One of my goals in this YouTube channel is to bring real science to - to YouTube;
and the vast majority of my videos are preventive medicine science. This doesn't
sound like it. It sounds like more of a personal emotional story and that's what
it is. It's gonna be a little bit challenging for me but I think - I'm like -
I'll wait through it. How I lost 30 pounds in the late 1970s? No - most people
look at me and they think, well you know you've - you've been in preventive
medicine your whole life and you've tended to practice what you preach for
the most part so maybe you've always been thin. No - not a - not - not so. I've never
been what we would call completely obese. I'm currently a BMI of 21. I've had a BMI
of 25 though, 30 pounds heavier than what I currently am. I'm currently 510 and 150-
153 pounds. Before I talk about how I lost that weight, I probably need to talk
about how I gained it. It had to do with organic chemistry and my grandmother's
cooking. Now you're gonna - maybe you're gonna see
the obvious connection that grandmother cooking is being an organic chemist. That
wasn't the point. No, I was - I was in a fairly rigorous college program. It
wasn't your - your animal house type of experience. Then I wasn't in any
fraternities, didn't do any of that experience. I was working very hard. I
actually completed my bachelor of science in 2 years. I was in the 5-year
medical program so it was intense. I actually even was naive enough to expect
to get some relief when I slowed down and went with everybody else at med
school. That was the case either. It's a different level of
competition at that point and I didn't see it as competition; but so here I was.
After a very difficult first year of - I enjoyed it, but very difficult, very
challenging first year of college; and then taking organic chemistry
this summer between those 2 years of college. Organic - organic chemistry is the -
is the pre-med class. That's supposed to cut most of the - the folks that aren't
going to make it into - into med school. It's a challenging course. My grant - I
took it in a local community college. My grandmother lived nearby just a couple
of miles away and I grew up with my grandmother. So I relished the idea of
getting to stay with her and I did. I remember studying all day every day,
taking naps in the afternoon and waking up dreaming of a methane molecule,
joining with another methane molecule to form ethane and you know those of you
who have taken organic chemistry may remember that. So I gained weight. I
gained a lot of weight that summer and that came on the back of a lifetime of
family reunions. We were when you look at grandma's - my grandma sort of looked like
this, our kitchen sort of looked like these two we were lower middle class and
my mother had eight or nine sisters and one brother so we had family unions, also
lower middle class our rural families. So I remember at one family reunion we had
300 people and everybody brought a covered dish. My dad, this was the
grandmother that I was that I stayed with during organic chemistry was his
mother and I'm convinced she had a whole lot to do with his BMI. He was at 3 -
5'10" my height. 350 pounds and more during much of his life. He
tended to - and 350 pounds and 5'10" is a BMI of 50. That's beyond obese. The
conversations around food in that family we're just - I mean and I don't mean the
conversations, the lifestyle, the perceptions around food or I'll cover
them. I'll go over - I've covered it in another video. I'll mention it a couple
of times in this video. So this was my dad up on the orange and red end of the
scale and this is me now down in the - the dark blue and then me and the light blue
end just getting into that light blue end when I gained that weight. Talking about
the culture around food, you know we're - southern rural was not only not the only
culture that focuses on food and feasting around weddings, holidays,
funerals and other big days. People do it but again we had a major focus on it.
Well I bring this up because pizza and beer were not a big deal for me. I did
enjoy pizza but not beer but we would go hog-wild at times when we were
celebrating. In fact, in terms of the culture around that I mentioned the
other video I did. I'd trampled all over the standards of mental health science
and addiction science and compared my perspective, my - my emotional stuff around
food to an addiction; and yeah I still think I mean, again not speaking as a
professional but speaking just as an individual who's had to manage his or
her relationship with food for 60 something years. It's got a lot to do with addiction. It's
you know a dependence knowing that it may be negatively impacting your health
and inability to to stop anyway and etc. Just a lot of stuff. So how did I lose 30+
pounds? I went low-fat. Attended - mostly low-fat and plant-based /
pescetarian and people will say, oh you know and I fully expect people to say oh
that wasn't - that was an idiot move. Actually I've been able to lose weight
more recently. I've done a couple of videos on that. Went up to 160. Gonna do
that with low carb and I'll talk a little bit more about how I maintain my
weight. Now, but this was the 70s. You didn't tend to focus on low carb
then. It was low fat. We travel in restaurants were not a big deal
during the lowest - the late 70s because we just didn't eat that - out that much. I
just quit eating. How do I - how do I compare the cultures of my current
family versus my family of origin? Again, I covered that in the - in the other
(excuse me) food addiction video.60-40 years ago, my family of origin, we
all struggled with being overweight. It was physical and behavioral. Positive
food was a way to celebrate a way to show that you cared, the women showed
that they cared by making food and they also showed that the - their own
performance and capabilities by making food and the men went hog-wild at
buffets and I was one of them. We loved sweets like blackberry cobbler.
My wife is in a different perspective. Her - her family never had struggles with
being overweight. In fact, they had more struggles with being underweight. Physical
and behavioral components around food, we actually - we all have that and they often
needed to be coaxed to eat. They're intimidated by food prep and a large
quantity selected buffets. They were not into sweets. Again, a very very different
view and culture around food. Now, how do I have - I kept 30 pounds off? That would
take me back up to these 2 components, the - the travel and restaurant
components. No entrees except large salads. No fats except fish. No meats, no
pastas. Small desserts were okay but I was constantly saying I was a nudge. Can
I have a taste? Can I have a taste? Can I have a taste? Go somebody have a really
good pasta that you know I'd want or even more so, a really good piece of meat
that I'd want to try; and from that perspective I was not or somebody to
have a big dessert. And from that perspective I was not a - I was a
challenge to eat with, I think. How do I keep 30 pounds off now?
Well, it's very different. It's a low carb diet, a decreased eating window and those
two things I tend to see with a lot of folks that I work with, a lot of my
patients have taken 30 pounds off or more and keeping it off. They tend to
call the decreased eating window an intermittent fasting. It's technically -
it's more just decreasing the eating window from 7:00 or 8:00 in the morning
to 10:00 at night, that's a large window. Decreasing it down to like, for me
11 o'clock or noon to about 6 or 7, 2 days a week of water fast or an
extended water fast; and an occasional fasting mimicking diet. I'm constantly
watching, constantly asking myself, you know what am I doing in terms of my
behavior around eating? And I'm constantly a nudge to my current family.
I - again, they don't have a problem with weight so they don't need to constantly
ask themselves and each other how much they weigh and that sort of thing in
fact they do not - it makes them uncomfortable. So speaking of being
uncomfortable, this has been an uncomfortable presentation for me. I hope
it hasn't been too uncomfortable for if you've made it this far and thanks
for your interest! Have a 2-day event in Louisville, November 8th and 9th. Give
your CI-MT and all your labs.