Why Women Are Getting Fatter

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Four in 10 women are obese in America and that number is climbing. Yet they are more focused on diet and nutrition than men. So why are women getting fatter? Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhoto.net and Mister GC.

A new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reveals that while the obesity rates of men (35%) have hit a plateau, women’s obesity rates (40%) continue to climb. Yet women pay more attention to calories, food labels, and are far greater consumers of health and nutrition information.

Studies show when schools roll out an anti-obesity program, girls are far more likely to change their eating behavior than boys.

Not only that, women do the “lion’s share” of grocery shopping. And Women’s Marketing, a marketing agency focused on women consumers and their buying power, indicates that the next trillion dollar business is “Health & Wellness.”

With that kind of buying and decision-making power, is it any wonder that the food, nutrition, health and fitness industries heavily cater to women? It’s clear that women are more tuned in to the current nutrition advice from the US government than men.

If that’s the case, why are they getting fatter? Read More

Weekly Weigh-In: Eat More, Lose A Pound

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weekly weigh in June 12

Yay! Down nearly a pound. And I did it by eating more meat. LCHF eating really does rock.

I’m just 2 ounces shy of losing a full pound this week. Not too shabby considering I made it a point to eat more this week. That puts my total weight loss at 141.1 pounds. The 170s are within sight!

But the real bonus this week was saying goodbye to my sweater. I no longer feel like I’m freezing all the time.

I bumped my protein back up to 6 ounces a meal (I cut it back to 4 ounces sometime last year). Not only did the cold hands and feet disappear, but I had a lot more energy and stopped snacking between meals.

If I added more protein to my diet, did I cut back on anything else? Nope. I still kept my daily net carbs under 20g. As for my fat intake, that’s still around 65-70% of all my daily calories.

I don’t count calories but of course My Fitness Pal tracks them. I’ve gone from eating 1400-1500 calories a day to eating 1600 -1800 calories a day.

So yes, I ate more calories and lost weight. Perhaps our bodies are more complex than the simple theory of eat less, move more. I’ll post more on this in my upcoming review of The Obesity Code this week.

When I decided to cut back on protein, my body essentially responded by turning down my thermostat. My resting metabolism slowed and I got cold…real cold. My energy level dropped and I had the focus of a gnat. And it is certainly one reason why I’ve stayed in the mid 180s for a year.

Yet I thought feeling cold, my brain fog and lack of energy was related to the weather — the winter blahs and all the blasted rain we had. Nope, my body wanted that protein back but I didn’t listen.

That goes to show you that no matter your success, you can still miss little (and not so little) signals from your body.

Living Healthy…A Sense of Humor Helps

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“The most important things in my life are God, my family and my Instagram account…and not necessarily in that order.” — JP Spears

My husband introduced me to the Ultra Spiritual Life series on YouTube. If you haven’t discovered JP Spears, you really need to. When I saw the video on how to take photos of yoga poses, I knew this was something special.

But I especially loved his probing question of what if meat eaters acted like vegans.

Before any vegans bombard me with hate, just remember life’s too short not to have a sense of humor, especially about yourself. When you see success in how you changed your life it is way too easy to think everyone should live this way. “If it worked for me it must be the superior way to live.” All of us — Vegan, LCHF or Paleo — can get caught up in that type of thinking.  Heck, the disaster of our government’s nutrition dogma over real science for nearly 40 years should teach us that.

Besides I’m looking forward to JP’s take on those of us going down the ketogenic path. Heck, he’s already took on one of my favorite fats — coconut oil.  Banting/LCHF/Ketogenic diets can’t be far behind.

Taking your health seriously is important. Far too many of us put it on the back burner and we are now paying the price. But having a sense of humor makes things a little easier.

 

Fruits & The 5 A Day Myth

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I always wondered how the US Food Guidelines came up with the recommendation of eating 5 servings of fruit and vegetables everyday. In the video below Dr. Zoe Harcombe (PhD in public health nutrition) explains how this idea of eating 5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily has no science to back it up.

I should have known it was just a marketing gimmick by the companies that what you to eat more fruits and veggies.

Is this really a big deal? I mean fruits and vegetables are really healthy and we should eat more, right?

If you are healthy, go for it. If you have insulin resistance, fruit isn’t your friend.

In the video, Harcombe explains that fruit isn’t as nutritious as we’ve been told. What fruits lack in vitamins and minerals they make up with an abundance of sugar and fructose. People, especially women, tend to over eat fruit (because of that sweetness) and limit or skip the more nutritious vegetables.

For me, I made the decision to severely restrict fruit when I started eating low carb, high fat (LCHF). Thanks to insulin resistance, my metabolism was broken. The only way to start reclaiming my health was to go strict LCHF (no more than 20g of net carbs a day). Given my level of insulin resistance, fruit wasn’t going to help me do that.

Not all fruit is horrible.  Berries provide enough of a benefit that outweigh the rising insulin.  However I follow 2 rules strictly when eating berries:

  1. I always eat fruit with a fat, like cream, to minimize the insulin response.
  2. I rarely eat berries, because fruit is nature’s candy.

Do I miss fruit? Sometimes. Bananas were my favorite, but not anymore. They are pure sugar. Cherries, peaches, kiwi and apples are missed. At some point I’d love to enjoy them again, but I also understand that I’m dealing with decades of damage to my metabolic system.

I may never “cure” my insulin resistance. The best I may hope for is increasing my sensitivity to carbs.  Which means I’ll never eat the 2-4 servings a day recommended by our government as part of a “healthy” diet.

I’ll enjoy those missed fruits again, but only on my terms — as rare, special treats … and always with fat.

IVF, Hormones & Diet: The Balancing Act

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weigh in may 22

So the weight gain thanks to my estrogen injections stopped…for now.

This week I bid adieu to my estrogen injections and (temporarily?) the weight gains. My weight held steady this week, and considering my hormones are all over the place, that’s a victory.

I still feel bloated and a bit moody … a bit like having PMS on and off for 2 weeks. Ugh!

Estrogen Injections – Mixed Results
(Warning: Female stuff ahead. I suggest the more delicate flowers out there read with caution or skip to the diet changes.) After 2 weeks of taking estrogen, the results were a bit mixed. On the plus side, the ultrasound indicated that my uterine lining thickened like it was suppose to.

On the minus side, while I was taking the estrogen, I noticed that the day following the injection, I’d start spotting. While it’s not typical to have vaginal bleeding during these injections, some women do. It turns out my estrogen level is lower than the doctor would like.

So now I’m 3 days (out of 7) into taking my new med – progesterone. The idea is that the new med will get my menstrual cycle properly regulated. About 5-7 days after my last dose, it will induce my period. Then the birth control pills start up.

Yep, I need birth control pills to get pregnant. Oh, the irony.

Then a saline sonogram and afterwards we might start the estrogen injections again.

Improving The Diet … & Bank Account!
On the diet front I noticed that I’m experiencing cold hands and feet on fasting days. What’s up with that?

I have too much of a calorie deficit on non-fasting days. Seems strange since I only eat when I’m hungry. That means I need to retool what I’m doing by upping my protein back to 6 ounces per meal. I cut back to 4 ounces months ago. Sure enough, I started feeling colder not too long after cutting back and just didn’t put 2 and 2 together.

I’m also making a sincere attempt at adding more fish into my diet, eating it twice this week. In June I’m going to start a seafood challenge – eating fish 2 times a week. That means I’m on the hunt for recipes as culinary skills in this area are severely lacking.

Besides improvement on the fish front, efforts to cut coffee from my daily grind are going well. This week I only enjoyed the Black Java during the weekend and limited myself to 2 cups in the morning. I expect by June I’ll be so over coffee.

As for cutting my ties to wine, I’m making progress there too. We no longer have bottles at home. But when I go out for dinner, I have a glass or two with my meal. I’ve essentially created a habit. Normally I’d consider this a little indulgence rather than a habit. The problem is we’re going out to eat far too often – 4-5 times a week! That’s a lot of wine.

And its wrecking havoc on our bank account (cost of restaurant + wasted food at home = stupidity). It also kicks me out of ketosis since my body burns the alcohol before any fat. Not to mention the sugar in wine is getting stored somewhere.

It also can’t be great on the hormone front either.

I don’t want to set foot in a restaurant until June. And even then I’m limiting eating out to twice a month. That way its more of a special treat.

Our Drive For Convenience Is Killing Us

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water 2

Yep, my grocery store is now selling their own water with a few slices of cucumber. Are we really that hard up for convenience? Why do we resist making things for ourselves?

I was in the grocery store the other day and something caught my eye at the checkout counter. Next to the tabloids and junk food, my store also has a few refrigerators with cans of soda and bottles of water. It was the fridge that caught my eye…or actually something floating in the bottles of water.

Cucumbers!

That’s right, my grocery store is now selling cucumber water. You can have all 12 ounces for $2 just bucks.

Cucumber water certainly is healthier and far better to drink than the store’s homemade pure fruit juices it sells (fruit juice is just sugar without the fiber).

It reminded me of the story the Washington Post ran about the reasons why millennials are not eating cereal — too much clean up.  Of course, Livescience.com tries to debunk this saying that people are now avoiding carbs. Yet, in the same article, they claim that pre-made breakfasts and breakfast sandwiches are all the rage (great way to avoid carbs in those breakfast delights, right?). Read More

Plateau From Hell: Battling My Body’s Set Weight Point

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weekly weigh in april 30

Not the progress I was expecting this week. I’m up a pound. Time to rethink my tactics.

Bleh! I was expecting a loss this week and instead I’m up a pound. What’s really frustrating is I’ve been bouncing between 182-185 pounds for a year. One. Freaking. Year.

Rethinking Tactics
I recently finished reading The Obesity Code by Dr. Jason Fung. Regular readers know I love Dr. Fung’s blog and his online lectures. A review of his book is coming soon (hint, you should read it!), but right now I’m looking at shaking up my intermittent fasting tactics for one simple reason — changing my body’s set weight point.

It’s believed that our bodies have a set weight point. When a healthy person’s weight goes above or below that set weight, the body compensates — slowing or raising metabolism, increasing hunger or satiety hormones — and works to get back to that person’s set weight point. Read More

Weekly Weigh-In: Down 3; Lowest Weight In 25 Years!

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weekly weight april 16

After losing 3 pounds this week I’m officially at my lowest weight in more than 25 years. Woohoo! 170s here I come!

I’m down 3.1 lbs. this week, weighing in at 181.4. That’s the lowest number I’ve seen on the scale for more than 25 years!  I finally feel back on track and have my sights set on saying hello to the 170s very soon.

So what worked this week? How about putting a stop on nibbling on cheese, seeds or nuts between meals. Anytime I walked into the kitchen I asked myself, “Am I hungry?” Presto! No more snacking. Don’t get me wrong, it took practice to get me into the habit of asking myself that question.

Instead I kept my focus on drinking water. The last couple of weeks I made a big effort in drinking my daily 90 ounces. Since I only use 24-ounce Tervis Tumblers, it’s pretty easy to track. As long as I fill those tumblers up 4 times a day I’m all set. This week I was hitting the mark.  Sweet!

Plus I’m finding I’m not that hungry. One of my consistent problems is not recognizing my hunger and satiety signals. I know that decades of bad eating really does mess with those hormones. But ghrelin (the hunger hormone) and leptin (the satiety hormone) do correct themselves over time with eating healthy, real foods. My hunger signal is working just fine. But it feels like my satiety signal is finally kicking in.

I’m noticing two things that might signal my leptin levels are normal again: Read More

Battling Resistance To A Healthy Life

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turning pro

April just started and I’ve already read 2 books for the month! In Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art and Turning Pro you’ll find lots of motivational gems to help you with not just health, but with anything you want to achieve.

“The amateur tweets. The pro works.”
— Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro

When visiting low carb high fat forums online, many of the most vocal commenters for LCHF eating think it’s a simple matter of eating the right foods. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen on forums, Facebook pages, Twitter or other social media feeds where low carbers talk about how easy it is to eat low carb and have the pounds melt away.

That simply isn’t true for everyone.

You have to put in the work. Eating low carb, high fat does melt away the pounds, but only if you view it as a lifestyle and not a diet. Meaning you:

  • Eat when hungry and only when hungry
  • Give up the silly idea of “cheat days or cheat meals”
  • Can’t go back to eating like you use to once you reach your goals
  • Can still eat too much (protein, carbs, nuts, dairy and even fat)
  • Understand that those fattening temptations (candy, cookies, ice cream, donuts, chips) don’t go away because you are eating LCHF

That’s why I always say that weight loss is 100% eating the right foods and 95% mental. We face hundreds of food choices everyday. That’s why it’s important to build good habits. Read More

Man vs. Fat

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fork and measure

My husband has finally committed to getting healthy. So Mondays he’ll post about his weight loss escapades. Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhoto.net and Mister CG.

Let’s face it, the overwhelming majority of weight loss products and information target women — 85% in fact. But what about men? It feels like with all the news about Oprah buying into Weight Watchers and the latest weight loss gimmicks (lose weight eating chocolate), it seems like men are getting left out in the cold.

Well here at dot2trot I’m an equal opportunity type of gal. I recognize that guys who want to lose weight also need some TLC and encouragement. So every Monday my hubby, author John L. Monk, will document his weight loss journey. Yep, he’s committed to openly discuss his temptations at work (all the donuts!), bad eating habits (eating off the wife’s plate!), and finding motivation to get off of his butt for evening walks.

Something tells me you’ll enjoy his trials and tribulations more than he does.