Sunday, July 24, 2011

Willpower - It's not what you think

One reaction upon hearing about this way of eating is: "That sounds like the way we should be eating anyway...." An all-too-common follow up is: "but I could never do it. I'd never be able to give up my ...." bread, toast, candy, soda, sugar, whatever. In my experience, it's not easy, but it's certainly not difficult.

We have been conditioned to think that weight loss is hard: you have either have to starve yourself and/or wear yourself out exercising for hours.

My experience is that neither of these things is necessary, and it can be almost effortless. I've heard it said that nutrition & diet are perhaps 80% of the equation, exercise is maybe 20%. If you're not eating sugar, it stands to reason that you don't have to burn it off.

If you stop eating (refined) carbohydrates & avoid added sugars, you are probably 50% of the way there. Making sure to eat good fats (avocado, coconut, olive), proteins, plenty of vegetables and avoiding industrial oils (canola, safflower, "vegetable") is perhaps the next 30%. If you do these things, even without exercising or counting calories, I have seen swift and substantial changes.

Your body has the ability to heal itself - you don't need a drug to get better if you cut yourself, to get over a cold, to mend a broken bone. If you give your body the nutrients it needs to function and stop giving it garbage it fights, my experience is that your weight will very likely normalize and level off based on the balance of food you are eating.

Strength of Will

Willpower is needed, but not the way you might think. It's not really about having to control HOW MUCH you eat - the satiety provided by protein and fat takes care of that naturally, especially if dietary sugar isn't increasing your appetite and excess insulin and lectins aren't blocking the hormonal signals telling your brain you're full.

Willpower is needed in WHAT you are eating. The good news is that it gets easier. It took a month or so before my desire for sweet foods diminished, and they really aren't much of a temptation anymore. Your tastebuds change over time, and are no longer overwhelmed and desensitized by sugar. After several months of avoiding sugar, some fruits now taste almost unbearably sweet - letting me know how much natural sugars are in them. I recently tasted an almond that was startlingly sweet: I had always wondered whether Amaretto's flavor had any basis in reality - now I know (not that I'll be drinking Amaretto any time soon. Vegetables I used to dislike now taste different. It's not them, it's me.

Once you start to normalize, my experience is that you feel the desire to exercise - it happens spontaneously, not as a requirement to loose weight. I exercise now because I feel good when and after I do, and I like feeling stronger and healthier.

I don't exercise to loose weight, or to compensate for sugar in my diet. Functional strength and flexibility are my goals. Here's what seemed like a balanced approach: exercise so that you can play - whatever you want, whenever you want. You should be fit enough to tackle any physical activity you come across without undue fear of injury. That's where I'm aiming. I want to want to play with my kids, and be healthy enough that they won't outpace me when they get to be teenagers.

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