If you open up your web browser and do a search for weight loss, you’ll find over 6 million results, almost all of which will tell you the same thing:
- Eat Less
- Exercise more
- Eat Fruits and Vegetables
- Avoid Saturated Fat
- Get Plenty of Whole Grains.
It’s simple right? Isn’t this what we’ve been told for the last few decades?
But every year we get collectively fatter and sicker. As I write this, over 68 percent of adults in the US are overweight or obese. 34.4 percent have a Body Mass Index (BMI) of over 25, classifying them as overweight, and 33.9 percent have a BMI of over 30, classifying them as obese.
With such astonishingly high numbers of overweight people, it seems as though we’ve begun to accept this as the norm. Perhaps it’s just the way things are.
Just listen to people talk, and you’ll see this is the case.
We’ll I just turned 30 so my metabolism is slowing down
My parents are overweight, so it’s in my genes. There’s nothing I can do
But if you look back 50 or 60 years, overweight was incredibly rare. The women are thin and attractive, the men are youthful and energetic. Virtually no one has beer bellies or prominent love handles.
Yet, 50 years ago, barely anyone exercised and very few people were highly conscious of what they ate.
So What Gives?
Have we just lost our willpower? Have we suddenly become lazy and gluttonous? Or is there something else at play?
While it’s true that some people simply don’t care, if you’re reading this post you most likely do. You very much WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT. You’ve probably tried eating less, exercising more, and doing everything else that conventional wisdom says will make you lose weight. And when it doesn’t work? You just didn’t try hard enough. You must have miscalculated your calorie intake. You just didn’t have the willpower to stay with it.
Sound familiar?
The truth is, you’ve simply been misled. You simply have poor or incomplete information about how to lose weight, which is no surprise given how much bad information is out there. If you’re looking to make a change and actually lose the weight and keep it off for good, you’ve come to the right place.
How to Lose Weight Fast and Keep it Off
What I’m going to tell you is going to contradict a lot of what you’ve heard about weight loss. I won’t tell you to eat less, exercise more and eat plenty of whole grains like virtually every other website you’ll stumble across. You may be skeptical at first, which is a good thing. Don’t take my word for it. I’ll offer detailed explanations that support what I’m telling you, but in the end the proof will come when you try it. That’s all I ask. Give it a shot, and the results will speak for themselves.
1. Don’t Be Afraid of Meat and Saturated Fat
In the 1950s, a researcher named Ancel Keys conducted a study in which he looked at the dietary habits of around 25 different countries and compared their overall health. Strangely enough, when the study was published it was titled The 7 Countries Study, the results of which suggested that saturated fat consumption was associated with heart disease. It was called The 7 Countries Study because Ancel Keys left out all the countries that didn’t support his hypothesis. Nevertheless, this study was accepted into the dietary literature (although it never would be by today’s standards) and has been the basis for most of our fears regarding saturated fat.
Moreover, when two other multi-million dollar studies, The Nurses Health Study and The Framingham Heart Study attempted to prove the dangers of saturated fat, they found that the participants that were instructed to limit saturated fat and follow the new dietary guidelines, were LESS HEALTHY and had higher rates of mortality.
Saturated fat is not bad for you. Start eating meat regularly, especially grass fed, pasture raise or organic meats (they have far better omega-3 to omega-6 ratios), fish and butter.
2. Eliminate Wheat
This step alone often leads to rapid weight loss.
In his landmark book, Wheat Belly, Dr. William Davis highlights the numerous negative health consequences of wheat. He details how wheat causes weight gain, Celiac Disease, and many other health problems. The primary way in which wheat consumption causes weight gain is through it’s effect on blood sugar (and therefore insulin, the hormone that regulates fat storage). A slice of whole wheat bread raises blood sugar more than a tablespoon of pure sugar. Is it any wonder that eating a bunch of “healthy” whole grains isn’t helping you lose weight? Moreover, evidence suggests that simply removing wheat from your diet typically leads to eating around 400 fewer calories each day without conscious effort. This is likely due to the addictive properties of wheat and sugar.
It’s likely a stretch for most people to believe that bread and flour aren’t particularly good for you. After all, haven’t we been eating bread like this for centuries? Not exactly. Over the past 50 years, wheat has been highly genetically modified. To say that today’s wheat is hardly related to the wheat of the past would be an understatement. Wheat is no longer a food, but a man-made product; a product that has never been tested on humans before being released to the public.
Stop eating wheat and preferably other gluten grains as well. However, avoid “gluten free” foods, as most of them are low-quality, sugar-packed substitutes.
3. Eat plenty of vegetables, some fruit
Contrary to popular belief, fruit and vegetables don’t fall in the same category. They aren’t particularly similar. The main difference is in how they are digested by your body. Vegetables are mostly fiber and are broken down by your stomach bacteria and converted to healthy fats that your body can use. Fruits, on the other hand, are high in fructose, which is processed by your liver. While eating some fruit is good, high fruit intake puts stress on the liver and greatly increases blood sugar, therefore increasing insulin response and fat storage.
Eat lots of vegetables, including leafy greens, carrots, onions, asparagus, and so on. Eat some fruit, preferably high citrus fruits like kiwis and grapefruit, rather than high fructose fruit like watermelon.
4. Limit sugar and eliminate vegetable oils
Like fructose and wheat, sugar raises insulin levels, leading to increased insulin resistance and increased fat storage. You don’t need to reduce your sugar intake to 0; it’s good to get some from fruits or starches like potatoes and yams, but most people are getting much more than they need.
Vegetable oils should be eliminated completely in favor of olive oil, coconut oil and butter. Excess intake of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs), which are found in high quantities in vegetable oils, leads to inflammation, weight gain and other health problems.
Get sugar only in small amounts from starches like potatoes and yams, and some fruit, and avoid vegetable oils in favor of olive oil, butter and coconut oil.
5. Eat nuts and some dairy
Nuts are the ideal snack food. They’re very filling and healthy, and should curb any cravings you have while adjusting to the new way of eating. Dairy products such as milk, yogurt, butter and cheese are great too – just stay away from overly processed dairy products, and don’t buy reduced-fat products (remember saturated fat isn’t bad for you! Even vegetables convert to fat). Eating fat doesn’t make you fat, as demonstrated by the healthy and robust members of the Maasi and Inuit tribes, who eat extremely high fat diets.
Snack on nuts, drink milk, eat cheese and non-processed yogurt, and cook with butter.
That should be plenty to get you started. If you simply follow those steps, you’ll lose weight. It’s certainly not the whole picture though, so check out the rest of the site for more information.