Not fearing fat

We promote eating healthy fats (pasture grazed animal fats) to improve ones health.  A few examples: Oct. 2013 – Apr. 2014 CLA – Apr. 2014 Omega3s – May 2014 – Dec. 2014.

So would I take my our own advice when complaining about tight clothing from this past holiday carb season and deciding to loose a few pounds?

Before trying my turn at not fearing fat, I needed a system to track what was going on, how much fat was I consuming?  Here at DS Family Farm we track different things in the pastures to monitor progress, but how would I watch my eating habits?

A coworker introduced me to myfitnesspal, a free cloud based fitness system to track diet, exercise and watch progress.  To be honest, before starting this project I had no idea how many calories would be healthy or what my daily calorie intake was!

To begin, the recommended calorie intake for me ~2200 calories per day.  What was my current intake?  First four days of tracking:

At the start of my experiment, daily calorie intake was about 300 calories high, enlightening!  Note the steady intake of first four days tracked.  No reason to burn any stored body fat, a healthy dose of calories coming in daily.  The wellness program I enrolled in to help me lose some weight was already warning me about FAT intake.  The “FAT is bad” mantra was clear in my training.  Ignoring the pleas to cut my FAT intake, I focused on overall calorie intake, take a look at the first 3 weeks (daily charts):

First three-week average was 2170 calories per day, not much variation and no weight loss.  Steady day-to-day calorie intake is an excellent way to maintain your weight.  The body has no reason to burn stored fat.  My system anticipated a steady daily intake.  Ignoring calls to cut FAT intake, it was time to shock my system.  Have you ever tried a fast?  Rather than reduce my intake to ZERO calories for a day, I liked the idea of just getting down to around 600 calories for a day or two (Dr. Mercola Intermittent Fast 5:2 Diet).  Here is my attempt over the next 3 weeks to hit a day around 600 calories (daily chart): 

Two days per week around 600 calories, sounds too difficult and I am not ready to go there yet.  My 6:1 Diet, 1 day per week around 600 calories isn’t too bad.  Compare the two graphs above.  End of first 3 weeks, no weight loss.  End of next 3 weeks = 5 pound weight loss!  My body was no longer able to expect that steady intake.  Continue shocking the system, next 3 weeks (weeks 6 to 9 daily chart):

Weight loss for weeks six to nine = 5 pounds lost again (same as weeks 3 to 6 shown above).  It appears varying my daily intake works to activate my body to burn stored fat.  RESULTS in 20 lbs lost over 4 months.

Did I attempt to lower my FAT intake?  No.  To my surprise, my weekly average percent Fat intake was steady around 25% (Fat Grams/Total Grams).  I would like to try to increase percent healthy fat intake in the future.  Here are weekly average charts for the first four months  (charts shown above were daily):

Recommendations to limit FAT gram intake to around 40 grams per day were ignored.  I did make an effort to eat only Omega 3 type fats and when possible, from pasture grazed animals.  Fearing carbs, omega 6 fat (vegetable oils), processed foods along with a shock to the system now and then seems to work.  Now can this diet be maintained?

Concerning exercise, my activity level has been fairly constant.  Very little sitting around watching TV.  Walking and daily pasture moves keep me active!