Thread by @sypherlev

Okay, I'm in the office now so I'll try to talk about what I did to lose a third of my body weight and keep it off for... about a year and a half at this point. CW for diet and weight loss talk but I'll try not to make it horrible ><

Remember this: you have been lied to.

I'll try to explain what I learned and how I applied it to me, personally.

Please take it for what it is. I'll answer any questions you've got.

First, biochem 101: it's been known for decades that the main driver of weight gain is the hormone insulin.

No, not eating too much. Yes, I'm aware this sounds ass-backwards. No, I am not joking, it's 100% real, go look it up.

You. Have. Been. Lied. To.

Turns out that there is an insanely complicated system of hormones that controls your weight, hunger signalling, ability to metabolize food, all that kind of stuff. Who knew.

It's not you. It's all your hormones.

Elevated insulin = you will gain weight no matter what else you do.

Lower your insulin = you will lose weight no matter what else you do.

All that stuff about exercising the fat off is 100% bullshit and does not work.

Bear in mind: we have known, since at least the 1950s if not earlier, that starvation diets do not work and exercising to lose weight does not work.

Eat less, exercise more = nonsense.

What happens on a calorie restricted diet is that your metabolism adjusts. You lose a little weight while it's adjusting. Your body thinks it's starving and it wants to survive.

You can't stay on the diet because starving is fucking horrible.

Your body will fight you. Your brain will sabotage you. You have millions of years of evolution against you in this respect, the body does not want to die and it will do anything to get you to eat.

Anyway it doesn't work long term even if you do. Your body adjusts.

Basically you get to feel like complete shit (because you're starving), you have no energy (because your metabolism has dialled down to match your intake) and you will stop losing weight.

Come off the diet, and your metabolism is now out of whack and can't adjust back.

Hence: all that weight comes screaming back and then some. And the cycle begins anew.

The diet industry rides on this cycle and blames YOU for the fact that human biology doesn't work the way they say it does.

This was me for years and it messed me up.

Okay, back to the biochem. The thing about insulin is a fact. Much of what I'm about to talk about from here on out is theorycrafting, however. We're not sure. Just suspicions because the research is still out on it. Make of it what you will.

What causes high insulin? Carbs and sugar. Sugar, as it happens, is metabolized like alcohol, except you can only get black out drunk once a day and you can eat sugar as much as you like. (HT to Dr. Robert Lustig for that btw)

Sugar is its own level of completely evil but anyway, let's continue.

The goal is to get your insulin down. There's a bunch of biochem to learn about but the TL;DR is that insulin controls how fat gets cycled in and out of your fat cells.

High insulin = fat is stored.

Interesting thing to know is that very obese people with chronically high insulin are incredibly hungry because all the food that they eat is being stored as fat and not used to actually power their bodies.

It's not because they have no self-control. It's because they are literally starving.

Hyperinsulinemia is a shitshow.

Okay, so what happened with me was that I stopped eating sugar, to start with. I learned the thing about insulin, got scared, and then looked at my options. How to get my insulin down?

I was knocking on the door of pre-diabetes at this point, just FYI.

So I went hardcore keto almost immediately. Almost zero carbs. I have money, privilege, and access to quality local meat and dairy, and holy shit you should see my grocery bills.

(I've tried vegetarianism and briefly veganism in the past and neither worked for me.)

(Just in case you don't know: keto is when you significantly reduce carbs. Your diet is mostly meat, dairy, non-starchy green vegs and water.

No rice, potatoes, bread, sugar, fruit, etc.)

It was like stepping on the gas. Like, overnight. I didn't experience keto-flu. My metabolism went 0-100 in a split second; health issues went away, weight dropped like a rock, boundless energy.

I have tried lots of diets and all of them were a complete waste of time and made me feel like shit, but the keto diet is everything to me. It just... works. It's a perfect match for my body.

Genetic variability means it's not going to work for everyone; frankly, I just got lucky. Plus, y'know, money/access/privilege.

Friend of mine can't handle keto without getting violently sick, because she hypermetabolizes carbs and low blood sugar gives her chronic migraines.

Another friend has serious food allergies and keto would literally kill her.

Another woman I know started on veganism; that turned out to be her silver bullet.

The truth is that although the key is getting your insulin down, HOW you do that is a crapshoot. I can do with keto, some people can do it with vegan or paleo, some others do it with intermittent fasting. And so on.

These days, keto is just the way I eat. I don't think about it much. I'm never hungry, I eat when I like, and I have no guilt for what I put in my mouth.

It has given me freedom and peace I never thought I'd have.

But it also made me so. Goddamn. Angry. Because I was lied to, for decades, and blamed for shit that was not my fault.