I have a massive story posted here, but this is brief for the overview. I’m deeply curious about the world and spend years immersing myself in things I have interest in to master. The more I immersed myself into the nutrition and diet field, the more I realized how bad the science was everyone relied upon. I have two masters degrees – one in business admin, another in cybersecurity. This is not a medical degree. But what you find when you dig really, REALLY deep is that most doctors have about a half a semester in med school with nutrition. Someone like me who has done hundreds of graduate papers is familiar with the scientific method, research methodologies, and supporting a thesis. Furthermore, I believe I connected some dots here with mental health that I feel many have either overlooked or under-weighted how important it is. For example, only 6 months ago I was diagnosed with ADHD and OCD.
The stigma on these conditions were that “ADHD is going squirrel” and “OCD means you need to slam the door three times before opening”. In reality, the combination of the two of these led me to deeeeeeep levels of hyperfocus and an obsession to understand things at the root cause. This led me to a 175 pound weight loss over 3 years, while writing over 150 health blogs that were fully sourced. I demonstrated to people that the method I used to lose weight was achievable, and it vastly improved all markers of my health.
ADHD also means that a lot of my life I chased dopamine highs. When my parents fought, coping mechanisms were terrible foods and treats. When we did good, we celebrated with food. This meant that for me – and perhaps many others – we had a narrow band of “normal” and with that, if we went too high or too low, we then used unhealthy food to make us feel better. As an adult, without proper coping mechanisms – things like food can give you the highs, alcohol can numb pain, etc. When I was younger, I had sports and music and chess I would throw myself into. Every summer I lost 20 pounds, every winter I gained 30 pounds.
Once I started medication, I stopped thinking about food. It became soooo much easier to deal with negative emotions in that my mind wasn’t running to chase a dopamine high.
But connecting all of the dots, I also realized that for me – novelty is important. Something different a lot is important. Interesting is important. And this is what killed me in the gym my whole life. I could create these workout plans, and initially I got a dopamine high, and then over time – it became monotonous and not fun. I’d stop. My trainer used a “muscle confusion” method which had me go to her for THREE years every Saturday. I realized my running and biking programs were so successful because I would bike and run in a lot of different places. I’d do different distances. Different intensities. Different temperatures. Different seasons. Stop at different places. In different types of weather. Every time I went hiking at Rocky Ridge, I did different courses.
My goal here is to try to turn this plan into a rather large scale science project over time, with a defined thesis as well as scientific data to back up the thesis. Many people can LOSE WEIGHT, but the other issue then is putting it back on. This program also tries to address this as part of a long term plan.
Someday – I hope to affect weight loss of millions. This may be my contribution to society before I pass on. I feel that there are a LOT of people out there who feel the same way I do about carbs – but I think my plan connects more dots and includes mental health screening as part of this.
Low Carb Fitness 180 