes.  Dieted inconsistently.  Lost perhaps five pounds.

Jun 2014

Focused on diet and lost additional 15 pounds.  Mid-month, hemoglobin A1c was in type 2 diabetes range.  Put on medication. Took it for a day and a half, then decided to stop until I could consult doctor about side effects.

Continued with primal diet (with dairy), strictly cutting out gluten. Skip meals occasionally. Portion sizes are getting smaller and I am dealing with hunger much better. Have lost about 25 pounds by the end of the month.