“You don’t take weight loss advice from a fat person”

A while back on Facebook, I made an excited post,
“For the first time since 2001, the scale said a two digit weight, as opposed to a 3 digit one (99.4kg)

I don’t usually fuss at all about my relationship to gravity (I’m way way more focused on my size and overall health and body composition), but that’s a symbolic kind of number.

This hyper insulin resistant body of mine loves a carnivore diet. Although, I actually suspect it’s the moderate alcohol more than the minor addition of green veg over the last 7 months that kept the scale stalled on the other side of 100kg.

Carnivore January is of course also dry…
It’s all interesting data for my n=1 experiment.

Oh, and that’s 15st 9lbs in old money.”

However, after I posted, in amongst the “well done!” replies, I received a really good question:

“Don’t mean this to sound rude, but if you have been doing Low Carb for years, how come you are not at a stable lower weight ? Genuine question”

It’s a very valid question, and the fact that I’m not slender yet gives me massive impostor syndrome – As one of my mentors said at my mastermind meeting on Tuesday “you don’t take weight loss advice from a fat person” and given where I am with my body, who am I to call myself the UK’s leading authority on Low Carbohydrate nutrition??? Who am I to write books and coach people with “weight loss advice” on getting their optimal body, when I’m not yet in mine???

It was thoughts like these that nearly stopped me from creating my books.

My sense of “It’s not enough” is unfortunately large, and clashes with my perfectionism big time.

So, the reasons why I’m still fat:

1. 1. Because my body is hugely insulin resistant, which I’ve only just realised properly in 2020 – I spent at least 10 years of the last 20 in denial about this. I was being Low Carb, but not low enough for my body.
   2. I’m human, and have only just gotten a handle on the shitty little patterns in my brain that led me to eat too many carbs for my body. (Thanks to SuperGenius work! https://tiny.cc/SuperGeniusLife )
   3. Between 2001 and 2003, I worked night shifts and ate “replacement foods” – too many carbs and too much hormone messing – I got back to 16st 10lbs from 14st 1lb, all whilst believing that I was being low carb… (this is a repeating theme)
   4. I spent between 2003 and 2010 not really LC at all – cos the medical treatment messed with my hormones even more and also sent me bad shit crazy. I didn’t have the mental resilience i have now, and all I knew to hold it together was sugar and potatoes. Once I was back with the sugar and potatoes again I stayed firmly addicted and didn’t have enough “pain” or brain capacity to move back toward health, and I winded up back around 19st again by the end of 2010. I talk about this at length in the intro to my third book: https://lowcarbinthe.uk/htdlcuks

      

   5. I also spent 5 years in a relationship after 2011 where we spent the last 3 years or so loving each other with food because of my internal conflicts about the relationship. Even though I’d started being Low Carb again in late 2010 and again dropped to 16st 10lbs or so by 2012, I bullshitted myself that some of the things I ate that “aren’t that many carbs really” (Stuff like a quarter tub of M&S premium custard, or 6 Corn thins with cheese and pate) were simply too many carbs for my body.
   6. My back decided to slip its L5-S1 disc in 2012, that very much didn’t help things. Pain causes cortisol, which gets in the way of efficient fat burning, as well as simply not being able to move as much! Combined with the point above, I climbed back to 19 st odd during the next 4 years.
   7. I got back on track again after we broke up in 2016, and ditched 2 st quickly. Then, as with the very first time on 1999, it all stalled. At the end of 2017 I was again 16st 10lbs – this “set point” is one my body has returned to a few times and then stayed there.
   8. Then, I spent 2018 bullshitting myself that I could eat things like dark chocolate and nuts and be fine… and yet, “body says no” and I ended up a stone heavier at the end of 2018 than I started it at (17st 7lbs) – my Bali pictures was what convinced me I had to double down on both food and the bullshit my mind was dealing me.

   The TL;DR?

   • Getting into your optimal body is not a straight path.
   • I 100% own the fact I’m not slender yet.
   • I’m not perfect – just like everyone else.
   • I can still give “weight loss advice” because the structures I’ve created work in the long term, even if for me I have to really go the extra miles to get results.
   • And, for the first time in a while, I’m open to the possibility that this body can get slender and muscular again.

   What “being human” challenges have you suffered through around your body?
   Drop me a comment below – let’s talk 🙂