The Holy Grail

Okay this post is going to be long, but I want to explain my motivating for trying this low carb diet. It wasn't just flavor of the week or randomly chosen; it is based on the real successes of some friends of mine, and it's something I have been watching and biding my time to try for myself for quite a while now.

The scale this morning wasn't any lower, which was a little disappointing actually. I had been so used to seeing lower numbers that I was ready to break below 250. All in good time I suppose. It's ok too because I have another reason to be excited; it seems that other people in my office are getting excited about my sudden and relatively effortless weight loss. It's not difficult to see why.

If there's one thing you learn very quickly as a software developer, it's the fact that sitting still for 8+ hours every day and eating whatever garbage is within arms reach will make you fat very quickly. Almost every programmer I have worked with has come to the same realization at some point, which is often followed by half-hearted attempts to lose weight/exercise/eat better/be more active. Most efforts are only marginally successful at best, leading us to either give up, or for the more motivated among us, to establish some kind of long term work-out routine.

Exercise was never enjoyable to me. Okay that is being generous... I HATE working out. Hate hate hate. Probably the most fun I ever had exercising is when our office established a small daily racquetball league. Playing was fun, but even at its most enjoyable, it still required losing an hour or more of sleep, driving to the gym before work, packing an extra set of clothes, etc. After a while even the fun exercising became a chore, players would start showing up late or skipping completely (I was probably the worst about this), and then when our gym with the courts closed, we stopped the work-out group altogether. Non-fun workouts like weights and treadmill had an even lower success/consistency rate.

My group of co-workers were always trying some scheme to get us all motivated to work out. Even at our most valiant of efforts, which required 30 minutes of workout 7-days a week, we still seemed to only maintain our weight. Sure we became "healthier" overall, capable of ever more impressive physical feats, but none of us ever seemed to lose more than 5 or 10 pounds before we all gave up and gained it all back with interest. Somehow, exercise was never the weight loss answer for anybody not willing to make it their lifestyle.

So it stands to reason that when one of our coworkers suddenly starts losing 10, 20, 30 pounds (over the course of some months), we take notice. I can't think of anybody who lost anywhere near 30 pounds with a traditional "eat less" diet or a couple hours at the gym per week. When somebody can achieve long-term, non-temporary weight loss without completely giving up eating or sacrificing all free time in the gym, we see it as some kind of holy grail.

Then, out of the blue, my friend Rob seemingly found that holy grail.

He works at a major healthcare software developer, and one day they brought some nutritional expert doctors in for a talk. They were preaching the word of the Low Carb High Fat diet. He was suspicious but he decided to look into it further. He watch the movie "Fathead." He read some books like "Good Carbs Bad Carbs." Rob is an extremely analytic person, doggedly convicted to find absolute truth in all matters whenever possible (occasionally to a fault). After conducting his research and absorbing as much material on the subject that he could, he decided that enough rang true to give this Low Carb High Fat diet a chance.

He had always been a little heavier than me, even though he was a few inches shorter. He also started his desk job about a year earlier than me, but once I was hired our weight followed a similar trajectory; up. He had been part of my workout groups, we had gone through mostly the same struggles with trying to stay in shape, and we both always continued to gain. I don't know if he ever got above 250 pounds, but he was definitely close. Now, after doing low carb for over a year, he told me he fluctuates between 202 and 205. And he achieved this gradual but major drop with no exercise. Another friend of mine, Patrick, tried the same diet and lost 40 pounds over the course of a year the same way.

Whoa, big deal.

Losing 40-50 pounds, keeping it off, and maintaining that weight without exercise and eating a normal (albeit tweaked) diet? That's the holy grail right there. In fact, that's venturing into "too good to be true" territory.

In some sense, I guess it is a little "too good to be true." You still have to sacrifice. Giving up soda altogether is a big deal, and cutting out almost all sweets, dessert, and breads is a pretty tough pill to swallow. That's probably why it took me so long to jump on board. Willpower is one of my weak areas, and those small private battles against the ice cream in the fridge or the brownies at the picnic are very easy to lose. However at a certain point I have to accept some reality: I am either going to have to work out like a maniac, start eating better, or just keep getting fatter until I die.

I chose to listen to my friends and give their method a try. It's backed up by numerous studies, doesn't seem to have negative effects, and even has proven results with some of my personal friends. I was initially skeptical, not so much of the diet's effectiveness but of my ability to stick to it, but so far the results have exceeded my expectations. Also it's been a lot easier to make healthy choices than I expected, which I plan to write more about later.

If I can keep up with this thing long term, I might be the one weighing close to 200 pounds next year. It's possible that this blog goes from losing "30 in 30" to nearly double that, and that's what I'm excited about: real, permanent change.