Low-Carbing and Freedom!

I know I haven't blogged much, but I've been sticking to the low-carb way of eating very strictly. Anyway, the reason that I'm posting today is that I wanted to share the way eating this way has counter-intuitively made me feel more free than ever before, in two ways:

Food Freedom

I used to count calories every day. I used to fight hunger and cravings every day. Consequently, I used to binge almost every day. If you're struggling with your body's deep desires, chances are you're going to lose. At least if you're me. :-) In my case, when I restricted calories, my body would beg me to eat, just as if I hold my breath, my body begs me to breathe. The begging for food was less severe than the begging for air, but ultimately proved to be just as irresistible.

Eating low carbs, I never struggle with hunger, because I can eat as much as I want. It sounds like one of those scams I lambasted in the previous post, but it's true. If I'm hungry late at night, I can make myself a three-egg omelette with cheddar cheese and a few pork sausage patties on the side. No more eating a bowl of oatmeal and hoping (even though I know better) it does the trick, then reaching for something else, and then something else, and then, finally, binging. If not that day, then the next, or the one after that. I

And if I'm extra hungry at dinner one day, I can have a big steak. With butter. And buttered vegetables. And things are so much better with butter on them! Just try to be hungry after eating a big steak with buttered veggies.

But don't I sometimes crave carbs? Well, sort of. I definitely get to thinking sometimes that it would be awfully nice to have some sugary desserts or a big bowl of pasta. But it's a mental craving, not a physical one. My brain may not be able to resist my body's cravings for long, but these mental cravings are so much weaker and more controllable. Besides, as Jimmy Moore pointed out in one of his YouTube videos, eating something with a lot of fat in it -- which I can do whenever I want now -- does wonders to get rid of cravings.

Exercise Freedom

As I've mentioned before, I'm one of those weirdos who likes to exercise. Even so, before I started low-carbing, I always felt a certain obligation. It wasn't enough to just enjoy myself playing basketball, I had to make sure I was doing it enough to burn calories. I had to go even when I didn't want to. And as anyone who likes to read but hated reading for school knows, even enjoyable things are less fun when you're obliged to do them. Now if I really don't feel like playing basketball one day, I just don't. I know that I might lose weight a little faster if I exercise more, but I no longer fear that I'm going to gain weight (or even stop losing) if I just skip a few days.

Overall Freedom

Overall, I just feel like I'm finally free from the struggle. I don't have to fight with myself about food or exercise and I don't have to feel like a failure when the hungry or "lazy" part of me defeats the "good" or "motivated" part. I just eat low-carb and everything else pretty much takes care of itself.

Notes on Gary Taubes' Lecture at Berkeley

I watched this video over the last two days. I highly recommend it, although I cannot (yet?) say whether he is actually correct or not.

A few things that jumped out at me:

1. An analogy: we don't say that growing kids grow because they eat a lot, we say that they eat a lot because they are growing. Couldn't the same be true of fat?
   
2. Fat cells are active, not passive. Therefore, they can "tell" the body to modify its calorie intake and expenditure. Rats who are deprived of calories slow down and conserve while those overfed are more active and don't gain.
3. Insulin is necessary for fat storage and carbohydrate intake causes insulin.
4. Before 1950 it was "common knowledge" in the scientific and lay communities that carbs cause obesity and that the way to lose weight was to reduce carb intake.
5. The idea that obesity is caused by "sloth and gluttony" is so ingrained that scientists have trouble seeing past it even when the carb-obesity data are right in front of them.
   

Number 1 really got me. It cuts right to the heart of the willpower debate. Suppose we didn't want kids to grow -- would we insist that they eat less and exercise more? Suppose some succeeded? Would that prove that growing is caused by overeating or being sedentary? By analogy then, if our bodies grow fat because of insulin the way children grow height because of other hormones, then treating the problem by maintaining a calorie deficit doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Why not fix the root cause (excess insulin due to carbs) rather than struggling with our own bodies?