What is David’s Way? It is simply my way of eating and living as a life time commitment to health and wellness at a healthy weight. But more importantly, at a healthy level of body fat as you can be thin yet be referred to as “Skinny Fat”. Skiiny Fat people will usually be just as unhealthy as the obese. In fact, as a “Skinny Fat”, you are likely in more trouble than the obese, as most Skinny Fat folks would be blind sided to know their health is not up to par as opposed to being fat, when you know your health is not what it should be. Reducing your weight in and of itself is jack shit nothing if you do not take care of your health and wellness too.

My methodology is really not rocket science. It is very simple, yet there are many who would say it is too hard. Too hard is just an attitude of the weak minded. It is a simple concept of maintaining personal discipline though intermittent fasting, a healthy diet and exercise. And this is methodology is effective for anyone who goes this route. I have cut back a little on the intermittent fasting as I kept losing weight even though I did not want to any longer. Now I do IF on the 16:8 protocol 4 days a week instead of 7. I can always adjust this one direction or the other as needed.

There is a lot of information floating around for and against IF as to the health benefits. I really do not give a goddamn about any of that as both arguments are usually flawed and overstated in either direction. The actual health benefits I concede are likely over stated. Yet the naysayers are prone to understate the benefits greatly as they only see this as a caloric restriction while ignoring that many folks actually do not restrict their daily caloric intake. I never have restricted mine, I just eat it all in my 8 hour feed window. An important aspect about IF is your body goes into ketosis in order to burn through its glycogen stores for energy. The next equally important issue is IF is an exercise in personal discipline. Discipline being the biggest factor most obese folks lack in regards to the appetite. Personal discipline must be exercised just like a muscle or your ass will become weak. If you read much on Weight Watchers Connect where people struggle with their weight loss, it almost always boils down to little to no personal discipline. Sorry “Snowflakes: if that is going to cause you to melt, but we know this to be the truth whether you will admit it or not. Every time you graze in the refrigerator or your pantry, your personal discipline is slipping from your grasp. Please do not tell me between bites of Little Debbie cakes how disciplined you are. Do not tell me how disciplined you are as you do the walk of shame when stepping off of your scale. You have to exercise your discipline regular, Use it or lose it, the choice is yours to make. Just don’t fuss and whine when shit does not go your way when you do not exercise it.

The next part of my methodology is to eat a diet of high protein with low to moderate complex carbs depending on if you are trying lose or maintain. And do not shove any refined sugar or processed foods down your pie hole for any damn reason. I only eat whole and healthy foods where I know that each bite has a nutritional value to every calorie consumed. To those who refuse to give up sugar and or processed foods, that is your choice. I do not care if you do or do not, yet do not be defiant about it then let your eyes well up with tears as you complain on Weight Watchers Connect about how the scale is not budging for you. I often hear in real life as well as on social media how “I am not going to quit living” by giving up sugar. That is cool, if you do not mind looking like a jelly roll, then proceed with eating your damn jelly rolls. It is your choice and solely your fault when your ass is still squeezing into those size 18 pants while laying on your bed, holding your breath and using all of your might to zip them up. You need to know that those tight ass jeans only serve to high light how fat your ass really is when you have a muffin top spilling out of the top.

Folks who know me, know that I love to eat. And I can can shovel down the food in great quantities as I have demonstrated on Connect. I can do this because of how I eat. I know my Base Metabolic Rate and how many calories a day I can consume without gaining body fat. My daily caloric allowance is actually hard for me to hit. Therefore I have added 2 TBSP of coconut oil to my daily protein shakes to help not only in meeting my caloric needs, but for other health benefits which I have written about previously. When you eat healthy whole foods with zero sugar and none processed, it is truly hard to even hit 2000 calories a day even when you weight train as hard as I do. Obviously, by the addition of coconut oil to my diet, I do not buy the load of crap that saturated fat is the devil, which I will get more into. This is a myth that needs to go away the same as the whole don’t eat too many eggs because of cholesterol bullshit.

A diet high in protein has many health benefits. Protein and healthy fats will keep you satiated longer than carbs of any kind. Fats are also required by our bodies for proper absorption of nutrients. Without fats, your body does not get nourished as well. Sadly, the sugar industry is behind the whole fat is bad for you hype by using the fact that fat is more calorie dense than carbs and protein therefore it must be bad for you argument. It was about the time when we began hearing the evils of fat and it was getting removed from our foods while sugar was being added that we became a nation of fat asses.

A high protein diet is going to help you with the loss of body fat and with gaining lean muscle mass which will in turn increase your metabolism for better fat burning. Protein can reduce your appetite and hunger. It helps you to feel full with less food, especially when combined with fat. It will do this by decreasing your level of Ghrelin which is a hunger hormone.

Protein is the building blocks of lean muscle mass which is made primarily from protein. It has also been shown that folks who eat a lot of protein have better bone mass as they age. This combined with weight training will help to prevent having osteoporosis when you get older. Women, take not of that.

Protein will help to reduce cravings. By dropping sugar all together those cravings will go completely away and you will never miss sugar unless you begin eating it again. Face it, sugar is like a drug. No other food source will ever cause you to gorge until you feel shame and remorse. This behavior is no different than that of an alcoholic or junkie. You crave it, and then binge in order to have that momentary pleasure just to feel ashamed of yourself afterwards. Chances are, if you are on Weight Watchers and are reading this, you know exactly what I am talking about.

A high protein diet will help you not only to lose weight, but the added benefits of this are heart health by lowering your blood pressure, reducing inflammation and cholesterol. Your heart will be much healthier with not having to push blood through more space than it was designed to pump it through. If your body weight is significantly higher than it should be because you are fat, then your heart has to work that much harder to keep it flush with oxygenated blood.

I have added coconut oil to my diet for a couple of health reasons as an experiment. In another blog post, Why I began Coconut Oil, I addressed all of the given health benefits of using it in your diet. For three weeks now, I have added 2 table spoons a day of LouAna brand coconut oil to my protein drinks. So far I have realized an increase in my energy levels as a result of the increase of ketones by the medium chain fatty acids going straight to the liver for a quick source of energy. I have a truck driving job where I deliver construction and industrial supplies across the state of Kansas. My job involves a lot of hours on the road and I unload my heavy freight myself. It is a physical job which has calloused my hands and made them hard and rough. Now, the callouses are smoothed down and my hands always feel moisturized as if I had rubbed the oil straight into them. My fingernails which had been hard are now soft and flexible. And lastly, I am no longer losing hair to my shower drain. My hair is also looking as if I use high dollar hair care products in it when the reality is I buy what ever shampoo happens to be on sale. Back to the energy levels being high, last night after finishing my week on the road in my semi, I got home and cooked my dinner, then went on a very brisk walk for a little over 5 miles, and then cooked dinner for my wife so she could eat when she came home from work. Bottom line is, I feel fucking great!

Lastly, I am going to address carbs and exercise. For health reasons we need complex carbs in our diets. However, as with anything we need to be moderate with them. After a lot of research and study, I recommend no more than 35% of your calories come from complex carbs, and zero from simple carbs. There are important nutrients from food sources which are comprised of complex carbs that we need. These foods are usually high in fiber which is an important ingredient to our health and well being. That fiber helps keep our blood labs in order and certainly keeps your digestive tract working smooth. Simple carbs for the most part are just empty calories. The only caveat is fruit contains simple carbs, but the body responds to them the same as it does with complex carbs because of the fiber content which keeps your blood sugar levels stable and aids in insulin control. Simple sugar is garbage for our body and not only gets us fat, it also causes cravings to eat more and more. Simple table sugar causes inflammation in our bodies which is one of the leading causes of most all preventable ailments such as obesity, heart disease, cancer and immunity disorders. If you kick sugar, you will find that you can develop an entirely different relationship with food. You will find that your life no longer revolves around sweet treats. You will find that you will feel multitudes healthier without sugar polluting your body. If you want to keep eating it, then go ahead. Just do not be mad at anyone besides yourself when one day you find yourself living on prescription drugs in order to try to maintain some semblance of decent health.

My exercise of choice is Power Lifting followed by running. You can do what ever exercise you desire or enjoy as long as it is vigorous and actually does your body some good in meeting your goals. I choose Power Lifting because it is the most efficient use of my time in the gym. I do compound lifts that work my entire body without feeling the need to try to attack my muscles from every different angle I can conceive of. That kind of stuff is bullshit unless you are an elite level body builder. If you are strong, you will look strong. However, it is more about functional strength to me than appearances. I need to be strong for my job. I want to be strong into my old age. Another reason that I Power Lift is this style of lifting is cardiovascular in nature. You can not go through a set of heavy squats without getting your heart rate up. My weight training sessions will keep my heart rate up for the entire hour to hour and a half as well as if I was out running. To give an idea of the cardio benefit, I did not run from last October until a few weeks ago, and went right into a nonstop 2.5 mile run without stopping or slowing down.This is possible by Power Lifting. A Body Building style of lifting by itself will not do that for you as endless sets of curls and isolation exercises do not affect your heart rate in the way that heavy compound lifts will. Lastly, I treat my exercise regimen with the same importance in which I treat my job. It is a responsibility which must be performed routinely. It is not a burden, it is a part of my life style, David’s Way.