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  #31   ^
Old Sat, Jan-04-20, 03:16
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Demi Demi is offline
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An update on Tom Watson:

Quote:
Tom Watson's weight loss secrets: how the former Labour Deputy shed eight stone and exercised-away diabetes

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-...ty-eight-stone/

Tom Watson, who performed the ultimate political vanishing trick by quitting as an MP ahead of December's election , has in fact been disappearing before our eyes for the last couple of years.

Two years ago, he was a larger-than-life deputy leader of the Labour party who weighed 22 stone and was on heavy medication for type 2 diabetes, first diagnosed in 2015. Now, after an intensive diet and exercise regime, the 52-year-old has lost eight stone and reversed his diagnosis. He even has his own book to prove it: Downsizing was released this month and is already proving a hit on Amazon charts. Watson says it aims to “open up a national conversation about weight loss, nutrition and health.”

So, how did he do it?

Watson credits his transformation with research. “I started to read a lot more and started to realise that if I got my weight down, it would affect my insulin level and blood pressure,” he has said.

He delved into scientific research and cited two specific books that helped him with his weight loss – the cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra’s The Pioppi Diet, which promotes a low-carb, no red meat and no sugar regime along with plenty of vegetables, nuts, legumes and fish; and Dr Michael Mosley’s The Fast Diet, which advocates a broadly Mediterranean diet for five days a week, punctuated by two extremely low calorie ‘fast’ days. Dr Mosley himself was inspired to write the book after he reversed his own type 2 diabetes through diet.

Watson’s diet transformation saw him start each day with a bulletproof coffee – the combination of black coffee with butter and coconut oil founded by the biohacker Dave Asprey and favoured by Silicon Valley tech gurus. As Watson wrote on his blog: “When I was withdrawing from sugar last year, I found it very useful to increase the amount of fat in my diet to help get me through massive sugar cravings. I just stopped being hungry when I upped the fat.”

He then cut out all junk food, processed food, starchy carbohydrates and refined sugar from his diet (he calls himself a “reformed sugar addict”). Even bananas were off the menu, being too sweet (one medium banana contains around 14g of sugar).

Watson is particularly scathing of sugary drinks: “I look at Coke very differently now I'm 96 pounds lighter,” he wrote on his blog. “A can of full sugar Coke has no nutritional value. It contains 39 grams of sugar when the recommended daily allowance is 30 grams a day – so it's poisoning the body. If you drink a can a day for a year, you're taking in more than three kilograms of sugar more than the aggregated daily allowance over 12 months.”

He did loosen the reins slightly. “I do have some brown rice and occasionally pasta when I’m out,” he confessed to The Guardian. But such treats were tempered: “If I have bread, I have it made with almond flour.”

Within a year of starting his wellness regime, Watson reported that his diabetes was "in remission". His approach to this turnaround echoes the findings of a clinical trial funded Diabetes UK and led by Roy Taylor, a professor of medicine and metabolism at Newcastle University, which discovered that a diet of 800-calories per day for three months on patients with type 2 diabetes led to them losing an average of 16kg (2.5st). Nearly half of the subjects were in remission from diabetes within 12 months.

The study also found that losing 10-15pc of body weight can reverse type 2 diabetes in 84pc of recently diagnosed diabetics, and 50pc of those who have been diabetic for more than 10 years.

"Cutting down sugar can help all of us as it can lead to weight gain and glucose intolerance, which can progress to diabetes,” says nutritionist Lola Ross. “But it's important to think about what we add in our diets too, such as more fruit and veg. As always, before starting a diet, it's helpful to talk to a professional."

As he overhauled his diet, Watson started exercising more, too. He described his fitness journey as a series of “little goals”, such as taking the 36 stairs rather than the lift to get to his office, trying to do 10,000 steps a day, and cycling around London. In January 2018 he joined a gym and started weight training.

“Weight training is a great way to lose weight, because it changes your body,” says personal trainer and ex Olympic athlete Sarah Lindsay, who founded ROAR fitness explains. “Ultimately, if you just lose weight through calorie expending more calories than you eat, which is what cardio or dieting does, then you just end up a smaller version of yourself. Of course, you can lose weight that way, but it’s not necessarily long term because as soon as you increase your calories or skip a cardio session, the weight goes back on.

"With weight training you build muscle and so your basal metabolic rate is higher, which means that energy requirements are higher, so you burn more calories at rest.”

Watson's routine evolved into two cardio workouts per week, such as a 5k run or boxing, weight training twice a week and lots of walking. Such is his new-found love of exercise that he’s even trained up as a level two personal trainer, which can be learnt in a six-week course. “A level three qualification is generally needed to be a personal trainer,” Lindsay says tactfully.

But she agrees with his approach to eating. “If something barely qualifies as a food like Coco Pops, which are basically sweets in a bowl, then you shouldn’t have them as part of your staple diet. As you get into training and nutrition then these things become more important to you because you notice how they make you feel – it’s not necessarily about weight loss. As you make these changes to more part of your daily life, they just become normal.”

With his career in politics over and the book selling well, perhaps Watson is eyeing up an entirely more profitable mid-life U-turn as a fitness influencer.



Quote:
Downsizing: How I lost 8 stone, reversed my diabetes and regained my health

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Downsizing.../dp/0857838334/

'An honest and fascinating account of the journey that Tom made from discovering he was a type 2 diabetic to doing something about it. This book will change lives.' Michael Mosley

'Two years ago I turned 50, weighed 22 stone and was heavily medicated for type 2 diabetes. I thought it would be all downhill from there. By radically changing my nutrition, cutting out sugar, and taking up exercise, I've changed my life and reversed my diabetes. I hope my story will inspire others to regain their health and happiness and discover the new lease of life I'm experiencing.'

Tom Watson began to put on weight in his early twenties, having developed an appetite for fast food and cheap beer while studying at the University of Hull. As time progressed - and his penchant for anything sweet, fatty or fizzy persisted - he found himself adjusting his belt, loosening his collar and upsizing his wardrobe to XXL. He continued to pile on the pounds when he entered the world of politics as MP for West Bromwich East (despite short-lived flirtations with fad diets and fitness classes). By December 2014, his bathroom scales had tipped to 22 stone. After being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in late 2015, he decided to take control of his diet and exercise. He started to feel better quickly and within a short time his long-term blood sugar levels were within normal range. By July 2018, he came off medication.
Quote:
Tom Watson was elected Labour MP for West Bromwich East in 2001 and served as a Minister for Tony Blair and with Gordon Brown. In September 2015, he was elected as Labour's Deputy Leader. In 2016 he took the post of Shadow Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. He has established several major projects, including the Future of Work Commission, the Gambling Addiction Review, which has led public policy reform around the betting industry, and is currently setting up an independent commission into tackling obesity and stemming the rise of type 2 diabetes.
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  #32   ^
Old Sat, Jan-04-20, 05:51
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WereBear WereBear is online now
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ms Arielle
Seems like a bipartisan issue---if I used that word right--first time. Might bring parties together.


Well, YEAH.

I don't think there's any kind of sense in saying "Let's not die!" and the press going, "Well, we have to look at Both Sides of the argument."
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  #33   ^
Old Sat, Jan-04-20, 11:42
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Really happy for him. While a part of me can't help but selfishly wish that he'd stayed in politics as a champion of the cause from within the system, I can also understand how one's priorities in life can change following a transformation such as his. And he can still provide a strong voice for the community, whatever he chooses to do for himself anyway.
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  #34   ^
Old Sun, Jan-05-20, 06:11
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WereBear WereBear is online now
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Quote:
More pertinently, if not inadvertently, Watson is perhaps the first Labour politician to ever admit the nation’s health can be improved without the NHS having to spend more money.


This is the (heh heh) SICK part. I've spent years of my life experimenting my way towards health, and even with ridiculously high supplement bills it's so much cheaper than if I put myself into the hands of the medical profession, who would charge much more for increasing the approach of my mental/physical death.

Let me quote from a US Health Policy Institute paper on drug costs.

Quote:
People age 65 to 79 pay $456 out-of-pocket. People age 80 and older pay even more.


That is routine stuff, like the prescriptions most doctors are so eager to give me as soon as I sit my middle-age lady behind in the chair.
  • Lipitor
  • Ambien
  • Prozac
  • acid reflux
  • osteoporosis
  • high blood pressure
  • something for the side effects of something else

The average monthly cost of drugs to treat inflammatory conditions was more than $3,000 in 2015. I'm sure it's only gone up now. And that's what they would have given me for my crisis at the beginning of 2019, a year ago. I have decent health insurance through my job, but even if they pay 80%, I'm paying $600 dollars a month just for the drug.

Instead, I went ketogenic/IF (I apparently have to go very low for ketosis) and I put my condition in remission and blew past my weight loss goals. I'm probably spending that $600 a month on special supplements and good food. Plus not rolling the dice on the terrible, Japanese-monster-movie death that lurks for all on these immune-suppression drugs. It makes sense for transplant patients. It doesn't make sense for anyone else.

Now that's priceless.
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  #35   ^
Old Sun, Jan-05-20, 09:58
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deirdra deirdra is offline
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And he is one less burden on the National Health System. Taxpayers should be clamoring for LC health.
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  #36   ^
Old Sun, Jan-05-20, 10:09
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Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is online now
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Quote:
". His approach to this turnaround echoes the findings of a clinical trial funded Diabetes UK and led by Roy Taylor, a professor of medicine and metabolism at Newcastle University, which discovered that a diet of 800-calories per day for three months on patients with type 2 diabetes led to them losing an average of 16kg (2.5st). Nearly half of the subjects were in remission from diabetes within 12 months.


This is less impressive when compared to the results Dr.Westmann presents on his VLC diet, aka DANDR Induction. Most of Dr W's patients seem to be off meds in a matter of weeks based on a selected few to demonstrate the quick changes. Not a whole year. AND they are not starving on so few calories. 800 calories?? Thats a level that drops BMR. No thank you!

I would pick DANDR over 800 calorie diet.

Last edited by Ms Arielle : Sun, Jan-05-20 at 10:46.
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