I'd like to see starvation diets having a place in NHS support for obese type2s.

[eggs11]

An interesting thing about the ND is even if you use the easily available sugary meal replacement shakes, you can be on about 75g total carbs a day depending on what veg you use as the 'real food', which is still pretty low. When I did it for a few days I was getting about 100g carbs a day.

One thing that surprised me was just how good I felt after one of the shakes. I was expecting a drink with 20g carbs - sugar, no less - in it for breakfast to cause problems during the morning at work. In reality I felt fine - very mentally alert, not hungry, and didn't notice and 'sugar crashes'. I wondered if that was because they are crammed with a wide range of nutrients so I wasn't lacking much?

Anyway congratulations on your staying power, and relevant to this thread, how have you found things since you stopped the 1000 calories a day, and what do you eat these days?

I am now on LCHF and as long as I keep my carbs under 70g I'm ok - a few 'experiments' with more carbs have been ok blood sugar wise, but made me hungry again. To be honest eating more again has been a little harder mentally than keeping to the strict 1000 calories a day - after years or dieting it feels strange to eat a normal amount of calories! I was very worried about bounceback weight gain, having done low calorie diets many times before. However although weight loss has slowed down I haven't regained. I really believe it has been the low carb nature of my diet that meant it was successful for me. Interesting what you said about the meal replacements being full of nutrients and therefore filling - I found the same with green smoothies.

If I remember correctly I lost over 20 pounds in those first 2 months - then only 10 pounds in the last 2 months on LCHF - but that's because my weight has plateaued the last month. There has been an element of wanting to 'refeed' at times but if I'm careful with my carbs and making sure I'm eating enough non-starchy veg etc in my meals then my appetite is still under control - I also think it is a mental thing, now my blood sugars are much improved to think I can 'get away' with a few more carbs now - which is categorically not the case - my home testing shows that can be fine for a day - but that general carb creep is not a good idea.

I wouldn't have wanted to do more than 8 weeks at low calorie, I did feel tired at times. But it provided a quick improvement that motivated me greatly - especially as I wanted to avoid meds and show my nurse that in 3 months I could turn things around without them - I felt the clock was ticking and wanted a 'belt and braces' approach that would work - and it did! I see it as a short term solution but low carb was/is an essential part of that.

Going forward I need to keep to some of the habits that helped me at the start - logging my food and carbs again. I know for me the lower the carb the better, and I have and stone and half to go, so looking to keep carbs low and mix in some fasting days as well.

 

[AdamJames]

I am now on LCHF and as long as I keep my carbs under 70g I'm ok - a few 'experiments' with more carbs have been ok blood sugar wise, but made me hungry again. To be honest eating more again has been a little harder mentally than keeping to the strict 1000 calories a day - after years or dieting it feels strange to eat a normal amount of calories! I was very worried about bounceback weight gain, having done low calorie diets many times before. However although weight loss has slowed down I haven't regained. I really believe it has been the low carb nature of my diet that meant it was successful for me. Interesting what you said about the meal replacements being full of nutrients and therefore filling - I found the same with green smoothies.

If I remember correctly I lost over 20 pounds in those first 2 months - then only 10 pounds in the last 2 months on LCHF - but that's because my weight has plateaued the last month. There has been an element of wanting to 'refeed' at times but if I'm careful with my carbs and making sure I'm eating enough non-starchy veg etc in my meals then my appetite is still under control - I also think it is a mental thing, now my blood sugars are much improved to think I can 'get away' with a few more carbs now - which is categorically not the case - my home testing shows that can be fine for a day - but that general carb creep is not a good idea.

I wouldn't have wanted to do more than 8 weeks at low calorie, I did feel tired at times. But it provided a quick improvement that motivated me greatly - especially as I wanted to avoid meds and show my nurse that in 3 months I could turn things around without them - I felt the clock was ticking and wanted a 'belt and braces' approach that would work - and it did! I see it as a short term solution but low carb was/is an essential part of that.

Going forward I need to keep to some of the habits that helped me at the start - logging my food and carbs again. I know for me the lower the carb the better, and I have and stone and half to go, so looking to keep carbs low and mix in some fasting days as well.

Excellent work and thank you so much for your insight!

I can relate to some of that. It's the sense that time is ticking that still attracts me to the ND. At one point I was planning on doing 8 weeks of ND followed by switching to LCHF in the hope of avoiding re-feeding due to the appetite reduction on LCHF.

However if I can find a similar rate of weight loss that still allows me to do my hobbies and keeps my fasting sugar levels low, and avoid muscle loss, then I'm hoping that will be better than the ND. It's a work in progress. So far I've learned I need to calorie count on LCHF if I'm going to be doing lots of walking at the weekends - I can't trust my appetite. I put on weight and my fasting levels go up. But I've just started extremely low carb for the last 36 hours and, while it's too early to say, I'm not has hungry as I expected and I don't think I've been eating a huge amount.

Good luck with 'finishing things off', it sounds like you've found a plan that's working well so far.

 

[DCUKMod]

@AdamJames - I'm interested to know how you deifine "lose all my visceral fat"? Have you measured that in some way now, and if not, how do you know how much of it you have?

 

[AdamJames]

@AdamJames - I'm interested to know how you deifine "lose all my visceral fat"? Have you measured that in some way now, and if not, how do you know how much of it you have?

That's a very good question. I don't have a scientific method to measure visceral fat.

Getting to the point of needing to be scientific about it feels like it's still a long way off to be honest. There's just so much of it now that I'd be happy to get to the point where I can sit in a chair without the horrible sensation of my man-boobs resting on my big barrel of fat underneath.

I still haven't done the piece-of-string around middle vs height thing yet but I might do that just for fun, though of course take it with a pinch of salt.

I did think about using BMI but that's probably too crude a tool.

I remember when I used to feel very fit and healthy I was 12 stone but not particularly thin, so I reckon I can afford to lose at least 3.5 stone which would get me back down to that level, though of course one's body changes as one gets older. As a wild guess, I'd say that I could probably afford to lose 4-5 stone without feeling horribly underweight. Although I may need to eat so little that I feel ill trying to get there, in which case I'll just live with the fat.

I have asked myself 'at what point would I stop trying to lose weight' and there are some possible answers:

* If my glucose tolerance ever suddenly starts to look radically better. Which may indicate I've lost enough fat to get my pancreas de-clogged, if indeed that is part of the problem. I'd probably just go on to lose a bit more weight after that.

* If I develop a skin suit / apron whatever it's called.

* I start feeling unpleasantly underweight, or I have to eat so little to lose any more weight that I feel ill / tired all the time.

 

[AdamJames]

There has been an element of wanting to 'refeed' at times but if I'm careful with my carbs and making sure I'm eating enough non-starchy veg etc in my meals then my appetite is still under control

I forgot to say that's one of the many things I could relate to in your post. I think padding out a meal with a ton of non-starchy veg could be a very important weapon in this battle. It's had extremely good results for me, both for weight loss and blood glucose control.

 

[lindisfel]

Have you had your fat distribution mapped. It could be you are now healthy and fat!
D.

I'm neither knocking nor promoting any approach, and I was thinking purely in terms of weight loss rather than blood sugars.

Re blood sugars, I got my HbA1c down from 90 to 42 in a few months by losing weight by various means, mainly stopping alcohol and the subsequent food binges that lead to, by getting out more, and by becoming carb-conscious. But I never stuck to any one approach for more than a week or so, as most of them seemed to work, given I was so overweight.

But I'm the example I was talking about: a big man who has lost a lot of weight and if I eat what I want, even on very low carbs and high fat, I stop losing weight.

I think if I want to push things to lose all the visceral fat, it's going to be one heck of a battle regardless of what approach I take, and I don't see a magic bullet.

 

[DCUKMod]

That's a very good question. I don't have a scientific method to measure visceral fat.

Getting to the point of needing to be scientific about it feels like it's still a long way off to be honest. There's just so much of it now that I'd be happy to get to the point where I can sit in a chair without the horrible sensation of my man-boobs resting on my big barrel of fat underneath.

I still haven't done the piece-of-string around middle vs height thing yet but I might do that just for fun, though of course take it with a pinch of salt.

I did think about using BMI but that's probably too crude a tool.

I remember when I used to feel very fit and healthy I was 12 stone but not particularly thin, so I reckon I can afford to lose at least 3.5 stone which would get me back down to that level, though of course one's body changes as one gets older. As a wild guess, I'd say that I could probably afford to lose 4-5 stone without feeling horribly underweight. Although I may need to eat so little that I feel ill trying to get there, in which case I'll just live with the fat.

I have asked myself 'at what point would I stop trying to lose weight' and there are some possible answers:

* If my glucose tolerance ever suddenly starts to look radically better. Which may indicate I've lost enough fat to get my pancreas de-clogged, if indeed that is part of the problem. I'd probably just go on to lose a bit more weight after that.

* If I develop a skin suit / apron whatever it's called.

* I start feeling unpleasantly underweight, or I have to eat so little to lose any more weight that I feel ill / tired all the time.

It strikes me that your goals are a bit fluffy. If you don't have a clear goal, how can you gauge how far away or close to it you might be. A goal doesn't have to be the big, BIG change, it could be to take your belt in a notch within x period of time.

For me, if I don't have some sort of vision, goal, aim or whatever you want to call it, I find I don't gain any traction in a process. For me, throughout my diabetic journey, may aim was for good blood sugar control. I didn't start out with an aim to achieve an HbA1c of x, y or z, but I started out with something I felt I could ahieve.

Sorry if I'm a reaal data and process geek, but for me (and I'm guessing some others too), it allows me a framework to work to, and if my goals are set sensibly a decent challenge, but also some wins along the way.

 

[Paul_hocking]

I try and avoid sugars and artificial sweetener most of the time I do still drink a small amount of Coke Zero on occasion and sometimes have something sweet I try and fast at least once a week and it makes a big difference specially if I'm having a lazy day I still find what I eat to be a constant boring battle

 

[AdamJames]

Have you had your fat distribution mapped. It could be you are now healthy and fat!
D.

No I haven't. How would I go about that? I certainly feel healthy sometimes, e.g. I feel much better moving around the hills these days than this time last year. I doubt I can be particularly healthy in some ways however, as my fasting blood glucose tells me I'm regularly in the danger zone unless I pay very close attention to what I eat.

 

[AdamJames]

It strikes me that your goals are a bit fluffy. If you don't have a clear goal, how can you gauge how far away or close to it you might be. A goal doesn't have to be the big, BIG change, it could be to take your belt in a notch within x period of time.

For me, if I don't have some sort of vision, goal, aim or whatever you want to call it, I find I don't gain any traction in a process. For me, throughout my diabetic journey, may aim was for good blood sugar control. I didn't start out with an aim to achieve an HbA1c of x, y or z, but I started out with something I felt I could ahieve.

Sorry if I'm a reaal data and process geek, but for me (and I'm guessing some others too), it allows me a framework to work to, and if my goals are set sensibly a decent challenge, but also some wins along the way.

I'm a data freak too, in terms of monitoring then going back over data and trying to work out what gets the best results.

In terms of goals however I think I'm more interested in 'direction of travel' rather than end points, as it's so hard to know how to measure the end points or where to set them.

In the case of visceral fat, even if I could somehow measure specifically the fat in my liver and pancreas accurately, that wouldn't necessarily give me a target to aim for in terms of weight loss, as the fat stored there correlates to overall fat very differently for different people. I could well be someone for whom there is no point in even trying to unclog his pancreas for all I know.

Right now I have the long-term goal of losing weight, just as a direction of travel rather than reaching a specific goal, because there are many advantages to that and zero disadvantages at the moment.

The shorter term aim is to keep blood sugars in the safe range, which I've been failing at recently, so again I'm trying to correct the 'direction of travel'. Right now that is involving eating hardly any carbs and plenty of fat to see if I can be remotely 'fat adapted' by next weekend, and see what that does to my appetite when I'm out hiking.

 

[lucylocket61]

I've heard that recurrent miscarriages can be a symptom of 'silent' coeliac. Were you ever tested?

yes, I have, and it isnt that, thanks

 

[archersuz]

why shouldnt most people have some ice-cream occasionally?

I'm not saying people shouldn't have ice-cream. What I'm saying is that I find it hard not to have ice-cream and I don't need it thrust in my face as I walk past, and then given 'a look' when I refuse it!

 

[lindisfel]

Fasting blood glucose doesn't mean much if your liver has to keep dumping. You'll know what I mean when I mention metabolic syndrome?
A special scan can show fat distribution but it would be costly and pointless if you still have metabolic syndrome.
regards
Derek

No I haven't. How would I go about that? I certainly feel healthy sometimes, e.g. I feel much better moving around the hills these days than this time last year. I doubt I can be particularly healthy in some ways however, as my fasting blood glucose tells me I'm regularly in the danger zone unless I pay very close attention to what I eat.

 

[kevinfitzgerald]

Bobby Sands fasted for 66 days before he died of starvation in prison.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Sands

Not forgetting Terence MacSwiney Lord Mayor of Cork..... 74 days hunger strike..

 

[AdamJames]

Fasting blood glucose doesn't mean much if your liver has to keep dumping. You'll know what I mean when I mention metabolic syndrome?
A special scan can show fat distribution but it would be costly and pointless if you still have metabolic syndrome.
regards
Derek

One thing that I've always found, so far, is that if I am definitely in a period of weight loss - say I've been monitoring and limiting food for a few days, and exercising, and the scales are going down, then my fasting levels always drop each day, regardless of type of food / carbs I'm eating. I've always presumed that was due to my liver getting cleared of fat, very much in line with studies such as the Newcastle one.

 

[AloeSvea]

Yes, I think there is indeed a problem with the term 'starvation diet'. I use it as a joke when I am doing any fasting or the one time I did a VLCD regime, but absolutely only as a joke. (Also 'semi starvation diet', re the low cal regime.) Just because, you know, it feels like starving! But it feeling like you are dying, or just, wanting to die is very different from actually dying of starvation .

And absolutely never to be confused with what happened with the poor young guys being starved by Ancel Keys and co in the Minnesota study. And yes - my understanding is that is what a convenient using them for science, with torture as 'side effect', for conscientious objectors, not volunteers, as one of those links provided stated.

I absolutely believe VLCDs and fasting regimes should be part of an array of treatment choices for diabetes, medically supervised, as part of socialised medicine. Especially as currently bariatric surgery is. Which is just another (admittedly I think it is extreme, but hey, different strokes for different folks etc etc) way of - semi starving. I really mean - restricting food intake. Whether it is stopping food altogether for a period for health reasons, or restricting the amount of food you are eating.

I did my VLCD medically supervised and as part of a socialised medicine system. It wasn't exactly free but it was very low cost. And yes it was great to have that.

I used the internet and books by fasting experts (mainly Mercola to begin with, then Fung as he published online and books on the subject during that period) and lots of tests on myself to 'supervise' my fasting experiments. Still ongoing.

But it would be fabulous to have medical centres operate fasting groups for diabetics, and have the camaraderie offered by 'we're all in this together' kind of thing, which this forum also provides, but in face to face life. And great testing! I do imagine a future where this will happen. Especially considering that currently my country (NZ) has one third of its population currently with prediabetic blood glucose levels. If 70% of those go onto get full blown diabetes (in unstipulated period of time), which is one of the percentage predictions, that is a lot of people with diabetes in the future.

Saw a doco recommended in here recently 'The science of fasting' which shows fasting under socialised medicine and how it can operate - in Russia.

http://myfasting.com/film-science-fasting.htm

The images look more than a little grim to in-the-South-Pacific me, but for us here it could similar but with hibiscus flowers?

 

[AloeSvea]

Ps, note that 'obesity' is not in my criteria for treating diabetes with VLCDs or with fasting! I see obesity as one of the symptoms of diabetes, which you may or may not have.

Fat on the major organs, specifically the pancreas and liver, is another matter. According to Fung (treating with fasting) and Taylor (treating with VLCDs), at least.

 

[Petaluk]

here is one that has done the keto diet with excellence :
<iframe width="854" height="480" src="

" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I hate being fat

 

[Freema]

I hate being fat

me too

 

[AdamJames]

I hate being fat

me too

Yeah I'm finding it pretty tedious these days. I care about blood sugars more, but still, I'm really bored with the whole fat thing.