6 Healthy Root Vegetables You Have to Try This Fall

Root vegetables are the edible parts of plants that grow underground, but these super-nutritious, health foods are finding their way into the spotlight and onto the plates of healthy eaters. Carrots are the most familiar root vegetable—we eat the long, orange bottoms, not the leafy tops. These six other roots are, like carrots, rich in flavor and nutrients, and they’re ideal for slow-cooking in diet dishes that warm you up on cool fall days. Here’s why each is a healthful addition to your diet plan and a few ideas for enjoying them:

1. Beets

Most of us recognize the dark red roots, though you can also find varieties that are striped with white inside and some that have golden yellow skin and flesh. All are naturally sweet—beets are a raw ingredient in table sugar—yet they’re low to medium on the Glycemic Index, so you can enjoy them even when you’re trying to lose weight.

Nutrisystem category: Vegetable

Nutrition facts: A cup of raw beets has 58 calories, 3.8 grams of fiber, 13 grams of complex carbohydrates, 22 milligrams of calcium and 442 milligrams of potassium.

Try: Beet salad with arugula and goat cheese blends the sweetness of the roots with peppery greens and the creamy texture of the cheese. When you roast beets, the sugars are caramelized, giving them an even deeper, richer flavor.

2. Parsnips

They look like large, white carrots and they have a similar mildly sweet flavor and crunchy texture. When cooked, parsnips become very tender and even sweeter.

Nutrisystem category: SmartCarb

Nutrition facts: A half-cup of raw parsnips has just 50 calories, yet gives you 3.3 grams of fiber, 250 milligrams of potassium, and more than 10 percent of your RDA of vitamin C, folate and manganese.

Try: Steamed and pureed parsnips make a hearty foundation for low-fat, creamy soups. Slice raw parsnips into “sticks” and bake them in the oven with a little oil, salt and pepper to make crispy “fries.”

3. Turnips

A roundish bulb shaped a bit like a large radish, turnips often have purplish tops and white bottoms but some varieties are all white. The insides of both are a creamy white color. They taste lightly spicy. When shopping, look for smaller turnips, which are more tender than larger ones.

Nutrisystem category: Vegetable

Nutrition facts: In a cup of raw turnips, you get 36 calories, 2.3 grams of fiber, 27 milligrams of vitamin C, and no fat or cholesterol.

Try: Instead of ordinary mashed potatoes, try boiled and mashed turnips with apples, a sweet and spicy weight loss combination that just might become a new family favorite. And don’t toss the green tops in the garbage—they’re also loaded with nutrients and they taste delicious raw or sautéed.

4. Rutabagas

Sometimes called swedes or wax turnips, rutabagas are a hybrid created from turnips and cabbage. Rutabagas are mildly spicy but become more sweet-tasting when cooked. They look a bit knobby on the outside, but they have smooth, starchy texture inside.

Nutrisystem category: Vegetable

Nutrition facts: In a cup of raw rutabaga, you get 52 calories, 3.2 grams of fiber, 60 milligrams of calcium, 35 milligrams of vitamin C, and 427 milligrams of potassium.

Try: With their sturdy texture, rutabagas make a solid base for a vegetable tart made with layers of potatoes, carrots and garlic. For a hearty and healthy side dish, toss chunks of rutabaga with mustard and dill, then roast them to tenderness.

5. Kohlrabi

The bulbous exterior of kohlrabi may be light green or deep purple, but all are white inside. Like its close relative broccoli, kohlrabi has a mild peppery flavor.

Nutrisystem category: Vegetable

Nutrition facts: A cup of raw kohlrabi has 36 calories, 5 grams of fiber, and 83 milligrams of vitamin C, 472 milligrams of potassium, and a substantial amount of vitamin A.

Try: You can eat kohlrabi raw, sliced into salads or grated into your favorite slaw. Add cubes of kohlrabi to vegetable soups, where they become tender after slow cooking. Shredded kohlrabi mixed with egg and a little flour make tasty fritters your family will love.

6. Celeriac

Also called celery root or knob celery, celeriac is a variety of celery grown for its edible roots. While celeriac won’t win the vegetable beauty pageant, its scent is fresh and sweet, and when cooked its aroma has a savory smell that may remind you of Thanksgiving dinner in the oven. The taste is mild, with gentle herbal notes that make it an ideal companion to stronger flavors.

Nutrisystem category: Vegetable

Nutrition facts: In a cup of raw celeriac, you get 66 calories, 2.8 grams of fiber, 67 milligrams of calcium, 12.5 milligrams of vitamin C and 468 milligrams of potassium.

Try: Celeriac’s smooth texture (after peeling the rough skin) lends itself to purees that can be used to add flavor and nutrients to soups and stews. Roast it with pears to make a sweet side dish for broiled fish or turkey breast.

Did you snap a picture of your root vegetable dish? We want to see! Share your weight loss inspired recipe creations.

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Day 1? Starting your weight loss journey on Tuesday, 20 October 2020? Start here!

Today is your Day 1?

Welcome to r/Loseit!

So you aren’t sure of how to start? Don’t worry! “How do I get started?” is our most asked question. r/Loseit has helped our users lose over 1,000,000 recorded pounds and these are the steps that we’ve found most useful for getting started.

Why you’re overweight

Our bodies are amazing (yes, yours too!). In order to survive before supermarkets, we had to be able to store energy to get us through lean times, we store this energy as adipose fat tissue. If you put more energy into your body than it needs, it stores it, for (potential) later use. When you put in less than it needs, it uses the stored energy. The more energy you have stored, the more overweight you are. The trick is to get your body to use the stored energy, which can only be done if you give it less energy than it needs, consistently.

Before You Start

The very first step is calculating your calorie needs. You can do that HERE. This will give you an approximation of your calorie needs for the day. The next step is to figure how quickly you want to lose the fat. One pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories. So to lose 1 pound of fat per week you will need to consume 500 calories less than your TDEE (daily calorie needs from the link above). 750 calories less will result in 1.5 pounds and 1000 calories is an aggressive 2 pounds per week.

Tracking

Here is where it begins to resemble work. The most efficient way to lose the weight you desire is to track your calorie intake. This has gotten much simpler over the years and today it can be done right from your smartphone or computer. r/loseit recommends an app like MyFitnessPal, Loseit! (unaffiliated), or Cronometer. Create an account and be honest with it about your current stats, activities, and goals. This is your tracker and no one else needs to see it so don’t cheat the numbers. You’ll find large user created databases that make logging and tracking your food and drinks easy with just the tap of the screen or the push of a button. We also highly recommend the use of a digital kitchen scale for accuracy. Knowing how much of what you're eating is more important than what you're eating. Why? This may explain it.

Creating Your Deficit

How do you create a deficit? This is up to you. r/loseit has a few recommendations but ultimately that decision is yours. There is no perfect diet for everyone. There is a perfect diet for you and you can create it. You can eat less of exactly what you eat now. If you like pizza you can have pizza. Have 2 slices instead of 4. You can try lower calorie replacements for calorie dense foods. Some of the communities favorites are cauliflower rice, zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash in place of their more calorie rich cousins. If it appeals to you an entire dietary change like Keto, Paleo, Vegetarian.

The most important thing to remember is that this selection of foods works for you. Sustainability is the key to long term weight management success. If you hate what you’re eating you won’t stick to it.

Exercise

Is NOT mandatory. You can lose fat and create a deficit through diet alone. There is no requirement of exercise to lose weight.

It has it’s own benefits though. You will burn extra calories. Exercise is shown to be beneficial to mental health and creates an endorphin rush as well. It makes people feel awesome and has been linked to higher rates of long term success when physical activity is included in lifestyle changes.

Crawl, Walk, Run

It can seem like one needs to make a 180 degree course correction to find success. That isn’t necessarily true. Many of our users find that creating small initial changes that build a foundation allows them to progress forward in even, sustained, increments.

Acceptance

You will struggle. We have all struggled. This is natural. There is no tip or trick to get through this though. We encourage you to recognize why you are struggling and forgive yourself for whatever reason that may be. If you overindulged at your last meal that is ok. You can resolve to make the next meal better.

Do not let the pursuit of perfect get in the way of progress. We don’t need perfect. We just want better.

Additional resources

Now you’re ready to do this. Here are more details, that may help you refine your plan.

• Quick Start Guide - Build your foundation!
• Loseit Compendium - Frame it out!
• FAQ - Answers to our most Frequently Asked Questions!

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Macros Counting Simplified (with Excel Formulas)

Excel File Provided!

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Hey guys,

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I came across this video the other day on Youtube about a simplified way of calculating macros for weight loss, weight gain or maintaining weight.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78Bi58OiHz8

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It was made by Brendan Tietz and I think he did an amazing job with it. I don’t know him and he didn’t pay me to sing the praises for him. I just like that video a lot and I think it needs to be shared more. The one thing I feel is missing though, is an Excel spreadsheet accompanying the video, to make it even easier for people to do the math involved, so I went ahead and made one and I want to share it with you guys here:

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Zoho Sheet link: https://sheet.zoho.com/sheet/published.do?rid=f5754c5ce21b599ce42939a1b388b8887a43c

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Dropbox link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/db9l5715nety9a9/How%20to%20Count%20Macros%20-%20Simplified%20Method%201.xlsx?dl=0

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Although I made this Excel spreadsheet, I want to credit Brendan for all the wisdom and techniques because he is the one who came up with this method and I merely translated that into Excel. I highly recommend that you guys check out that video and his channel.

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Before we dive into the Excel, here is some relevant knowledge that Brendan shares in the video that my Excel is based from:

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1. How to manipulate our body weight. Essentially, without being overly complex:

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• When we take in more calories than we burn, we gain weight.

• When we take in less calories than we burn, we lose weight.

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2. There’s about 3500 calories in a pound of fat. This is argued in the nutritional world, but in Brendan’s experience, it’s pretty accurate.

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3. We need to take 14 – 16 calories per pound of our body weight to maintain our weight. In other words, just for us to maintain our current weight, we need to calculate our daily total caloric target by using a multiplier of 14 - 16 calories for each pound of our body weight. There are more complicated equations that we can use to figure out our RMR, or Resting Metabolic Rate and so on. However, the more Brendan does those complex calculations, the more he realizes that: “Simplicity is just better.”

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4. Fat has about 9 calories per gram of Macro. In other words, the Fat macronutrient provides about 9 calories per gram.

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5. Carbs have about 4 calories per gram of Macro. In other words, the Carbs macronutrient provides about 4 calories per gram.

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6. Protein has about 4 calories per gram of Macro. In other words, the Protein macronutrient provides about 4 calories per gram.

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Now let’s dive into the Excel, when you open it, please know that the numbers in cells highlighted red are calculated automatically via Excel formulas, so there's NO need to enter them yourself at all. You simply need to enter the relevant data in the cells highlighted green, and the rest will take care by itself. Hopefully that’s useful for you guys. Let me know if you want any changes or improvement and I’ll do my best to make it happen.

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There are 4 examples, or people, in the Excel. And I will explain the first one in detail here. You can see that it is Henry, who is the example that Brendan used in the video. Henry weights 200 pounds and wants to lose weight. Remember this piece of knowledge that I mentioned earlier?

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“We need to take 14 – 16 calories per pound of our body weight to maintain our weight. In other words, just for us to maintain our current weight, we need to calculate our daily total caloric target by using a multiplier of 14 - 16 calories for each pound of our body weight.”

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The “Calorie Multiplier” in my Excel is where we can plug in this “multiplier”, which can be 14, 15 or 16. Basically,

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• If someone is a less active, or female, then we give him/her a lower number.

• If someone is a more active, or male, then we give him/her a higher number.

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For Henry, we give him the middle number: 15. He is male and not super active or super inactive. And we know that Henry weights 200 pounds, so we take that 200 and multiply it by 15, which means Henry’s estimated maintenance calories are:

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200 x 15 = 3000 calories per day.

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As you can see, that is calculated automatically via Excel formula. Next, we will do Henry’s caloric deficit calculation, because he wants to lose weight. And we can enter that in the “Goal” cell. Since we now know Henry’s maintenance calories are 3000 per day, we can subtract that by 500, the “Daily Calorie Change” cell we enter “-500”, which means he will take 500 calories less every day, and get:

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3000 – 500 = 2500 calories a day.

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The “New Daily Calories” cell automatically calculates this number. So, Henry eats only 2500 calories a day, and in a week, he would be eating:

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500 x 7 = 3500 less calories in a week.

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The “Weekly Calorie Change” cell calculates that number automatically. It shows “-3500”, because in a week Henry is consuming a total of 3500 negative calories. Remember this piece of knowledge we learned previously?

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“There’s about 3500 calories in a pound of fat.”

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This means Henry will be able to lose, more or less, 1 pound of fat each week. You can see that the “Weekly Weight Gain in Pound” cell shows “-1”, and that indicates a negative body weight gain of 1 pound. And that number is also automatically calculated by Excel. Now Henry will not see a perfect 1 pound per week weight loss, but more or less 1 pound, and that is due to the following reasons:

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• Water weight.

• Hormonal issues.

• Sodium and glycogen fluctuations.

• And so on..

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So, 1 pound a week reduction more or less, not absolute.. it’s not exact science here, but a simplified easy-to-apply method.

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Next, let’s calculate Henry’s Macros (hint: starting from 07:40 in the video). It’s important to note that fat and protein are essential macronutrients and we can’t eliminate either of those completely without severely harming ourselves or even causing death. Carbs, however, can be eliminated. That’s why when we assign the macronutrients, we will start with fat and protein.

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For fat, we will assign anywhere from 0.2 – 0.5 grams per pound of body weight. Which number we choose is up to us. In Henry’s example, we choose 0.3 grams and enter that into the “Fat Multiplier” cell in Excel, and Excel will automatically multiply that by his body weight in order to calculate Henry’s daily “Grams of Fat” to consume:

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“Grams of Fat” = 200 pounds X 0.3 = 60 grams.

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Once again we need to use a piece of knowledge that we learned earlier:

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“Fat has about 9 calories per gram of Macro.”

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That means we now can calculate Henry’s daily “Fat Calories”, as shown in Excel, and that will be the calories that Henry will get from fat each day:

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“Fat Calories” = “Grams of Fat” 60 x 9 = 540 calories.

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Moving onto protein, and by the way you can see that basically all such data relating to Macros can be calculated via Excel formula automatically. We simply need to provide the “Fat Multiplier” number, and everything to its right will show up automatically. For protein, it’s super simple, whatever Henry’s bodyweight is, that number is the “Grams of Protein” that he will consume each day, and that is 200 grams because his weight is 200 pounds. Again, knowledge time:

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“Protein has about 4 calories per gram of Macro.”

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So, now we can get Henry’s daily “Protein Calories”:

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“Protein Calories” = 200 Grams of Protein X 4 = 800

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Which means, time to do some addition now, the combined “Fat + Protein Calories” are:

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“Fat Calories” 540 + “Protein Calories” 800 = 1340, as is shown automatically in the “Fat + Protein Calories” cell. Previously we have calculated that Henry’s “New Daily Calories” are 2500, so we can now get his “Carbs Calories” by doing a subtraction:

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“Carbs Calories” = “New Daily Calories” 2500 – “Fat + Protein Calories” 1340 = 1160

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And finally, Henry’s daily “Grams of Carbs” can be calculated out. Well, knowledge time again:

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“Carbs have about 4 calories per gram of Macro.”

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Which means, Henry’s daily “Grams of Carbs” are:

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“Grams of Carbs” = “Carbs Calories” 1160 / 4 = 290

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That’s it! In summary, Henry’s daily Macro breakdown is as follows:

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Grams of Fat: 60

Fat Calories: 540

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Grams of Protein: 200

Protein Calories: 800

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Grams of Carbs: 290

Carb Calories: 1160

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Total Calories: 2500

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I really hope you guys find the Excel helpful. Let me know if you have any questions, suggestions for changes/improvements please, and I’ll do my best to make it happen. Have a wonderful day everybody!

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With gratitude,

Hope

www.honest-fitness.net

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Tantrum Tuesday - The Day to Rant!

I Rant, Therefore I Am

Well bla-de-da-da! What's making your blood boil? What's under your skin? What's making you see red? What's up in your craw? Let's hear your weight loss related rants!
The rant post is a /u/bladedada production.

Please consider saving your next rant for this weekly thread every Tuesday.

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Losing Motivation and Cracking the Sads

Just a random rant and vent. I've been trying to lose weight since December last year. My goal was to be six pack ripped. I had a rough time frame of seven months for myself and I obviously didn't hit it. I've lost about 15kg in just under a year and just don't feel anywhere close to my goal. I tried to estimate my bodyfat % and I thought I would be ripped by about 81kg. I'm 80.5kg now and when I sit down I still just spill out in every direction. I still have man boobs and they still feel the same size as before, only bigger since I've added some chest size. I wasn't perfect, I had bad weeks here and there, but I have made an active and conscious effort since last December and I am just getting worn down. My job is brutal on me, I'm stressed at home and at work and if I eat even one small Tim Tam I get the entire years worth of cravings crushing down on me. I decided to have McDonalds since curfew in my area was lifted two weeks ago, and ended up having it four days in a row. I then went back to my regular routine for a week and now I'm typing this off the back end of 4500 calories of BBQ. I just wanted to achieve this goal before I hit 29 so I could try and build decent muscle mass by 30. I wanted my starting point to be 80kg, now it looks like it'll be 76kg. I've been going as hard as I can, between work, slowly increasing strength on bodyweight exercises the past five months. Meanwhile people make three times the progress I do in a third of the time in weight loss and strength wise. That is awesome for them, I don't have a problem with them and it is motivating. What isn't motivating is knowing how slow I'm going in comparison. I don't fucking know. I'm exhausted and I'm sick of looking like fucking instant pudding everytime I sit down to take a dump. How much longer do I have to fucking grind this out and battle my head and cravings for? Fuck.

Edit: Also despite eating approximately 400% more fibre, fruit and vegetables than I used to in the many years before last December, I have to wipe my arse several hundred times more than I used to, to clean it. Fucking why?

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Exercising For Very Overweight People?

TLDR: I’m obese. Is walking everyday along with counting calories enough to start my weight loss journey?

Hi all!

I’m a trans male (meaning I was assigned female at birth) and I really want to get top surgery. I’m currently 28 years old at 290 pounds (5’5) and my doctor wants me to get down to 200 pounds for the surgery. (Although I’d like to eventually get to about 140 pounds) I’m a video editor, so most of my day is spent at a desk.

My question is, what kind of exercise program can I do that’s for newbie/very obese type people? Are there any good apps out there? I know diet is crucial and I’ve started counting calories but feel as though I should have some sort of physical activity. Running/jogging seem to be too hard on me at my current weight.

Is walking enough right now? I thought about getting a gym membership at the YMCA so I could swim?

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated. I didn’t put on this weight until I went to college 9 years ago and it has deeply hurt me. There’s so much I’d like to do in life and my weight is holding me back. I just want to finally feel like myself.

Thank you so much!

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That Onederland feeling... Sooo good 😁

I'm a 6"3' male who just recently dropped under 200 lbs again after hitting a high of 250 lbs over a decade ago from eating the standard american diet and drinking in college and knew I needed to make a change. The idea of being closer to 300 than 200 really scared me and I didn't know how to slow it down. That was around the time Atkins was first becoming popular and I can't remember why but I decided to check him out after having no success and continually creeping up in weight with weight watchers and other diet programs.

I tried his methods and started losing weight rapidly and was so excited to finally have something in the tool belt that I knew worked and would allow me to have some control. It was very difficult though to eat everything so lean so I had difficulty sticking with it for long periods of time. This began the yo-yo phase where I was basically in maintenance, go hard for a few weeks to a month low carb and lose 10-15 pounds then go back to my previous diet that I enjoyed and start creeping back up.

Lesson learned: you can control your weight! It's just a problem you have to figure out. My time in college as an engineer studying mass and energy balances on a closed system helped here but it wasn't until I saw the results on the scale that I really hit home.

Around that time I started reading reddit a lot and discovered /r/keto from someones comment. I had no idea what ketosis was but I looked at the top posts and was amazed at the progress pics! I went for it and fell in love, it was low carb, not as low as Atkins but it was sustainable because it embraced fats, something Atkins had basically villified. Eating meat & veg cooked in butter or olive oil was something I could do with a lot of variety and it was satiating, yes!!

I stayed on/off keto for several more years as needed and sort of stair stepped my way down but also undid a lot of progress as I was also getting into home brewing as sort of a friendly competition between a few buddies of mine at work and not always being diligent about packing a lunch so would go out to eat with co-workers and make not ideal choices. The extra carbs added up and stalled me out for awhile.

Lesson learned: Don't drink your calories! (which was crazy for me because I grew up on gallons of orange juice, milk, juicy juice, soda, etc.). Always though those were healthy, minus the soda I guess, so did my parents.

Eventually I went through a somewhat messy divorce and decided I still wasn't happy with my body. I started lifting /r/stronglifts for about 6 months and made significant strength and size gains but overdid it with free weights and ended up injuring myself a couple times and had to step back to recover.

More recently I have taken up /r/bodyweight fitness with some lighter free weights and slower progression and I and am enjoying it much more. In fact I just did my first ever chin up from a dead hang today! A longtime goal of mine! Shout out to Jerry Texteira on YouTube and Twitter, great guy, took time to give me personal advice and is just super friendly. Taught me just moving our own bodies through space is more than enough to get an incredible physique.

Lesson learned: strength training and building muscle mass is important for everyone but injury will set you way back, as with diet listen to your body and you don't need to throw heavy weights around to get in great shape.

Around the time I was recovering from my injuries I discovered Dr. Jason Fung, and learned so much about how our food supply has been manipulated for profit over time from his book The Obesity Code and also about the many benefits of fasting. /r/Fasting was the next step in my journey, I had always thought that was just unhealthy but after reading Dr. Fung it made so much more sense as something we have been doing through millennia burning fat for fuel while retaining muscle mass. In fact, if you are not eating right at this very moment you are fasting as well, congratulations! ;)

I dove in head first and did a 7 day fast, it was a surreal experience and I felt pretty good over all because I was already "fat adapted" (burning your body fat for fuel instead of carbs) from keto which made it much easier. I actually only ended it because I was worried I was overdoing it but I know now those concerns were unfounded and I just needed to listen to my body. It was another breakthrough moment for me to learn the power of fasting, I saw significant reductions in fat, bloating, cravings, etc. and by the end it was very apparent to me that it was a very healthy state to be in.

I did a few multi day fasts after that but more generally just adopted an intermittent fasting schedule where my first meal of the day would be a keto dinner after work (meat + veg cooked in butter), and then some snacks in the evening, mainly nuts but I had to be careful as they were really easy to overeat.

Lesson learned: fasting is a natural thing we all do every day intermittently and every night while we sleep. It is another tool in the belt and has many beneficial effects, not something to be afraid of at all and worth trying out.

I was still drinking at the time though so I stayed in maintenance for the most part, I kind of saw it as eating clean allowed me to drink and enjoy myself. Easy access to some homebrew taps in my garage took it's toll though and I again started creeping up. One thing I noticed around this time when I was experimenting with fasting is that whenever I would drink a beer within a few minutes my FUPA (lower GI tract) would swell up and I would get really gassy and uncomfortable. I loved brewing and drinking beer so this was a tough pill to swallow, I had never noticed it before because I never gave myself enough time without drinking for my system to clear itself out, fasting helped me realize that connection. In the end I decided my love for beer was not worth the discomfort, gas and weight gain it was causing me so I gave it up.

I switched to wine/liquor which did not give me the same GI issues but soon I was overindulging there as well which ultimately caused me to stall on my weight loss goals (mainly because 2am drunk me didn't give a damn about keto and always went for the most greasy fried food I could find to "soak up" the alcohol or scratch that itch for sweet by eating all the sugar in the house). In the end I realized that if I wanted to achieve my goals of being healthy (and getting a 6 pack, not there yet but definitely getting closer and seeing some really good definition!) that I needed to give it up for good. I am happy to say that I just passed 1 year sober and plan to keep right on rolling, shout out to the app "I Am Sober" and the /r/stopdrinking community for keeping me on track and motivated.

Lesson learned: if you really want to achieve your goals you have to be present in the moment at all times, quick slips when in the wrong frame of mind can certainly set you back, especially if it's a regular habit.

I am so much more present and attentive with my children now and I can't imagine ever going back to how I was before, always regretting the previous nights decisions and dragging myself through my day just so I could finally "relax" that evening with a few drinks while not giving my kids the attention they craved. Everything is better sober and I am so thankful for making that change.

A bit before getting sober I learned a few things from Twitter, the first was the dangers of seed oils from P.D. Mangan @Mangan150 which are in damn near everything!!! I am so thankful he brought attention to this as I had no idea before that how much the profit driven food industry has poisoned our food supply with this stuff.

Lesson learned: seed oils are not natural and are very harmful, avoid at all costs, but good luck because they have been slyly introduced everywhere in our food supply. The only real solution is to not eat anything that has been processed in any way. Basically only the deli or produce sections are safe. Even fancy restaurants use seed oils for cooking and frying. To really avoid them you have to cook your own food from whole ingredients.

I also started seeing more and more discussion about the carnivore lifestyle happening on twitter from Dr. Shawn Baker @SBakerMD and others who were recommended by several fitness people I was following and I started following the /r/carnivore and /r/zerocarb communities.

Actually seeing Jerry Teixeira's before/after carnivore pics and reading the success stories on meatheals.com is what really sold me. Jerry mentioned that even though he had the same workout routine before and after the swelling around his midsection and GI tract never went away while he had carbs in his diet.

I tried out carnivore not knowing what to expect and again had another breakthrough, my weight just started melting, my GI issues and FUPA disappeared, any cravings I had subsided and in general I just felt great, better than I ever had, energy and mental clarity to spare. I wasn't restricting myself either, whenever I was hungry I would eat fatty meat (steaks, slow cooked pork, burgers, brisket, bacon/eggs, cheeses, cooking with heavy cream and butter, etc.) until I had enough then just wait until I was hungry again.

That's when I realized the connection that it was always carbs that were slowing me down or creeping my weight up, through the calories I drank as a kid and an adult to the sugar present in so many things that I learned to avoid from keto to even the nuts and veg that I kept in my diet on keto. I'm sure many people can keep the nuts/veg and do great on keto but for me it was obvious they were holding me back once I removed them.

Lesson learned: carbs are not necessary and in many cases might actually be getting in the way of your progress (especially sugar). Carnivore is like an elimination diet, start with the basic most nutrient dense food that we have been living on for millennia and see how your body feels with only that for awhile, later on add back things that you might feel you're missing out on, probably veg, fruit, nuts, dairy, etc. and just observe how your body responds. Iterate, adjust and thrive!

I'm still not at my 6 pack but getting very close and the goal is in sight. I would guess I still have another 15-20 lbs or so to lose to really get the definition I'm after but I have probably lost 60-70 lbs of fat overall when you add in the muscle gains as well. With some additional muscle I think an ideal target will probably be around 190 lbs for me as a 6'3" guy when I have the physique I want but YMMV so go with what you think is best for you.

Final words of wisdom:

• Avoid seed oils like the plague, but in order to do so you basically have to eliminate all foods you don't prepare yourself. Even fancy restaurants. Deli and produce sections are basically the only safe space.

• Cook your own food with healthy fats, butter, olive oil, ghee, duck fat, bacon grease, etc.

• Eliminate things from your diet for awhile and observe how your body responds when you add them back, it may be easiest to just start with a baseline carnivore diet for a month or so and then add things back one at a time. Keto is a very good baseline too though for people starting out but don't trust any packaged item claiming to be "keto friendly" it's all BS.

• Fasting can be an extremely useful tool to reset your body and in general we do not need 3 meals a day, we do not even need to eat daily (it makes a lot of sense if you think about the meal schedule of our hunter ancestors who sometimes went days between kills).

• The food pyramid is BS and upside down. In The Obesity Code by Dr. Fung he covers the influence the agriculture lobby has had on shaping the FDA guidelines on nutrition to favor cheap grains to maximize their profits. Makes me angry still just to think about how I just accepted it as true as a kid because the FDA must know what a proper diet looks like, not!

• Listen to your body, iterate, adapt, conquer!! You got this!

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