This is the first part of a 3-part series discussing my own experience with exercise, “healthy eating,” weight loss, hypothyroidism, insulin resistance, and the carnivore diet. I hope my experience can help point towards the need for a better understanding of calories and weight loss.
My Weight Loss Story, Pt. 1: When You Exercise and Eat “Healthy,” and STILL Can’t Lose Weight
We are the ones doing everything “right”. We count calories, exercise hard, reduce carbs, and down smoothies, vitamins and supplements.
We lose a few pounds, maybe 5 or 10, and celebrate. But then the weight loss stalls.
People say, but you’re replacing body fat with muscle, which weighs more! Or, but you look fine! Well, that’s partly true. Except for some of us, there’s still a lot of excess weight. Enough to make us feel uncomfortable in our own skin, and put us in the overweight-verging-on-obese category of the BMI.
Or you hear this one:You just have to push through the stall! Ok, for how long? Months? Years?
Calories in, calories out! echoes in our minds like a well-worn mantra. And it seems like there is evidence to back this approach to weight loss.¹ But we’ve counted our calories, calculated our calories burned, and despite burning more than we are consuming, OUR WEIGHT DOESN’T BUDGE. Or, it even goes up!
Something isn’t right! We curse our bodies and cry out at the universe in frustration. We put in so much effort, for so little reward. I asked myself constantly, Why can’t I lose weight no matter what I do?
If you recognize this story you're like me. I did everything right — for years. And there are enough of us that some doctors have begun to take us seriously. According to Dr. David Ludwig, professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, the calories in, calories out model might be flawed. He recommends that rather than measuring calorie intake against calories burned, doctors and researchers instead need to ask questions such as, “How do these different diets controlled for calories affect our metabolism, the number of calories being burned? How do they affect body composition?”²
I’m 5’4”, and my highest weight was 170 lbs. I had gadgets and apps that kept track of my calorie intake and calories burned.
Yet it took me over a decade to figure out how to lose weight.
Years of “Healthy Eating” Broke My Body
A healthy breakfast?
12 years ago I reached my lowest point, and my highest weight. I had stopped swimming because my skin was so dry it was shedding continuously and no amount of moisturizer would help. I felt so weak it took great effort to push open doors when I ran errands. My brain was so clouded I couldn’t remember anything I had read the day before, which as a grad student, was a problem. Worst of all, I had been trying to have a baby for 3 years, with no success.
I was suffering from undiagnosed hypothyroidism, infertility, depression, chronic fatigue, and brain fog. And I was almost 40 pounds overweight. Clearly, something was very wrong with my body, but I was clueless. I would think to myself, I guess this is what it’s like to be in my late 20s.
How did I get there?
I had always thought I was a pretty healthy person. I walked, biked, rock-climbed, exercised, and ate low-fat foods that were mainly from the perimeter of the grocery store. My plate resembled the government-recommended proportions. I was not eating tons of junk food. I drank alcohol only occasionally. Sure, I indulged a little on weekends, but I actually was eating fewer treats and snacks than many of my thin friends.
Treating my Hypothyroidism did Not Result in Significant Weight Loss
I was told I would need to take thyroid medication for the rest of my life.
Finally, through a round of blood tests I had done to investigate my infertility, I was diagnosed with “mild” hypothyroidism. My GP had dismissed the lab results as normal, but a fertility specialist noticed that I was in fact outside of the “normal” thyroid ranges.
Ecstatic, I thought I had an answer to all my problems. A hypothyroidism diagnosis explained my infertility, inability to lose weight, brain fog, and fatigue. At the time, many doctors were not up-to-date on the latest recommendations for treatment, and I had to fight to get a prescription for Synthroid. But I got it, and slowly, my body started to get a bit better.
Motivated by some initial success, I counted calories even more rigorously, increased my exercise to an hour a day, and took fertility boosting supplements.
I lost about 15 pounds, and ended up with three kids from three healthy pregnancies within the next 5 years.
Then I switched from synthetic thyroid hormone to natural desiccated thyroid hormone and felt even better.
But despite going so far as to cut all grains by adopting the Paleo diet, which cured my postpartum eczema, and doing what I could to keep my weight under control while having three kids under 3, I could never lose the extra fat or get my weight to dip under 153. And to keep my weight at or near 155 required meticulous calorie-counting and exercise.
My hypothyroidism diagnosis and treatment was only a part of the puzzle of why I had no energy and couldn’t lose weight.
Popular Weight Loss Methods Didn’t Work for Me
Frustrated beyond belief, I thought maybe I would reach out to some popular systems that many have had success with.
I tried the Weight Watchers app. It was easy to stay within my target point ranges. And the program allowed almost unlimited fruits and vegetables. I have many friends who have had success with Weight Watchers, but my weight didn’t budge.
Then when my oldest turned 6 I got a membership to the BeachBody streaming service, and did program after program. I loved BeachBody. My workout routines culminated in the aptly named 30 day series “BeachBody Insanity”. Shaun T and I killed it together, almost every day of the week. I finished it once, and then started it all over again, doing the hardest variations. Many people have had great success with programs like these.
But not me.
The results of all my efforts? I lost maybe 5 lbs, after a full year of following Weight Watchers and BeachBody. For a few days I got as low as 148 on the scale. With no cheating. No cutting corners. Following all the directions I was given by the so-called “experts”. And I was still clearly carrying excess weight on my arms, stomach, and thighs.
What was even worse than not getting results in my physical appearance from diet and exercise, is that I didn’t get any of the other benefits of regular exercise and a healthy diet either.
I didn’t have more energy.
In fact, my body often felt like it was weighed down with bricks. I had treated my hypothyroidism, built muscle, ended my four year battle with insomnia (with glycine-containing gelatin powder of all things!), and I still felt like a walking zombie.³
Calories in, calories out was making me crazy.
Doing the Same Thing and Expecting Different Results is the Definition of Insanity
After years of doing everything right, I gave up. I started eating less, even though I knew that wasn’t a healthy choice. My calories frequently came in between 600-1000 a day. They were lower-carb calories for the most part but I did eat some grains. I knew I was probably slowing my metabolism from calorie restricting.⁴
But cutting calories was the only way I could keep from gaining weight without exercising almost an hour a day. I didn’t want to exercise if I wasn’t going to get results. I felt frustrated and like I was going insane.
I wanted to feel at home in my own skin, without the excess bulges and padding.
And I desperately needed energy.
I didn’t lose weight through eating healthy. I didn’t lose weight by eating healthy and exercising.
I didn’t lose weight from excessive calorie restriction, but it kept me from gaining, so for the next year, that’s how I lived.
Until I heard about something, completely by chance, that would end up changing my life.
Read about Pt. 2 of my Weight Loss Journey: How I Lost 35 Pounds by Eating More and Exercising Less next week!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28765272
https://harvardmagazine.com/2016/05/are-all-calories-equal
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22293292
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22535969