Almost half way under the belt and to be honest, I never thought it could be this easy to kick the sugar habit. Besides the obvious fat loss, this health hack is yielding great results. If you missed last delivery, you can find it here.
The news are that... there are no news at all. I really don’t have much to tell you about my daily life while on this nutritional regime. I have reached a point of stability.
The weight has been exactly the same, although I am still getting leaner. Digestion, elimination, etc, perfectly fine.
The quality of skin, nails and hair? Excellent.
Energy levels, focus, mental edge, as usual when you lower carbs, extremely good!
My wallet? Still happy, saving lots of cash.
Cravings? None, except when at the end of the day I feel like I want to reward myself, then I remember I am not a dog, and it goes away.
Want to piss people off? Do a Health Hack Yourself
Some people have concerns over my experiment. It is still quite new for the average person to take responsibility and look for their own ways to improve health. The term health hack is still unknown to most. To stop looking up to doctors and experiment with one's health is novel in our modern society.
Some people really take this "health hack" concept the wrong way. It isn't about arrogance, it is about curiosity and the will of having a say in my body and well being. Zero dependency from the medical and pharmaceutical establishments.
It is also fair to say people don't like those who dare to do things their own way.
We dislike that which is different, because it challenges our assumptions. We dislike our assumptions to be challenged because we believe those assumptions are a “part of what makes us US”. We dislike being challenged on what we believe “make us” because we don’t know who we truly are. You may want to read why it is so good to learn about who you really are here.
Double Standards And Blood Test
My wife and my brother are being questioned everyday about my food choices. Most of the questions are quite negative in nature. Bare in mind that the majority of people asking questions, are unhealthy, fat or plain obese, eat mostly junk food every day and drink heavily. To them, over eating, indulging in junk food, carbs, sugars, and alcohol is not as dangerous as only eating high quality protein and fats.
They ask questions about my cholesterol and triglycerides as if they knew something about them.
To please all those beautiful souls, I have decided to do some blood tests at the end of this experiment. In all honesty it isn’t easy to test “health” since we are much better at looking for markers of disease than to assessing health.
So I will check my fasting Glucose and fasting Insulin, to see how sensitive or resistant I am to Insulin, a true marker of good health. Yes, some lipid profile will be done, as well as blood tests to identify inflammation. Inflammation equals disease and premature aging.
In reality I don't care about numbers that were "invented" mostly by averaging people deemed to be healthy decades ago. I trust my body's signs more than a paper from a laboratory. But this will be one for my fans! :p
Conclusions for the week
This experiment has ingrained new habits. It has also weakened my emotional ties with food as reward.
I have thought about introducing small changes on this experiment. That way I could speed fat loss or gain muscle mass, but that would break the main premise of the experiment.
For example: An easy way to speed up fat loss would be to introduce two mega cheating meals with lots of carbs every week. My Leptin hormone could be replenished, so my body would "agree" to drop fat. Leptin is one of the hormones that regulate fat loss. These kind of decisions are what make health hacks so interesting. You are the mad scientist, the laboratory and the guinea pig all in one!
Since I am only 7 weeks away from finishing, I will stick to what I am doing with some minor changes. I will probably start drinking broth one hour before meals to discourage hunger. I want to eat exclusively to get fuel, rather than eating not to be hungry, or to fight boredom.
I am not losing much weight, but I am still getting leaner, so I may introduce some weight training to take advantage of this conundrum (I never expected to see fat loss while keeping such stable weight). I may be able to build some muscle mass while continuing my fat loss before this health hack ends.
Some cardio will be added for good measure. I want to get as lean as possible through 100% sustainable methods!
Thanks for reading this delivery and see you next week!
Tlahui