Will It Take Awhile To Start Losing Weight

[collectors]

Hi, i compleatly cleared my kitchen cupboards of all bad foods to try a low carb diet. Five days in & not a single pound lost. Will it take awhile for it to kick in & start losing weight? I have been really strict on low fiber with no bread, underground veg & all that has been suggested.
I must admit many things suggested are pants. The almond or coconut flour are terrible to use & the same for the same type of milks.
One good thing is my blood levels have come down.
The only thing i am enjoying at the moment is strawberries & cream, omelet & liver & bacon, & the ocatinal teaspoon of peanut butter, but i constantly feel i need some sort of sugar fix, but haven't succumbed.

 

[Guzzler]

Great work so far and most importantly on lowering the blood glucose levels which is first and foremost in tackling Diabetes. Five days is really not a long time to judge for weight loss, it will happen but because we are all different some people take longer than others to see the first few ounces falling away. I lost 4lb in the first week but I am reliably told that this would mainly have been water but it started the ball rolling.

Craving sweet stuff (or savoury carby stuff) is very common, it will pass as your palate gets used to the change, well done on not giving in to it.

Stick at it, it does get easier as the weeks pass.

 

[rosco 2]

Hello collectors. Am new too so my first action was to go low carb like you. Thankfully never was a big cake, pudding and biscuit person. Food intake continues very limited but I only really started to lose a bit of weight when I began to walk more. I am not talking miles and miles here but 2 to 3km and I guess the heat added to the effort. I use xylitol as sugar when I need it for cooking or concocting something. Can give you dodgy guts but I think you acclimatise.
It takes perseverance, there is no doubt. For me it is important to give it my best go because I still have things I want to do in life and I really don’t want my eyesight impaired. We all have choices, some more difficult than others. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[collectors]

Thanks everyone, will stick with it for a few weeks & see how we go. The other thing i noticed is the cost of many of the things that also taste terrible. IE: Per kilo or ltr
Almond flour around £12.00, coconut flour £6.50, Normal flour just, 50p
Almond milk £1.00 normal milk 75p
Xylitol £11.00 normal sugar 55p
I realize that what we like is not always good for us, but look at the difference.

 

[xfieldok]

I won't have xylitol in the house as I have a dog. I use erythritol. I agree the prices of weird and wonderful ingredients are very high. I feel for people on benefits.

It took me about 3 weeks to get over carb withdrawal. I made plenty of mistakes early on, fell off the wagon a few times. It can take a while to get going, baby steps.

 

[bulkbiker]

Thanks everyone, will stick with it for a few weeks & see how we go. The other thing i noticed is the cost of many of the things that also taste terrible. IE: Per kilo or ltr
Almond flour around £12.00, coconut flour £6.50, Normal flour just, 50p
Almond milk £1.00 normal milk 75p
Xylitol £11.00 normal sugar 55p
I realize that what we like is not always good for us, but look at the difference.

Any particular reason why almond "milk" ? I just have lactofree or cream full fat. Personally I tried to change what I ate completely rather than trying to replicate "forbidden" foods. Eggs, bacon, meat and green veg, frozen berries and cream, cheese are far easier and nicer than fake cakes and pseudo breads.

 

[HSSS]

I’m new too low carb but have read absolutely loads in the last few weeks

You could try coconut milk. Also the flours don’t work as equivilents. Coconut need a lot of liquid and you use far less. Almond is heavier. Try buying almonds and grinding them, often is cheaper. Amazon and other online shops a cheaper source too.

Anytime I don’t drink a lot of water my loss stalls instantly. Are you eating here more fats to replace the carbs. Whilst I don’t have an upper limit of calories it seems if you eat too few that can stall it too.

5 days isn’t much. Keep going. Getting the blood sugars down already is a good sign and the rest follows.

 

[DCUKMod]

Thanks everyone, will stick with it for a few weeks & see how we go. The other thing i noticed is the cost of many of the things that also taste terrible. IE: Per kilo or ltr
Almond flour around £12.00, coconut flour £6.50, Normal flour just, 50p
Almond milk £1.00 normal milk 75p
Xylitol £11.00 normal sugar 55p
I realize that what we like is not always good for us, but look at the difference.

Collectors, I'm not a great user of substitutes in my way of eating, although I don't bake for myself, so the need for almond flour, for me is incredibly low priority.

To be honest, I was probably quite "lucky", in that 3 weeks post-diagnosis, I went to spend several months in a place in the trpoics where food choices werrre much more limited than in the UK, so there was no chance I would be searching out psyllium husk or xanthum gum, because the chances of finding it were less than minimal, in most cases.

On that basis, we concentrated on good, simple food, made from scratch. We always made from scratch anyway, so that was just "business as usual". I still use very little, in terms of alternatives, but just stick with food I like, from easily available stuff.

To complicate matters further, since diagnosis, I have also had to go gluten-free, so that narrrows things a bit further still, but life could me a million times worse.

At the beginning, why not just keep it simple?

 

[Resurgam]

Gluten free would be fine for me, I don't eat flour. I do try out some baking once in a while, but if for some reason I could not get the ingredients I'd just give it up - I find the normal everyday low carb foods which are easy to get hold of - except the Lidl Greek yogurt which is always sold out these days - just fine for my needs.

 

[zand]

Make sure you are drinking enough water, I need at least a couple of litres, more if I have increased the amount of protein I eat. Sometimes our bodies decide to hang on to water if we are even a tad dehydrated. So you may have lost real weight but water retention could be making it look like you haven't.

 

[DCUKMod]

Gluten free would be fine for me, I don't eat flour. I do try out some baking once in a while, but if for some reason I could not get the ingredients I'd just give it up - I find the normal everyday low carb foods which are easy to get hold of - except the Lidl Greek yogurt which is always sold out these days - just fine for my needs.

Resurgam - Your view of GF is around where my own started, but please trust me on this one, that it's way, way more than avoiding flour. Malt vinegar? Soy Sauce? Cola (or any sort - it's the colourings).

I could go on, but can assure you being compliant on GF is a whole new world of additional consultations with Dr Google and package reading.

Then, of course, you have something utterly delicious from the GF menu of a decent eatery and find yourself in the midst of a decent glutening, from somewhere.

Like all these things, it just has to be done, but again like so many things, the devil is indeedy in the detail.

 

[Guzzler]

The other thing that you may or may not have noticed is, strangely, waist size. With some people they see a slight lowering of waist measurement just before the first few pounds start coming off.

 

[Resurgam]

Resurgam - Your view of GF is around where my own started, but please trust me on this one, that it's way, way more than avoiding flour. Malt vinegar? Soy Sauce? Cola (or any sort - it's the colourings).

I could go on, but can assure you being compliant on GF is a whole new world of additional consultations with Dr Google and package reading.

Then, of course, you have something utterly delicious from the GF menu of a decent eatery and find yourself in the midst of a decent glutening, from somewhere.

Like all these things, it just has to be done, but again like so many things, the devil is indeedy in the detail.

Ah - I use wine vinegar, do not touch soy sauce, and don't drink cola - I am just a natural gluten avoider.
I don't eat out either, so no one has the chance to glutenize me - and I am not even trying to avoid it....

 

[rosco 2]

I agree specialist food is way more expensive if we want certain categories of foodstuffs. Equally meat, fruit and veg cost the same whoever you are. There is no doubt that an effective diabetic diet will almost certainly cost more than it does those who choose to indulge in fast food and cheap carbs.

 

[Prem51]

Hi @collectors, it was about three weeks before I started losing weight, though I was eating very little, just a sandwich in the evening. Then I started losing 1 - 2 lbs a week, losing around 30 lbs over the next 12 weeks. I have put about half of that back on, but I have stabilised at around 150/151 lbs, still around 20 lbs less than where I started at.

 

[Geordie_P]

Five days is just the start: you should start seeing results after a couple of weeks. I think you should drop the substitutes if you don't like them though: almond milk, xylitol etc- it's easier to just cut them out. If you like meat, eggs, cheese, fish, green veg, just eat those things and ditch the complicated stuff. Good luck!

 

[Resurgam]

I don't find the low carb way of eating all that expensive - chicken thighs, beefburgers, sausages, eggs and cheese, with chops or an occasional joint of meat all seem fairly reasonable. I also buy ham and corned beef - plus the low carb veges and salad stuff. The berries and cream don't seem to break the bank either.

 

[rosco 2]

I am not interested in stuff like almond milk or any of the other “milks”. I just buy whipping cream and water it down quite a lot. Much less carbs than milk. Tastes decent too.

 

[rosco 2]

Ooooh, nearly forgot...and a glass of decent red wine of an evening. Cheers!

 

[JoKalsbeek]

Hi, i compleatly cleared my kitchen cupboards of all bad foods to try a low carb diet. Five days in & not a single pound lost. Will it take awhile for it to kick in & start losing weight? I have been really strict on low fiber with no bread, underground veg & all that has been suggested.
I must admit many things suggested are pants. The almond or coconut flour are terrible to use & the same for the same type of milks.
One good thing is my blood levels have come down.
The only thing i am enjoying at the moment is strawberries & cream, omelet & liver & bacon, & the ocatinal teaspoon of peanut butter, but i constantly feel i need some sort of sugar fix, but haven't succumbed.

I bought and tossed out a LOT of expensive alternative foods because the taste was foul... I rather just eat what I actually enjoy eating. Eggs, meats, fish, salads, veggies, nuts. The diet is easier to implement when you savour/love your foods.