Donuts, Discipline, and the Desire to Change 

A Follow Up on Three F-Words in My Life: Food, Fitness, and Fasting

You can’t outrun a donut. That’s what they say anyways. But that’s what I did for years. I ran for hours at a time. At that rate, you can outrun a donut. But when you can’t run that far anymore, a donut catches up pretty fast. 

When I met Melinda nine years ago, I weighed around 210 pounds. I had recently lost almost 60 pounds. When I first started losing weight, I was newly separated and trying to get down to my wedding weight in order to win back my now ex-wife. But a tan, chiseled physique didn’t do the job. I was too tall, too gregarious, and knew too many people. I couldn’t change those qualities about myself. Good thing that my win-back strategy didn’t work, because otherwise I would have won back the wrong person.

When my marriage ended, my new motivation to maintain a sleek physique was to attract female attention and a life partner. It worked. Melinda fell madly in love with me. (I won the right person this time!) 

The problem was that she loved me so much that she didn’t care what I looked like. In fact, my growing side handles and the belly creeping over my belt made me all the more sexy in her eyes–at least that’s what she said. 

But I didn’t feel comfortable in that much skin. 

Thankfully David Goggins came into my life. I listened to his audio book Can’t Hurt Me and found new motivation to beat my body and make it my slave. His voice in my head kept me pushing my limits and setting new extreme goals like Arrowhead 135.

Until my hip went out.

After tearing the labrum in my hip and the shots and surgery and rehab that followed, it became very difficult to keep off the weight. For almost a year, I couldn’t exercise hard enough to burn calories or put on muscle. So I experimented with different diets and intermittent fasting. 

Shortly after my injury I decided to try a four day water fast to drop some weight. I got a serious case of keto breath which my wife didn’t appreciate, but I lost 15 pounds and hit my goal of 215. 

Hours after my victorious weigh-in a friend came over to see me and brought donuts. A whole flipping dozen. And two different kinds! From Kwik Trip! I couldn’t be rude, so I broke my fast for one of those effing donuts. And then another one. Of course I had to try both varieties to be polite. The weight piled back on quickly. In a few days, I was back at 230 and feeling very much like one of those delicious donuts I had eaten earlier.

I tried a lot of interventions over the ensuing months. I ate vegan for a month. I tried more periods of fasting. I did so many rounds of the cabbage soup diet that it felt like cabbage was the only thing I ever ate. Nothing worked. My weight fluctuated a little during that year of pain and recovery, but I mostly hovered around 230-235, almost hitting 240 on occasion.

I know I’m talking a lot about numbers on a scale. It might seem like I’m focused on the wrong metric. And it might alienate you, my friends, who have very different weights on a scale and have a hard time relating because your numbers are a lot higher or lower. It also might be triggering for you if you struggle with an eating disorder, and I’m really sorry if that happens. The reason I’m sharing numbers is because the numbers are going to have a very tangible effect on a very special vacation as you’ll see if you keep reading. 

So back to the scale. Personally, I feel most comfortable between 210 and 220 pounds; 215 is my sweet spot. But I couldn’t seem to get below 230. I was hovering 15-20 pounds heavier than I should be. And I couldn’t seem to drop the extra pounds.

What it really came down to was motivation. I just didn’t have the drive, the discipline, or the desire that I used to have. I wanted to keep eating the donut. I married a supermodel, an exquisitely beautiful desert flower named Melinda. It didn’t matter that much to her if my abs showed or not. So I defaulted to the donut and lost my desire to deal with my weight. I settled for feeling bloated and uncomfortable. 

Kicked in the Pants by a Kayak

We somewhat spontaneously decided to go to Puerto Rico for our eight years late honeymoon. Friends told us we had to book a trip to “bio bay” while we were in Fajardo to view the bioluminescent microorganisms that make the waters magically colorful.

We signed up for a kayak tour. The weight limit: 220 pounds. It was strictly enforced by weigh-ins on the beach. They threatened to put you on a scale before they let you get in the kayak. Seriously. 

I was 236 pounds when we signed up. I figured that the weight limit would be a good incentive to get down to 215. I had six weeks to drop the weight. I’d done it before. I could do it again.

Only I didn’t make my goal. 

I was too hungry all the time. I was losing sleep because I was hungry. I was cranky because I was hungry. And I really wanted to eat a donut. But I also really wanted to fit on a kayak for the bio bay tour. 

The conditions were projected to be perfect and Puerto Rico is one of the only places in the world where this amazing bioluminescent water show happens. This might be the only time in my entire life that I could experience this. Who knows, I might never be able to visit Puerto Rico again. Now or never. Oh, the pressure! (Okay, I’m being a little dramatic. We could have booked a catamaran instead of a kayak. But I wanted the kayak experience!)

Two days before we left, I hit 220 pounds. That was in the morning without any clothes on and before I had had anything to eat or drink. The kayak trip would have been at night three days into our vacation after I had been feasting on the finest of Puerto Rico’s food and drink.

Damn. I knew I had to cancel the kayak trip. I wasn’t going to make it. I was too close for comfort. I didn’t want to take the risk of getting held back on shore for standing on the scale. I could have snuck safely under the weight limit if I fasted the entire time, but I wanted to eat all the tasty Puerto Rican fried food and drink all the fine Puerto Rican rum.

So I sent the email and canceled the kayaks.

It all worked out anyway. We were too tired to spend the late hours of the night floating around in the ocean. And we had such a great time in Puerto Rico that we didn’t want to come home–even without experiencing the bioluminescent bay. Ironically, despite all the eating and drinking, I made weight the day I got back from vacation. But it’s still a battle. 

It takes a lot of discipline to stay healthy and to feel good. I’m finally hovering around my “ideal” weight. I feel good. My clothes fit well. And I can cheat a little on what I eat now. 

Cabbage Soup, Chicken Liver, and Other Tasty Tidbits

While pedaling a stationary bike for hip rehab, I spent a lot of time listening at 1.5X to podcasts from The Ready State (season 6 is all about different approaches to nutrition but I listened to every episode starting at season 1–such good content), functional doctors such as Mark Hyman and William Li, and a host of other health experts. My weight loss journey over the last year is part of a broader health enhancement learning lab in which those podcasts immersed me: grounding (or earthing), morning light exposure, rapid and regular walking, breath work, cold immersion, sleep, blood tests, bio markers, genetic screenings, creatine supplementation for muscle growth and brain function, lessons from the Blue Zones, and other so called biohacks. 

Below are a few things about diet, nutrition, and weight loss that I’ve learned over the last year: 

• What worked in the past probably won’t work now. Nine years ago I lost 60 pounds in three months by working out twice a day and eating 6-8 small meals a day–mostly vegetables, meat, and nuts (the Ken McNiff diet). I tried that again. It didn’t work this time. Maybe that’s because my heart isn’t constantly racing at 140 beats a minute due to the stress and pain of an impending divorce. (Ever heard of “divorce skinny”?) Since I’m in a healthy and supportive relationship now and maybe since I’m simply older now and my body has changed over the last decade, I needed a different approach. This time I loosely followed a nutritional plan that Dr. Mark Hyman recommends. I ate mostly from the “pegan” food pyramid twice a day (plus a snack)–breakfast at around 10:00 and dinner before 6:00. That “intermittent fasting” approach fit my 46 year old body better. I finally dropped the pounds I needed to release. 

• If you want to lose weight, you’re going to be hungry sometimes. Maybe somebody else who’s way smarter than me has a no-hunger way of cutting body fat, but I found that the only way to get closer to my ideal weight is to embrace hunger. The Japanese community in Okinawa call it hara hachi bu or the 80 percent rule: stop eating when you’re 80% full. That means you’re going to be at least 20% hungry all the time. Most of us can’t handle that feeling. When I embrace a little bit of hunger as a way of life, I feel more alert and can move easier. The hard part is not eating when food is in front of me. I tend to keep putting food in my mouth if I can see it on the table or if other people are eating around me. That habit is really hard to break.

• Cultivating metabolic flexibility can help you control your cravings and regulate your body weight. Mark Sisson introduced me to the concept of metabolic flexibility. He’s talked about it in many different places, including his book Keto for Life. I heard him on The Ready State podcast. He suggests that we can train our body through intermittent fasting and periods of ketogenic eating to pull energy from fat reserves and function smoothly no matter what we eat or don’t eat. I’m pretty sure that I’m becoming more metabolically flexible, because I can work out in the morning now without eating first, and I can navigate hunger much more easily between meals than I’ve been able to in the past. 

• Try to eat food from the four basic pillars: meat on the bone, organ meats, fermented foods, and raw foods. (Thank you, Dr. Cate Shanahan for your podcast, big book and little book. She was the official physician for the LA Lakers for a while, so that’s pretty cool!) Instead of isolated chicken breasts, I’m eating meat on the bone to get all the nutrients possible. I’m drinking the broth, too. Bone broth is a super food and performance enhancing secret of super athletes. I’m eating organs now. My deer hunter friends are now giving me the livers and hearts that they couldn’t stomach. And I’m clearing out the chicken gizzards and livers from Whole Foods shelves. 
  
  Do I enjoy the taste? Not always. Heart is tasty. Liver and gizzards not so much. I’m getting used to it all and finding palatable ways to prepare offal. They’re some of the most nutrient dense foods available. 
  
  I’ve added more fermented and sprouted foods to my plate and bowl and cup. I try to consume at least a little of this stuff every day–sauerkraut, kombucha, yogurt, kefir, kimchi. I really need to start fermenting my own products, but I haven’t become that disciplined and creative yet. Someday soon! 
  
  I choose fresh, raw foods whenever possible. I don’t consume much dairy (even though I love it!), so I’m not looking for raw milk. But raw cabbage is a regular part of my life now. I love to chop purple cabbage and mix it with sardines, spices, vinegar, chia seeds, and walnuts for a delicious breakfast. 

• Pay attention to the microbiome in your gut. Functional physicians like Mark Hyman have introduced me to the second brain (the gut) and have changed the way I poop. Now I’m looking in the toilet afterwards and tracking my stools’ texture and the way they sit in the bowl. (Gross?!?) I know that’s really weird, but it’s helping me get healthier. Adding matcha and fermented foods to my daily diet has fixed my leaky gut–a condition I never knew I had until I got my shit together (literally!). I’m not ashamed to admit it. I just wish I would have known about all of this stuff years ago. 

• Stay away from added sugars, ultra processed foods, and vegetable oils. My dad used to ban sugar in our house when I was a kid. So my mom would cut out half the sugar (and butter!) when we made chocolate chip cookies. That’s why I always liked Peggy Rowan’s chocolate cookies better. They were chewy and tasty. My mom’s were a bit dry and crunchy. (Sorry, Mom! I still love you! And you’re still an amazing cook!) I always thought my dad was a little crazy about that no sugar obsession. Now, I’m realizing that he was right–at least about added sugar. It’s a drum that a lot of health specialists are beating now, but I’ve been most influenced by Dr. Cate Shanahan’s Deep Nutrition and Dr. Robert Lustig. 

I’m obviously not a physician and am not prescribing anything for anyone. Everyone is in a different place and every body has different needs. My story is different than yours will be. But hopefully we all can learn from each other and figure out what we need to do to get healthier–if that’s something we need to do. We have to keep changing if we want to keep growing. 

I’m sharing my story in case it helps someone start to move in a healthier direction for their life.

I’m still experimenting, but I think I’ve found a new rhythm now. Hopefully, I can keep my weight in check and maintain a lifestyle that will help me care for my wife, my kids, and my community as I get older. And maybe it will also make enough room in my health to fit in a donut or two every once in a while–if I still want one after eating all those sardines and cabbage!