Last updated on September 21st, 2017
The strongest dieting motives are personal
Low Carb Nugget 58
Typically, people diet to improve their health, their appearance, their mood and confidence, and their chances at living longer. All of those are good motivations, and the nice thing is, they’re connected; you can have them all. But the strongest motivations are always the most personal.
Show Links
“Fact Sheet: Type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance and dementia.” PDF. Alzheimer’s Association. 2006.
“WCN 2017: New findings from dementia research: Why some people are resilient to memory loss.” (News release). B&K Kommunikation. September 17, 2017.
“Remembeing my dad.” Jim Anderson. Life After Carbs. June 19, 2011.
Transcript
Low Carb Nugget 58
“The strongest dieting motives are personal”
This is Episode 58 of the Low Carb Nugget for Tuesday, September 19, 2017. I’m Jim Anderson.
Starting with this episode, I am moving the official headquarters of the Low Carb Nugget podcast to LifeAfterCarbs.com/nugget. You can also get to the HQ via the web address LowCarbNugget.com. As I noted previously, this only matters for those of you who want to check out the episode links or transcript. The Nugget will remain available through its distributors Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music, Stitcher, and TuneIn, just as before.
One benefit of the move involve the Keto Diet Reboot I am kicking off next week. I’ll be using both my blog and this podcast to report on my progress, or lack thereof. So it will be handy to have both the blog and the podcast on the same web site, both for the audience and for me.
Today, I want to consider in more detail my motivations for dieting. I’ve been following an LCHF diet for over six years, but not always rigorously. I’m about to get super-rigorous again, so why? What do I want to achieve?
Typically, people diet to improve their health, their appearence, their mood and confidence, and their chances at living longer. All of those sound good to me, and the nice thing is, they’re connected. If you reduce your percentage of body fat and your waist circumference, you’re likely to get improvements in all those areas.
I strongly believe that my best shot at losing weight and inches, and gaining those various benefits, is through a ketogenic diet. It’s worked for me in the past. I’m in better condition than I was seven years ago, but I still need to lose.
Let me get more personal about my motivations. I have two role models in mind, namely my parents. I was blessed with good parents, but in terms of long-term health, they are negative role models. In their golden years, they developed many of the metabolic-related problems I’m trying to avoid.
My father didn’t get that many golden years. He died at age 72, which is only seven years older than I am now. I’d have to call Dad’s death premature. His father lived a full decade longer. By the time he was the age I am now, Dad had undergone a quadruple by-pass, and was taking daily medication for type-2 diabetes and high blood pressure. In fact, he was injecting himself with insulin. He died of a heart-attack, but really, he died of full-scale metabolic syndrome. I’ve written about him on my blog, and I’ll include a link to that post in the show notes.
At first glance, my mother might be considered a positive role-model for healthy living. That’s because she is over 90, and still alive. So she’s had more years. However, longetivity alone doesn’t tell the story. Mom suffers from many of the same health issues that Dad did — heart disease, high-blood pressure, and type-2 diabetes. Her condiditions are less severe, except for one thing. Mom also suffers from dementia. Her short-term memory and reasoning ability are greatly impaired, and have been for a while now. I haven’t written or said much for publication about Mom because she is still alive, and I won’t go into more detail about her now.
We don’t know all the causes of dementia, but metabolic conditions such as diabetes and high-blood pressure have been strongly associated with it. Reducing your risk of metabolic syndrome may well reduce your risk of dementia.
In conclusion, a big part of my motivation for dieting is to avoid the fate of my parents — two good people who deserved better in their golden years.
The Low Carb Nugget podcast with Jim Anderson is released on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Show links and transcripts for Episodes 1 – 57 are available at LCHF Gazette.
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