You lost 30 lbs. eating meat and fat?

People have been commenting that I look good lately and ask if I've lost weight.  When I tell them I lost about 30 lbs they are pretty shocked.  I didn't think I would lose 30 lbs either but it does feel good and my strength in crossfit WOD's (power) has gone up as well.  This post is to answer the question that inevitably comes next: 

How did you do it?

First, some background:
I've always wanted to tone up a little bit.  I am 5'9" and was 195 lbs.  Since graduating college and becoming gainfully employed I decided I didn't have any more legitimate "I'm poor" excuses to eat unhealthy and cheap, (i.e. fast food).  So I spent my free time after work jogging the 5k around Green Lake 2-3 times a week in addition to the mountaineering and snowboarding I did every weekend and began applying the diet principles everyone is taught in public school (the food pyramid).  I made sure to get proportionally more grains than fruits/vegatables than meat than fat than sugar . . . I worked and worked and worked and nothing happened.  After a year I became frustrated and some standard research on the web told me it was calorie restriction that was the key to weight loss.  So I began to eat less, after all, if I'm overweight I must be eating too much!  I was hungry nearly all the time and it was painful.  I also cut out fat since I believed it was only a negative addition and would only slow down my progress.  I fought threw the pain believing that I must just be "weak" and anyone who looked really fit was always much hungrier than I was so if they could do it than so could I.

When I got my cholesterol checked the total numbers were OK (low) but my HDL was low (41).  The nurse explained this was due to a lack of exercise and advised me to go walking or jogging 2-3 times per week.  Frustrated, I explained to her I was active over 5 days per week and she said "Well, that is not consistent with the numbers I'm seeing here."

So now what?  Two years of diligently trying to live a healthy lifestyle and I was hungry and miserable and had only lost about 6 lbs.and was told by the nurse I was not healthy and better change my ways if I expected to be healthy especially later in life.  But I was doing everything right!  What could I do?  Go to a doctor and get some kind of prescription?  I really did not like the idea of a lifetime on pills. 

What works:

That's when my roommate and I joined the crossfit gym in our neighborhood and one of the trainers sent us e-mail with some advice and this link to information.  Robb Wolf's FAQ and blog were my main resources for laying down the foundation for my Paleo-Zone diet.  Robb's FAQ linked to Michael Eade's blog which was critical in curing my fat and meat phobia.

With those resources at my fingertips I threw out everything the media and public school education had taught me about health and nutrition and dove headfirst into a much healthier Paleo-Zone, low carb, fatty delicious eating. 

Between crossfit and the diet the weight shed off at about 8-9 lbs/month for 3 1/2 months.  People were impressed and they could not believe I had done it on a relatively high fat diet.  Here is my log of some of my recorded meals and weights on my free fitday account.  To top it off I had my bloodwork done and my total cholesterol was about the same as 1 year prior (~190) but the HDL had improved from 41 to 57!  My doctor congratulated me on the weight loss and the cholesterol improvement and asked me to explain what Paleo-Zone and Crossfit were, (he seemed confused and I'll never know if he looked into them or not).

That is the jist of it.  Some may say, "Well crossfit is insane and you were doing it 3-6 times/week, it wasn't the diet."  I agree that the 20 minutes/day and evolutionary fitness philosopy of crossfit definitley played a part in my shedding of fat, but most experts agree "that 85% of fat loss is nutritional based" 


I will also add a plug for Fat Head the Movie.  This movie does an awesome job of explaining how and why we gain weight and how to lose it.  This is a great video on the Fat Head blog about why fat in the diet is good, especially for weight/fat loss.