Welcome


My name is Gina and I would like to welcome you to my blog!

On this blog, I not only share the dietary and lifestyle approach which reversed my metabolic disease and achieved my weight loss, but I also debunk many misconceptions surrounding obesity and its treatment.

I am 5'5" and was weighing 300 lbs., at my heaviest. I lost a total of 180 lbs. I went through several phases of low carbohydrate dieting, until I found what worked best and that is what I share on this blog. Once on a carbohydrate restricted diet, along with intermittent fasting, I dropped all of the weight in a little over two years time.

My weight loss was achieved without any kind of surgery, bariatric or cosmetic. I also did not take any weight loss medications or supplements. I did not use any weight loss program. This weight loss was solely the result of a very low carbohydrate, whole foods based diet, along with daily intermittent fasting and exercise.

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Six common beliefs addressed, Part 130

1. Do macros have to be tracked if you're only eating "real food".  

It does seem like a no brainer that if the only thing you are eating is meat and vegetables, then everything should fall into place. After all, your meals would technically always look the same - Brussel sprouts and pork chops/steak and broccoli/fish and asparagus. Why in the world would you need to track this stuff? It's already naturally low carb, full of protein and moderate in fat. Well, welcome to the real world. 

As incredible as it sounds, some people still can't take control of their food intake by simply eating as described above. Why not? Because they can't seen to stick to those type of meals. This is why it doesn't matter how many meal ideas I post, people will still ask me about additional food choices. But in actuality, the only real choice is to be fat or be lean. Choose one. 

Aside from that, the main culprit in low carb is not the carb, but the fat. It is very easy to tip the scales to a very high fat diet, that is protein deficient, and this is a recipe for disaster. This is basically the same thing as a very high carb diet that is also protein deficient. Both of these diets have one thing in common - they are low in protein.

For this reason, a lot of people have to track their macros. After all, things only get more complicated when you add dairy and nuts into the mix. The occasional starchy vegetable or fruit will muddy things up further. Adding fat for cooking or as a dressing, also makes things ever more complex. This is why tracking macros is oftentimes required for the person to stay on track of what exactly they are consuming. 

2. I have been "keto" for five years and haven't lost any weight. I have gained instead.  

Drop "keto". Why you would stay, five years, on a diet that is not producing any results is mind boggling to me. People seem to do one of two things: 
  • They insist on following a diet that they simply cannot follow. 
  • They insist on following a diet that doesn't get them any results, even when followed diligently. 
Insisting on either one of these is wasting time and the person with metabolic syndrome/obesity does not have time to waste. If "keto" is not producing any results for you, get rid of it. When people come to me with this issue, my answer is always the same. Go back to regular, run of the mill, Atkins style, low carb. You can find that protocol here.

There are many reasons why "keto" doesn't work for some people. The most common reason is that they are simply not following the diet correctly. It is very easy to stall or begin gaining weight on "keto" when it's improperly implemented as you end up consuming a very large amount of dietary fat which gets stored in your fat cells easily and increases your insulin over time. These diets also become easily protein deficient. 

Another reason why "keto" may not work for you is because of the effects that it has on metabolism itself. For example, the presence of ketone bodies exacerbates the stress response in many people, increasing blood glucose disparities and stimulating too much insulin production. This is because ketogenic protocols are "fast mimicking" protocols that trick the body into thinking it's starving. Since you can "starve" on "keto", for a very long time without dying, you are actually driving metabolism to further spare body fat over time. 

Because of all of this, I always recommend classic low carb for everyone. Then from there, you can individualize the diet to whatever gets you better results. There is no reason to start off on "keto", except to follow the new "fad". 

3. Our ancestors ate whatever was around, without tracking any specific macronutrients. They would not reject any food based on its ketogenic value. 

This is correct. Our ancestors did not track a thing when it came to food, except whether it was available or not. The ultimate 'See Food Diet'. Many people assume this would automatically mean that food was scarce, but modern hunter/gatherers fare very well, unless their is some catastrophic environmental or politcal event. We would assume that if this is the case for the modern tribes, the ancient tribes would have fared even better as their forests were not being slowly overtaken and their water sources redirected. 

The food that was available to our hunter/gatherer ancestors was naturally ketogenic because it was low in carbohydrate, adequate in protein and moderate in fat. Even in the tribes that eat 80% carbs, they don't eat them year round, and the carbs available to them are not 100% usable. Non hybridized, wild carbs like roots, berries and nuts are mostly carbs that cannot be used by the body, so even when they are at 80% carbs, it ends up translating to minimal glucose, except in the rare times when honey is obtained. 

Even if we get away from the hunter/gatherers and go to agrarian societies, you will still see ketosis because even with farmed grains, making up 80% of the diet, the workload and "starvation style" rations keeps these people in a ketotic state as well. It's only when they become industrialized that this changes as these conditions reverse and the introduction of processed food appears. 

So, just because modern people have to purposely make their food ketogenic, by rejecting man-made concoctions, it doesn't mean that "keto" is not natural. The food supply is what's not natural and that's why we have to force it to be ketogenic when it otherwise would naturally be so. 

4. If you are not overweight and on "keto", you must include "fat bombs" or you will start going under weight. 

My recommendations are specifically for people with obesity/diabetes/metabolic syndrome. My recommendations are not for obesity resistant people or those that are already underweight. In the case of someone who is of normal weight and obesity resistant, "keto" is a great way to stay that way, so I absolutely recommend "keto" for healthy people. 

These people can certainly include "fat bombs" into their regimen because all that will cause is for their leptin to signal to their brain to burn through more of their stored fat since plenty of new fat is coming in through the diet. In other words, they aren't starving and their super leptin sensitivity immediately recognizes this. Because of this mechanism, "fat bombs" do not pose a danger to healthy people like carbohydrates would. 

Carbs interrupt insulin function through large blood glucose disparities and this ultimately puts a halt to leptin sensitivity. Dietary fat will not cause this, so eating "fat bombs" will not break their metabolism. Their body will simply do what it's supposed to do to keep fat reserves stable and burn everything else, sustaining a normal weight set point. Leptin is the antidote to dietary fat intake. 

The only problem this would potentially have in the future is: 
  • Sweet fat bombs - Be careful with the consumption of sweet items. The taste of sweet can eventually break leptin signaling through hypothalamic disruption. So, keep fat bombs free of artificial sweeteners. 
  • Carb creep - Make sure to stick to "keto" and don't let any carbs creep into the diet. The only reason these "fat bombs" are benign is because of leptin and this is at the mercy of insulin sensitivity and overall diet composition. Make sure to remain very low carb. 
  • Reliance on fake food - Let's be real, "fat bombs" are not real food. You don't want to get into the habit of eating novelties because it's "fat bombs" today and "chaffles" tomorrow. Little by little more "franken foods" will make their way into the diet, causing it to become protein deficient. Before you know it, you will be on here tackling obesity with the rest of us. Ketogenic protocols are based on real food, so stick to that to maintain good health. 
A good way to prevent weight loss is more protein intake, rather than fat intake. Instead of "fat bombs", try to supplement with whey protein. That way you are keeping weight up through the building of lean muscle mass, not fat mass. 

So, what's good for the goose is not good for the gander. "Fat bombs" are okay for the healthy, but absolutely detrimental for the obese person with poor leptin expression. 

5. You should only follow a "science based" protocol. 

All protocols are science based. The science is not what is up for debate. The problem comes in when half the science is omitted, in order to fit whatever you're trying to sell. 

The whole of science says that all protocols will cause you to lose weight initially and then leptin will cause you to stall eventually and you will regain. That's the part that's conveniently left out because it ruins the sales pitch. This means that the best protocol to follow is one that fits with how human metabolism actually works. Not one that is easy or convenient or sounds good or is simple or allows you to eat variations of what you're used to. You need a protocol that works with real metabolic function. 

6. I just want to know how to get slim. 

You aren't the only one. Everyone wants to know this. If you find out, please message me, as I still have body fat to lose and it will only get worse as I get older. So, chop chop, as I am getting older and fatter as I sit here.