So, you’re probably thinking to yourself “Yea, yea, yea..but did you lose weight?”. I understand that. In this society we have a “body currency” we’ve been brought up to embrace and try to achieve at all costs (I’ll rant about that in another post). Quick answer – yes; I have lost weight and still am. However, I need to give you some background so you can understand this in context.

I’m not going to sugar coat this (see what I done there?) but I have been XL fat all my life. I was a fat baby, fat kid, fat teenager and now a fat adult. Not a little chub or “thick” but full on fat. That being said – it never stopped me from doing what I really wanted to do. I played sports throughout my school years and pretty decently too. I may not have been fast but what I didn’t have in speed I more than made up for in hand/eye coordination and brute strength.

I have literally traveled all over this country. Partied till the wee afternoon hours in New York City, enjoyed mojitos and Cuban sandwiches in Miami and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to Vegas. I’ve gone outside our boarders and visited many locations throughout the world with plans to explore more. I’m not rich – I work for my money just like everyone else but I’ve had some pretty incredible jobs that either gave me the resources to travel  and/or by need traveled for work. One of my latest adventures included traveling to London for a week and seeing Benedict Cumberbatch in Hamlet.

This also extents to my relationships romantic, friendly or otherwise. I’ve had/have some amazingly fulfilling relationships, some “meh” relationships and “what the hell was I thinking?” moments  – you know, just like everyone else. I got some pretty awesome friends and family for support and to support during the good and bad times. One of the positive things about being fat in this culture is that it weeds out the assholes in your life pretty quick.

As for dieting – I have been on a “diet” in one form or another since I was three-years-old. None have been successful long term and not for lack of willpower. The longest sustained diet phase was from age 24-30. I was basically doing 45-60 minutes of exercise 3-6 days a week and eating between 1200-1600 calories a day. I never got below a size 16 US. Sure, people said how great I looked and the uptick in compliments was a boost to the ego but you can only live on the superficial for so long.

In truth, I was (kids – earmuffs) fucking miserable. By counting calories and watching everything I ate, I had low energy, high blood pressure, awful skin, hair falling out in chunks, panic attacks, foggy brain and all I thought about was food. I had such intense food cravings that I would wake up in the middle of the night and could not get back to sleep unless I ate something. How screwed up is that? When I started to “slide” on my diet at the south end of age 30 – I slid like the German Olympic Bobsled team. I went real fast and hit bottom quick. I gained back all the weight (120 lbs) and then some (an extra 40 for good measure) in about 2 years. This wasn’t a case of “eating less and exercising more” and “using a little will power”. This was trying to control  biochemistry using techniques that have a 95-97% failure rate. No amount of “will power” is going to correct an environment where  hormones are driving cognitive inhibitions on a bio-chemical drive. In other words, when your brain tells you to eat, you can ignore it for only so long before you have no choice to obey.

Let’s fast forward to today. I’ve cut a vast, VAST majority of refined sugars from my diet, not counting any calories, haven’t stepped on a scale, eating full fat whatever, not doing any additional exercising than walking around town, flea markets and casinos with the occasional drink here and there for the past 2 and a half months…and I’ve dropped two dress sizes. Just like that. I put on pants I haven’t worn in a while and either they finally fit perfectly or too big to wear outside the house.

It’s not just the weight loss that I’ve noticed. No hunger, no food cravings, skin looks good, hair thick and shiny as ever and this “malaise” I had been feeling for a while seems to have lifted. One of the best benefits is that my memory is becoming a lot stronger. Remembering numbers, names, faces, places is becoming second nature to me where before I had to write everything down or be exposed to it 2, 3, 8 times before it stuck.

With this surprising weight loss and physical/mental improvements, I decided to do some amateur research to figure out why, after all these many years and obvious genetic disposition, cutting sugar from my diet seems to be the key to an overall better life. At least for me anyways.