“My life changed the day I quit sugar and PUFAs in June 2012, but it came of age when I discovered that not all Keto/LCHF diets are the same.
Stephen Phinney says and you have to listen carefully (I am paraphrasing here) — the body doesn’t differentiate between fat in the body and fat from plate, so to lose excess weight you need to burn your own fat stores first, not plate fat — in his presentation he has a brilliant slide that explains this. However, until you hear it through open ears, it is just another slide. It was just another slide for me for about six months!
I followed one of those popular LCHF/Keto diets. You know the ones, very, very high fat, very, very low protein, estimated with the appropriate Keto calculator. I felt as though I wasted 11 months following this diet, my body was breaking down, hair thinning and I was exhausted all the time. Then, Stephen Phinney’s Q&A on November 25 became my lightbulb moment because my ears were open. My life changed so dramatically overnight, I am not sure I have caught up yet.
Burn my own body fat! Huh? That can’t be right, coz I was told it was the fat that made you lose weight. Fat was more important than protein! 25 November 2014, I increased my protein, well I nearly tripled it and cut my fat by two-thirds! My post menopausal body loves the extra protein!
Did it work? It worked so well I can’t keep up with the smaller clothes! Four and one half months on and I have dropped 3.5 dress sizes! And it is visceral fat that is melting ALL over. My body has bloomed with the extra protein and I ‘glow’. I can’t stop smiling, seriously, I smile all the time. I am back to three meals a day, thankfully, and no longer does the fat suppress my appetite. I am still eating ‘high fat’ but most comes from my own body fat stores.
So what happens when I have lost the last few sizes? My protein will stay the same (how happy is my body), carbs may go a little higher and fat will increase by up to 50% until I reach that sweet spot, not gaining, but not losing. And that is where I will stay — for life! It is nowhere near the fat I consumed under the Keto/LCHF diet, closer to what I had with Atkins for decades.
I still keep a food diary, have done it for over 40 years when I was actually on Atkins and not falling off the wagon for sugar. I count carbs and fat every day because I am a food addict and I have no way to gauge how much something weighs, so I have to keep a close eye on what I consume. Do I worry? No, I actually love doing it. Is this way of eating sustainable for life? Absolutely. If I can sustain through 11 months of stalling on the Keto/LCHF diet, and not lose faith then life is easy.”
