This is me.  On the left is where I started 2 years ago, and on the right is where I was as of March of 2009.  I tried to align them by head height, but probably due to camera angle, it's not perfect.  Still, you can see that even though the one on the right is sized bigger in height and width, I'm still obviously smaller.  20 kilograms smaller, in fact.

 

I had a setback this year because of an injury, but I've lost 5 more kilos anyway.  So now I know the plan works even with very little conscious activity.

 

In 2007, I was hypothyroid, and though I'd done pretty well at not letting things get completely out of control, I had the classic symptoms.  My skin was constantly dry, my energy low, and I thought I was pretty much doomed to stay fat unless I went on insane diets.

 

Calorie restriction within the style I was cooking and eating always led to having such low energy that I couldn't stay awake even with 7+ hours of sleep every night.  I also got sick every time a cold breezed through town, and got either a bad flu, pneumonia, or tonsillitis every year without fail.

 

Then one fateful February, I got a near deadly one: something eastern European nurses here call "the grippa".  While I was stuck in bed, cursing my fate, I saw a show called Cooking Thin by Chef Kathleen Daelemans.  She had things to say about nutrition and cooking that I hadn't heard from anyone but my Grandma and my Great Grandaddy's nurse.  I almost didn't believe it until I started looking things up on the net.  I found information on the paleo and primal diets that I found a bit extreme, but then I came across the Weston A. Price Foundation.

 

Basically, the way people eat in the west has led many of us to become needlessly obese and ill.  Different people just come in different sizes and all, but there's a point when it really isn't your genes, but your diet, or more accurately dietary abuse of your genes.  However, what passes for a nutritious diet in reality is far from what we're told it is by the food pyramid and conventional nutritionists.  The ones who aren't morally against meat or dairy, or getting paid to say otherwise, have to admit that the real base of the human food pyramid, and highest food priority is fruits and vegetables, not grains.  Grains are a secondary source of carbohydrates, and handled less effectively by the stomach and liver than fruits, vegetables, and legumes.

 

In fact, you could live quite well on only fruits, vegetables, and legumes with the occasional root thrown in like potatoes, yams, or cassava.  It is preferable, and you'll be healthier with some dairy and meat in there too, but in a pinch, you're better off with a handfull of sunflower seeds than a handfull of wheat.

 

We also eat way too much denatured fat, sugar, and salt in the west.  This is the actual Triad of Adipose Doom: hydrogenated fat, refined sugar, and refined salt.

 

So as we begin this journey that you the reader, and I are actually walking together, let me just tell you that you're going to need to let go of your preconceptions.  The science of weight loss is sound.  Yes, you need to create a calorie deficit where you're burning off more than you consume.  However, to create that deficit and continue into balance is a long journey if you're already obese.  To lose weight, and keep it off is very easy, but it is for most people over 35, like teaching yourself to play a musical instrument.  Younger people will lose weight faster because they haven't had as many years of damage.  For anyone of any age, it's worth it though.

 

Another thing to realize before we get started is that this program will not make you supermodel thin.  It'll just make you too busy and too happy with yourself to care.  Your weight will get under control, and if you have excess weight, you'll lose it.  However, according to many aware doctors recently, what excess weight is for people who aren't malnourished, varies according to both genetic and epigenetic factors.  So long as you're eating healthy and getting enough activity, you are metabolically your best.  It's only after you've reached that point that you should even think about weight loss in terms of body modification/aesthetics.

 

Counting calories is putting the cart way too far before the horse.  Once you're eating right, then you'll be able to eat less if you like.  Until then, conventional dieting would be like trying to run a marathon without doing any training whatsoever, with nails in your shoes thinking that just because your suffering is greater, you should get a better result or be more likely to win.  Believe me, there is enough to think about as far as nutrition without the calorie worries.  Good nutrition and exercise is what will get you through a marathon literally or figuratively, not counting calories.  Who are you going to trust for your fitness information, athletes or models?

 

I'll take the athletes.  Now let's do this.