How I Loss 40 Pounds (for the 3rd time) and Kept It Off
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By Joel Greene - Publisher, LookCut.com
I get asked how I stay so lean. At 43, I maintain 6 to 8% body fat year round. This is in spite of months on end where I don't have time to workout more than once or twice a week. The answer is I use the techniques I developed for The LookCut Method, which was my own personal answer to years of weight fluctuation.
I've been really lean 7 times in my life. Let me cover since 95.
In 1995 I weighed 225, which was a bit overweight for me. This was the era of meal replacements. I went on the big weight loss meal replacement of the day and got ripped. I dropped down to 205 and 4% body fat. This lasted about 1 year at that level of body fat. Then the hormonal bounce back came.
At the time I didn't know anything then about hormonal compensation from dieting - how deprivation of satiety and fullness creates binging later on. I learned hard. I paid a hard price for my year of being ripped. I had never had issues with food. Suddenly I had issues with uncontrollable binging that lasted 5 years.
It was this experience that led me to begin researching Energy Homeostasis and how fullness, and satiety are hormonal triggers.
In 2000 My weight had gone up to 242 pounds. I got laid off from my dot com job, started a small ad agency catering to the fitness industry. So I had an easy schedule and decided to get my weight down. This time I left out meal replacements for whole food. I got ripped again. This time I got down to 212, and about 5% body fat and put on a bit of muscle. Although I did not use meal replacements, I did use strict dieting and carefully controlled portions and calories. To get that lean I experienced hunger due to cutting calories.
At this time I was doing a lot of research in nutrition and I started to become very disenchanted with the industries of fitness, weight loss and bodybuilding. There were so many approaches that were flat out unhealthy and no one really cared as long as they made money. I began researching longevity, looking into what accelerates aging and what we can do about it.
Again I had another learning experience. I was ripped, but I really had not solved anything. By cutting calories and sticking to strict portions, I created another overcompensation 2 years later. At the time I was now running a fairly successful internet company, working long hours and experiencing high stress.
I would get to work and deal with one string of problems after another, get home around 7 underfed and stressed out, and graze/gorge through the evening, opiating and narcotizing myself on carbs and television (sound familiar?).
Worse, I felt my age. I would get home, tell myself I needed to go work out, and simply did not have the energy.
My weight ballooned to 258 pounds. What's interesting about this is 3 years earlier I was something of a local guru to people who knew me. I would espouse how to get lean, what to eat, how to do it, and now I was in a situation where none of my knowledge worked.
I knew everything to do to stay lean but everything I knew to do required time or energy I didn't have. The knowledge that I had then, the very same expertise you find given on weight loss from most sources, didn't translate very well in real life.
I had a few friends who had been in one way or another prominent in the fitness industry. During this same time, the same thing happened to them. They just didn't have the time.
It was out of this experience that The LookCut Method came. I realized that there was this gigantic reality disconnect in the industries that cater to people looking for weight loss and fitness. I call it the Fundamental Disconnect - you have an industry of people fit for a living telling people who work for a living how to use their time to be fit.
These experiences led me to put together what is today the basis of the LookCut Method. My situation mirrored that of many if not most people who want permanent weight loss. Permanent weight loss has real barriers, not the least of which is HOW you lose the weight. I've learned the hard way that calorie cutting and strict dieting has a very high price. More often than not you really sew the seeds of long term weight gain.
I decided to put everything I had learned together into getting my weight off. The first thing was that I was going to avoid cutting calories. The second thing was that I was also going to avoid strict portion control. Instead I implement a number of key rules of food and allowed the excess fat to come off via exercise versus dieting or calorie or portion control. My goal was to get to the end of my weight loss and be sick of food at the same time.
The next component was aging. I knew that if I didn't age well, my body would not respond well to diet and exercise. I resumed a lot of the research into aging and longevity that I had done 3 years prior and began to implement a series of steps every day to age very well.
That was over two years ago. Today I am consistently leanest I have ever been and I never think about food, yet I'm busier than ever.
In fact, you would be shocked to see how I eat. I routinely indulge. I also spend long periods of time 'out of it'. What has made the difference is my approach to weight loss is the LONGEVITY BASED and REALITY FOCUSED. The approach works in real life, addressing the real long term barriers, and avoids the weight gain caused by short term strategies.
It's what I call The LookCut Method. Instead of focusing on weight loss, my focus with food is energy. I would love to share this system with you. It's the basis of my new book. Prior to publication, I'm looking for some individuals who would like to learn it for themselves.
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