YOU NEED TO EAT FOODS THAT KEEP INSULIN LOW.

“We tend to think of our fat cells as a long-term bank account, where your body stores excess calories as fatty acids, which you don’t use until you’re starving. But the reality is that your fat tissue is more like your wallet, and your meals are like going to the ATM. You know how you use the ATM: You put the cash in your wallet and gradually spend it, and when you get too low, you go back to the ATM.

But insulin locks the money in your wallet, so you’ve got to keep going back to the ATM. Your fat cells are getting fatter and fatter, but you can’t get at the fatty acids that are stored inside them. So you get hungry and you eat again.”

This is a great analogy. I notice that if I go out for dinner and have dessert, the next day, I am hungry way before lunchtime.

I've noticed the same thing in terms of hunger. I ate a slice of birthday cake at dinner Friday. I woke up Saturday morning two hours earlier than normal ravenously hungry. I don't normally have this problem. I normally eat eggs, veggies and salads, meats and cheeses, yogurt, and raw milk. I have the occasional fruits (namely grapefruit, raspberries, and strawberries). The only time I ever feel truly hungry is if I eat a lot of fruit versus the few berries or half a grapefruit I would otherwise eat a couple times a week at most.

So, I read the book a few weeks ago and am trying it. Diabetes runs in my family and I had gestational diabetes twice (and the 10# baby to go with it).

So far, I've dropped about 12-15 pounds... in about 6 weeks.

If anybody were to suggest this isn't healthy, I'll tell them I haven't been hungry ONCE (except when I got delayed for lunch... by 4 hours). I've actually forgotten to eat a few times (oops!).

Oh yeah, I'm also a statistician, so I've been collecting gobs of data (yeah, I'm a nerd). I'm not burning muscle. I've made teensy drops in my thigh (quadriceps) and no change in my bicep or forearm.

Measuring around my ribcage, I've dropped about 4 inches. I didn't have a chance to measure before I started, so this is all only since about week 2. I probably lost 2 more inches off my ribcage before that. So, either I'm burning interstitial fat (the kind that is really bad for you) or I donated a lung and forgot about it.

My waist and hips have lost about 2 inches (again, since week 2).

(yeah, I'm a nerd). -- Shannon M. Howell at June 3, 2012 4:42 PM

Total OT: I've always resented the term "nerd". I prefer geek.

I look at the term nerd as the guy in his parent's basement, reading comic books and has no socially redeeming value.

Meanwhile the geek has some sort of job that does something, the other co-workers can relate, but don't let them near a customer. They generally will have a relation to comic books and sci-fi but won't live it.

I.e. nerd is an ordained Jedi Knight, the geek knows an ordained Jedi Knight and can talk to them.

Nerd can quote Shakespeare in the original Klingon, the geek knows the reference.

Nerd can read Amy's blog but doesn't understand it. A geek reads Amy's blog and posts back and has acceptable points.

Just my $0.02. ;-)

Wuddabout this?

Thanks, Jim. I guess I'm a bit off, since I don't really (don't be judgmental here) like Star Wars, or know Klingon. I do enjoy SciFi, but detest comics. However, I have a minor in Latin... which definitely puts me on the "uncool" side of life.

Perhaps I ought to think of myself instead as overly-academic? Or perhaps I'm just a statistician... I don't like Shakespeare either.

By the way, was your 2 cents in USD? Canadian? I'd like to know if I have to do a currency conversion ;)

Thanks, Amy! Waaay back in college (you know, like a decade ago) I made a comment somewhere online about Latin and somebody said I was "dating myself" with that comment. Totally didn't believe I was under 50 (hey,I still am!).

I just wish I had managed to get decent at it. 3 hours to translate a sentence is horribly slow (although, they had massively long run-ons).

BTW, this is random, but I love your solution to the "are you a real person" thing at the bottom of the comment submission box.

Shannon, consider this. For those of us who never bothered to even scan the language, this is a great time to be alive.

I'll accept nerd and geek...I can easily be both at any given moment.

And...thanks to reading your blog and getting Eades books, I have lost 20 lbs by going back to how I USED to eat before I started listening to all of the crap about eating more "grains". I still have more to go and I, too, notice a totally different hunger feeling the next day when I give in to a carb. My cheats aren't usually sweet, but savory, like a french fries or tortilla chips, but the comfort foods book by Drs. Eades should help with that once I get to my goal.

Thanks Amy!

Crid,

Thankfully, there's a lovely morphological lookup Latin dictionary tool that's been online since I was in college. One of the tricky things about Latin is that the endings that are supposed to be all helpful are often ambiguous... and if it's ONE word, then it's the object, but it could also be a different-but-similar word and be the subject. That lookup is the only reason I was able to complete my minor, since I sort of had to take the courses out of order and skip the 2nd entry-level course (so I had almost no vocabulary).

Let it not be said that I don't strive to do things bass-ackwards.

Taubes' book is literally a lifesaver, in my opinion. I also had gestational diabetes in 2009, but I cut carbs on my nutritionist's advice and managed not to gain any weight (over the 50 lbs I'd already gained) for the last 2 months. And my daughter weight only 6.5 lbs.

I'd pretty much resigned myself a future with type 2 diabetes. Then I started following Amy's advice and reading Taubes' book, and lost 13 pounds in 13 weeks. I'm pregnant again, and planning to stay low carb. Since I had diabetes the first time, they've already ordered a glucose tolerance test for me. I said, I am not drinking that stuff. Why would I want to spike my blood sugar on purpose when I've been doing everything I can to keep it low for the past 3 months? I don't even know how my body will react to that much sugar at once. I'll poke my fingers if I have to.

Shannon-- Years ago I read a story of Hitch walking into a British Pub one time and (what, did you think I was going to say church?) snickering at a Latin aphorism posted over the door. His friends asked what it meant and he translated: "The only fish that swims with the current is dead."

Of course I didn't save the article... We were all young and hale then... But now I can't find it. Does that saying seem at all familiar? Was it a popular Chinese fortune cookie in the olden days of Latinland?

It's interesting how many people blame their thyroid for being obese.
I looked up the stats on hypothyroidism, but there weren't any recent numbers, too bad. The % I saw was miniscule compared to current obesity rates.

Crid,

Not that I know of.

Sosij,

I'm with you about the sugar-drink thing. However, taking blood sugar measurements 4-6 times a day sucks.