How I lost 30 lbs in 70 days and didn't even notice

It's one thing to gain weight and not notice. I think 90% of us have done that at one point or another. Some of us have been able to add 20 or 30 pounds of fat to our waistlines and not even notice. It's a whole different idea to drop weight without make any difficult or drastic changes to diet or exercise.

I was able to make that happen. One December I was particularly lenient with my diet (that's a nice way to say it). Hopping on the scale at the end of the month, I noticed I was 12 pounds heavier than I was when I left on my December vacation. The problem was that I already had a desire to cut 20 additional pounds. So that put me a total 0f 32 pounds away from my goal.

The failed workout experiment

Thanks to the rise of the exercise revolution in the Jane Fonda 1980's, everyone's first response to weight gain is working out. My background of lifting and conditioning had me following the same method. What did I do? I turned up my lifting. I lifted anywhere from 5-6 days a week performing heavy olympic lifts, Crossfit style workouts and traditional upper and lower body lifts like squats and bench press. I also conditioned multiple times a week. I did this all month and naturally when I got on the scale I was hoping for a significant loss.

The result?

I only lost 2 pounds!

Now I know what you are thinking: muscle weighs more than fat. True. I did gain some muscle which means I lost more than 2 pounds of fat. But my frustration was that I was spending 12-13 hours a week (2+ hours a day workout out 6 days a week) working out for 4-5 weeks and I had very little to show for it. After all, i'm not in the NFL any longer, I didn't need to be that heavy.

After a few days of sulking, I needed to rethink my strategy. I decided to focus on what many of us have lost sight of: what we eat.

I felt that if God created the food that grows from the ground and the animals we eat, then why would we all balloon up without noticing? Something else must be going on.

I decided to focus on food quality. I wanted to only eat foods that were as close to the way God made them as possible. My hypothesis is that foods that man has synthesized were the main cause of us getting fat, not foods in their untapped, original state. I'm not talking about portion control here either. I'm talking about food quality, not quantity. If you are counting how much food you eat without looking at quality, why not just eat 1500 calories of Twinkies? Because there is more going on than just looking at calories. Micronutrients, vitamins, minerals and food allergies/intolerances will play a role in what the food does to your body. Not to mention GMO and processed food ramifications.

Ok, so what else did I do to lose the weight?

1. I eliminated inflammatory foods

People get upset when I tell them to drop gluten and dairy, but if you want to shed weight quickly, this is a must.

Gluten is an addictive, cross-bred and inflammatory food that causes hormonal imbalances, bloating and weight gain. Wouldn't it be nice to get rid of those three things? All three add pounds to your waist and thighs. I dropped gluten and immediately dropped a few pounds as the bloating subsided. My cravings dissipated, which means that I wasn't craving food at 10:30am in between breakfast and lunch anymore. Eating a gluten breakfast causes you to use glucose as fuel. The problem is glucose levels deplete quickly and your hungry only a few hours later.

Dairy is highly inflammatory and can cause stomach issues like leaky gut, bloating and heart burn. Leaky gut could cause weight issues. The cows from this dairy also feast on GMO alfalfa and corn and wheat as well. This is stored in the meat, fat and milk of those cows and passed on to you. This leads to the same issues that gluten causes you!

Listen: it's not that hard to avoid these two types of foods. There are great substitutes for milk nowadays like unsweetened Almond Milk. Sweet potatoes and small amounts of rice were still on the menu for me so I wasn't carb-less. And I still enjoyed butter from grass fed cows so I still had some rich dairy flavor.

The biggest issue for most people is that when they eliminate these two things, they move to dry rice cakes and tasteless salads. It's not the 1980's, saturated fat is not bad for you, so adding it to your meals makes you hardly miss dairy or gluten. I added loads of avocado, coconut oil, nuts, and grass fed butter to my meals and it's made them more flavorful than ever. I also started having giant fatty cuts of grass fed steak. Grass fed meat ensures that the fat is free of toxins and high in omega 3 fatty acids. Who needs pasta when you're eating like that?

Drop these two foods and be pleasantly surprised at how these foods are holding you back from losing fat.

2. I eliminated breakfast and replaced it with Bulletproof coffee

Before the weight loss, I ate breakfast and was cranky without it. After all, milk and cereal companies have told us for years that breakfast is the most important meal of the day (they weren't bias or anything). My breakfast consisted of either eggs and potatoes or some sort of oatmeal and fruit. I 'd have a breakfast high in carbs to "fill me up". That advice left me hungry at mid-morning or cranky if I couldn't eat. Either way, I was starving when lunch came around.

I finally opted for bulletproof coffee. It's loaded with MCT Oil to help my brain run on ketones instead of glucose which meant hunger wasn't an issue until around 1pm! I also loaded up on healthy saturated fats and caffeine to make my mornings very productive.

This ultimately helped me stop snacking, which reduced junk snack intake like granola bars and bagels. The best part was, I didn't miss the snacks one bit.

[shareable]Most of America is trying to outpace their poor diets with more exercise, but it's not working. While exercise is more popular than ever, our weight is higher than ever as well.[/shareable]

People are always worried that Bulletproof coffee is "empty calories." This statement is misleading. If you look only at macro and micronutrient content then you will come to this conclusion. If you go based on how you feel, how much weight you drop and how productive you are then these calories are truly "empty". They accomplish the objective of eating quite nicely. Don't forget that nutrition is 3D. Looking at only micros/macros is looking at your body in 2D, and neglects other biological effects when eating. I made sure my next two meals are overly packed with vital nutrients. I was never deprived in anyway, as I was consuming anywhere between 2000-4500 calories a day and dropping weight.

3. I made sure my two meals were within a maximum of 6 hours of each other.

This might have been the biggest catalyst for my weight loss. If I ate lunch at 1pm, I made sure I had dinner no later than 7pm. This gives me a 6 hours feeding window at these two meals where I fed on nutrients. I had big leafy greens salads, giants steaks, wild caught salmon, and healthy homemade desserts.

The best thing this does is creates an 18 hours window where you have nothing but bulletproof coffee. This is a mini-intermittent fast where all you're consuming is ketone producing BP coffee. This kicks you into a mild form of ketosis, where your body feasts on ketones and fat stores. I didn't notice but my body was destroying all of it's fat and I still was eating lots of food at my meals.

4. I cut my workouts, but stayed active

Jane Fonda will tell you this is a horrible idea. But this is not the 1980's. Most of America is trying to outpace their poor diets with more exercise, but it's not working. While working out is more popular than ever, our weight is higher than ever as well.

I found that with better food quality choices, it wasn't necessary to workout so much. I was working out 2-3 times week max at 45 minutes a workout. Before I was spending 12 hours in the gym (6 workouts times 2 hours a piece) and later was down to a max of 2 hours and 15 minutes a week in the gym!

This gave me nearly 10 hours of my life back and I decided to use it for more fun activities like hiking with my wife and kids, mountain biking, golfing and road biking. I had more fun, had more time and more energy than I ever had.

The Results

I started at 262 lbs., working out 5-6 days a week at 2 hours a piece, eating whatever I thought was healthy.I ended at 232 lbs, working out a max of 2 hours and 15 minutes a week, eating more filling and brain boosting foods.This transformation took 70 days and I hardly noticed I was making any changes. I wasn't deprived. I ate good food and healthy desserts and had fun doing it.Next time you diet, opt for the long game and change your eating habits for life. You won't lose 40 lbs in 20 days like some of these crash diets, but you'll be making lifestyle altering moves that you can maintain forever.