Quit Explaining Science To Me!

I almost began this blog with an expletive. I decided I am not that type of girl. Typically I am calm, relaxed, poised, positive – I am really a go with the flow kind of girl. Always have been, always will be. At least until some complete stranger tells me I am wrong about how I got my results because of, you know, science. This makes me angry. This makes me want to scream, “Shut the $*@& up about science already!” But I don’t, because I am a lady. Just know my thoughts are not very ladylike when you preach about science.

Hey…look at me! Right here – waving my hands in the air, arms slightly jiggly because that’s what happens when you lose a total of 145 pounds and you are on the edge of the older side of life. Your arms jiggle and then you wear sleeves to hide the jiggle. Well, not this girl. I lost that 145 pounds, my arms sometimes bounce like jello and I proudly sport tank tops to show off each and every pound of my hard work.

OK, not really. It is hot in Arizona, I am in my late thirties, a busy mom of two and hardly have time to care how others perceive my arm jiggle. I figured out how this optimal health thing works for me, and I have taken on the task of teaching anyone who wants to listen the keys to my success.

My slightly jiggly arms really have nothing to do with what I am trying to say here. The point I want to make is I lost a combined total of 145 pounds. I lost more weight than I currently weigh. I lost an entire me! And that is not even typically the hardest part of this. How many people lose that much weight only to struggle to keep it off even long enough to make it to the maintenance phase of their plan?

After twenty years of struggle, I finally figured out how to keep it off forever – and it has been easy! My question is, if these are the keys to my success, why are there so many people who insist on telling me I am wrong. I was there. It happened. Still here. Still easily maintaining. Strangers on message boards quoting science have very little to do with my success.

OTHER PEOPLE’S SCIENCE

I spent more than twenty years struggling with other people’s science. I followed the advice of doctors, nutritionists and weight loss experts – all heavily rooted in science. I was sick, miserable, tired, fat and ready to give up on it all. That is where science got me.

It was not until I stopped following other people’s science and listened to my own body that I finally found the health I craved. I had to stop listening to these “experts” who spent years in school studying the science of how my body should work, and I actually had to take the time to figure out how MY body does work.

Their scientific theory of “calories in vs. calories out” got me nowhere. Their insistence that I need to move more and eat less only led to a lifetime of misery and fat girl clothes. I still have fat girl clothes in my closet you can borrow if you want to continue to insist on science every time I tell you about the real steps I took to get to my goal weight. Following science kept me in fat girl clothes. I no longer follow science, so they are yours for the taking.

Let me break science down a little. At some point doctors receive a Bachelor’s of Science degree. In order to become a dietitian, you first must receive a Nutrition Science degree. Most weight loss experts out there point to science backed studies to prove their methods work. NONE of their advice…not a single one of these people I visited, had multiple appointments with and trusted with my health for decades helped me lose weight and keep it off for the long term.

Do you want to know whose advice pushed me the farthest in obtaining optimal health and helped me achieve my goal weight for the first time in my life? A comedian.

I read Kick Your Fat in the Nuts, I took the 12 Week Online Fat Loss Course and I no longer struggle with health or weight. This book and course were put together by a comedian turned health expert. That is who helped me learn the basics of how my body really works and how to end my health struggles once and for all. Does that mean he doesn’t follow science? Nope. Does that mean he quit relying on the dogma of what the mainstream puts out there and continually touts as science? Exactly.

If you are reading this, you are most likely following a high fat, low carb diet. After I took the time to improve the way my body digests food, that is the approach that helped me achieve a goal weight far lower than I ever thought possible. If you are following this approach in an attempt to shed unwanted pounds, I am sure you too once followed Ancel Keys’ low fat theory. I am sure you too screwed up your body’s metabolism with far too few calories and felt awful without the healthy fats your body requires to thrive.

Guess what- Ancel Keys’ low fat diet is also touted as science. If his approach worked as intended – a weight loss cure-all, we would all still be prancing around in leg warmers, while thrusting our hips to the oldies with Jane Fonda. I am pretty confident anyone still following low fat logic probably no longer fits into her leotard from 1985…or at the very least, she should not be seen wearing it in public.

Have you heard about the recent documentary What The Health? In the first few minutes of the film, Neal Barnard, MD – that is Medical Doctor, which is a science degree, states “Sugar does not cause diabetes.” If you are reading this blog, hopefully you too are thinking “What the hell What The Health!” But hey – that’s science!

There is an actual article right here that talks about how diabetes is not caused by excessive sugar intake and “fat-rich diets raise blood sugar more than sugar-rich diets.” This statement is based on one study nearly 100 years ago…because why wouldn’t we base the populations suggested nutrient requirements off of one study from 100 years ago? This is someone’s science. And since the article is published on a website by a Professor of Cardiology, people are going to jump and scream and point and tell you it’s science! Is anyone else’s head exploding?

TAKE THAT, SCIENCE!

Let me tell you about my experience with sugar-rich compared to fat-rich diets. I had a high carbohydrate diet for most of my life. This is what the experts recommended to me – healthy whole grains with plenty of fruits and vegetables. Does that ring a bell for anyone else? I was always hungry, obsessed with food and struggled to lose and keep weight off. I had a nutritionist and endocrinologist both tell me I needed to cut my saturated fats and raise my carbs in order to get healthy. Wanna know what happened to me? Diabetes happened to me.

When I followed the advice rooted in science, my fasting blood sugars averaged 130-140 every single morning. Those are diabetic blood sugar ranges. I was also the fattest I’ve ever been, my body ached and I was chronically sick. Thanks science.

So I did almost the complete opposite. Instead of these fancy doctors with their fancy degrees, I followed the advice of a comedian. By most people’s account, you should follow the advice of someone more rooted in science than that of a comedian. Science was getting me nowhere. The comedian taught me how to adhere to a low carb, high fat diet once and for all – because believe me, I tried for years and I just couldn’t hack it. He taught me how to improve imbalances with my particular body chemistry to make weight loss and optimal health much easier to achieve. Once I took his advice, I fine tuned a diet that was right for me and achieved the results I wanted.

This is why I don’t follow advice just because someone tells me it is science. Whose science is it and what agenda or misinformation do they have? Ancel Keys was backed by science. Dr. Barnard is backed by science. Their science destroyed my health.

THE SCIENCE KNOW-IT-ALLS

Someone recently told me that I was misinformed after I relayed my own personal experience in an attempt to help someone else. This is what I experienced firsthand with my own body, but she insisted I was misinformed because, you know, science. It doesn’t matter what my end results were. It doesn’t matter that I performed an experiment on my own body that achieved my end results. I was wrong because someone with a fancy title held a scientific study that told her I was wrong.

Um, what? Did she lose 145 pounds the exact way I did? Did she struggle for twenty years before she finally found her health truth? I did and I relayed my experience. Does this mean I am always right about how everyone else’s body works? Nope. But when I talk about what happened to me and my experience so perhaps others can benefit, how can someone tell me I am wrong simply because someone’s science says my body should not work that way. Seriously. Head exploding.

There are a lot of Internet experts dishing out advice all over based on science. If you do not follow their science, you are wrong. Who has failed us that there are so many people that refuse to let others think for themselves? Why is there only one way? What happened to bio-individuality and why do people who achieved results any other way get shunned or degraded because it is not backed by someone else’s version of science?

We are all one giant ongoing science experiment and it is up to each of us to determine the best hacks to our own bodies. There are people out there that can show you a better way based on their own experiences and training (like me), but in the end no one knows what is best for your body. People can only give you the best advice they have to offer and then you have to determine what is right for you and your lifestyle.

If you choose to listen to people who mindlessly quote science, you have that choice. It that advice benefits your health, follow it! You found your answer. Wave your well-sculpted arms in the air and shout “YAY SCIENCE!” But please don’t be the person that tells everyone else they are wrong because of science.

FIGURE OUT YOUR BIO-INDIVIDUALITY

Science only gets better when we continue to test and continue to rule out. For myself, I tested and I ruled out the low fat, high carb combo. I found out I need a lot of fat for optimal health. If I stopped at the science of these low fat doctors, my health would be even worse than it was, which means I would probably be at death’s door because my health was already pretty bad. Alright, so I can be dramatic at times. Maybe someday I will tell you all about that time a jellyfish tried to eat me. (Don’t mock me, you weren’t there!)

There are a lot of people in the keto community that tell everyone who will listen that everyone has to eat less fat so we can all burn our own body fat. If I listened to that science, I would be hungry and still struggling. I tested. My body does not work that way. Perhaps theirs does. Bio-individuality is a scientific term. I think everyone who quotes science endlessly needs to add it to their vocabulary.

Nothing with a high fat, low carb diet is an absolute for every person that tries it. Screaming from the rooftops that stevia does not cause an insulin spike is not accurate for everyone. Perhaps it does not for you. Perhaps it did not for specific individuals in certain studies. There are people who remove it from their diet completely and suddenly break past a weight stall. I bet it caused an insulin spike for those people.

Shouting to everyone who will listen that they should eat only a little fat so they can burn their own body fat is incorrect. Perhaps that method worked for you, but not everyone shares your body chemistry. Some people really do need to eat a lot of extra fat in order for their bodies to heal from too many years of malnourishment that being stuck in diet mentality causes.

We are all individual and we all need to figure out what works for us. Hopefully we find people with helpful tricks along the way, but quoting something as science and bashing someone because they found another way makes me a little less of a lady. Ketones make me happy. My blood pressure is normal because I took the time to improve my digestion. I refuse to ruin my good mood to take the time to scream at you to shut up about the $*@&!^? science already! Doesn’t mean I’m not thinking it.

QUIT DIETING!

To learn how to stop yo-yo dieting FOREVER, click here. Work with your body, not against it!