LCHF diet to help you lose weight, not diabetes

[Kat100]

I suggested RCIF near the beginning of this thread, and stand by it. (Reduced carbs/increased fats) Newbies don't know what low carb means --- how low is low is asked many a time, never mind all the confusion over fats..

Hi bluetit diets are so confusing , all of them for some ...they are for me ..
And I know we refer to new people on this forum , but you have made me think and question , we never really know if new people know more than we do or individuals trying to help know ...some maybe new to being a diabetic some may be new to forums ...but have great knowledge ...
It's a mind field ...we can like you so often do , only do our best with our own approaches ...best wishes ..Kat

 

[AnnieC]

It's not something I particularly enjoy,
I use the George Foreman, and this is the amount of fat squeezed out when I cooked 3 decent sausages this morning. This isn't a lot compared to others.
Now, personally, I think the remaining fat is more than enough for me.
But that's my taste, I know others on here advocate frying them in butter.

View attachment 7487

I am sure the ridiculous low fat recommendations soon will be changed. There are voices in the research community talking about 40% carbs and 40% fat as suitable levels for diabetics as more and more data shows no health benefits from low fat, quite the contrary. To me that still seems a lot of carbs but at least it a slightly more reasonable level.

And yes of course AnnieC, there may be people who doesn't like fat. I do however believe that a lot of them are more or less brain washed. Who in their right taste buds would prefer the frankenfood low fat spreads over butter for example?

I was lead to believe fat was bad and make you fat. That has been the message for decades so of course we believe it. But they were wrong and more and more research is published now that shows not even saturated fat is bad and that dairy fat actually protects us from heart disease and obesity.

As to don't like fat, last autumn we had a neighbour over one night when we had saddle of mutton, a lovely, juicy, fat young sheep and our neighbour cut away all the nice fat! I told her to try it, but she was scared to do so. Eventually she did have some of the fat and once she had tried it also had to admit it was lovely.[/QUOTE]
Sorry but no one could ever convice me eating the fat on meat is nice I actually had roast lamb on Sunday but I cut off the fat always have done always will I just don't like the taste of it

 

[douglas99]

Sorry but no one could ever convice me eating the fat on meat is nice I actually had roast lamb on Sunday but I cut off the fat always have done always will I just don't like the taste of it

I'm with you on that,
Actually, if I did go to someone's house, and got pressed to eat lamb fat, and told I was scared of it if I didn't, or was just brainwashed, it could well be an early end to the evening.,

 

[this is too difficult two]

They say you should never interfere in a "domestic" since all that will happen is the family members will see you as a common enemy and all of them will turn against you. So I stayed out of this one but now I find, seeing the photo from @douglas99 that I should state my position, put my tin hat on and drink the other bottle and maybe it won't hurt.

There was a scare years ago where salt was seen as a bad thing. The actual scare was about "excessive" salt but that didn't stop people from trying to avoid salt altogether. One lad at work passed out a couple of times because his wife made sure he never had any salt. People need salt to live. This illustrated to me that people jack up any advice they get from scare tactics by the media. Also, some unscrupulous food manufacturers capitalise on fear. Low fat, no salt, no sugar, free range and on and on. It sells stuff.

So how do I interpret HF? I just forget everything the low fat culture indoctrinated me with. I have full fat milk if I want. I have butter on my new potatoes. I don't get anal about cutting fat off of lamb. Anything in the supermarket that has low fat printed on the package is put back on the shelf since the manufacturer has probably replaced the fat with sugar. I remember that fat can cut the GI of some foods and have managed the odd dumpling as a result.

There never was any suggestion that I had to stuff blocks of fat into my mouth. Just don't be frightened of fat since there has never been a causal link between fat and heart disease according to Dr. Kendrick.

Low carb (LC). I was issued with my meter six months before I joined this forum. I became aware that if I ate anything with flour or sugar in it then I couldn't acquit my orders which required that I control my blood sugars. I cut back severely on such foods and got low BS numbers. This was entirely logical to me and I was at a loss to understand why it was not general knowledge.

I found this forum which had made similar discoveries and I stayed. There were the proactive members who dealt with lowering their carbs with scales and ate a stated or lesser amount of carbs every day. There were the reactive members who read their BS after eating and adjusted future meals accordingly. Both were doing the same thing by different methods but they wanted to argue about which was best.

This brought to mind the old Star Trek episode where two men were at war since one was black on his left side and the black on his right side.

There are other diets but I haven't tried them and they have their advocates and providing those advocates do not knock on my door and try to tell me I should think like them then they are welcome to their beliefs.

Was that the guy that played the Riddler in Batman?

 

[Squire Fulwood]

Was that the guy that played the Riddler in Batman?

Frank Gorshin

 

[Scandichic]

I am confused to why a LCHF weight diet seems to be the answer to the long term control to Diabetes. High fat and heart problems comes more to mind.
When a member on this forum says our or your Doctor is incorrect to her Patient, a Patient we do not even know or have any in-house information is Dangerous and beyond belief.
Maybe it is just me being just being a little unfair, yet when a new member gets a welcome from @daisy1, before or after comes the LCHF diet recommendation's, it just seems wrong not to give the new member a chance to make sense of the forum and what it is all about.
Come to think about it maybe the system could be set up that new members get the welcomes firstly from Daisy1 and Admin;to ensure a better start.
Sorry in advance if I have offended any member, it is that something is not adding up

I haven't read the rest of the posts yet but I disagree strongly with aspects of your post. I was in a state of panic when I found out I had diabetes and wanted to act immediately. Everyone deals with things differently. Some people want to know straight away so they can act. I was extremely glad that @Totto posted her advice as I was sitting there in tears not knowing what to do. The only advice the doc had given me was to stay away from sugars foods and to go on the Nhs backed diabetes website. According to that site no food is forbidden, cakes can be made with half the sugar, etc and everyone should eat the eat well plate. I think the advice is dangerous and irresponsible with no scientific evidence as to why it's a good idea to eat starchy carbs with every meal (especially as they turn into sugar which enters the blood stream and consequently raises the bs thus negating the effects of the medicine - why would you want to do that or why would you even give this advice!) .if I had a pound for every member who has posted about following the Nhs advice and then finding their condition worsening I'd be a rich woman! All the science is there on the diet doc website if people bother to read it rather than criticise it. It has proved a life changer for me and it has not only improved my life but my family's lives as well. Weight loss is a huge benefit but it's great for people who are diabetic and don't need to lose weight or non diabetics full stop. I could have just ignored your post and smiled smugly but I felt I had a duty to others to comment. Perhaps you should try it before criticising it.

 

[AnnieC]

I do agree that for most people the LCHF diet is good at keeping their BG levels down but it is also a weight loss diet so for those people who do not need to loose weight they will still do so on the diet that is a fact and this is not so good as being underweight can cause it's own complications.
When I started to watch my eating having been told I was prediabetic I cut right down on the starchy foods and stopped eating bread potatoes and other root veg and kept mostly to leafy stuff..I.never did eat much rice or pasta.. and of course I cut out altogether all the sugar stuff.and started to eat full fat yogurt cream and butter but that did not stop me from loosing weight and after about 4 weeks I had lost over a stone I had never been overweight in my life so this was a lot for me to loose I looked so skinny.. my GP was not very pleased.. I had to start eating some starchy carbs again just to keep my weight from dropping even more. I still struggle to keep it up so I eat a lot of nuts cheese and good oils but would dearly like to put on a few pounds again.
We just can't generalise that the LCHF is what every diabetic should be doing when we know nothing about their individual circumstances like other medical conditions that higher fat may not be good for or any other problems they may have yet without knowing any of this about them newbies are still told almost straight away they must stop eating certain foods altogether and eat more fats to get their BG levels down when this could be dangerous for some people Certainly tell them about LCHF but do stress it is not suitable for everyone and if they have other medical issues they should check with their consultant or doctor before embarking on it

 

[Squire Fulwood]

We just can't generalise

Hear hear, thought for the day.

 

[Misteraa]

Here's a post I did that sums up how I dealt with my diagnosis.

To put it simply, we are all different.
Where we are similar, generally, is that the majority of those of us who have had success in reducing our blood sugars have done the following:

1) Test before eating anything
2) Test again, 1 hour after, and 2 hours after.
3) Decide upon an acceptable blood sugar reading
4) If the food you eat is causing a result above your personal acceptable reading, then go to step one, changing what you eat.
5) Repeat until you know what foods cause you to spike.
6) Stop eating these foods.
7) Continue to do this over the course of a month, and you will be surprised at the results.

Your meter may tell you that the things you like are bad, when this happens, you have to decide whether:

a) I will eat these, running the risk of premature blindness, amputation, and kidney disease
or
b) that these foods are simply not worth the risk.

 

[izzzi]

I haven't read the rest of the posts yet but I disagree strongly with aspects of your post. I was in a state of panic when I found out I had diabetes and wanted to act immediately. Everyone deals with things differently. Some people want to know straight away so they can act. I was extremely glad that @Totto posted her advice as I was sitting there in tears not knowing what to do. The only advice the doc had given me was to stay away from sugars foods and to go on the Nhs backed diabetes website. According to that site no food is forbidden, cakes can be made with half the sugar, etc and everyone should eat the eat well plate. I think the advice is dangerous and irresponsible with no scientific evidence as to why it's a good idea to eat starchy carbs with every meal (especially as they turn into sugar which enters the blood stream and consequently raises the bs thus negating the effects of the medicine - why would you want to do that or why would you even give this advice!) .if I had a pound for every member who has posted about following the Nhs advice and then finding their condition worsening I'd be a rich woman! All the science is there on the diet doc website if people bother to read it rather than criticise it. It has proved a life changer for me and it has not only improved my life but my family's lives as well. Weight loss is a huge benefit but it's great for people who are diabetic and don't need to lose weight or non diabetics full stop. I could have just ignored your post and smiled smugly but I felt I had a duty to others to comment. Perhaps you should try it before criticising it.

There is nothing wrong with constructive criticism. @Scandichic you of all members should know that.
Some good has come from your comment yet as you say "I haven't read the rest of the posts yet"" Everyone deals with things differently""if people bother to read it rather than criticise" sorry thought I was back at school again.
There is no need for me to try the LCHF diet yet, as I am on a different diet that I found through this forum with good results.
I know how serious the LCHF is to many members. Please understand that I cannot get to grips with the word "high fat" ( to me it is like telling a smoker to smoke more cigarettes to get healthy, or drink more alcohol to sober up ) hence getting the correct message out to newbies that will not confuse them.Simple as that

 

[Brunneria]

Please understand that I cannot get to grips with the word "high fat" ( to me it is like telling a smoker to smoke more cigarettes to get healthy, or drink more alcohol to sober up ) hence getting the correct message out to newbies that will not confuse them.Simple as that

That is a REALLY poor and un-constructive comparison.

If you 'can't get your head around' something, then the problem is in your comprehension, rather than in the information itself.

There is masses (and more by the week!) information on how low fat advice is no longer valid.
And increasing amounts of information on the benefits of increasing healthy fats, especially when restricting carbs.

If you choose not to 'get your head around it' then that is your choice. But it in no way invalidates the range of options and personal experiences offered by members who can get their head around it.

 

[Avocado Sevenfold]

@Brunneria like x 100

I don't see why the concept of LCHF is so difficult for people to understand. It is so simple.

You need X calories to get through the day whether you want to lose weight or not. These calories come from carbs, fat and protein.

If you get diabetes, you need to decrease carbs to enjoy healthy blood glucose levels. Decreasing your carbs means you are decreasing your calories. You need to make up this calorie deficit from somewhere. Protein cannot be overdone for the sake of our kidneys. Increasing fat brings the calories back up to the optimum level.

The problem seems to be that the adjectives "low" and "high" are subjective. To some the phrase "high fat" means consuming healthy fats to make up their calorie deficit. An example of this is choosing high fat/high calorie butter over low fat/low calorie margarine. Others get hysterical about the phrase and think it means drinking straight out of the chip pan.

LCHF is a way of eating which is successful for me. It says so in my signature. Why would I not want to tell people who ask for advice? I can't advise anyone of LCLF or whatever. Only what works for me. If we can't post about our personal experiences and successes, then what is the point of having a forum?

 

[alliebee]

Hear hear.

 

[izzzi]

That is a REALLY poor and un-constructive comparison.

If you 'can't get your head around' something, then the problem is in your comprehension, rather than in the information itself.

There is masses (and more by the week!) information on how low fat advice is no longer valid.
And increasing amounts of information on the benefits of increasing healthy fats, especially when restricting carbs.

If you choose not to 'get your head around it' then that is your choice. But it in no way invalidates the range of options and personal experiences offered by members who can get their head around it.

Exactly why I prefer the word you used "healthy fats" just look at "high fat" image on Google, then look at "healthy fat" image.

Have you noticed that many members have now used words like healthy fats,moderate fats and lean fats etc; instead of "high fats"

The members that can get their heads round the LCHF is not the problem.
It is the new people that may get the wrong message from miss understanding what is written from some LCHF members.
Can I go back to my cage please before you throw me in it,

 

[andcol]

I have read this thread and my thoughts are "Oh dear here we go again..." You probably all know that I am now on what you all call a high carb diet (about 250g/day). However, when I was diagnosed I went on a low carb low calorie diet. This sorted out all my BG levels within a few weeks as you know and then I added more fat (and carbs) in the form of nuts. Since then I have increased my carbs and not only low GI ones. I have found that I can tolerate them without difficulty. This may be because I exercise harder or is it because of the "Newcastle Diet Effect" of losing 5 stone? Does it really matter as long as we help other members get control of their BG levels. Personally if there are no medical issues (and we must remember we do not know the individual) I would recommend anyone reducing their Carbohydrate intake (especially the pointless filler) until they have brought their levels under control and within normal ranges. However, I think very low carb hides the success some people have achieved because their body unlearns how to react to carbs just because it doesnt need to. This isn't an issue if the individual is happy and doesn't stress over not quite making it.

I would agree that we shouldn't swamp a newcomer and wait for them to ask questions. Many do in their first post but others just say "hi". However, I also recognise the dilemma as they will not know there are any questions to ask. May be there should be some "reference success stories" that we should pin so that they can be easily found by the newcomers and see how others have succeeded.

 

[graj0]

I was just thinking, dangerous I know, it's the LC or low(er) carb bit that benefits us, diabetics and non diabetics alike. Now the HF or high(er) fat is really a different issue all together because we're told that it's bad for our hearts and we're told that it isn't. I don't think I would recommend anyone increasing their fat intake, but then I wouldn't recommend that they cut down either. As for carbs, in my personal experience, I would strongly recommend cutting carbs.

 

[Brunneria]

Exactly why I prefer the word you used "healthy fats" just look at "high fat" image on Google, then look at "healthy fat" image.

Have you noticed that many members have now used words like healthy fats,moderate fats and lean fats etc; instead of "high fats"

The members that can get their heads round the LCHF is not the problem.
It is the new people that may get the wrong message from miss understanding what is written from some LCHF members.
Can I go back to my cage please before you throw me in it,

I think you do the 'new people' a massive dis-service if you think they are not capable of reading and understanding posts.
There has never been, to my knowledge, a newbie thread that has just had one pro-LCHF post on it pushing the poor innocent into the horrific den of iniquity that is LCHF. Instead, there are a range of views, suggestions and greetings posted. The more, the merrier.

And you are free to post your welcome, offer your solution/help/advice whenever you like. But if you do so in a way that looks or sounds like your #150 post, then it is you who will be giving the wrong message.

 

[Avocado Sevenfold]

Exactly why I prefer the word you used "healthy fats" just look at "high fat" image on Google, then look at "healthy fat" image.

Have you noticed that many members have now used words like healthy fats,moderate fats and lean fats etc; instead of "high fats"

The members that can get their heads round the LCHF is not the problem.
It is the new people that may get the wrong message from miss understanding what is written from some LCHF members.
Can I go back to my cage please before you throw me in it,

I am struggling to get my head around the oxymoron "lean fats"

 

[Kat100]

This gets harder by the day because it is such a big forum ...world wide with so many views and experiences ....
When I joined i thought the diet wad all about Lchf ...not the case though ....but not everyone speaks up ...personal,choice of course and shares their diet ....I still believe this is all confusing , not in a negative way , but because of so many differences and I don't just mean information on this forum .information is everywhere ....still think we are all doing our bit though ...contributing is so much better than not ...
But it is not a competition to get heard or be right about our diet ....it is about individual choice and life circumstances which does include health and other issues that we can't advise on .......

 

[AndBreathe]

If I can just chip in here.

Most (and I use the word deliberately) people coming on here, looking for dietary changes do so whilst carrying a bit of extra poundage. For the shorter(undefined)-term, replacing some carb calories is moot, because for most of us, going into a calorie deficit for a period wouldn't have done/do us any harm. Indeed, the opposite. So, early doors, I'm not sure adopting any fat adjustment is critical. For those who have lost what they want or need to, or are having symptoms, suggesting they are struggling with their deficit, there maybe should be cautionary messaging to adjust fat upwards to compensate and fill the gap. As each of us will be running at differing deficits, the details of that shift will be individual.

So, so, so, so often I think the language is the issue, in this place. I can't bring myself to try bullet-proof coffee - It just doesn't appeal in any way. Nor am I utterly committed to my latest Channel Island milk yoghurt creation. It tastes too rich for me. The pretty much clotted cream top that has formed doesn't suit me at breakfast-time. That those are my preferences are just that. It doesn't make them right or wrong. In fact, sometimes I think I really should try the coffee; just to actually experience the buzzzzzz everyone relates.

For new people, I think the initial messaging has to be very simple. Thereafter, they should really be doing some reading for themselves (as well as asking questions), and forming their own ideas. That some will prefer a lower/higher/same levels of fat, or carb, or protein to me (or you or anyone else) doesn't really matter to me, provided I am finding levels I feel comfortable at, and I'm healthy. And similarly for you and others.

I do feel for newbies coming on here, having to take on board the tsunami of information.