Category: Health

Zero: Better than Nothing

As I have described in several previous posts in this series, intermittent fasting, or time-restricted feeding, is a key to sustainable weight loss.

As I wrote earlier, Dr. Jason Fung has been an important advocate, as he has helped thousands of patients reverse Type 2 diabetes and overcome obesity through fasting.

His simple message: insulin is the hormone that regulates fat storage, and to lose weight and keep it off you need to have prolonged periods with low insulin levels.

That enables your body to switch from fat storage to fat burning. Otherwise you’re always just adding fat.

About a year ago, my daughter Rachel introduced me to a fasting app she had been using, called Zero. As it turns out, the chief medical officer for Zero is Peter Attia, M.D., who is among my most trusted online thought leaders on health and longevity issues. I’ll be talking about him a lot in future posts.

So I started using Zero, and it’s essence is really simple: when you’re done eating for the day, you pick a fasting goal and start the countdown timer.

When you reach your goal, instead of counting down the timer flips to counting up, telling you how long your fast has gone.

The next time you eat, you stop the timer, which records the length of your fast. Then the timer starts again, only now it’s tracking the time since your last fast. (If you forget to stop or start the timer, you can go back and edit your start or end times.)

Here’s how it looks when you’re counting down before reaching your goal, counting up after you’ve passed it, and then tracking how long it’s been since your last fast.

I found the free version of Zero really helpful, so I decided to spring for the premium offering, Zero Plus. It includes lots of video tips as well as well as data about my fasts, like how much time I’m in the various fasting zones, including:

  • Anabolic: the first 0-4 hours after a meal
  • Catabolic: 4-16 hours
  • Fat Burning: 16-24 hours
  • Ketosis: 24-72 hours
  • Deep Ketosis: 72 hours+

My history tab tells me I have logged 293 fasts, including a streak of 202 straight days of fasting at least 13 hours, although most days I go for at least a 16-18 hour fast with an eating window of 6-8 hours or less.

I would encourage you to give Zero a try. I was fasting before I got the app, but using it gave me a little extra nudge to keep that fasting streak going, and taught me a lot about my metabolism. Data can sync with Apple Health or Google Fit, too.

See the whole series about my health journey, and follow along on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Not exactly a six-pack…

…but at least not a keg anymore, either.

Yesterday I shared Lisa’s story of finally getting into her wedding dress again after more than 35 years, and I presented the visual proof.

She thinks she’s lost 50 lbs. in the last four years, although she can’t be completely sure how high her peak was because she had avoided weighing.

I on the other hand have lots of evidence of my weight levels from that time, because I usually took pictures of the scale readings when I went to the YMCA to work out. I remember hitting 265, but this is the highest reading for which I have photographic evidence, in May 2016.

Here are some photos from about that time, compared with similar pictures Lisa took last night.

The jeans I was wearing in the photos on the left had a 38-inch waist, which was four inches bigger than what I wore in high school.

Here’s the tag on the shorts in the photos on the right:

I would never have imagined four years ago that I would one day wear shorts with a 32-inch waistband, much less that they would feel roomy.

I’ve now lost at least 60 pounds since my peak, and most of that has come off my midsection. Visceral fat is the most dangerous kind, especially in that it increases risks of diabetes and various cancers. And the best way to lose that abdominal fat is through time-restricted eating, intermittent fasting or even occasional longer fasts.

In my next post I’ll introduce a mobile app I’ve found helpful in supporting those strategies.

See the whole series about my health journey, and follow along on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Here Comes the Bride!

I married Lisa 36 years ago next month, and since then we’ve been blessed with six children, and as of 2 a.m. yesterday, 13 grandchildren.

It was just after our daughter Rebekah (the mother of grandchild #13) was married four years ago that we decided we needed to seriously explore some changes in our diet and lifestyle.

I weighed over 260 lbs. then, and Lisa thinks she was 185. She isn’t sure because she wasn’t exactly going out of her way to find a scale.

I told her weight loss story (to that point at least) in July, and how much progress she had made between Rebekah’s wedding and our youngest son, John’s. The first year or so had been really frustrating, until we got on the low-carb, high-fat diet combined with intermittent fasting.

In May she had gotten down to 145 lbs., and so on her birthday she decided to try on her wedding dress for the first time since Dec. 22, 1984.

We couldn’t get the back zipped up then, but we thought if she kept going she might eventually close the gap, so to speak.

Having become a 13-time grandma earlier in the morning, she decided to try on her wedding dress again yesterday afternoon.

Lo, and behold…

Lisa was down to 135.8 yesterday, the lowest she’s been since the Reagan administration.

I’m so happy for her, especially because she had previously felt so frustrated and defeated, and now she feels healthy and in control of her eating habits.

Sometimes she fasts, and sometimes she feasts. Generally she’s avoiding extra sugar and carbs, but that doesn’t mean she can never have these things as a treat.

In fact, her dinner Tuesday night was a Papa Murphy’s Herb Chicken Mediterranean Pizza.

With zero guilt on the side.

See the whole series about my health journey. Follow along on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Can You Maintain Weight Loss?

As I started telling the story of my health journey in January, I shared some before and after pictures, comparing my appearance then to what it had been in 2016.

The difference was stark, as I had dropped from about 260 pounds to 223, with my most significant weight loss coming from a low-carbohydrate, relatively high-fat diet, which also supported an intermittent fasting/time-restricted eating lifestyle.

According to conventional wisdom, it was unlikely I would be able to maintain that 37-pound loss. The so-called experts tell us “all diets eventually fail.” It’s mainly because we try to stick with the diets they recommend. So much of what they’ve told us for five decades is simply wrong.

They say that for those who lose more than 10% of their body weight, only 20% are able to maintain that loss for a year or more. So having lost 14% of my initial 260 pounds as of January, the odds were against me being below 230 today.

Especially given the lockdown uniqueness of 2020.

So how have I done?

I had originally set my goal weight at 210, which was five pounds more than what I weighed in high school, when I was playing competitive basketball. I thought it was pretty ambitious target.

I reached that mark in early May and, as you see below, I kept going.

I averaged 198.6 during September, and my lowest weight was 196.4, at which point Lisa said I needed to stop because I was getting “too skinny.” Since then I’ve dialed back a little, and am averaging 201.1 for the first half of November.

I’m not sharing my story to boast of willpower or determination or self-discipline. I can honestly say I have hardly ever felt deprived through this whole time. I’m rarely hungry, and I feel stronger, healthier and more fit than I did 25 years ago.

Lisa feels the same. She never imagined it was possible, being post-menopausal and with thyroid issues.

So while I haven’t felt hungry or deprived, I have had lots of other negative feelings about the standard dietary “wisdom” we have been fed for a half century, which has left a trail of metabolic misery in its wake.

So if you’ve been discouraged by or struggling with a weight problem, I hope you’ll catch up on the posts in this series, and follow along as I continue to tell the story.

If we can do it, so can you. And you’ll be glad you did.

I kind of want to shout it from the rooftop, but I also don’t want to be obnoxious, so I’ll settle for writing about it here, and sharing on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Next time I’ll share some updated progress photos.

Meanwhile, what’s your story?

Reducing your risk of COVID-19 complications

As we’ve all heard, COVID-19 is most dangerous for the elderly, and also for those with multiple underlying health conditions.

This made me glad that Lisa and I had started our health journey in earnest in October 2016, and that we had each lost at least 40 lbs. by the time the coronavirus arrived on our shores.

While we have been taking all of the necessary precautions to avoid COVID-19, we felt good that we also had been building a good foundation of health to reduce our risk of complications in the event we were exposed.

The latest news now is that COVID-19 hospitalizations are surging here in Minnesota, and the Mayo Clinic Q&A podcast from earlier this week (embedded below) featuring Dr. Stephen Kopecky with host Dr. Halena Gazelka digs into how cardiometabolic disease (heart disease plus obesity, diabetes and the like) leads to poorer outcomes for COVID-19 patients.

From my perspective, here’s the money quote:

Cardiometabolic disease is primarily a lifestyle disease….90 percent of cardiometabolic disease is things that we can change, like our stress levels, or our weight, or our exercise, or what we put in our mouth to eat. And maybe these cardiometabolic patients are saying “I’m going to do what I want to do. I’m not going to really pay attention to (what’s best for my health) or I don’t know how to improve my health.” I mean that’s the real problem, people don’t really know. And sometimes it’s very difficult.

Stephen Kopecky, M.D., Mayo Clinic cardiologist

I think for most people the problem isn’t that they don’t care, but rather as Dr. Kopecky says, “I don’t know how to improve my health.”

That’s what it was for me. Four years ago right now I had been following the main dietary recommendations of the USDA, eating healthy whole grains and avoiding fat, and I was doing 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise most days.

And I was 60 lbs. heavier than I am today.

My cardiometabolic health is much better now. Triglycerides are down 25 points and HDL (the so-called “good” cholesterol) is up by roughly the same amount.

And here’s my blood pressure from tonight, taken using my Qardio home monitoring device:

While I have never been diagnosed with hypertension, I do recall having systolic readings in the 140s. Now that I can measure my blood pressure regularly, I’m consistently in the Normal (and sometimes even Optimal) range.

The reason I’m blogging about my health journey is for all of those who have perhaps given up in frustration, as I almost did.

If you’ve tried to lose weight and haven’t succeeded, or if you’ve lost some through strenuous effort only to have it all come back, I think my story and Lisa’s can help with your “I don’t know how” problem.

So wash your hands and practice other COVID-safe behaviors. And by finding out how to improve your metabolic health, you’ll not only reduce your risks but also improve the way you feel on a daily basis.

See the whole series about my health journey. Follow along on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.