When I started this fast I said I would give weekly reports of my progress, well I am seven days in and so here goes. Anybody interested in weight loss I can report that this morning when I weighed myself I was already down by 11lbs, so basically that is in six days. If I was to weigh myself tonight I would expect to have lost at least another 1lb, so I can’t think of any other way to lose this amount of weight quicker, although some of this will be water weight but if I was to stop now I would expect to have permanently lost around 9lbs.

Although weight loss is important it was not my primary reason for fasting, I am hoping to reverse some nerve damage and joint pain in my left leg and right shoulder. The reduction in weight at the end of this fast will obviously help the situation with my leg, but it is the state of autophagy that I am hoping will start to repair the damage. For the last year walking has become very painful and I have had to use two walking sticks to reduce the load on my left leg, but yesterday the pain level in my leg had reduced, and today I had to go to my local post box, which is only about two hundred yards, it wasn’t a problem, but I managed to walk back using just one stick. Something is going on although you can’t feel it you start noticing changes in movement and pain levels.

Ketosis, it took until the second day for me to properly get into a state of ketosis, which did surprise me a little considering my LCHF diet, but now it seems to be holding steady at around 4mmol/L. If I was able to exercise more like fast walking it would probably be a little lower at 3mmol/L but I am only doing some upper body weight training. For me being in ketosis is important as it helps in the regeneration of damaged nervous systems, and I am hoping that with ketosis and autophagy I will be able to walk more easily by the end of the month. Ketones are a cleaner fuel source than sugar as they produce a lot less free radicals, also brain cells function much better on ketones than they do on sugar. (I might even be a bit smarter by the end of the month) Some of the new research studies are showing that burning ketones as fuel can help with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS and Epilepsy better than some of the conventional drugs in use at present.

That just about covers my first seven days, by the time I do my next post I will have moved into unknown territory as I have never been passed twelve days before, but at the moment I can’t see any problems. Until next time I wish you all the very best of health.

I can’t believe how quickly January has passed; I now have less than twelve hours until my fast starts. I have been checked over medically and everything seems to be in order, so it is all going to be down to mental strength. I will be going into unknown territory once I pass twelve days; I still have plenty of body fat so that is not going to be a problem, my biggest problem is that I miss eating food. I will be giving an update at least once a week, covering all the relevant information. On my last fast which was ten days, the damaged skin on my right leg started to repair, and I ended up with nearly three inches of new skin. This is something I am hoping can be covered with a series of photographs over the four week period, autophagy in progress.

On a totally different note having nothing to do with health I am looking for information. I have three cats, two males and one female, for the last six months the oldest male called Boris, has started bringing my mail up to me. I live on the first floor, and once the postman has been he goes down and brings any post to me one at a time. It started off with just the occasional small package but now it is everything, and my question is, has anybody else come across a cat that brings the post to you, I haven’t been able to find anyone else yet. If anyone has any information please let me know in the comments

Until next time I wish you all the very best of health…

Have you done it this year yet, broken your New Year’s resolutions, if you have don’t worry just look at it from a different angle. The only important thing now is that you made a decision to change something, and change can take time and preparation, so stay with me and I shall try and explain.  Two friends of mine went to a New Year’s Eve party, and at midnight they both decided that 2019 was going to be a healthy year, and they gave up smoking. One of them was a very light smoker, and had run out of cigarettes before midnight, and the other a heavy smoker stamped on his packet and discarded them. By 4am the heavy smoker had found his discarded cigarettes, and although they were squashed he managed to smoke them, the other one went until that evening before he caved in. In reality they had very little chance of success trying to stop on a whim.

To stop smoking is a massive change, and to be successful it takes preparation, for me it took four attempts, one lasted two years and another eighteen months, now it has been over eight years and I know I will never smoke again. Like any addiction your brain needs time to prepare, and I have found the easiest way is through affirmation. The last twice I used this method, once for two years and the last for over eight, and my two friends are using it now, it cost you nothing, and is better for you than patches, pills, gum or E-cigarettes. This doesn’t just work for smoking, it also works for alcohol and many other things, and you first set a date at least two weeks away and write, “On The 5^th Of February 2019 I Am Going To Stop Smoking For Ever For My Health” or whatever you want to write, then every day up to that date you read it aloud and write it again, when the date arrives it is like you are programed to stop, and it is easy. For people I have explained this method to, it has helped over twenty smokers to stop, and three heavy drinkers. It has failed with three people but they only wrote it down once or twice, and didn’t bother reading what they had written. Affirmation can be a very powerful tool if you use it the right way.

These days we all know how dangerous smoking is to our health, but the other day I was reading an article by one of the world’s leading heart surgeons, and he said that if he had a patient who smoked and used sugar, and would only give one of them up, he would have to recommend that they gave up sugar. The big problem with sugar is that people only think about how much they use, not how much they eat. Sugar is in virtually everything you eat, unless you use single ingredients and prepare all your food yourself. To make things worse the food industry use scientists to find ways to get more sugar into their products, because they know they will be more addictive and therefore they will sell more. In general the food industry are not interested in your health, only their profits, your health they leave in the hands of the pharmaceutical companies. There is only one person who is, or should be looking out for your health interests and that is you! We only get one chance at life, no replays or practice and that time passes very quickly, and the most important thing is to stay healthy, and regardless of your age you need to seriously think about that now.

Let’s get back to New Year’s resolutions, if things have not panned out as planned yet, don’t give up just keep trying to make the changes that you wanted, it must have been important so why would you not want to continue trying. My resolution was to do a 28 day water fast, but there was no way I was going to start at midnight on the 31^st. I decided it would be easier to not eat for February which is 28 days, and it would give me the time to prepare myself. I am going to write a weekly report on this fast, covering how I am feeling, and what I have noticed especially changes I can see, like my skin, which has improved on shorter fasts previously. I am hoping by giving up food for February it might inspire some of you to give up something to improve your own health, like sugar laden foods or drinks. Until the next time I wish you all good health.

Now that Christmas has passed for another year, it’s time to count the cost, not just financially but also on the bathroom scales. Every year I say “Not this year, I am not going to overeat” but every year I do, but this year I don’t care because it’s not a problem. This year after overeating for three days I am now looking forward to getting back to my normal eating plan, basically I am sick of the sight of food, and that from someone who used to be a food addict, it feels great.

The reason I am not bothered about gaining a little weight this Christmas is because it will not be a problem to lose it, all I need to do is fast for a few days and everything will be back to normal. I need to get a couple of short fasts in January, maybe a five day and a seven day in preparation for the twenty-eight day fast I am planning for February. One of the big problems with being type 2 diabetic is that most of the time you tend to feel fine, you might drink a little more, pee a lot more and have headaches more frequently, but all the time it is destroying you from the inside out. The only way this damage can be repaired is through fasting induced autophagy, and one of the problems I have is skin damage on my legs. The skin has become thick and scaly, but during my last fast for eight days the damage has receded by about one and a half inches, 38mm on my right leg, my left leg was never as badly affected.  Over a period of twenty eight days the change should be quite substantial, and can be covered with photographic evidence.

There are some changes on this site, and the big one is no longer trying to find ways to lose weight, if you want to lose weight go LCHF, and also use intermittent fasting, and the weight will drop off and stay off. 2019 is going to be an interesting year; I shall be doing more fasting and documenting the results, and getting myself in shape to write my book (From a BMI of 50 to a Six-pack at 70) so stay tuned, there will be some interesting articles.

All that leaves me to do is wish all my readers a very healthy and happy New Year!!!

Every week I receive a number of emails from people I subscribe to, who cover diets, health and wellness, but lately I have noticed a trend that I don’t really like. Trying to discredit one diet or eating plan in order to promote another without truthfully covering all the facts is wrong, and this has happened recently with the Ketogenic Diet. Eating plans aren’t always primarily about weight loss some are to help in medical conditions, but weight loss can be a secondary effect.

The Ketogenic diet was designed back in the 1920s to help combat and manage childhood epilepsy, but is now also helping type 2 diabetics control their blood sugar. Because this eating plan is very low carb and high in good fats it has been jumped on by the weight loss fraternity, and is now being classed as a fast weight loss fad diet, which it most certainly is not. This is not a short term program; people who have followed this eating plan for years are incredibly healthy. I personally don’t fully follow the ketogenic plan as I still like to have some fruit at times, and this would not be acceptable on a true keto plan. I have found that the Low Carb High Fat (LCHF) diet works really well for me, in conjunction with fasting, as it has helped me lose around 70 lbs. so far, and helped to control my type 2 Diabetes without the use of medication.

When I was first looking into changing my diet and basically my lifestyle by going LCHF, if I had followed the advice of the first report I read I would still be grossly overweight, and on a multitude of medications. Change is never easy as you have to break away from what you have become comfortable with, but if you feel you are ready, and then you must do your research. You have to sieve through the BS and find the people who are speaking through experience, and then learn all you can. One of the best people I have found for LCHF and fasting is Dr Jason Fung, you won’t go far wrong following his advice. Once you have decided on the direction you want to go, document all the information you have, then take it with you when to speak to your Doctor, it helps to convince them that you have looked into it, and know what lays ahead, but NEVER try anything without getting medical advice first!!!

I have just spoken to someone who has read my last post Why Fast? And they were under the impression that you could still have a snack if you felt hungry on a Water Fast, as long as you didn’t have a meal, and they seemed surprised when I said no. I know this couple very well, and they know I am writing about them now, they just said “don’t use our names” OK Mr and Mrs Smith from London NW2 I won’t. They start there day the healthy way with a bowl of cereal, and they both have a spoonful of sugar and low fat milk, followed by 2 slices of white bread  toasted, with a margarine spread and marmalade, followed by white coffee and they both take 1 spoonful of sugar, and that is around 9am

By 11 to 11.30am they would have walked their dog, any now it’s time for their mid-morning snack and coffee. This would consist of a sandwich made with white sliced bread, margarine spread and sandwich filler from a jar, they come in a multitude of flavours. With their coffee with 1 spoonful of sugar, they would have 3 or 4 milk chocolate Hobnobs each, which are a popular biscuit here in the UK. This would set them up for their lunch, normally a pork pie with salad, shop bought low fat potato salad, and low fat coleslaw with low fat salad dressing over the rest, followed by coffee with 1 spoonful of sugar in each, and a couple of Hobnobs each.

After relaxing for about an hour, it would be out with the dog again for about an hour and back for afternoon tea. This time it would be a pot of tea for two but instead of 1 they both take 11/2 teaspoons of sugar, and they would finish off however many Hobnobs were left, and that would keep them going until their evening meal. Their evening meal is normally around 7pm, it usually consists of some sort of shop bought pie, always mashed potatoes and a couple of different vegetables with instant gravy, followed by a desert which is normally something shop bought. To finish off their day it’s normally tea and a sandwich before bed.

They consider this to be a very healthy diet, and couldn’t understand why the husband was told by his doctor he needed to make changes, as he was borderline diabetic. The recommended maxim amount of sugar an adult should consume a day is 7 teaspoons or 30 grams, and they use more than that on their cereal and in their coffee and tea, and their total daily intake would be around 25 spoons a day. For anyone on a similar diet fasting even for 24 hours would be torture, as their body would be screaming for sugar. These are people on a reasonable healthy modern diet, a large number of people who are not careful about what they eat, and drink can easily be consuming 40+ spoons of sugar a day, which would make any sort of fasting almost impossible.

Anyone can fast but to make it easier you have to be fat adapted first, meaning that you have to be able to use glucose or fat for fuel. The amounts of sugar hidden in processed food, and the amount of sugary drinks consumed, without taking into account any added sugar means most people are running on glucose all the time. To become fat adapted you need to cut sugar and processed carbs from your diet, which in turn stops the spikes in blood sugar, and reduces the amount of insulin in your bloodstream. This doesn’t happen overnight and can take several days, but once you start burning stored fat as energy, fasting becomes a lot easier, and you’re on the path to better health…

I have had a few emails asking if fasting makes you lose a lot more weight, and the quick answer is no. Obviously if you don’t eat for five days you are going to lose weight but in real terms only about 1lb of body fat per day. You could easily show a loss of about 12lbs or more over the five days but a lot of that is water weight, which you will soon gain back. So if I am not losing loads of weight fasting why am I doing it, and the easy answer is autophagy. I know some of you might not of heard about autophagy, basically it is when your body breaks down old or damaged cells and uses them for fuel, but they are replaced with new stem cells, it’s how our body repairs itself. In 2016 the Japanese cell biologist Yoshinori Ohsumi won the Nobel Prize for Medicine for his research work into Autophagy, which translated means self-eating, and this brought a lot of attention to the little know subject. Through my type 2 Diabetes, I have suffered some nerve damage, which I am using autophagy to repair and it is helping, after being told the damage was irreversible.

Is fasting worth thinking about if you don’t have a problem that needs addressing, well yes, there are plenty of general health benefits to be gained through fasting, and they depend on how long you are prepared to fast for. I personally think that everybody would benefit from doing 24 hour water only fast once every week, and you only have to miss two meals, have your evening meal at 7pm then your next meal at 8pm the following day, and that will give you a full 24 hours without food and around 12 hours with your body in a fasting state.  If it does nothing else it will give your digestive system a rest for a few hours, which with today’s diet and the amount of food we consume it probably hasn’t had for quite some time. Even a 24 hour fast can be problematic if you are diabetic and injecting insulin or on any medication, so I can’t stress enough how important it is to get medical advice before attempting any fast or dietary change, and that goes for everybody, regardless of their medical history. When I first spoke to my doctor regarding fasting she was not in agreement and made a note on my medical record, at that time my blood sugar was high, my LDL was high so were my triglycerides and my HDL was very low, and I was suffering from non-alcoholic fatty liver, and I was grossly overweight at 362lbs. For someone who has been running a weight loss site I was a real mess.

Let’s talk about weight for a minute, I have struggled for years, at my heaviest I was around 392lbs and I was in despair, it seemed like whatever I tried I ended up heavier, and my health was really starting to suffer. I knew about yoyo dieting and have even covered it on this site, but I hadn’t realised how depressing it could become, because I had always been the glass half full type of guy not half empty, but now depression was starting to creep in, and I was becoming quite concerned. One morning I was looking for something online when I saw this article on bariatric surgery, this looked like the answer, but having spoken with my doctor he felt that with my health as it was I would probably not survive the anaesthetic, so that was that, or was it. On further reading on the subject I found that some of the people who had the surgery reversed their type two diabetes, but that was before they had really started to lose weight, and it was down to the liquid diet they were on for the first week.  I put myself on a really low calorie diet, under 1000 calories a day with plenty of fluids and I lost weight but I felt dreadful, hungry all the time with low energy but I managed to drop 30lbs, but I knew it was not sustainable in the long term.

It was at this time I saw an article about Dr Jason Fung who is based in Canada, and he was using diet and fasting to get people off medication that had type 2 Diabetes, this was the turning point for me. I watched his video’s on YouTube, where he talked about Low Carb High Fat diet (LCHF) and fasting, and the more I watched I realised that you had to change to a LCHF diet to make fasting easier. I learnt all I could about LC and also the Ketogenic diet and made some major changes. The first thing I did was to stop using vegetable oil, I cut out all grain, bread, pasta anything made with flour, white rice and potatoes, and that was a lot easier than I thought it would be, but the great thing was the weight was dropping off. I had stopped eating any processed food and just about cut all sugar from my diet, I felt good and never hungry. It was then that I started fasting; first it was just 24 hours, then 3 days, after that I did a couple of 5 days and my last one was nearly 8 days I was about five hours short, not through being hungry, but I had some food that would have wasted. So how am I doing, well since I went LCHF I have lost over 70lbs I am no longer on medication I feel great and looking forward to losing the next 100lbs by next summer. The real bonus is you lose weight and save loads of money when you fast as well, how many diets can you say that about. One last note, usually when you lose large amounts of weight you end up with flappy skin which needs to be removed with surgery, but not when you do extended fasts, this is where Autophagy comes into play and uses the surplus skin as energy…..

Since my last post I have completed my five day water fast and I feel great. My blood pressure is now under control, and yesterday my doctor after looking at my record of twice daily BP readings has taken me off medication, as long as the readings remain where they are. It might sound a bit daunting going on a, water fast for five days, but if you have done the right preparation it’s a lot easier than you might think. Personally I couldn’t see how you could attempt a five day fast if you were not already on a low carb high fat program, as your body has to burn fat during the fast. I had already been low carb high fat for just over four months, plus I was on one meal a day and I had done a couple of 48 hour and a 72 hour fast previously. Apart from the weight loss there have been other health gains from the fast, better sleep, no morning headaches, and better blood pressure control. I have got to wait another couple of weeks for a blood test, but I can’t wait to see how my cholesterol has improved as my last test was not great with my LDL quite high and my HDL (the good cholesterol) rather low.

Before I go any further I must stress that nothing on this website is intended as advise, but is purely an account of what I have done, and what it has done for me. I can’t stress strongly enough that before anyone considers making changes to their diet or trying intermittent or longer term fasting, that you do your own research, then sit down with your doctor or health worker, and fully discuss what you want to do. Trying anything on your own without medical support could have fatal results especially if you are on medication. When I discussed the five day water fast with my doctor I had all my research notes with me, showing the advantages and all the possible problems I could face, and that I fully understood them, but even so she could not condone my action and had to make a note on my medical record to that effect. Now that I have survived and she has a copy of the journal I kept, she is being more supportive of the next one I intend to start at the end of this month, which might be for seven days. It’s not that many months ago that I had a BMI of 48, although it has gone down considerably I still have plenty of body fat to keep me going when I fast.

Let’s talk about the title, Fat Makes You Feel Good! Ever since I changed to a low carb high fat eating plan, I really enjoy my food, it has real flavour and it’s a lot more filling, I have cut my total food consumption by about 40%, no snacking, and never feeling hungry. I generally only eat once a day, sometimes at weekends I might have my main meal mid-afternoon and some soup late evening. One of my favourites is Leek Soup but I still make sure I include plenty of fat, by frying the leeks cut into half inch pieces in butter for a couple of minutes, before I add a litre of vegetable stock and simmer for twenty minutes. This is one of the few soups that I liquidise but I add a couple of desert spoonsful of full fat cream cheese when I do, and it tastes fantastic. The low carb high fat plan has really worked for me, I have lost weight, and it has helped me with my fast which has had many health benefits.

I wasted virtually all my sixties by being grossly overweight and having type 2 diabetes, and with my seventies approaching fast I knew that I needed to end this nonsense. I had listened to my medical advice, accept your diabetes, it is progressive and for life, and you are going to have to continuously increase your medication until you have to go onto daily  insulin injections. This is true with the dietary advice I was given when diagnosed, eat you carbs and only low fat, and try and cut down on sugar. This is like seeing a house on fire and trying to put it out by throwing a bucket of petrol on it. Type 2 diabetes is fully reversible even if you have had it for fifteen years or more, and if anyone says it’s not, they are wrong. I have been type 2 for twelve years and I intend to be diabetes free by Christmas, a friend of mine was type 2 for seventeen years and on insulin, now he is medication free, and healthier than he has been for years.  We all owe it to ourselves to try and be the best we can be, and that includes our health, sometime it takes a long time to realise but when we do we need to act. When we are young old age seems to be an eternity away, but it soon passes, and when it does we want to extend what we have left for as long as possible, and for that we need our health.

It’s time to take responsibility for your own destiny, find the truth by doing your own research, if you are reading this post, you have the ability to find the information you need to take control of your health. If you have type 2 diabetes or are overweight I suggest you start by looking at the work being done by Dr Jason Fung, he is leading the field by using diet and fasting to great effect. One of the big problems with our diet these days is the amount of sugar in processed foods, and research is now showing that sugar is more addictive than cocaine, so it’s no wonder some of us have problems making changes. Although I have not used sugar in tea or coffee for just on forty years I have still had an addiction to sugar in the form of jam donuts, cakes and hot chocolate drinks, hence my obesity, but like any addiction I have been able to break it, but it’s not been easy. As I have said previously information can be more important than anything, because once you know what white carbs and sugars are doing to your body change becomes a lot easier. There is so much information out there on the benefits of Low Carb High Fat eating plans, and when combined with fasting the results can be outstanding. I am going to be starting a seven day water fast in a few days and I will be covering that in my next post. I am going to finish with this, sometimes the thought of change can be more frightening than change itself.

It’s been quite a while since I have posted anything, but at last I think I have something worth writing about. Since my last post I have been busy doing research, and trying various diets, some have worked for a while and some didn’t. The conclusion I have arrived at is for me, as I can only discuss my own results here, diets are a complete waste of time and money, and I shall attempt to explain my findings. Ever since my first posting back in July 2013 Getting Started: First Steps, I have been on a weight loss rollercoaster, and in June last year I was basically back where I had started. The key word here is DIET, and it just congers up all the wrong images.

If you have been overweight for a long time like me, you have probably tried all sorts of diets, and some would have worked for a while, and you would feel really good until it all started going back on, plus a little more. We have to take SOME of the responsibility for being overweight, but it’s NOT totally our own faults. So how big is this problem, well figures in the UK for 2006 – 07 show that obesity cost the NHS £5.1 BILLION, compared to the £3.3 billion for smoking related health problems, and £3.1 billion for health problems caused by alcohol consumption, these figures are 11 years old and the projected forecast is not looking any better, because if nothing changes, by 2034 70% of the adult population in the UK could be overweight or obese, these are truly frightening figures. I think that one of the saddest statistics I have read recently puts 25% of children in the UK between the ages of 2 and 10 either overweight or obese, and some of these are already suffering from type 2 diabetes. So how have we got to the situation we find ourselves in today, well if you wanted to point the finger, it would have to come down to one man, the American physiologist Ancel Keys.

You need to go back to September 1955 in the USA when President Eisenhower had his first heart attack, and his personal physician Dr Paul Dudley White put this down to too much saturated fat in his diet, the fact he smoked four packets of cigarettes a day was never considered as possibly being part of the problem. This hypothesis was backed up by his friend Ancil Keys, and this is where today’s problems first began. It is said that Ancel Keys was a man with a very powerful personality, and he was able to convince others that his idea that heart attacks were caused by saturated dietary fat and cholesterol, and that all fat needed to be cut from our diet, and we needed to introduce a lot more carbohydrates. Although it is now well known that Keys research was not only very selective, but it was also seriously flawed, it was used in1961 by the American Heart Association for the first ever dietary advice telling everyone to avoid saturated fat and cholesterol in order to avoid heart attacks. That is the point where the thought behind the modern dietary advice food pyramid began, and where the slippery slope started that we still find ourselves on today.

Becoming overweight is usually a gradual process, I know it was for me, over several years, a couple of inches here a stone there, but I was always going to lose it before next summer, and well that’s a joke. When I look back now at the amount of times I saw a new diet and expected to undo all the damage or weight gain in just a few weeks, it makes me wonder where my head was. How many times have you lost weight, felt happy, and then gone back to eating the same things that you did before the diet, and then wondered why you have put the weight back on. The only answer is to make life changes, and to do this you don’t need diets, you need information, and you have to forget any type of quick fix. The important thing is to set yourself realistic goals, I have set mine at 1lb per week, and anything over that will be a happy bonus, but that still works out at nearly 4st per year. How many diets would you try in a year? You lose some and put some back, it’s like a Merry Go Round, you’re not going anywhere. Some people I know have said isn’t just 1lb a week a bit low, why not go for 4lb at least that is worthwhile, and as I say to them if you don’t make your target you can get despondent and feel it’s not worth it and give up, plus the fact if you lose weight too fast you can end up with too much loose skin flapping about!

When you are overweight there is always a reason, apart from the cases where it is caused by a medical condition, everyone else is doing something wrong and the key is to find what it is. Of cause we now know that the dietary advice we have been given over the last fiftry odd years has been wrong, there are still the obvious things, drinking too many bottles or cans of soda, eating too many ready meals and fast food, cakes, buiscits and eating bags of sweets and chocolates. There are a great number of things that are not so obvious, but very dangerious to our health and weight and one of the worst is high–fructose corn syrup. This is where information is far more important than a diet plan, because you need to fully understand what is in the food you are about to eat and how it can effect you. The easy answer is to only buy single ingredient fresh items, vegetables, fruit, fish and various meats, poultry, dairy products, and avoid all processed foods, but we know this is not always practical.

Even some vegetables are not always good for our heath depending on the way they are prepaired. Here is just one quick example because I am going to cover this in more detail later, potatoes, virtually everybody loves mashed potatoes, roast potatoes and chips (French Fries) all very bad, but boiled potatoes that are allowed to cool and put in the fridge overnight become resistant starch and they are very good, but as I have said more on that later. I know in the past when I have been dieting I have done the right thing and cut out potatoes, and replaced them with pasta or white rice, much healthier, well no it’s not, you would be better off having a small amount of plain boiled potato, again this is where you need information and not a diet. I still love potatoes but very rarely have them with a meal, but I have always got a bowl of boiled and chilled new or baby potatoes in the fridge, and if I fancy a snack (which these days is very rare) I will eat a couple and sometimes I even have butter on them, much healthier than a lot of these so called healthy snacks.

When I started this website The Weight Loss Path I really thought it would be easy to find a direction and lose weight, but it has taken me over five years but at last I know I am on the right path. At the end of this month July 2018 I am going to be 70 and for the first time in more than ten years I am not worried about my weight, the changes I have made are working, my health is improving and I am more positive than I have been for years. I am annoyed with myself for not finding the answer sooner, but I was too busy looking in the wrong direction, I was looking at diets instead of looking for the cause of my own obesity. Early last summer I realised that I was just going round in circles, and if I wanted to get anywhere I needed to make some serious changes. Whenever I have been on a diet I have always made notes, and these did prove to be of some benefit, it allowed me to compare what I was doing when I was losing the most weight, and all this information pointed towards low carbohydrate intake. This gave me a starting point for research, I had already read about the work of Dr Atkins, but I wanted to try and take a look at the latest research and the results were surprising.

Everything I have checked out is pointing towards a low carb high fat diet, but that doesn’t mean that every fat is good, or every carb is bad. White bread, grains, white rice and pasta are bad, but the carbs in green leafy vegetables are very good. It’s a similar story with the fat, natural fats are good, and they include Butter, Cheese, Avocado’s and animal fats, and one of my favourites Coconut Oil, bad fats include Trans Fats, all the vegetable oils that are heat extracted, and the margarine spreads, to name just a few. Statistics show that not everyone is suited to a high fat diet, but anyone intending to make changes to their diet, must first speak to their doctor or dietitian to make sure it is safe for you to try it. I think for me it was really important to fully understand what I had been eating, what was actually in it, and how it was affecting my overall health. Once you understand what has been bad for you most of your life, and you get over the rage as to why this has been allowed to happen, it will be easier to cut these things from your diet for ever.

I did mention earlier that some of the bad foods could be made into good foods by cooking and cooling then refrigerating, and converting them into Resistant Starch, this works for potatoes, pasta and rice, and another very good source are green bananas. I could go on for pages about Resistant Starch (RS) but to keep it short, it is not absorbed in the small intestine, but makes it way to the colon where it feeds the good intestinal bacteria. To finish off, in about four hours I am starting my first 5 Day Water fast, so nothing but water for five days, well I might have the odd mug of green tea to break things up, but apart from weight loss, it should help my insulin resistance, and blood pressure, it will be fully covered in my next article.

I wish you all the very best of health.

I have been on my protein diet for about seven weeks, but my first aim was to help my blood sugar levels, not for weight loss. As anyone who has type 2 diabetes knows, high blood sugar levels over a long period of time, will cause some very serious problems, and mine had been high for far too long.

My blood sugar levels are better, but still not where I want it to be, but I am not getting the spikes I was getting from carbs. I thought it was going to be a real problem cutting back on carbs, no bread, no mashed potato, which I really did like, no pasta or rice, but I can say in all honesty I really don’t miss them, well maybe just a bit. The big difference I have noticed is that I don’t get hungry between meals, I do like to keep a small bowl of nuts, or grapes on my desk just in case, as it is nice to have a pick, every now and then.

The one thing I was not expecting to happen yet was weight loss. I have no idea yet how much I have lost, but I have lost four notches on my belt, which is four inches, so I am looking forward to seeing how much weight that relates to. Weight loss and regulating blood sugar, needs more than diet alone, you really must exercise. Most people when you mention exercise, picture a gym, with everyone sweating away on the exercise machines, but it doesn’t need to be that way. The exercise you do can be as simple as walking for 30 minutes a day, or even better doing a brisk walk for 15 minutes twice a day, giving you more than twice the benefit. I have just purchased a bicycle, as I find walking hard, I will keep you informed of my progress.

Until next time stay healthy.