Hello, Leo Hamel of San Diego here. I am the owner of Leo Fit Labs.
I hope to document my weight loss with or at least maintaining muscle mass (lean tissue), primarily with a Ketogenic Diet (meat and greens) and two 20-minute high-intensity weight training sessions a week.
A great book to read on fitness and health is “15 Minutes to Fitness” by my good friend Dr. Ben Bocchicchio.
Recently, I read an article last week that says the 6th week of the year is when, statistically, most people give up on their New Years’ Resolution of health and fitness. Well, we are well past that!
For me, I never really got started. I ended the year at a weight of 215, and now I am at 228 (2-14-22). How does one gain 14 pounds in six weeks? It is almost impossible, considering that I rarely eat more calories than I need for the day.
What I think is happening, and this is only by observation, not by science, is that our bodies fluctuate dramatically based on WHAT we eat.
The Ketogenic Diet
I eat a Keto-style diet 90% of the time—high protein with green vegetables. I maintain my weight and lean muscle/tissue if I stay on this. But if I vary my diet, massive changes occur in weight and body composition: at least according to my bodyfat scales. (more on this later).
After trying almost every diet on the planet, I have found that for me, The Ketogenic Diet (Keto for short) is the easiest to sty on. And sticking to a diet is the primary key to losing weight and keeping it off.
Learning About Keto
We are lucky in San Diego to have an organization that puts on conferences on Low Carb Eating, another way to say, Keto. It is called Low Carb USA.
The link above will take you to their Events Page, and I highly recommend attending one after you have read a book or two on Low Carb Eating or Keto. You will meet fantastic people from all over the world. They have researched and applied this form of eating to resolve many health issues. The one that comes to mind is Type Two Diabetes, which can easily be reversed on Keto. Here is a link to WebMD on the subject. And another here from Low Carb Manager.
Testing Body Composition
I use two different brands of body composition scales, and I check them against each other. Then for the “real story,” I check them against our LeoFit Cosmed Bodpod. This is a scientific instrument that measures your body composition. It is a “Gold Standard” device that completely encloses your body. It is equal to the old “Water Dunking” (Hydrostatic weighing for body fat), which was the standard. But you have to get wet in a pool of water. The BodPod is quick, and you stay dry!
So what seems to happen when we change our diet? It seems that our bodies react by delivering readings on the body composition that defy science.
This weekend was my birthday, and I spent it with my children at a gem show. We ate “junk food,” which for me is any carbs, but especially gluten carbs. I am not allergic to gluten, but I have noticed that it makes considerable changes in my waist circumference. This is from “bloating” that is very common to notice after eating bread. Dairy seems to do the same.
I had it all this last weekend, and my weight went up five pounds which is not possible as that would have necessitated 14,000 extra calories over 3 days. I just didn’t do that. But, water retention could easily cause that.
One of Our Great Machines Below
Final Note and Promise
The point of this is that I will START my serious health program this week (4-7-22) which is way past the week that most people end theirs. But I wanted to note this drastic weight change that can occur from changing one’s diet. It isn’t fat, and my scales show the opposite. They indicate I gained five pounds of Muscle in the last week. Again, a scientific impossibility. It is most likely water retention, plus bloating in the gut, which also causes water retention.
So, it is a good idea to ignore wild changes. Don’t get demoralized, and get onto, or back into, your program.
And having a Personal Trainer, or getting Personal Training is also a key to your success.
I will be posting my progress on Leo Fit Labs website daily or at least several times a week.
