Enlightenment in losing body fats shared by a buddy James
In the midst of the pandemic, we created lots of messaging groups and added friends that we have not contacted for a long time. For example, I received a message from a friend, Joseph, showing a photo of another friend William and me. Joseph was not in the photo. He asked why did he have the photo when he was not in it!? My vague memory was that the photo was taken in one of our freshman semester break, and we went on an outing in one of the offshore islands. Joseph, who was not in the same college, flew in to join us in the outing. And he was the photographer who took that photo. That’s why he was not in the picture!
From that one photo, we connected up our fellow freshmen and within a week we have organized a dinner for five (5) of us as the Authority still has pandemic constraint of “not more than 5 persons in public gathering”.
At the same time, in another message group, one of the college mates, James, shared that he dropped his weight from 92 kg to 64 kg in 2–3 years. He showed photos of BEFORE (James with a big tummy standing next to a Ferrari (his brother’s) with caption “Corporate life did this to you…ignore the car”) and AFTER (James in biking gear standing next to his mountain bike looking fit and energetic). This kicked off a rush of questions from members in the group of how did he lose the weight and improve his fitness so much.
A dinner was arranged on a Friday evening at James’ house; and again only 4 of us went due to the Authority’s pandemic constraint. The dinner was a bit special: only meat and seafood were served. Side dishes like cottage cheese, salad, and drinks. I brought wine and another mate CFang brought fruits. James advised us to dig into the fruits and drink the wine before he shared his journey in losing fats.
All of us has a main dish of either steak, porkchop, or seafood. Mine was a prime cut steak deliciously grilled over a hot plate. I think it was about 250g and no sauce was served on it. When I barely finished the steak, James asked if I would want another serving of steak, I immediately declined as the thought of biting into another cut of steak gave me the shivers.
Therein, lies the explanation that James started to share the “Body Science” that he has researched on his own and executed his findings on himself.
(Disclaimer: These are my sharing of what I understood and does not represent any official nor medical advices to anybody anywhere in the world. Please consult a professional before you try these sharing of experiences.)
Our body recognizes carbohydrates, protein and fats. All food types would fall into these 3 categories. And our body would metabolize these sources of intake to deliver energy for our use. When we eat a combination of carbo, protein and fats in the same meal, the body will metabolize the carbo first to give energy (calories) for us in daily activities. And when we did not do enough active movements of the body, the carbo may not be metabolized completely, and could transform into fats and stored in the body. The remaining “unused intakes” would also be stored. Hence we gain weight from these “storing of fats” and “calories surplus”.
The body will tend to store the fats in the organs like liver, kidney and stomach. When the storage space is maxed out, the transformed fats will be stored around our belly and body. So, big tummy and chubby limbs could be seen on many of us.
James has worn a Abbot Libre sensor for many months and he tracked the food that would spike the reading. And he found that eating a burger would spike the reading almost immediately. And when he just ate the patty (even 3 patties), no spiking occurred. Same if he just ate the bread, no spiking. So, his personal findings were that we need to choose the food that we eat, and to avoid eating carbo with fats and protein together in the same meal.
In the body metabolism, we have been eating carbo all our lives. And our passive lives in offices and air-conditioned rooms do not use up all the food intake. Over the years, from our daily diet, our body has been trained to crave for carbo as the main source of intake. That’s why our appestat (brain appetite controller) will make us fell “hungry” when we see ice cream, nice cakes, fried rice with luncheon meat, and big bowl of noodle with minced meat and sausages (even typing out these terms made me feel hungry). Our body is always accepting more intake to get more energy and to store these intake when unused.
On the other hand, fats and protein will fill us up. These will give the “full feeling” and the appestat will stop us from eating more when we have enough. Case in point was the dinner: after eating the 250g of steak, and the thought of having another steak really made me felt extremely full almost to the point of nauseating.
All in all, James’ session indicated that the LCHF (Low Carbo, Healthy Fats) diet works from him. He said that we can exercise everyday and would not lose weigh if we do not change our diet of reducing or eliminating carbo. He is one fine example of LCHF with daily exercises of jogging and cycling. And that’s how he went from 92kg to 64kg within 2–3 years.
I started on LCHF diet on the following week after James’ dinner sharing. It was quite tough at first as my craving for carbo had to be limited. For breakfast, I usually take bread or oat bran cereal; lunch mostly noodle or rice with dishes; and dinner mainly of rice with dishes and soup.
The first breakfast on that Monday, I took eggs and black coffee (no carb). And lunch was roasted pork with no rice. And dinner was vegetable soup with minced meat (again, no rice). I went on such meals for a week. The craving for carbo was real bad on the third day’s lunch. I was having a fish slice soup and the next table was eating Indian curry with a stack of naan. I couldn’t stop staring at the naan and nearly went to order the stack….
In summary, at the end of 7 days (full week), I took my weight on my bathroom scale: my weight dropped by 1.5kg. Amazing!
I am into my second week now. And let’s see what happens along the way to achieve my ideal BMI (which my annual medical screening always has this “you have to lose weight to achieve you ideal BMI….”). To be continued….
