Not in My Top Three, and Happy
July 2020 — back after a break
I came back on camera with fantastic morning-plus-COVID hair. I told everybody I was doing the video with a cockatoo sitting on my head, and that the birds outside were chirping about how much they loved it (live QTSN8647).
I hadn't been around in a while. It had been very stressful online, and I decided it wasn't helping me reach my goals, so I took a break (live QTSN8647).
The top three
When people struggle to lose weight and tell me why, they usually start beating themselves up. I didn't get it done, I should have tried harder. And then they tell me what was actually going on: a dying parent, a divorce, a job change, a move. Big stuff. What I've come to think is that people use their diet and their body as an outlet for guilt about all the things in life they can't control (live QTSN8647).
So when I coached people, my first question was: what are your top priorities, and is your diet in the top three? There's that line you hear from motivational types, that a man who has more than three priorities has none. If your diet isn't in your top three and those three are going well, you're not failing. You're prioritizing. Maybe that's right for now. Give yourself some forgiveness, or find a way to free up room so the diet can get in there (live QTSN8647).
Then I applied it to myself, on camera.
My own top three
Diet wasn't in my top three that summer. Neither was body condition. Staying generally healthy was, and I'd done better and worse on that on different days. I'd stopped kickboxing. I was occasionally eating carbs. I'd gained weight, and lost cardio and strength (live QTSN8647).
And I was okay with it, because I'd done a great job with my top three.
Here's the part that surprised me. Anybody who'd followed me from the beginning knew I'd been through a very serious, multi-year stretch of chronic depression. That year, it cleared. I said I felt so much better about everything that the state of the world almost couldn't touch it. It was the first time I'd felt genuinely happy about pretty much anything in a year or two. I'd finally come out of the tunnel. I found motivation for new things in my life and dove in headfirst, and making room for those meant something else had to give (live QTSN8647).
Almost to the point that I felt guilty about it, I was thriving in lockdown, because I was already used to living that way (live QTSN8647).
I hadn't abandoned the group. I'd kept up with messages and with the people I was coaching directly, and I was proud of the group for staying on topic the whole time, through a really weird stretch online. Whatever country you're from, whatever you believe, whoever you vote for, we all live in bodies that get hungry and thirsty and tired, and helping somebody eat in a way they can still enjoy is helping another human through the human condition (live QTSN8647). Also, I'd made it through the toilet paper shortage. I had three rolls. It got tense (live QTSN8647).
Why I don't count my pounds
I said on that live that I don't track and post my own weight too carefully, and part of the reason is that I'm a bad barometer. When I was doing Muay Thai three to five times a week, my calorie needs were way off from most people's. I don't cook for a family or roommates or kids, so I don't have tempting food in my space that other people put there. MMA classes had just restarted, but I was seeing someone who works in healthcare, so I'd be a high-risk person to have in that room, and I was staying out (live QTSN8647).
And when I gain weight, it's usually not because I had a muffin and relapsed into loaves of bread every morning. Usually it's drinking: alcohol calories, or the sugar in the drinks (live QTSN8647).
What keto actually gave me
This is the sentence from that summer I'd keep if I could only keep one. What keto gave me, more than weight loss, is that whether my weight is up or down, I don't feel helpless about it anymore (live QTSN8647).
I never used to be able to control my hunger. The only way I knew to lose weight was to be uncomfortable the whole time: willpower, guilt, and overcoming a constant gnawing hunger on the way down. I knew I didn't have the willpower to do that for a year, or even six or nine months. Nobody can hold a state of grit that long. What ketosis gave me was a way to eat food I enjoy, with some limits and swaps, and once I'm keto adapted, I just don't focus on food anymore. I talk about mindfulness and meditation all the time, but that's not how I control hunger. I use ketosis (live QTSN8647).
What I'd tell you now
I'd say both things at once. What I said is my experience, and it's a common one: with carbs low, hunger got quiet enough that I didn't need grit (hunger on keto). The big trials are more modest about the weight itself. In DIETFITS, 609 adults over 12 months lost 5.3 kg on a healthy low-fat diet and 6.0 kg on a healthy low-carb diet, not a significant difference (Gardner et al., 2018), and the National Lipid Association's statement says low- and very-low-carb diets aren't superior for long-term weight loss, though they may give more in the short term (Kirkpatrick et al., 2019). So the case for keto is that it can make a deficit feel bearable for you, not that it's magic; see keto vs low fat. On the rest: depression is a medical thing, and if your mood's been down for months, that's a conversation with a doctor before it's a diet project; and if you have a history of an eating disorder, work with your care team (more). On drinking: alcohol on keto. On regain: will I gain it back?. The full live: video post.
Earlier: Lockdown Losses · Later: On the Rower, Chubby Cheeks Again