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Saturday, July 12, 2008
Dude, You Should 'Ditch The Unhealthy Fad Diet' And 'Hit The Weight Room' Harder
I have always contended that people are much more assertive, aggressive, and in-your-face on the Internet than they would EVER be in the real world. Sure, there are a few exceptions to this, but for the most part it's true. And when you can post something anonymously without any way to trace where it came from, you can multiply that willingness to say ANYTHING by at least one-hundredfold!
People have their opinions and certainly don't mind sharing them regardless of the consequences. I learned a long time ago that you had better put on a thick layer of skin if you decide to start blogging for the whole world to see, especially when it comes to sharing your own personal diet and weight loss story. Everyone has their own theories about what works and I think it's great that the World Wide Web affords us the chance to hear all of these voices and decide for ourselves what is true or not.
But there is some sense of responsibility for decency and class when it comes to leaving a comment, especially when it is critical. There's nothing more cowardly in my opinion than to do what I like to call a "drive-by comment"--you come into a blog, post a flaming comment anonymously, and then run away. What good does that do? Just put your name and e-mail address on there at the end so that if people have questions about what you wrote they can reach you. How difficult would that be?
Well, I suppose they don't WANT to be contacted and that should make you suspicious of their remarks. Anyone willing to give a strong opinion should never be afraid to catch some heat back from the people who disagree. It's how public discourse should be handled and yet so many people like the following anonymous reader just don't get that.
Everyone is being very supportive of your weight loss, but dude you are still very very overweight and borderline obese. You lost a lot of weight, but 220 pounds is not a lean weight unless you're a bodybuilder or athlete. Jesus, you've still got a good 70 pounds of pure fat to lose in order to be considered "normal."
It's seriously not "loose" skin, it's just heaps of fat that you haven't lost yet because you basically starved your body with an improper diet while not doing enough exercise.
I guarantee your body would look worlds better had you hit the weight room and treadmill six days a week and not subscribed to a fad diet that goes against nature itself. Face the facts: You lost weight too quickly while NOT exercising enough. That is not loose skin, that is fat that is backed up by emaciated muscle mass.
Don't believe me if you want, but I know what I'm saying. Your got about 60% if the way to your goal and then you stopped, thinking 220 pounds was your ideal body weight, and you neglected your body composition of muscle: fat ratio. You have no muscle and tons of fat, that's why your body looks so bad. Sure, surgery can fix this, but dedication and a gym membership will fix it as well. And before you go on saying "Well, I do work out, I do have a gym membership, etc.", have you considered you just aren't working hard enough?
Again, congrats on the weight loss, but you need to stop making excuses and face your own issue: get more dedicated to exercise and ditch the unhealthy fad diet. The human body needs carbs to fuel all of our organs, which includes the skin (the largest organ) and brain.
Nice, huh? So, tell me how you REALLY feel. Ahhhhhhh, what do you say to something like that? While there was some truth in what was expressed, there was a whole lotta crap too. I chose not to respond in the comments and to highlight this one in this post today instead because it is indicative of the kind of vitriolic hatred people have not just for people on a low-carb nutritional approach, but also who are on a journey to better health and weight loss. Let's take a look at each part of this comment to separate the good from the bad from the ugly:
Everyone is being very supportive of your weight loss, but dude you are still very very overweight and borderline obese. You lost a lot of weight, but 220 pounds is not a lean weight unless you're a bodybuilder or athlete. Jesus, you've still got a good 70 pounds of pure fat to lose in order to be considered "normal."
By what standards am I "very overweight and borderline obese?" I presume you are referring to body mass index and that's not the entire story. Yes, I'm still a big guy, but everyone who meets me says I am much taller and large structured than they expected. I'm a big guy who used to be a REALLY big guy. I'd love to lose more weight and am working on getting there the best I can. According to you, I need to weigh 150 pounds as a 6'3" man--ummmm, call me crazy, but that's just nuts!
It's seriously not "loose" skin, it's just heaps of fat that you haven't lost yet because you basically starved your body with an improper diet while not doing enough exercise.
I'm the first to admit some of it is indeed body fat, but I could not disagree more than I've "starved" my body with some kind of "improper diet." Have you read the latest studies on a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet? It's stunning and I highly recommend you read books like Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes to get the whole story before you show how ignorant you are describing this way of eating that way. And how do you know I'm not exercising enough? I did DAILY cardiovascular exercise the entire time I was losing 180 pounds in 2004. How much MORE could I possibly do?
I guarantee your body would look worlds better had you hit the weight room and treadmill six days a week and not subscribed to a fad diet that goes against nature itself. Face the facts: You lost weight too quickly while NOT exercising enough. That is not loose skin, that is fat that is backed up by emaciated muscle mass.
I'm the first to admit I regret that I didn't "hit the weight room" sooner as I noted in the final chapter of my first book. But I did upwards of 45-60 minutes (and sometimes more!) of treadmill or elliptical training every single day of the week during my weight loss. I was afraid of GAINING weight then, but I have since added a regular weight lifting routine with great success so far. What's so "fad" about eating a diet like our early hunter-gatherer ancestors did with healthy whole foods like beef, eggs, fish, nuts, and anything else they could find for nourishment? to me, eating tofu and bean sprouts and saying you love it "goes against nature itself." How did I lose too quickly and how can you possibly know that I wasn't exercising enough? There's a whole lotta assumin' going on out there.
Don't believe me if you want, but I know what I'm saying. Your got about 60% if the way to your goal and then you stopped, thinking 220 pounds was your ideal body weight, and you neglected your body composition of muscle: fat ratio. You have no muscle and tons of fat, that's why your body looks so bad. Sure, surgery can fix this, but dedication and a gym membership will fix it as well. And before you go on saying "Well, I do work out, I do have a gym membership, etc.", have you considered you just aren't working hard enough?
I will agree that I could have lost more weight than I did and I'm still on that journey to get my body weight down to around 200 pounds. That's what I'd like to be at. But I won't sacrifice my health to get there. Right now, I am as healthy as an ox despite your assertion to the contrary. Sure, my body composition could use some more muscle, but I'm working on that. In just the past six months, I've grown more muscle mass than I EVER have in my entire life. I'm proud of this and know it will continue henceforth. I'm not just a member of a gym, but I have a personal trainer guiding me each week about proper form and technique with my lifting. If I was a lazy slob who didn't stay committed to my workouts and exercise routine, then I could see you stating I wasn't "working hard enough." But quite frankly you don't have a clue what you are talking about.
Again, congrats on the weight loss, but you need to stop making excuses and face your own issue: get more dedicated to exercise and ditch the unhealthy fad diet. The human body needs carbs to fuel all of our organs, which includes the skin (the largest organ) and brain.
What a birdbrain! I've never made any excuses for the way I look. My pursuit has always been to become better and better as the years go by. Nobody is gonna argue that I looked better and was healthier at 410 pounds four plus years ago than I am right now. And I challenge anyone to tell me I'm not exercising enough for what my body needs to get stronger, more conditioned, and burn calories. Could I do a little more cardio than I do now? Sure, but the scientific evidence behind it is shaky at best. My focus is on the resistance training, but I get in several hours of cardio a week in the form of basketball, volleyball, and other recreational competitive sports events that are a part of my life. As for the "body need carbs" BS that keeps coming up over and over and over (did I mention "over"?) again and again, I simply point you to my latest YouTube video on gluconeogenesis.
Okay, I feel much better now. :D But one of my readers named Melinda who is NOT a low-carber and lost a significant amount of weight on a low-calorie diet saw this comment from the anonymous anti-loose-skin, anti-low-carb, anti-Jimmy-Moore person and decided to give her a piece of her mind about what she thought about it. You gotta LOVE this:
Alright this just peeves me off. I can't believe how people can come down on someone's success. Jimmy came ages from where he was and achieved something most people only dream about.
No matter what diet you use to achieve weight loss, you can end up with loose skin. It's just a matter of fact. I get tired of hearing people spout off about how working out harder at the gym can "take care" of the extra skin.
I've lost 175 pounds by calorie counting and exercise (no I did not follow the low-carb diet) and I am plagued with loose skin. I am 24 years old and NO I am not still overweight. If I lost any more weight, people would assume I was anorexic.
I am 5'5" tall and currently weigh 120 pounds. Slabs of skin are on my stomach, arms, legs, thighs...heck, even my breasts could use some serious help. Was it because I didn't "try" hard enough, or that I did something wrong? Um...no, it's not!
So stop bagging on people. I just get mad that other people can be such a**holes. Sorry Jimmy. Congrats on all your weight loss. You're amazing.
This is why I don't ever have to respond to negative blog comments like these that come my way. There are plenty of people like Melinda willing to tell 'em off for me. THANKS Melinda! Something tells me you'd probably tell that anonymous commenter a thing or two to his face if you had the chance. I appreciate your support and CONGRATULATIONS on your own weight loss success, too. :)
As for the anonymous commenter, I welcome your criticisms anytime. But how about coming out from behind your computer screen and sharing with us your name and contact information so an open discussion can ensue? Plus, if you have what you believe are the answers to obesity, then why not share them in a blog? I'd be happy to post about it at my blog so that others can see what you have to say. This isn't a competition about seeing who's diet or fitness routine is better. We're all on the same side trying to help people start to care about their health. These kind of needless "drive-by comment" attacks are totally unnecessary. SHOW YOURSELF and be proud of what you have to say.
My blog post about continuing to deal with loose skin following my 190-pound low-carb weight loss has certainly lit a fire in many of you who have shared your heart about this subject in e-mails to me today. I appreciate the well wishes and messages of support for me as I contemplate having the skin removal surgery.
Many of the naysayers have made their point already, so let's see some reaction from others from my e-mail box today:
Dear Jimmy,
I've been reading and listening to your podcasts for a little while now, and the first thing that I wanted to say is, "Thanks!" It's so refreshing to hear some inspirational, educational, and edifying conversation about eating low-carb.
My main reason for writing is the issue of your loose skin, and particularly that rather rude email that you received about how everything would basically be cured if you just lost more weight. I've seen with my own eyes that weight-loss is not a cure-all for loose skin, no matter how skinny a person gets.
A few years ago, my mama had a gastric bypass. She became terribly ill, to the point where it was nearly fatal. She lost so much weight that she began to look downright skeletal, and her skin began breaking down to feed her body. My poor mama erupted in rashes all over, as her body was starving to death. It's hard to get much skinnier that she was, while still being alive.
Thankfully, my mama was able to get enough emergency treatment that she recovered...mostly. It's ironic that she began feeling depressed about not losing weight, and is now struggling to keep enough weight on to LIVE. Through all of that though, even getting down to such a dramatically unhealthy weight- she still has loose skin. While the skin on her legs was able to pull tight, she is still left with a lot of loose skin on her belly.
Truly, there is just so far that the elastic nature of skin will go before it looses it's ability to spring back. Some people have more elastin in their skin, and maybe that is why some people have more "luck" with loose skin than other people do.
Still, there isn't much that a person can do about this, and that is why I just felt compelled to write. Please don't let it get to you too much when folks focus so much on the remaining 20 lbs like it is a magic cure-all, instead of simply being supportive of the great things you have done in taking care of your body.
You HAVE done a great good for yourself, and in encouraging other people. Please try to always remember that- whether dressed in a suit, or with your shirt off. *grins*
Nah, people don't bother me when they share their opinions. I politely nod my head, thank them for sharing, and then move on with my life as I have already planned. That's not to say I can't be swayed, but I'm pretty firm in most of my beliefs and getting this loose skin issue resolved is one of them.
You published an e-mail you got from a doctor's wife, who said that according to your BMI you are still obese, and in danger of terrible disease due to that.
While I agree that being overweight can contribute to many diseases, and is the cause of many diseases, I'm convinced that those of us who are living a low carb lifestyle, even though we have much weight to lose, are less likely to get those dire diseases and complications (i.e. diabetes and heart disease) because we are eating healthful foods, we have eliminated the junk that causes the health problems.
Doesn't it make more sense that it's the food we are currently eating that affects our health much more than the fat on our body? I'm not saying that being overweight is good; I'm just thinking that we don't need to be so afraid of these diseases as long as we stick to our way of eating, regardless of what we weigh at the moment.
The 300-pound man who is eating good quality protein, fresh vegetables, drinking lots of water is surely much healthier than his counterpart who weighs the same, but is eating fast food every day, skipping breakfast, drinking sugary sodas instead of water, etc.
Even though you have more to lose, you've taken control of your diet, you eat wholesome foods, you've gotten rid of the junk in your diet - so, you are bound to be much healthier than the person who is at his perfect weight eating doughnuts and Big Macs, wouldn't you say?
People are so bad about judging our health based on our weight, rather than looking at the entire picture. They assume that, because we are overweight, we are prediabetic, on the verge of a heart attack, and have clogged arteries, when, in fact, many of us are the healthiest that we have been in years. We've cleared up our acne, have fewer arthritis problems, our nails and hair are healthy, we have more energy! All thanks to our low carb eating habits.
Thanks for you blog. You are providing a great service for many who are new to this lifestyle, and helped those of us who have been committed to it for a long while to stick with it.
EXCELLENT points to ponder in this debate over how obesity is measured. Getting back to the loose skin issue, a reader named Kevin left a comment on my blog stating:
Jimmy, my personal (admittedly unprofessional) take on this is that you need to have the skin removed, and you should stop beating your body up by tring to lose more weight. You know that the extra weight is all that skin, don't make more of a mystery out of it than it is. For whatever reason, the fat under the skin won't come off by dietary means, so don't try to make it.
Meanwhile, your body cannot reach a proper metabolic balance with all that "mass" still hanging around - the body's "metabolic balance guage" is confused by it. That is my intuitive guess. It scares me to hear you talk about pushing your body to more weight loss, when you know that that's not really the problem. Just my humble opinion.
Your thoughts mirror mine exactly, Kevin. I appreciate your concern which is why I'm doing what I can to attain my dream of having it removed. Another reader had a similar sentiment to share with me on this touchy subject of loose skin:
Hey Jimmy!
I have been a low carber for about 8 years and, of course, am lovin' it! During each of my pregnancies, I gained 45 lbs., keeping in mind that I am 5 feet nothing, short waisted and started each pregnancy at about 105 lbs. My first son weighed 11 lbs and subsequently left me with a lot of loose skin.
Even when I lost all my pregnancy weight and got back down to 105 lbs, I still had loose skin. There was no way in this world that my skin would have ever shrunk back, even at my ideal weight. At one point I tried to get down to 95 lbs. and STILL had the loose skin. So no one can tell me that it will shrink back, because it just won't.
It might have gotten a little better, but it was still there. It has bothered me so much over the years that I saved my money and just recently had a tummy tuck. It has been a rough recovery, but I now have a nice flat tummy like before I got pregnant. I am so happy with the results. I would do it over in a heartbeat. Hang in there Jimmy and save your pennies!
I have heard many similar stories from people who have had a tummy tuck to deal with their loose skin. I WILL do it and try to keep at my weight loss attempts, too. All of this discussion would be for naught if I gained the weight back, so staying committed to my weight will insure that I'll be ready when the time comes to have the skin removed at last. I CAN'T WAIT!
THANKS to everyone for letting it all hang out on this loose skin after weight loss debate. Feel free to chime in with your comments by leaving them here at my blog or e-mailing me at livinlowcarbman@charter.net.
1-23-07 UDPATE: Here's an extremely well-written response to the loose skin issue from someone who had gone through it personally.
I was killing some time at work today and I stumbled across your blog. I used to weigh approximately 250 pounds when I was in college. A year after I graduated, I had dropped to 135. It was a hell of an accomplishment, but I had the same exact problem you're facing. Loose skin.
I went to see the doctor about it, and I didn't really get a lot of answers. The simple truth is that the phenomenon of people losing this much weight is relatively new (because the phenomenon of people getting as ungodly fat as a lot of us still do is relatively new too). I got the standard "it may repair itself, it may not" answer that you can find all over the internet, and he suggested weight training as a way of improving my body image.
I bought myself a body fat monitoring scale and decided to get to work. The first weighing showed I was still in the high 20s body fat percentage wise. I have to admit, I was pretty shocked it was still that high, but apparently a lot of my weight loss had come from lean mass.
My workout regimen started with weight lifting -- I thought the quickest and easiest way to fill out the loose skin would be to bulk up. It was actually incredibly difficult to do psychologically. I taught myself that gaining weight was bad, when that was exactly what I had to do to improve my situation.
I started with a ten pound set of dumbells I bought at Walmart, and did a lot of research on the "right" exercises. It was pretty surprising how soon I started noticing results -- it was barely a month later that I had to buy a heavier set.
In the meantime, I had bought my first house (at age 23 -- not bad). The property quickly started appreciating in value, and once I qualified for a home equity loan, I started considering the "body lift" procedure. I had gone in for consultations, gotten a quote, and an assurance that at my young age, I'd look phenomenal after healing from the surgery.
Still, I'm very nervous about surgery of any type. I have a rather extreme phobia of needles, so I made a bargain with myself that I'd first make an all-out attempt to get rid of as much loose skin as possible through exercise, and only after I stopped seeing any kind of measurable result would I consider spending the $10,000 for the surgery.
I took the challenge seriously. I bought and assembled a home gym, got a weight bench, a diverse set of weights, started reading exercise machines and doing research. My weight went back up to 150, but my body fat percentage actually decreased into the low twenties, and eventually the high teens. The loose skin didn't disappear, but it had gotten noticably tighter. Seeing the results were just as addicting as the initial weight loss was.
Just last year, I moved north to Boston. When I got here, I joined a gym and stepped things up. My weight is now up to 160, and my bodyfat has slipped even further down. The thickness of the loose skin has decreased significantly. The most noticable change has been in my arms -- I once had that disgusting "old lady arm flap" problem, but now the skin has tightened there to the point where I can actually see the shape of the muscle underneath. They look phenomenal when I'm working out (which is when your fat starts dissolving into the bloodstream and muscle size is its biggest), which just makes me want to push harder. I'm far stronger than I ever was, which is terrific. And I can actually start seeing the outline of my abdominal muscles, which is incredibly thrilling.
I don't look perfect, but I still have hope. Three years after making that first visit to the plastic surgeon, my skin is still tightening by the day. My goal by the summer is to gain another 10 pounds of mass, finally hit that 10% body fat mark, and to reassess my progress then. I log in over an hour at the gym about five or six times a week.
My eating habits are getting pretty crazy now -- where I once had to limit what I ate, now I have to eat almost as much food as I did when I was fat. I haven't eliminated carbs completely from my diet, but I'm a lot more conscious about how badly some foods will spike my blood sugar levels. Mostly, it's high protein foods -- I can't gain muscle mass unless I have an uncomfortably agressive intake of protein (just one of the things I've learned about myself over the past few years).
I doubt I'll ever be able to completely rid myself of as much excess skin as I want, but I refuse to give up until I've proven to myself that I can't.
Good luck to you on whatever route you choose. I'll let you know how mine turns out.
Eenie meanie miney moe! Which way will I go? Workout like a fiend or go under the knife? Hmmm...
I'm well on my way to my biggest month of traffic ever at the "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" blog expected to shatter 100,000 pageviews for the month of January 2007 before the end of this week. WOO HOO! THANK YOU to everyone who has visited my blog day in and day out over the past few weeks for this commemorative moment.
It's exciting that I will very likely surpass 1,000,000 pageviews by March 2007, less than two years since I began this little blog about my low-carb weight loss. WOWsers! What a moment that will be and I'm looking to celebrate in a big way. More on that later.
As has become a regular feature lately, I'd like to address a series of this and that low-carb tidbits that have caught my eye in the past week. THANK YOU to everyone who has shared just a piece of your life with me and I read every single e-mail that comes my way. Feel free to join the action by e-mailing livinlowcarbman@charter.net. You WILL hear from me with a personal response if you do.
Here's a little of what I've seen this week:
A regular reader of my blog read this blog post about my weight loss stalling out lately in my "30-In-30" Low-Carb Weight Loss Challenge felt compelled to encourage me. I most certainly was because she made some very good points about what I am doing by sharing these struggles. Check out out!
"I just read your blog entry about zero weight loss--hang in there, Jimmy Actually, I'm glad you're not losing weight. Guess why? Because that is so typical of so many of us on Atkins (don't stop reading--this will get better!).
Your 180-pound-in-one-year weight loss was great. But most of us get on the Atkins plan and don't lose anywhere near that much, and certainly not that quickly. The weight comes off in dribs and drabs and sometimes those plateaus look like we'll be stuck there forever. So why not cheat just a little bit? Or why not just forget the whole thing?
One of your great gifts, Jimmy, is that you are real. I know you will figure out how to reach your goal, and in the process, bring along a host of other people for whom Atkins is a challenge, but a doable challenge. Thanks for being there!"
THANKS so much for those inspiring words. One thing I try to do here at my blog and in my book is be very honest about my own experience--sometimes brutally so. That's intentional and I wouldn't have it any other way. People need to know what they are getting themselves into and I don't mind sharing the good, bad, and ugly with them from my perspective.
That's just who I am and I won't change just to try to make livin' la vida low-carb more artificially attractive. There's enough positive about this lifestyle that people don't need me to embellish it in any way. The results speak for themselves!
Speaking of positive, there's an excellent column about sticking with your New Year's resolutions over the long haul in this Los Angeles Times, but it is somewhat ruined by the following ridiculous quote from a psychotherapist named Jonathan Alpert who wrote the column:
"Though promises of dramatic weight loss via the Atkins diet or diet pills are enticing, they don't speak to the moments when decisions are made — the times of stress, loneliness or boredom when one is most likely to reach for the Pringles or Häagen-Dazs."
There are real people out there who are hurting and looking for answers. Look at what this person wrote to me in a desperate plea for help.
Hi,
I am 100 pounds overweight and I don't know what to do. I have no willpower at night and dread each day in this body. It takes a lot of energy to be "fat." Only, I don't lose the weight and just cannot believe this is ME.
I used to take good care of myself and am now getting concerned for my life. Can I share my daily diet dilemma with you?
Please let me know.
I wrote this person back encouraging her to please share her story with me further and that I'd be happy to help. So far, she has not responded, but I am hopeful she continues to reach out to do something about her weight and health while there is still time. If that person is reading this right now, PLEASE DON'T DELAY! Start livin' la vida low-carb TODAY! It'll be the best thing you could EVER do.
One of the most popular topics of interest at my blog is the subject of loose skin. After I blogged about it again this week, the response was quite eclectic.
Here was a PRO response I received:
Hi Jimmy...
I've been reading your blog for quite some time and really enjoy it. While I don't adhere to a strict low carb diet, I do watch the overall carb intake. When I was in my late teens (18/19 yrs old) i weighed 325 lbs. :-( Through diet and exercise I lost 200 lbs and have kept it off for 5 yrs now.
Anyway, just like you I have the loose skin issue to deal with now. It's really upsetting actually. I would love to have surgery but I can't afford it--that is the only thing holding me back otherwise i'd get it done in a heartbeat. My extreme weight loss was definitely worth it but now I feel like a deflated balloon - it's been so hard on me emotionally so I can definitely relate to your latest post on your loose skin.
For me, it's been like 5 years and while the skin on my upper arms has tighted up and I no longer have the Bat-Wing look going on, my tummy and thighs are saggy...it's horrible to be a 25-year-old woman with the body of an 85 year old! Arrrrrgh. I know I'll get surgery one day...even though now it seems like it'll never happen.
Anyhow, congrats on your weight loss and thank you so much for your blog. Its informative and i like reading the personal stories too. :)
THANKS for the note. But, there were some CON responses:
Hi Jimmy,
Please don't get surgery done. It's dangerous.
I'd just like to tell you that the loose skin DOES firm up. I'm about your height (6'3---give or take) and when I was at 220, I had the loose skin on the inner thighs/stomach/etc.
Fact is: unless you've got an unusually high amount of muscle...220 is still too heavy for guys our height. I'm about 202 now and the issue is greatly reduced.
Have faith. Drop some more weight and it will tighten up. With your iron discipline, it should be a cinch.
I'm still not buying it, but I am trying to lose another 20 pounds. So the jury is still out. I'm not holding my breath that things will change much because the skin just hangs and droops with stretch marks. EWWW!
Switching gears a bit, some of you have concerns about soy, but have you seen the latest research about it reducing the risk of ovarian cancer? Here's the study:
A study published in the January 8, 2007 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology finds that soy foods may lower the risk for ovarian cancer. Dietary factors and incidence of ovarian cancer were analyzed among 97,275 women from the California Teachers Study cohort. Those who consumed 3 milligrams of isoflavones (a phytoestrogen found in soy foods) per day had a 44 percent lower risk than women who consumed less than 1 milligram. There was no significant evidence linked to any other foods or nutrients with ovarian cancer risk.
What do you think about this? I know soy is quite controversial among low-carbers. So, does this new evidence strengthen your support for it or change your mind if you opposed it? Why or why not? I'd love to know what you think!
On a lighter note, one of my readers had an idea for me he enthusiastically wanted to share. Here's what he wrote:
Here's an idea for you--maybe a "Best Of Livin' La Vida Low-Carb" articles collection? What do you think? Keep up the good work, Mr. Moore!
Actually, it's funny I got this e-mail because I had been thinking of making this my second book in celebration of my millionth pageview. While it sounds like an easy book, it would still take compiling the best of the 1,500+ blog posts I have written over the past two years and adding some background information to make the book worthwhile to my readers.
I suppose my questions to you are: 1) Would you buy a book like this and find it useful as a reference tool?, and 2) How many posts should it include if I do decide to do this book? I was thinking maybe the top 100 posts and I'm willing to take your ideas for which ones should DEFINITELY be included among that list. Feel free to e-mail me your feedback at livinlowcarbman@charter.net.
Getting back to the e-mails, here's an intriguing one from a very regular reader.
I have taken antidepressant medication (SSRI's or SNRI's) for 20 years now with great success (geez, can it be this long? since they invented Prozac, ca. 1987). There are no apparent side effects with this medication (EffexorXR 150mg/d) as far as daily life is concerned, though the psychiatrist who dispenses them to me explained that the drug is likely responsible for the last 30-40lbs. of weight gain I incurred about seven years ago – and also explained that the drug can make weight loss quite difficult.
The medication is not in question here, but my tendency to be depressive is. Yesterday I started back on Induction to get control over my sloppy low-carb pattern during the past few months. This morning in church some depression and anxiety fell upon me during the service, a situation that normally feels supportive and uplifting, and is continuing with me this afternoon.
I don't remember if I felt this during previous induction initialization periods, but my guess would be that going back on induction might well reduce my serotonin levels in a "new" environment of reduced carbohydrate intake. It's been a while since I invoked a strict Iduction period. The body does have to adjust, doesn't it? (and the mind as well, I suppose). It may be several days before I feel full of energy with normal mood, right? If nothing else, I can tell I'm already in mild ketosis through the feel in my mouth. That didn't take long!
Who knows, as a naturally depressive person, maybe the reason I've tended to be fat since I was 6 is my attempt to self-medicate with carbohydrates in the same way an alcoholic self-medicates with alcohol to mediate psychic pain. Just thinking...
Since I have never suffered from depression myself per se (my wife Christine take Paxil for her condition), I can certainly see how some people are more susceptible to it than others. We're all wired differently, so naturally our bodies react in different ways to various circumstances.
I encouraged my reader to seek natural ways to improve his serotonin levels like eating dark chocolate (like the delicious sugar-free ones from ChocoPerfection) and other stress-relieving techniques. It certainly doesn't hurt to do what you can to make your low-carb lifestyle as comfortable as you can until your body gets used to it. Again, I don't fully understand depression, but acknowledge it exists for some. Be encouraged that YOU are not alone. :)
It seems one of my newer readers just discovered this blog post I wrote a few months ago asking whether I looked like an obese man since my BMI shows that I am. Here was her shocking e-mail to and about me (you're not gonna believe it!):
Erm, you DO look overweight, Jimmy. Those pictures of you with your shirt off show the droopy skin. But front to back and side to side, you look overweight. My husband, who is a physician, experiences this all the time in his office. Parents come in worrying that their kid is too skinny, but by the charts the child is normal weight or slightly overweight. We've just gotten so used to Americans being fat that we no longer see what we're seeing.
My husband (the doctor) doesn't listen to his own advice and now has diabetes. It's not a good condition to have. Your body doesn't care how fat every other American is. It cares how fat YOU are. Jimmy, you already know how to lose the weight. Please quit rationalizing and just do it. Please?
OUCH! You know I had to respond:
WOW, that's what I call brutal honesty! LOL! Hmmm, pondering over your comments, I'm quite intrigued. I agree that people's perceptions about themselves are skewed downward in America, but if you saw me in person I think you would have a different take.
My arms are very skinny and you can see the bones in my hands! EWWW! My collarbone couldn't be more visible and I feel FANTASTIC!
All of that notwithstanding, I acknowledge I need to lose some more weight which is why I started my "30-In-30" and have set a goal to get down to 199. Is that gonna be low enough for my 6'3" body, Marilyn? Should I keep pushing for the recommended "normal" BMI weight of 165-170? That seems extreme to me.
I ask all of this truly out of sincere curiosity about what you think. So, if I'm "fat" now, then what weight will I no longer be fat? :) THANKS for the engaging conversation.
Here was her response back to me:
A little known truth--even a fat guy looks good in a good suit! But those pictures of you with your clothes off (eeek!) tell the story. Your arms may be sticks, but what counts is the fat around your belly.
When we lose weight, we don't do it uniformly over the whole body. In women, the last areas to release their fat are usually the hips and thighs. That presents no particular problem other than appearance. In men, however, the last area to release its fat is the abdomen, and that IS a problem. The technical term for it is truncal obesity.
Do a Google search for truncal obesity. Two of the articles you will find are here and here. There is quite a bit of medical terminology to deal with in these articles, but the take-home message is that you have an elevated BMI, kind of squirrelly bloodwork, and the type of fat distribution that puts you at risk for cardiovascular disease and Type II diabetes.
How much weight should you lose? If you're a female nurse and have a BMI of 25, you have 5 times the likelihood of developing Type II diabetes than if you're a female nurse and have a BMI of 21. If you're a female nurse and have a BMI above 30, your risk of developing Type II diabetes is 28 times higher. At a BMI of 35, it's 93 times higher. (Weight Gain as a Risk Factor for Clinical Diabetes Mellitus in Women, Annals of Internal Medicine (1995), Volume 122, Issue 7, pages 481-6)
There are all sorts of issues with the validity of BMI. There are all sorts of issues with cholesterol levels. And since you're neither female nor a nurse, the statistics in the article I just cited don't apply to you. But I'd suggest that you read the truncal obesity articles and think about them. Only you can decide what weight is right for you. But I'd like to know that you've considered all the factors before you decide that losing 20 more pounds plus some loose skin will be enough.
Shoot, I don't know. Reaching a BMI of 25 certainly isn't going to hurt you. Even if you get that loose skin removed, you won't fall below a BMI of 18!
You might measure your waist-to-hip ratio, check out what is a good level of risk that you could live with, and then lose weight to whatever that measurement is. It would be nice if "spot reduction" worked, but it doesn't!
There is obviously a lot of material for you to absorb from that PDF article and a lot of risk factors for you to consider. And you now have contacts in the nutritional/medical community to help guide your thinking.
Not a simple answer or a simple number, but I've given you enough blogging material to last for a very long time!
That you have and I'm listening to what you have to say. Let's just put it this way. If I lost the 20 pounds I am trying to right now to reach 199 AND get the tummy tuck surgery removing another 20-25 pounds or so of skin, then I will weight about 175-180 on my 6'3" body. That would be WELL within what ANYONE would consider "normal" (or even BELOW normal in the perception of most people!). I'll hit that 1-9-9 and then we'll go from there.
My reader wrote me one more time (long conversation we had!):
All of these would suggest that a weight of 185-195 for a 6'3" man is probably a reasonable number. Not that far from your goal of 199 pounds. I think the concern I expressed previously arises from a feeling that you have convinced yourself that it's okay to hover between 220 and 240 and are relying on a dream of surgery to take you down to 199. I could well be wrong about that, though.
Yep, you are. I have and will continue to strive for 199 and then will consider the skin removal surgery. We'll see how all this progresses in 2007.
I have noticed quite a bit of new visitor traffic lately from people who found my article about Manuel Uribe, the man who used to weigh over a half ton who is now livin' la vida low-carb. His story has been featured prominently in the media over the past few weeks and my blog post is at the top search results when you do a Google search for "Manuel Uribe."
Here's what one reader wrote to me when he found me:
Hello,
I was so intrigued by your blog you wrote regarding Manuel Uribe.
I have a doctor who tells me that my health problems are from being overweight. However, he doesn't suggest any change or help me in any way.
I am 431 pounds and I want so much to "live again". I'm only 54 this year and I have been on disability for almost 9 years. My left knee is almost gone and my right knee is starting to really give me trouble.
Can you give me a suggestion as where to start so that I can shed at least 200 pounds? I have been thinking Lap Band surgery but I don't know if Medicare will cover that. Thank you for your time! God bless you.
It's a sad commentary that many doctors are overlooking obesity and simply want to treat the conditions that arise out of weight issues rather than the source of the problem itself. All that does is lead people like this to feel helpless and hopeless like nothing will ever work for them. It's such a shame people like this look to LAP-BAND and ignore livin' la vida low-carb.
But I reached back to this person with some hope:
THANKS so much for writing to me today. Let me tell you how proud I am of your courage to admit you are in a spot you don't want to be in. That's an all-important first step to getting the weight gone and getting healthy.
I used to weigh an unhealthy 410 pounds in 2004 and as able to lose 190 pounds by following the Atkins/low-carb approach. While Manuel Uribe and myself have found success on this way of eating, I certainly encourage you to do what you feel like you can stick with over the long haul.
Go read a book about low-carb first and learn what this way of eating is all about. That's a vital first step before you try implementing any changes. Then follow that plan exactly as prescribed. Finally, keep doing that plan for the rest of your life.
YOU CAN DO THIS! It's not too late to do something about your health and I urge you to make this commitment serious and GO FOR IT! It will change your life forever just like it has for me. God bless you, my friend.
Please contact me anytime you have any questions or concerns. Take care!
Finally, I was thrilled to see the following comment from a regular reader of my columns posted at my sister site CarbWire:
Hey Jimmy, been following you via Carbwire now for quite some time and today is the day I decided to finally do something about my weight. I'm going to join the low carb revolution! Ireally enjoy your podcasts too! Keep up the good work!
YIPPEE! YAHOO! WHEEEEE!!! That's so awesome! Can you tell I'm excited?! :D This is a remarkable way to live a happy and healthy life, I can't imagine why EVERYONE wouldn't at least try it once to see how it could improve their life like it has mine. CONGRATULATIONS on making this fateful decision to begin low-carb!
That's all for now from my e-mail box, but I'm always here to offer a listening ear or a helping hand to you as you are livin' la vida low-carb! Please don't hesitate to e-mail me your questions and comments and I promise to respond as soon as possible. So let me hear from you, okay? Talk to you soon!
1-22-07 UPDATE: The feedback to this post has been flooding in. Here's just a little:
Hi--great blog!!!
One comment on the whole soy issue--as a breast cancer survivor, I've researched many supplements and foods that are healthy for women. It is unclear, but very possible, that soy consumption increases the effects of estrogen levels which causes breast cancer in many cases (including mine).
Both soy and flax are among those supplements that might increase estrogen's effects (especially for women on birth control pills or taking hormone replacement therapy). Women wanting more info can visit BreastCancer.org.
Just thought I'd throw that out there as a caution. Keep up the great work and healthy blog :)
THANKS for the info! Another one of my readers agrees that I've still got fat to lose and that I should avoid having the skin removal surgery that I want to have done. Here's what she wrote:
Dear Jimmy,
I hate to be brutally honest, but I'm afraid I have to agree with the doctor's wife who made so many brutally honest comments about your excess skin. I've seen lots of shows on the Discovery Channel of people who have had the surgery to have excess skin removed after losing 100 or more pounds. One woman had lost about 400 lbs after having a stomach reduction, and she had a tremendous amount of "excess skin" on her trunk, legs and arms.
I put the words "excess skin" in quotes, because when they cut into her "skin", they had to keep cutting, down, and down and down. About 4 inches deep, the doctor says "When we get down the the fascia, we'll see how much weight she's really lost". (The fascia is the thin membrane that separates your skin layer from the organs underneath) Now, we already know how much weight she'd lost - somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 lbs. What he was trying to avoid saying on camera, since he knew she'd be watching it later, was more along the lines of "We know she's lost 400 lbs, but when we get through all the subcutaneous fat that's still here, we'll be able to see thorugh the fascia and know whether her organs are still surrounded by pockets of fat".
He ended up taking a strip of "skin" off of her that was about 6 or 7 inches thick. I'm sorry, but that wasn't all skin! You could SEE that there was a thin layer of skin as he cut into her, but the yellowish stuff he kept cutting down through to get to the fascia was fat.
Try this little experiment. Using your fingers, pinch up the skin on the back of your hand. It's maybe an eighth of an inch thick, right? That's how thick actual skin IS, pretty much over your entire body. Now, pinch the skin on your belly. Can you even get ahold of a thin layer on your belly like on your hand? If you can pinch more than that on your belly, or your legs, you're not pinching just skin, you're pinching fat too. To be fair, there's actually a thin layer of fat under the skin on your hands too. No matter how thin your hands are now.
If you had as little fat under the skin on your midsection as you do on your hands, you'd be literally nothing but a skeleton with muscle and a few organs under your skin. We all have some fat under the skin, it's just a matter of how much there is. Remember the old "pinch an inch" commercials? How much do you pinch when you pinch your belly skin? Unless you have a very odd pocket of air around your midsection, that is indeed fat on there. You're not going to get rid of ALL of it no matter how much weight you lose, unless you literally starve yourself to death.
As brutally honest as it may be, and as sorry as I am to have to agree with the doctor's wife, what you have around your midsection isn't just skin. I hope you don't take this as some sort of "Let's bash Jimmy Moore" rant. On the contrary, you've done a tremendous job of losing a huge amount of weight, and you've even managed to lose more of it in the last few months. Both accomplishments are very worthy of commendation - you've done remarkably well! Congratulations!
But like the doctor's wife, I have to agree that you still need to lose more. I don't know so much about the stuff she was quoting about your continued risk for diabetes and heart disease at that particular BMI, especially given your low carb diet that isn't likely to ever raise your blood sugar high enough to qualify you as a diabetic and the blood workup that showed you had fluffy LDL, but there is still more there that you could lose. Getting down to the 185-195 range might be a little too low though, I don't know. I think mostly the BMI and ideal height-weight charts have figures that are far too low for anyone who has an ounce of muscle on thier bodies.
Speaking of muscle, I know from reading your posts that you do time on the elliptical machine or treadmill just about every day. But what about resistance training? You say your arms are downright skinny, which indicates to me that you don't have a lot of muscle in your arms and possibly not in your shoulders, judging by the photos on your site, but that may depend a lot on how large your frame is--if you're small framed and actually have a lot of arm and shoulder muscle, please forgive me for speaking of that which I know nothing about.
But that's not really what it looks like to me, so I'll continue on, just in case it does apply. You know of course that muscle takes a lot more energy to maintain than fat does--I don't mean just maintenance time on the resistance machines, but as far as how many calories it uses. (even though we don't count calories on low carb, it's still somewhat of a factor in our weight loss)
You're a guy too - and guys find it a lot easier to build lots of arm and shoulder muscle than females do. So in theory, it should be easy for you to stick to the low carb eating plan you've been using for the last few years, and lose a lot of the weight around your middle just by building up your upper body muscle. This may cause you to actually gain weight initially (muscle weighs more than fat), but as you build muscle, it'll maintain itself on the protein you eat, and body fat will need to be converted to glycogen to cover the rest of your caloric needs.
You're probably thinking that your legs are strong enough and you don't need to build up your leg muscles, but treadmills and elipticals only go so far to build leg muscles. Depending on your walking style, the treadmill and eliptical may actually build buttock muscles a lot more than leg muscles. So you could even do some of the leg muscle building resistance machines, if you don't already, because the more muscle you can build on your body, the more calories your body will take to maintain that muscle, hence the more calories it will need to take from fat stores to keep you going.
The general rule of thumb when it comes to muscle building is that you work the same sets of muscles only every couple of days, not every day, but if you go more than 3 days without working those muscles, you're losing ground. A little bit of discomfort between workouts means that you've damaged the muscles, but that damage is a good thing, because as the muscle works to repair itself, it builds more muscle. A little damage to those muscles is a good thing, lots of damage isn't--I don't want you to be in serious pain!
Sorry this is so long, and I'm really not trying to be rude by agreeing with the doctor's wife. Just putting in my own 2 cents, based on the things I've seen.
With the greatest respect for someone who shows us daily what low carb is all about--THANK YOU!
Again, I can appreciate where all of these comments are coming from and rest assured I am already in the process of working on losing more body fat as I resolved to do at the beginning of the year and to increase my resistance training which I admit tailed off in 2006. THANK YOU for caring enough to share this with me. I'm a big boy, so I can take criticism. Bash away! :D
Speaking of that woman who said I had more weight to lose before I even think about having an abdominoplasty, she responded today as well:
Whoa! Lots of blogging done last night! So you are going to try to lose more weight? Great! This is ONE time I'm glad to be wrong! (Don't tell my husband I ever said that!!!) Happy Monday!
THANK YOU again for your comments because I'm taking them in the manner they were intended. If you didn't care, you wouldn't have said a word!
Finally, I got an awesome first-time comment from a new reader who has yet another perspective on this who obese vs. skinny debate. Check this out:
Dear Jimmy,
I have been reading your blog for the last three months since I started the low-carb way of eating. Not until today have I felt the need to talk to you, but I could not let today's post go by without comment. I refer to the email that expressed an opinion that you were still "fat."
Frankly, I don't think it is anyone else's business but yours. No one knows what it is like to be in your skin. No one knows how hard you have worked to lose the last 180lbs AND KEEP IT OFF!!!
You may choose to lose more weight, or you may not--it is entirely up to you. All I know is you are healthier today than you were when you carried all that extra weight, and what you have achieved you should be, and CONTINUE TO BE, proud of.
I have never been morbidly obese, but I have been overweight--20kg heavier than I am today. I am sure that the same person who pointed out your imperfections would probably think I could still lose some more weight.
Even though I am now in the "healthy" weight range, I still have visible fat on my hips and thighs. Others, of course, encourage me to eat all those processed carbs because I am "too skinny" now anyway. No one knows what it is like to be in my skin so it's no one's business but my own.
I want to shift those last 5 kilos so I have spent the last 4 weeks with carbs under 20g a day, calories around 1200 and exercising like a madwoman and for my efforts I have lost .6kg - I think that is ONE POUND!!!
But I take solace in the fact that the same happens to you and you never give up. You know what you want and you working towards it every day. I celebrate that the scales are at least going down without hunger and deprivation.
Life is an adventure, a challenge, exhilarating and disappointing. Our bodies belong to us, and we choose what we do with them. You and me Jimmy, we're doing the right thing!! Let's keep it up--and let THEM eat cake!!! All the best.
LOL! I LOVE this person's perspective on this. It's what I've said before--I AM healthier than I've ever been and I am VERY proud of what I have been able to do about my weight. Why else would I put myself out there day in and day out talking about this sensitive subject?
We need people to stop enabling the overweight and obese to continue in their same bad habits time and time again. If we can get people to at the very least to do SOMETHING about their obesity even if they don't get all of the fat off their body, then we would be doing a lot better as a country with this epidemic, don't ya think?
Just a little more to ponder as you start this new week. :) Oh happy day!
1-22-07 UPDATE: Carol at "Kudos For Low Carb" had a comment about strength building that contradicts what someone else had sent to me. Here's her comments:
Hi Jimmy,
I just wanted to make a comment on the following from a letter you received:
"The general rule of thumb when it comes to muscle building is that you work the same sets of muscles only every couple of days, not every day, but if you go more than 3 days without working those muscles, you're losing ground."
That part about going more than 3 days without working your muscles and you'll lose ground just is not true. I don't know who wrote that or what, if any, credentials in training that person might have but they are incorrect. I've read literally reams of material on weight training and muscle, not to mention putting what I've learned into practice.
Generally, if you're actively weight training on a regular basis of at least two 30 minute sessions a week and you're making progress, you can take a break of 3 to 6 weeks and not lose muscle strength or size. And I have the log book to prove it. I've had to take long breaks, (once four months during pregnancy,) due to illness or injury and came back to lift even heavier than my last session right out of the gate.
As long as you're healthy (have no muscle diseases), eat adequate protein and remain otherwise active, you won't lose ground if you take short breaks from strength training. Many people find their muscles need a longer recovery period between sessions than the usual recommendations of two or three days for maximum results.
I know you have issues with strength training. You're not alone, many folks dislike it. Some people seem to have an allergy to iron and steel. ;) You might want to consider some alternative strength training approaches such as isometrics, Pilates, or Bar Method, which build muscle without free weights or weight machines. Also, the book 'YOU: On A Diet' has an effective strength building program that involves no weights, no equipment, and you can do it in your living room or anywhere. Or mix one whole body free weight or machine session a week with one or two alternative methods. Variety helps stave off boredom and lack of motivation we all deal with from time to time. And muscle adapts quickly. You really need to mix up your routine at least every 8 weeks to make optimal progress.
Studies show even elderly people as old as 90 can build muscle and strength with as little as one or two 30 minute strength training sessions a week. You're young, you should be able to achieve progress with a few short training sessions a week, which is easier than you think. A lot of people read muscle magazines or get a gung ho trainer and think they have to work out like the bodybuilding pros. That's fine too, if you have the stomach for it. But it's not necessary for good results for the average person looking to get fit.
You also might want to check out HIT or high intensity training. The program advocates less reps at higher weights and rest periods between session are a minimum of five days. Mike Mentzer was the architect of this style and built an impressive physique with it that won him a Mr. Olympia title. I've tried it and prefer it to long sessions of high repetitions.
Okay, that was more than one comment! Blah, blah, blah. I do go on. Best of Luck with your goals!
Two years after losing 180 pounds, my loose skin still haunts me
Speaking of Adro Sarnelli who won "The Biggest Loser Australia" last year, did you see this article about him and the struggle he has had dealing with all the excess, loose skin on his body following his 130-pound weight loss?
I previously blogged about his decision to have an abdominoplasty done, better known as a "tummy tuck." But now he wants to get rid of the rest of his hanging skin at an eye-popping cost of $20,000 plus recovery time off from work.
Here's why Adro decided to do this:
"It was just really disappointing to think that I lost [all that weight] and that I still had the same body that I had when I was fat," he said. "I'm actually left with a whole lot of extra skin which, in my own mind, it sort of leaves me unfinished. I have man boobs and that's something I really hate and would love to get rid of. I also have a really saggy apron area around my tummy."
So with the help of a plastic surgeon and many hours of body sculpting which includes not just a tummy tuck but also a buttock lift, a thigh lift, as well as skin removal from his chest, back, and arms, Adro will soon have a body that will LOOK like that fabulous weight loss success that he was in 2006. Everyone else has seen how good he looks, so now it's time for him to see it for himself.
The payoff was when he got to look at himself in the mirror for the first time after having "heaps" of his loose skin removed for good.
"I actually got to stand up and have a shower so I looked in the mirror and I was actually able to look down," Adro proudly exclaimed.
Now he says he feels "unreal" on the inside and out.
I couldn't be happier for Adro because I know EXACTLY how he feels. I'm right there in the same predicament, too. It's been over two years now since I lost the majority of my 190 pounds and my loose skin problem hasn't gotten any better as everyone claimed it would if you would "just give it some time." In fact, it looks like the problem has gotten even worse! MUCH WORSE!
Many of my new readers who have discovered my blog in the past few weeks have e-mailed me asking about whether I have loose skin and want to know what I am doing to handle it. In fact, here's one of those e-mails:
Dear Jimmy,
I thought I would send you an email regarding weight loss and the dreaded loose skin afterwards. After skin removal surgery, people seem to be very happy with the results. Have you had this surgery? Is loose skin really inevitable when you are very overweight? How do you limit loose skin? Does losing too fast encourage loose skin?
I'd love to know if you have ever written a blog about it. It's very discouraging losing all that weight only to be left with a whole lot of skin and where you have to stay covered up.
Well, as a matter of fact I HAVE blogged about this subject before--SEVERAL times actually. Here are a just a handful of those posts for you to check out:
So many of you have e-mailed me with your support and well wishes that I can do something about my hanging, loose skin after reading about me blog about it and in the final chapter of my book. You have encouraged me to not get discouraged or ever give up on my dream of getting the skin removal surgery done and I haven't. I KNOW it's gonna happen one of these days.
Let me just say one thing that absolutely needs to be heard loud and clear to anyone who is overweight or obese and is worried about having loose skin afterwards. Don't let this issue stop you from making the best decision of your life to lose weight and get healthy. Sure, the loose skin can be an eyesore, but it's a whole heckuva lot better than the enormous pain of being fat. There's just no comparison!
I really don't know why this issue gets people so worked up about losing weight, but it does. Some of the most popular Google searches people who are desiring weight loss put into the search engine is "loose skin after weight loss" or "how do you firm up excess skin." I'm fascinated that people worry about such things when they should be focused on getting their physical health in order first.
At the same time, if I get one more person sending me this link to check out, then I think I'll have to run in front of an 18-wheeler on the interstate! Just for the record, I don't believe much of what this guy has to say, so don't bother telling me about it okay. With all due respect, I certainly acknowledge that there is a possibility that what I think is loose skin may be excess fat that I need to lose, but I don't care at this point. I just want the skin GONE!
I'm still eating low-carb since this has become my permanent way of life and my body fat percentage has continued to drop down from over half when I used to weigh 410 pounds. I've even made reducing my body fat one of my goals for 2007. Nevertheless, now that I'm 220 pounds, I want to LOOK like I am 220 pounds. The fact is I don't like what I see every single time I look in that mirror.
Wanna see what I'm talking about for yourself? I'll warn you, it's pretty disgusting to look at and you would probably think I was showing you a picture of a fat man's body. But, no, this is me.
Shirtless on the beach looking like THIS? Not a chance!
Can you see what I'm facing here? It's incredibly frustrating because as much as I want to truly celebrate my enormous weight loss success, I can't jump for joy when I still look and feel like I'm obese! I often joke with my wife Christine playfully jiggling my former 62-inch waist that has now shrunk down to a 38-inch waist in front of her like some circus freak show. But I don't feel sexy for her and I so much in my heart want to.
It's not just my stomach, though. Look at what's "hanging" from my inner thighs. EWWWW!
There's so much skin in my thighs that they get rubbed raw
When I asked my doctor to take a look at this loose skin issue in my stomach and inner thighs, he told me quite bluntly (which I appreciated!) that the elasticity is too far gone at this point to firm up and tighten from my very large weight loss. He wrote a letter to my insurance company, but they refused to pay for it. The only remedy at this point is to live with it or get the surgery done at my own expense.
Those are my ONLY choices at this point. For now, I'll just have to learn to live with it and move on with my life (which I have). But if ever there was a dream that you wished would come true for you, that's how I feel about getting this surgery. I'm hopeful it will happen to give me that "closure" Adro was talking about.
As for those questions my reader had about the loose skin issue, here's what I think about each one of them:
Have you had this surgery?
No, but I desperately want to.
Is loose skin really inevitable when you are very overweight?
I don't think it's necessarily inevitable just because you are overweight or obese. But if you are like me and the other yo-yo dieters who have gone up and down expanding and contracting the skin so many times, I do think there is a point of no return where it is impossible to expect the skin to be firm short of surgery.
How do you limit loose skin?
Don't get fat to begin with! LOL! I know, that's probably too late for most people, but it's true. That'll DEFINITELY keep it from happening, though.
Does losing too fast encourage loose skin?
Some people have the thought that losing slower will somehow keep the skin from getting loose. But Kimmer from the Kimkins diet, who had a tummy tuck and bosom lift following her 200-pound low-carb weight loss, said in her interview with me that stretch marks are emergency skin and no matter how fast or slow you lose, the "skin isn't going anywhere" and that "losing slowly is no advantage."
She added, "It's exactly like having a skin tight skirt, adding a 2" panel of fabric and expecting the extra fabric to disappear the next time you wash the skirt. Just ain't happening!" I agree with Kimmer because the skin has nowhere else to go but droop down. :(
So now it's January 2007, three years after I began the most lifechanging experience of my entire life. It's like writing an entire book from start to finish, but then not having it published. You have done all that work and maybe even shared it with those around you. But you won't feel right until it is finished and ready for the public to see.
That's how I feel about my loose skin. I've poured many days, weeks, and months into becoming who am I am today these past few years. I'm very proud of what I have been able to do and appreciate all the compliments and adoration that has been given to me. But it's time to send this book to be published and that means getting the excess skin removed.
It won't be today, probably not tomorrow either. But it will happen.
The worldwide popularity of the hit NBC television show "The Biggest Loser" has indeed catapulted the show and its contestants into reality show superstardom! Just ask the winner of the Australian version of the show, Adro Sarnelli.
After being declared "The Biggest Loser" in Australia for the exciting debut season this year in that country, he went on a whirlwind media tour that had him running all across Australia nonstop for months! When I was finally about to interview him at my blog in late September, Adro was just wrapping up his appearances and on his way to having surgery to remove the excess, loose, excess skin he had on his body after shedding over 130 pounds to "bring closure" to his weight loss experience.
I asked Adro about that surgery and here's what he said:
"YES, I HAVE HEAPS OF EXCESS SKIN LEFT AFTER THE WEIGHT LOSS. IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW FAST I LOST WEIGHT BECAUSE I WOULD HAVE IT NO MATTER WHAT BECAUSE I HAD IT ALL BEFORE I LOST WEIGHT AND WORSE NOW. I AM ACTUALLY GOING IN FOR SURGERY ON OCTOBER 3, 2006 TO HAVE MY FIRST OPERATION WHICH IS THE BODY LIFT. THEN I WILL GET MY ARMS, MAN BOOBS, AND THIGHS DONE ON NOVEMBER 14, 2006. MOST OF ALL, THESE SURGERIES ARE FOR ME TO HAVE CLOSURE ON THE WHOLE IDEA OF NOT BEING A FAT GUY ANYMORE."
I am so envious of Adro for having this done because I too want to have my jiggly skin taken care of as well. While some people claim that there is no such thing as loose skin, but rather bodaciously contend that it is excess fat that still needs to be lost, I am becoming more and more convinced that's a lie because my hanging skin problem is getting worse as I continue to lose weight. When I hit my goal of 199 in a few months, I will be doing a thorough post about this subject.
In fact, Adro believes this is such an important topic along with the whole weight loss, obesity, and getting fit theme that he is working on a new self-produced documentary film and he desperately wants to show it on television to help his fellow Australians overcome their objections to attempting weight loss. This is a passionate dream in this young man's heart right now and I think you and I can do something quite simple to help him out.
To that end, there is a brand new video featuring Adro Sarnelli on YouTube that I would like for you to go watch RIGHT NOW! Stop whatever you are doing (unless you are at work, of course!) and take a gander at this video. This is an important step in the process of helping Adro, so please do your part and watch the video.
It's less than 10 minutes long and features Adro with the cardboard cutout of himself before he started losing weight standing behind him as he talks about his recent surgery to take up the loose skin in his abdomen and chest, the upcoming surgery on his arms to take up the loose skin there (what's strange is my loose skin looks EXACTLY like his!), and a sneak peek at the documentary that is coming soon. In fact, watch the video all the way to the end to find out how you can see a special preview of the documentary.
Adro and his partner Ray Kelly are working hard to get as many views and comments about this video as they possibly can so they can have more leverage with television executives about showing the documentary when it is ready to be aired. This documentary could have the potential to help so many people, so won't you take just a few minutes of your time to check it out and leave a comment for Adro? THANK YOU!
CLICK HERE to show your support by watching the video at YouTube. I know Adro appreciates your help and sincerely wants to help others struggling with obesity to overcome it just as he did. THANK YOU again for your assistance and let's show this fellow low-carber that we do have strength in numbers to help make a difference in the country of Australia and beyond!
His latest video is one that hit's close to home for me because I've blogged about it previously here at "Livin' La Vida Low-Carb." And, like Kent states in the video, it is a question that comes up often from people who are curious about somebody who has lost a couple hundred pounds. It's the "loose skin" issue. If you wanna see what mine looks like as of a few months ago, then just CLICK HERE (WARNING: It's pretty gross!).
As you can see from Kent's video, he's comfortable in his own skin--despite it being a bit loose, scrunched up and hanging. It was nice to see someone else dealing with the same thing. More than vanity, I would like to have mine removed to get rid of another 15-20 pounds of weight. I fully intend to lose more weight on my "30-In-30" Low-Carb Weight Loss Challenge, but the "loose skin" won't be going away...EVER! Like I said at the end of my book, it's a future dream of mine to have that tummy tuck surgery done. I NEED it to happen for my own psyche.
In his blog post commentary about his video and in the video itself, Kent said some excellent things about the "loose skin" issue that I could not agree with more.
People who are fearful about losing weight on low-carb don't need to let that stop them from doing it. That's about the stupidest thing I've ever heard of! Sure, I'd LOVE to keep a 62-inch waist with my belly full of fat rather than having to suffer with squishy, squashy skin and a 38-inch waist. HA! There's no comparison, my friend.
Add to that the health benefits of weighing less which will help you more than you will ever know. The "loose skin" can be looked at as a battle scar (Kent calls it a "badge of honor") of where I have come from and where I NEVER want to go back again.
Interestingly, Kent notes that people who follow a low-fat or low-calorie diet generally have WORSE problems with loose skin because they don't have adequate amounts of fat and protein to keep the skin healthy and the elasticity intact as well as livin' la vida low-carb. Hmmm. Now THERE'S a good reason to low-carb if I ever heard one!
Kent says he is around 11 percent body fat as well, so he may just try to drop into the single digits on his body fat percentage. I'm sure I will as I continue to lose weight towards my goal of 210 pounds. We'll get there and see what happens, but I still hold out GREAT HOPE for that abdominoplasty...someday...someday...
Doesn't all this talk about "loose skin" just make you hungry for something sweet? LOL! Well, even if it doesn't you might want to check out this BONUS VIDEO featuring Kent's world-famous low-carb mock danish recipe from start to finish. If you are looking for a quick snack or dessert idea to add to your low-carb lifestyle, then you won't want to miss this one.
See the step-by-step instructions from Kent about making this:
KENT'S LOW-CARB MOCK DANISH RECIPE
THANKS again for the EXCELLENT videos, Kent! Don't stop now, you're on a roll!
