New Paleo Adherent - 60 Is The New 40!
vikinglander
Posts: 1,547 Member
Hello everyone! I’ve been tracking on MFP since early Feb. 2016 and I decided I would try joining a group of like-minded folk to see if you can inspire me to stay the course.
First let me say that I am 58. When I was 30, I weighed 185 lbs. and I was solid muscle. I was at the gym every other day using a Nautilus circuit. I felt great and looked great. Then I got married.
After that, all my priorities seemed to change, and I always seemed to have something else to do besides work out. The weight started to creep up. I’m not blaming this on my first wife, or my second wife, or any of the girlfriends in between or since. I’m just saying that cooking for two, laying around, watching TV, eating out more often, entertaining...it all started to accumulate in my abdomen.
The next 20 years were a roller coaster, up 20 lbs., down 30, up 40, down 15, always trending up...on Fit For Life, and off Fit For Life, then on Weight Watchers and off again, then on Atkins, then off. At my all-time heaviest, in 2010, I was 323 lbs. I did a Paleo protocol and lost about 50 lbs., down to around 275 or so. I swore I would never get near 300 again.
I met my current girlfriend, Deb, in July 2014, and put on about 20+ lbs. of “girlfriend weight” (Yay! Somebody loves me! Let’s go party! Let’s have dessert! Let’s eat a pint of sea salt caramel ice cream (each!) while we watch TV.) During the holidays, between TG and Xmas (2015) I started taking Chantix and have been more or less smoke free since Jan. 1st 2016. I will confess that I have had a few slips, one as recently as last week, but I am determined to be a non-smoker. I knew that if I didn’t watch what I eat, I would start packing on the pounds again. I got on the scale on Jan. 3rd...it tipped to 298! Deb weighed herself at the same time and was none too happy with that number either, but that is her story to tell.
Deb and I have both been involved in dieting and healthy eating over the years, even if at times we were eating too much. We both knew what had worked in the past - Deb had been most successful and happiest when she was eating a largely vegan diet, with a few meals of chicken and fish a week, and an occasional beef dish, and doing yoga and running; I had been most successful with a low carb protocol, whether Atkins or Paleo. We decided that we could dovetail the two by eating a LOT of raw and cooked vegetables and fruits, and adding proteins to each meal, whether it was tofu, beans, grains, eggs, fish or chicken for Deb, or beef, pork, poultry, eggs, game or fish for me.
We sat at our computers every night for about three weeks and researched the current state of weight loss science and worked out some detailed meal plans and shopping lists. Along the way we discovered a new book called “Always Hungry?” By Dr. David Ludwig. He’s an endocrinologist and he really explains what our bodies do with a calorie of fat, a calorie of protein or a calorie of carbohydrate (they are NOT the same!). The diet protocol is based on the idea that “overeating doesn’t make you fat; the process of getting fat makes you overeat”. He recommends a program similar in many respects to Atkins and Paleo - extremely low carb to begin, then moderated amounts of carbs to lose, and a balanced carb/fat/protein profile to maintain. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand what our bodies do with the calories we eat!
So here is what I came up with and what I have been doing since early February:
-Adhere to the basic Paleo protocol - no grains, no legumes, no dairy.
-Track everything. Every bite. Weigh and measure everything, too.
-Eat three 500-calorie meals (B/L/D) and two 250-calorie snacks (AM/PM) a day. This is based on the calorie deficit recommended by MyFitnessPal, based itself on my height (5’11”), weight (298) and BMI.
-Balance the meals to provide calories at 25% carbohydrates, 25% protein and 50% fat. This is based on the recommendations in “Always Hungry?”, for the first phase.
-Include at least one serving of a monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) in each meal or snack. This is from the Flat Belly Diet. These include:
--Avocados
--Olives
--Healthy Oils (olive, walnut, avocado, safflower, etc. NOT soy oil or canola oil)
--Nuts and Seeds
--Dark Chocolate (70% cacao or higher)
-Restrict certain foods based on the guidelines developed by Dr. Peter D’Adamo in “Eat Right For Your Blood Type”. I am a type O+. D’Adamo says that this is the original hunter-gatherer genome, and his dietary protocol for Type O closely coincides with Paleo.
I like eating and thinking like a paleolithic hunter-gatherer! In October 2014, I sent a saliva sample to 23andMe.com and had my DNA analyzed. They tell me that 99% of my bloodline, going back 50,000 years or more, come straight from the Iberian peninsula, or what is now Spain and Portugal, before the end of the last Ice Age. As the glaciers receded, this pocket of humanity moved west across Europe, hunting the large mammals, including Mammoth, bison, aurochs, etc.; the very animals depicted on the walls of the caves at Altamira, Lascaux and Chauvet. (Not too long ago, scientists unearthed a baby mammoth frozen in the tundra in northern Russia, and supposedly extracted viable DNA; and supposedly they intend to insert this DNA into an Asian elephant’s ovum, and in a certain number of generations, they will have an animal that is 99.9% mammoth. Who will be breeding these, and where can I buy steaks?)
I am a fairly accomplished cook and I love sharing food with people. I have developed quite a few Paleo recipes of my own, including a pretty damn fine chili, and some great salad dressings. I have to give a nod to the many Paleo cooks on the web these days; there’s a lot of inspiration there.
I intend to be in as good shape at 60 as I was at 30. I look forward to exchanging advice, opinions, and recipes with you all! Add me and let’s lose and grow stronger together!
Eat well, breathe deep, get strong, feel good.
60 is the new 40!
Vikinglander (like the spacecraft!)
First let me say that I am 58. When I was 30, I weighed 185 lbs. and I was solid muscle. I was at the gym every other day using a Nautilus circuit. I felt great and looked great. Then I got married.
After that, all my priorities seemed to change, and I always seemed to have something else to do besides work out. The weight started to creep up. I’m not blaming this on my first wife, or my second wife, or any of the girlfriends in between or since. I’m just saying that cooking for two, laying around, watching TV, eating out more often, entertaining...it all started to accumulate in my abdomen.
The next 20 years were a roller coaster, up 20 lbs., down 30, up 40, down 15, always trending up...on Fit For Life, and off Fit For Life, then on Weight Watchers and off again, then on Atkins, then off. At my all-time heaviest, in 2010, I was 323 lbs. I did a Paleo protocol and lost about 50 lbs., down to around 275 or so. I swore I would never get near 300 again.
I met my current girlfriend, Deb, in July 2014, and put on about 20+ lbs. of “girlfriend weight” (Yay! Somebody loves me! Let’s go party! Let’s have dessert! Let’s eat a pint of sea salt caramel ice cream (each!) while we watch TV.) During the holidays, between TG and Xmas (2015) I started taking Chantix and have been more or less smoke free since Jan. 1st 2016. I will confess that I have had a few slips, one as recently as last week, but I am determined to be a non-smoker. I knew that if I didn’t watch what I eat, I would start packing on the pounds again. I got on the scale on Jan. 3rd...it tipped to 298! Deb weighed herself at the same time and was none too happy with that number either, but that is her story to tell.
Deb and I have both been involved in dieting and healthy eating over the years, even if at times we were eating too much. We both knew what had worked in the past - Deb had been most successful and happiest when she was eating a largely vegan diet, with a few meals of chicken and fish a week, and an occasional beef dish, and doing yoga and running; I had been most successful with a low carb protocol, whether Atkins or Paleo. We decided that we could dovetail the two by eating a LOT of raw and cooked vegetables and fruits, and adding proteins to each meal, whether it was tofu, beans, grains, eggs, fish or chicken for Deb, or beef, pork, poultry, eggs, game or fish for me.
We sat at our computers every night for about three weeks and researched the current state of weight loss science and worked out some detailed meal plans and shopping lists. Along the way we discovered a new book called “Always Hungry?” By Dr. David Ludwig. He’s an endocrinologist and he really explains what our bodies do with a calorie of fat, a calorie of protein or a calorie of carbohydrate (they are NOT the same!). The diet protocol is based on the idea that “overeating doesn’t make you fat; the process of getting fat makes you overeat”. He recommends a program similar in many respects to Atkins and Paleo - extremely low carb to begin, then moderated amounts of carbs to lose, and a balanced carb/fat/protein profile to maintain. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to understand what our bodies do with the calories we eat!
So here is what I came up with and what I have been doing since early February:
-Adhere to the basic Paleo protocol - no grains, no legumes, no dairy.
-Track everything. Every bite. Weigh and measure everything, too.
-Eat three 500-calorie meals (B/L/D) and two 250-calorie snacks (AM/PM) a day. This is based on the calorie deficit recommended by MyFitnessPal, based itself on my height (5’11”), weight (298) and BMI.
-Balance the meals to provide calories at 25% carbohydrates, 25% protein and 50% fat. This is based on the recommendations in “Always Hungry?”, for the first phase.
-Include at least one serving of a monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) in each meal or snack. This is from the Flat Belly Diet. These include:
--Avocados
--Olives
--Healthy Oils (olive, walnut, avocado, safflower, etc. NOT soy oil or canola oil)
--Nuts and Seeds
--Dark Chocolate (70% cacao or higher)
-Restrict certain foods based on the guidelines developed by Dr. Peter D’Adamo in “Eat Right For Your Blood Type”. I am a type O+. D’Adamo says that this is the original hunter-gatherer genome, and his dietary protocol for Type O closely coincides with Paleo.
I like eating and thinking like a paleolithic hunter-gatherer! In October 2014, I sent a saliva sample to 23andMe.com and had my DNA analyzed. They tell me that 99% of my bloodline, going back 50,000 years or more, come straight from the Iberian peninsula, or what is now Spain and Portugal, before the end of the last Ice Age. As the glaciers receded, this pocket of humanity moved west across Europe, hunting the large mammals, including Mammoth, bison, aurochs, etc.; the very animals depicted on the walls of the caves at Altamira, Lascaux and Chauvet. (Not too long ago, scientists unearthed a baby mammoth frozen in the tundra in northern Russia, and supposedly extracted viable DNA; and supposedly they intend to insert this DNA into an Asian elephant’s ovum, and in a certain number of generations, they will have an animal that is 99.9% mammoth. Who will be breeding these, and where can I buy steaks?)
I am a fairly accomplished cook and I love sharing food with people. I have developed quite a few Paleo recipes of my own, including a pretty damn fine chili, and some great salad dressings. I have to give a nod to the many Paleo cooks on the web these days; there’s a lot of inspiration there.
I intend to be in as good shape at 60 as I was at 30. I look forward to exchanging advice, opinions, and recipes with you all! Add me and let’s lose and grow stronger together!
Eat well, breathe deep, get strong, feel good.
60 is the new 40!
Vikinglander (like the spacecraft!)
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Replies
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So I guess 65 is the new 45 then.
18 months ago at the age of 63 I went off of sugar and all forms of grains for pain manage. It worked out well and continues to do so today with a ton of positive side effects.
Thanks for joining and sharing.
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Welcome to the Old Guys Club. The diet is the easy part (and you've got a great start). Gaining muscle seems to be the tricky part....0
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Welcome! There are ladies here too.... but I refuse to call myself old! I'm getting younger eating this way!0
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Kitn, in my mind I'm not a day over 22! The body, however, takes a little more convincing. I will say that a previously painful arthritic knee is now practically pain-free, even after only 7 weeks or so.
And to Wabmester, weight training will be the next major step in this process, soon to begin, after I am comfortably ensconced in the eating regimen.0 -
Welcome! I was also inspired by Ludwig's book Always Hungry? I was already dieting and had been dropping the carbs a bit, but still eating low fat. The book helped convince me to really just drop my carbs and up my fats. I decided to try for two weeks, and I I felt great plus it really broke my weight stall. I am still doing it (since mid January).
Also, congrats on giving up smoking! A major step in the right direction.0
This discussion has been closed.