A Healthy Weight Does Not a Healthy Person Make

You might have seen the CNN article yesterday about the human nutrition professor who lost 27 pounds in two months while subsisting on a diet mostly made up of Twinkies, Little Debbies, Doritos, Oreos, and the like.

He wanted to prove that what matters most in losing weight is calorie-counting, not nutrition. And when it comes to the markers society traditionally uses to measure health, this "convenience store diet" was a real winner: his body fat dropped from 33.4 to 24.9 percent, his "bad" cholesterol dropped 20 percent, his "good" cholesterol increased 20 percent, and triglycerides level decreased by 39 percent.

The professor questions, "What does that mean? Does that mean I'm healthier? Or does it mean how we define health from a biology standpoint, that we're missing something?", and I'd tend to agree, especially after these past few years of reading low-carb research. I know I can lose weight on a low-fat, high-carb diet, but I don't think the constant sugar high is good for my long-term health. And I'm positive I could never sustain a low-calorie diet, especially one centered entirely on sugar.

At least the Taco Bell Drive-Thru Diet, as counter-intuitive as it seems, has a couple of lower-carb options; the creator of the Belly Fat Cure recommends 3 crunchy tacos (at 39 carbs total) for an easy meal option.

And those tacos will keep you full for hours, unlike the blood-sugar-spiking Twinkies, which must have left the professor starving half the time.

Back on Track

I went on vacation and never got to individually thank all of you for your comments on my post publicly bemoaning my inability to commit to my diet, but I really think your support finally pushed me to start caring more about what goes into my mouth.

For the past 10 days, I've made conscious food decisions based on the Belly Fat Cure, and I've lost 6 pounds in the process. The weight isn't "falling off of me" like it does some low-carbers who are super-diligent with their counting, but I'm not interested in dropping a dress size if it's going to make me completely miserable in the process.

At my monthly dinner outing with co-workers on Thursday, I ate three corn tortillas with my fajitas but left behind the other three. During my company's lunch on Friday, I ate a slice of pizza but threw away the edge crust, which I didn't care about. On Saturday, I ate a handful of French fries and gave the rest to my boyfriend. On Sunday, instead of pigging out on Halloween candy, I ate a single-serving Haagen Dazs, which has 17g of sugar, instead of eating half a pint like I usually do, which is more like 60g.

I've seen that it's entirely possible to be physically healthy while still being completely happy with the food that's available to me. I gave myself a set list foods that I could easily make or buy and that I found really delicious. I discovered that I didn't even crave dessert when I allowed myself a little bit of bread or some complex carbs like beans in my meal. And when I did need dessert, I went for a can of diet soda, a stick of gum, or some Greek yogurt.

I'm just really scared this feeling will pass as quickly as it arrived, you know? It turns out it's SO EASY to make good choices with what's available to me if I just get into the habit of doing it. But it's just as easy to slip up and make a habit of eating the old way, too.