God I hate being fat…. even though I have a physical condition that slows down my ability to eat I still can eat enough crap to keep me fat.
Like everyone else, I have tried Weight Watchers, Healthy Choice, and countless other “Diets”. The one thing that I never realized is that these are all businesses… If they wanted you thin, they would be out of business. But wait! There’s more!
Enter the podcasts
Since I was able to drive I always listed to music in the car. All the time, all the styles I liked. I went from cassettes to CD to MP3 and finally to the iPod. As I have gotten older, I wanted more. Music just wasn’t cutting it anymore. I had been a fan of Kevin Rose from way back in the early DiGG days and when he started The Random Show, I was then introduced to Tim Ferriss. At the time Tim did not have a podcast but when I searched for his name in iTunes the first thing that came up was The Smart Passive Income (SPI) Podcast with Pat Flynn. In the first episode I listened to, Pat had a guest named John Lee Dumas (JLD) and I immediately downloaded every episode of each of their podcasts.
The Downward Spiral
Other than being an awesome album, this action sent me down a path of total content consumption. Like a sponge, I trained myself to 1.25, 1.5, then stopping at 2x listening speed! I moved between podcasts and books constantly. All the while building a business foundation that will one day help me RULE THE WORLD! While listing to the barrage of content I listened to The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, now I’m hooked. Having already been exposed to Tim via the Random Show, I had context on his mindset. I decided to buy a physical copy of The 4 Hour Body.
The Food Affair
While reading and learning about the many things in the book, The Slow Carb Diet was introduced to me. I liked the science behind tracking your weight and other info and the idea of the diet is simple, avoid carbs (anything white) and every 6 days you get a “cheat day” where you can eat all you want of anything you want. So I tried this for 30 days straight. Just as the book describes, after a “cheat day” you will gain weight but only to end up at a net loss of more weight at the mid-week. The major issue I had with this was that the cheat day would allow me to “take a hit” of the shit that was killing me in the first place. I eventually fell off the wagon just like all the other diets…
#BBQ4LIFE
In 2014 I wanted to get into BBQ competition. I looked and looked and really couldn’t find good info. Having listened to EOFire for a year now, I wanted to start my own podcast. So I spent an investment in myself. I joined Podcasted Paradise and learned how to build my own podcast. I was focused on BBQ competition and things were going well. I ultimately ended the show because I was in it for “the money” even though I never made a dime from it. I assumed that I could put it together and it would take off. It’s not the right reason and therefore it was not the right thing to be doing.
Enter the dragon
While I was in a social media share-a-thon of sending out other people’s content, I shared an episode of The Show Notes Guy which had a guest named Vinnie Tortorich. Vinnie reached out to me directly and wanted to talk BBQ. I knew nothing about him at the time but decided to give it a shot. Vinnie and I talked for about four hours on our first call… Vinnie is basically me in 20 years. I really think we are the same person just in different generations. After our talk I got his book Fitness Confidential and loved it! We had a follow up call that lasted another four hours! I am a super fan for sure and I decided to listed to his show for as long as he has episodes.
Stop with the fucking diets already!
Vinnie has had many guests on over the past few years. Some he call’s “luminaries” but really they are respected scientists from major universities and other places. Time and time again I hear the same thing, don’t eat processed sugars and don’t eat grains (any grains, processed or not). That’s it! This is really a dead simple thing but it’s such a game changer that it breaks your fucking head… No “rules” other than no sugar and no grain… that’s it! No debating about menusha and other “what about this food” bullshit. just No Sugar, No Grains NSNG… #NSNG… thats fucking it!
“That would kill me”
I hear that all the time… In my head I want to say “No, keep eating the way you are and you will kill you” but I don’t. I have come to realize that the shitty government and media has pushed this “Heart Healthy Grain” agenda on us since the 80’s… but it’s all bullshit. They have no science to back up the claims but all of the luminaries that Vinnie talks to can cite specific studied and talk about the actual chemical mosh-pit that is our bodies. So because the TV tells us so, it’s right… I can’t fight that. I don’t fight that. I lose weight and tell people what I do and that’s it. All I can do is hope they catch on. I have friends that are on WW right now… and one of them lost 16lbs in a whole month… I did that in 2 weeks when I was fully NSNG. My own sister-in-law keeps asking me what I do, I tell her and then she still says “Nah, that’s to hard I’ll do WW instead” <Insert Picard Facepalm Here> Her excuse.. I like bagels… I said, so you like being fat? (Angrily) No, but we need bread. My response: fuck bread, just try it for 3 weeks. whats the worst that can happen? Ten min later she is asking me to make room on her phone so she can download the WW app… WTF…. oh well…
Where am I now?
It’s 4/18/2016 I am about 290lbs I was hardcore NSNG for about 2 weeks, dropped from 305lb to 290lb (yeah 15lb in 2 weeks fuck you Weight Watchers!) got Keto-flu and didn’t know that’s what it was… Its when your body is converting its energy source from glucose (sugar) to Ketones (Fat). If you feel like shit about 2 or 3 weeks in, up your salt intake… I wish I knew that. I tried sugar again.. and like a fucking heroin hit… I fell hard, I had a ton of sugar that day… it ended up making me sick, like stomach cramp and the runs kind of sick… So this week, back on the ride. I will win this fight. It’s not a diet anymore… It’s now me VS my addiction to sugar. I am coming down slowly, I remove most of it, but it’s really fucking hard. Let’s do this!