@spacekablooey, thanks for telling your story. I would have said, “thanks for sharing” but that phrase has become so cliche that it makes me puke when I hear it :).
Glad to hear that you have benefited from the new “anti-diet”. You even seem to be doing Eat For Heat (EFH) in a reasonable way….balanced.
My suspicion is that this is an important stage, however, the next stage must be anticipated or people like yourself *MIGHT* end up reacting against the EFH and once again find themselves on the diet roller coaster.
What do I mean by that? Well, it is reported that there are people who do the “Eat for Heat”, gain some weight, but then, after a while, end up losing it. However, the few people I know from real life (including myself) who are doing something similar do not corroborate this. They gain the weight and it stays. At some point, people are going to get fed up with this and revolt. If they are not careful, this revolt could lead back to the “diet roller-coaster”.
Look I am not a “hater” of fat people. I am neither promoting the anorexic “super model” look. That said, I don’t think being overweight is healthy. “Overweight” is a subjective term, I know, and I will let you decide what it means for yourself. For me, it’s this. I am 6’1 and muscular. I look and feel good around 210 pounds (94 kgs). Now I am 240 pounds (109 Kgs). For someone my age, the effect has not been purely aesthetic. For the first time in my life, I have high blood pressure. That might not happen to someone younger, but I’m 54. It was a wake up call. Now in case anybody wants to challenge me on the blood pressure issue, let me say this. I know that the definition of HBP has changed over the years. However, my blood pressure has, at times, got as high as 170/98 and been accompanied by symptoms (dizziness, difficulty breathing, etc).
So what am I going to do? Well I am going on a diet! Not a radical one. It will just mean eating less starch (not eliminate entirely), eat widely, watch my calories. In the meantime, I have gone on medicine. Once my blood pressure stabilizes a bit, I will (much to the chagrin of the Peatarians reading this) replace it with L-Arginine.
My point isn’t to dis’ Eat for Heat. However, I really think it’s an approach that is beneficial for a while, but then needs to be superseded by something more moderate. Of course, the time spent beneficially following Eat For Heat will vary according to the individual.