CarbSmart.com Your trusted guide to the keto, low carb, intermittent fasting lifestyle
Watch the CarbSmart Podcast Episode 6 on YouTube
Put up in a place where it’s easy to see the cryptic admonishment T T T. When you feel how depressingly slowly you climb, it’s well to remember that Things Take Time.
– Piet Hein
So how are those New Year’s resolutions coming? I’d like to add one to them if you don’t mind.
Be patient.
Yes, Things Take Time
Impatience is the death of most diet and exercise regimens, whether undertaken for the new year or at any other time.
All those stupid ads for diets, diet pills, and exercise equipment promise ridiculous results like, we guarantee you’ll lose two dresser pant sizes in 10 days or your money back.
Of course, they know that only a teeny fraction of purchasers will, a) follow their instructions to the letter, or b) bother to ship the thing back.
I’m here to tell you that losing one dress or pants size in ten days is rare, much less losing two. Furthermore, and this is important – whatever you do to lose that dress or pants size is what you must continue to do for the rest of your life if you want to maintain the loss. There is no finish line. But these ads put ridiculous ideas in people’s heads, like that they can undo two or three decades’ worth of neglect in two weeks.
You Really Can Lose 5-10 Pounds in the First Week, But…
And with low-carbing, often people really do lose five to ten pounds in the first week as they dump all their stored water. Some people expect this rate of weight loss to continue. The vast majority of them are destined for disappointment. I have had a reader write to me wanting to know why a low-carb diet wasn’t causing quick weight loss.
She was only losing 2 pounds a week. I had to tell her that 2 pounds a week is quick weight loss, and point out that if she continued to lose at that rate, she’d lose 104 pounds in a year. Unfortunately, for too many people, the discovery that, surprise, surprise, losing 40 or 50 or 100 pounds might take them six months or a year is so discouraging that they give up.
Similarly, when they start working out and don’t have six pack abs after a month of going to the gym three times a week, they decide it’s just too much trouble. Cut it out, folks! Think of another sort of physical change. Straightening teeth. How would you react if you took your child to the orthodontist and he or she said, “Hey, I can straighten those teeth today,” and whipped out a hammer.
You’d grab that kid and run. You understand, you accept, that teeth only move gradually. And that anything that could move them quickly would be disastrous – not to mention painful. It takes constant, steady pressure over time. That’s what it takes to change your body shape and size, too. Working as a massage therapist, I saw repeatedly the pain of people who, after years of slacking, decided that they were going to get into shape today!
It wasn’t pretty. They would end up aching all over and often pulling something or causing an old injury to flare up, and they’d quit. Likewise, I see what happens to people who decide that if low-carb is good, no carb is better, because they’ll lose their weight fast, fast, fast. After two weeks of nothing but fried eggs and bunless burgers, they become hysterically sick of the diet, and that’s the end of that.
Slow and Steady Wins the Race – Make Realistic Goals
So, I challenge you to make realistic goals, like a smaller size by somewhere between Groundhog Day and St. Patrick’s Day. Two sizes smaller by May Day. Remember the old adage, Slow and steady wins the race.
It’s true. Learning to eat a varied, interesting, tasty, low-carb diet will, in the long run, get you much further than eating no carbs at all, not even veggies. for just a couple of weeks. That said, I’ve been known to Fat Fast for a few days to a week or to fat fast two or three days per week while eating my regular low-carb diet the rest of the week.
This is a useful approach for me, but it’s not my day-to-day existence. A reasonable workout goal can become an enjoyable part of your life, while beating yourself up will only discourage you and cost you considerable money visiting people like me to fix the damage. Two, it will profit you to pay attention to the other benefits of low-carb.
The Other Benefits of Low-Carb
Increased energy, decreased hunger, and dramatically improved health. My email tells me that the folks who stick with it through plateaus are so happy with simply feeling great and getting good reports from their doctors that they don’t consider quitting, even through lengthy plateaus. They don’t want to go back to being tired and hungry all the time.
I am pleased to say that improvements in health do happen quickly, often more quickly than weight loss. I’ve had reports of as much as a 600-point drop in triglycerides in two weeks time. Because of the loss of excess water, blood pressure normalizes at spectacular speed. If you’re on blood pressure medication, be aware that you may very well need to reduce your medication or get off it entirely.
Monitor Your Progress Closely
Generally, energy skyrockets by a week or so after starting, even if you go through the withdrawal bonk or Atkins flu phase the first week. I didn’t. I was exploding with energy three days after I started low-carb, but then I hadn’t been eating really awful processed stuff or drinking sugary beverages, so maybe my body just didn’t have as big an adjustment to make.
If You’re Still Tired and Achy, Increase Your Salt Intake
The drop in insulin levels on a low-carb diet allows your kidneys to properly excrete sodium. Deficiency is not uncommon. I’ve gone hyponatremic. Low sodium? It redefines. “no fun.” A cup of broth with plenty of salt in it is a good approach, although I sometimes just lick about a half a teaspoon of salt out of my hand and wash it down with water.
These dramatic improvements in health can be very motivating, even before the weight loss really shows. So work on making your low-carb diet as satisfying as it can be, which is very important. And settle in to make this your long-term lifestyle. I’ve been at it for 28 years and have never considered going back.
Let’s have a great 2024.
Previous CarbSmart Podcast
How to Succeed with your Low-Carb Resolutions
Check out more CarbSmart Podcast Episodes.
More Low Carb Recipes & Articles by Dana Carpender
Follow CarbSmart on Social Media
#carbsmart #lowcarb #keto #ketodiet #ketorecipes #lowcarbdiet #newyearsresolutions #resolutions
© Dana Carpender. Used by kind permission of the thankful author. What do you think? Please send Dana your comments to Dana Carpender.
Social