It all started at a New Year’s Eve party after a New Year’s Eve dinner party. I was pretty well juiced by
that point.
Email in my inbox dated January 14th:
Hi Dan,
I met you in the community room [at the] New Years Eve [party]. [We talked)], and [I] was inspired to try to lose weight. Since New Year’s I have gone off carbohydrates almost entirely [my emphasis]. I have lost about 10 pounds to date, but I understand the first 10 pounds are inconsequential. Anyway, this diet naturally has a higher ratio of fat than my previous diet/non-diet. I have been reading your blog at www.thenutritiondebate.com. I am hoping I will do myself more good than harm on this diet. Any tips for the beginner?
I met you in the community room [at the] New Years Eve [party]. [We talked)], and [I] was inspired to try to lose weight. Since New Year’s I have gone off carbohydrates almost entirely [my emphasis]. I have lost about 10 pounds to date, but I understand the first 10 pounds are inconsequential. Anyway, this diet naturally has a higher ratio of fat than my previous diet/non-diet. I have been reading your blog at www.thenutritiondebate.com. I am hoping I will do myself more good than harm on this diet. Any tips for the beginner?
My reply later that evening:
Hi Bruce,
First of all:
Congratulations! 1) on your being motivated and acting on that motivation, and
2) on you actual success. It's true that the first 10 pounds are the quickest
to lose, although not necessarily the easiest.
Some people
experience hunger (which seems to go away after a couple of days as the
glycogen stores in the liver and muscle are used up and you transition to
burning fat (breaking up triglycerides into fatty acids and using them for
energy and ketones for brain food.). Also, some people feel weakness, which is addressed
by making sure you get extra salt (seriously) to compensate for the loss
of salt/water weight (most of those 1st 10 pounds).
Depending on how
much you eat, and how much you have to lose, though, you should be able to lose
at least 2 pounds a week going forward. At one point (almost 10 years ago) I
lost 100 pounds in 50 weeks.
Thanks for reading my blog. I post every Sunday (at www.thenutritiondebate.com). Please keep me posted on your progress, and feel free to ask
questions. I'd be happy to connect you to other resources including an on-line
forum for Type 2s. Are you, btw, a Type 2, or Pre-Diabetic, or have you been
told you have Metabolic
Syndrome?
Dan Brown
His reply, still later that evening
Hi Dan,
Thanks for getting back and thanks for the encouragement. My conversation with you on New Year’s Eve inspired me to get started and that I would have a possibility of success. To answer your questions, my doctor had me tested for diabetes and suggested I might be pre-diabetic – hence the urgency for weight loss.
Bruce
Thanks for getting back and thanks for the encouragement. My conversation with you on New Year’s Eve inspired me to get started and that I would have a possibility of success. To answer your questions, my doctor had me tested for diabetes and suggested I might be pre-diabetic – hence the urgency for weight loss.
Bruce
Well, this answer from Bruce put him perfectly in the
crosshairs of my new target audience: the Pre-Diabetic and those whose doctors
have told them, “You might be Pre-Diabetic” or “We’ll have to watch those blood
sugars.” At that point they tell you to lose weight (knowing you’ll most likely
fail on the dietary advice given (eat a calorie-restricted, low-fat diet and
exercise your ass off) and before
starting you on a regimen of pills leading, as your disease inevitably
progresses on that diet, to injecting insulin).
Realizing
this, I was motivated to elaborate – unsolicited – on my previous reply. Later
that evening I wrote to Bruce again, and that message, and his amazing reply to me (six weeks later),
will be the subject of my next column. I can hardly wait to tell you! (Spoiler
alert: Bruce’s weight loss continued, big time!)
Thank you, Nandhini.
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