You Are What You Eat — How a Low Fat Diet Changed Everything

The Weight Struggle That Sneaks Up on You

I guess I should start with a little history on my struggle with weight. It's not a unique story by any means — in shape my entire life right up to probably 20 years old. Stopped playing sports, normal daily activity just drops, you become a desk jockey, and one day you look in the mirror and wonder "wow, where did this body come from?" It sneaks up on you and it happens fast.

I went from around 215 lbs at 6'4" to around 290 lbs at my peak. The last 20 years I'd get down to 235–240 before settling back in around 270. Thankfully I never touched 300, but the cycle was exhausting. Lose some, gain it back, repeat.

The Never-Ending Fad Diet Cycle

I've done so many diets over the years. I think the very first one was The Atkins Diet — I even bought the book. That was my gateway into the whole "fat is good for you, carbs are bad" mentality. And to be honest, I think that mindset is actually what caused me to never lose the entire amount of fat I was looking for. I would lose for a bit, then fall off the wagon... and when I fell off, it was hard. Nothing was off limits.

When I would go back "on" I would go even harder — instead of Atkins I'd do keto, instead of keto I'd do carnivore, instead of carnivore I'd do alternate day fasting, instead of alternate day fasting I would do extended fasts. I actually did a 7-day water fast at one point — something I'm actually kind of impressed with looking back.

You get the point. Each time I would fall off and end back up around 240–260. It was like clockwork, and honestly kind of depressing looking back on it.

Discovering the Low Fat Diet

You are what you eat. Such a simple saying, yet so powerfully misunderstood. If I eat beef am I a lion? It's a phrase most of us have heard in our lifetimes. Back when I was a kid, it was all about eating fat — if you eat fat, you're going to be fat.

I started looking into the low fat approach when I was watching a bodybuilder on YouTube talk about how he cuts weight by eliminating fat — or as much of it as possible — from his diet. He went deeper into the science behind it, and I started digging into the research myself.

The basic idea is this: your body processes dietary fat very differently than it processes carbohydrates or protein. When you eat excess fat, your body doesn't ramp up fat burning to compensate — it essentially stores the surplus directly as body fat. And when you combine dietary fat with carbohydrates, you create an environment where fat storage is maximized because your body preferentially burns the carbs for energy while shuttling the fat straight into adipose tissue.

I thought — might as well try this out. I was around 270 lbs at this point; what else did I have to lose? It sounded a lot better than restricting myself of carbs or doing extended day fasts. So I dove right in.

Why the Low Fat Diet Was Different

What surprised me the most was how easy this diet was. Just avoid fat. That's it. I was able to still eat most of the foods I liked. Some things I was able to substitute for low-fat or no-fat offerings, and others I did have to cut out unfortunately (pizza, for instance). But in all honesty, it was worth it.

Unlike every other diet I'd tried, I didn't feel deprived. I wasn't counting carbs, I wasn't doing math on macros, I wasn't white-knuckling my way through fasting windows. I was just... eating. Eating foods I enjoyed, minus the fat.

Blasting Through My Plateau

Here's the part that still blows my mind. After 20 years of yo-yo dieting, my body had seemingly locked in at a floor of about 240–245 lbs. No matter what I did — keto, carnivore, fasting — I could never get below that number for more than a few days. It was my "set point" and I thought I was stuck there for life.

But on the low fat diet, I busted through that plateau and finished around 190 lbs. That's 80 lbs lost, and more importantly, I broke through a wall that had stopped me for two decades. Here's my transformation timelapse made with WeightSnap's Time Machine feature:

My transformation timelapse — made with WeightSnap's Time Machine feature

Back at It — 100 Days to Abs

Now, I'll be real with you — I'm up a bit from that weight now. I fell off the wagon again (story of my life). But here's the difference: this time I know what works. The low fat diet got me abs the first time, and it's how I'll get them again.

I'm currently in the beginning of a 100 Days to Abs challenge, where the cornerpiece is the low fat diet. I'm documenting every single day — the good, the bad, and the ugly — on YouTube. Whether you're just finding this post and want to follow along live, or you're reading this after the fact and want to binge the whole series, the playlist is right here:

👉 Watch the 100 Days to Abs playlist on YouTube

The Bottom Line

If you've been stuck in the same cycle I was — losing and gaining the same weight on restrictive diets that you can't sustain — consider giving a low fat approach a try. It's not glamorous. It doesn't have a flashy name. Nobody is selling a $30 book about it. But for me, it was the thing that finally worked after 20 years of trying everything else.

The key is finding a diet that you can stick with long-term, not one that promises fast results but leaves you white-knuckling through every meal. A low fat diet let me eat the foods I enjoyed while still creating enough of a deficit to see real, sustained progress — and the research backs that up.

You are what you eat. So eat in a way that you can actually live with.

This low fat switch was just one piece of the puzzle. If you want the full picture, I wrote about how I lost 100 pounds after 20 years of yo-yo dieting including every diet I tried and what finally clicked.