Anyone here on low carb doing for long time?

TwoRivers

Well-Known Member
Messages
49
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Obesity.
Only just noticed this string. I have wanted for some time to start a discussion of long term low carb and the difficulty of continuing to lose weight after the first year.
I started in June 2017 when I was grossly overweight and taking metformin, insulin four times a day etc after seven years on insulin and seventeen as a registered diabetic. Since then I have lost between 30 and 35 kilos and my diabetes is in remission, with Hba1c of 36 in the most recent blood tests and always well below diabetic levels for well over a year. I walk three or four miles a day (well actually seven miles today) wear clothes I have not been able to get into for decades, and am basically rejuvenated.
The difficulty is that even on a diet of under 1500 calories a day, it is now very hard to lose much weight in the way I did during the first nine months or so of the diet --- even though my diet is far stricter now. And if I relax the diet, as I did at Christmas, my weight shoots up by several kilos in a day or two. Well, I don't mind my new life style and am so happy to be liberated from all that medication, that I get the message. I police the diet hard on the food scales and in an app, identify marginal foods which can be cut (butter is one for me), but I have still had quite a lot of hunger pangs. Most disappointing the very low weight loss rate continues despite the tighter diet: My weight has been going around in a band of about 4 kg for the last four or five months. I do notice that, apart from the low carb component, the lower my calorie intake is, the more I tend to shed weight and I am currently also working on strictly keeping protein to 1g or less per kg per day. That is yielding some results after a few days. However the mystery is why the ultra strict diet is defying arithmetic when eighteen months ago I was eating much more, yoghourt, fruit, coleslaw even -- and shedding weight fast. Today I stick to around 1200 calories, concentrate or green vegetables and seafood and generally under 35g or so carbohydrates, but the weight hardly comes off. Is this just the metabolic syndrome trying to hang on to its victim? Recently I have taken to cutting out breakfast or eating just a little salad then. Surprisingly a week of doing this has been rewarded with weight loss (back down to earlier levels) and seems to keep the hunger pangs away. But it is early days yet. Have I encountered intermittent fasting without planning to do so.?
My low carb diet so far has brought me huge benefits and there is no way I will change this life style. But I still have a somewhat overweight BMI and would like to lose up to 20 kg more, which would put me back where I was in my twenties. (When I was never skinny.but perhaps sometimes slimmish.) So does anyone know of cases of weight loss of more than 35 kg and how they were achieved, how long they took -- and most important of all -- whether remission is sustained for life if one can hold weight down permanently? Surely this data is being recorded somewhere? Most of the medical reports I read are vague statistics about groups dieting for less time than me with mixed results and with the weight loss group being less successful than I have already been in losing weight. But after tens of thousands of cases of low carb diet, new data about long term management must be accumulating somewhere.
A new string of long term diet experiences would be a good idea.
 
Last edited:

DCUKMod

Master
Staff Member
Messages
14,298
Type of diabetes
I reversed my Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Only just noticed this string. I have wanted for some time to start a discussion of long term low carb and the difficulty of continuing to lose weight after the first year.
I started in June 2017 when I was grossly overweight and taking metformin, insulin four times a day etc after seven years on insulin and seventeen as a registered diabetic. Since then I have lost between 30 and 35 kilos and my diabetes is in remission, with Hba1c of 36 in the most recent blood tests and always well below diabetic levels for well over a year. I walk three or four miles a day (well actually seven miles today) wear clothes I have not been able to get into for decades, and am basically rejuvenated.
The difficulty is that even on a diet of under 1500 calories a day, it is now very hard to lose much weight in the way I did during the first nine months or so of the diet --- even though my diet is far stricter now. And if I relax the diet, as I did at Christmas, my weight shoots up by several kilos in a day or two. Well, I don't mind my new life style and am so happy to be liberated from all that medication, that I get the message. I police the diet hard on the food scales and in an app, identify marginal foods which can be cut (butter is one for me), but I have still had quite a lot of hunger pangs. Most disappointing the very low weight loss rate continues despite the tighter diet: My weight has been going around in a band of about 4 kg for the last four or five months. I do notice that, apart from the low carb component, the lower my calorie intake is, the more I tend to shed weight and I am currently also working on strictly keeping protein to 1g or less per kg per day. That is yielding some results after a few days. However the mystery is why the ultra strict diet is defying arithmetic when eighteen months ago I was eating much more, yoghourt, fruit, coleslaw even -- and shedding weight fast. Today I stick to around 1200 calories, concentrate or green vegetables and seafood and generally under 35g or so carbohydrates, but the weight hardly comes off. Is this just the metabolic syndrome trying to hang on to its victim? Recently I have taken to cutting out breakfast or eating just a little salad then. Surprisingly a week of doing this has been rewarded with weight loss (back down to earlier levels) and seems to keep the hunger pangs away. But it is early days yet. Have I encountered intermittent fasting without planning to do so.?
My low carb diet so far has brought me huge benefits and there is no way I will change this life style. But I still have a somewhat overweight BMI and would like to lose up to 20 kg more, which would put me back where I was in my twenties. (When I was never skinny.but perhaps sometimes slimmish.) So does anyone know of cases of weight loss of more than 35 kg and how they were achieved, how long they took -- and most important of all -- whether remission is sustained for life if one can hold weight down permanently? Surely this data is being recorded somewhere? Most of the medical reports I read are vague statistics about groups dieting for less time than me with mixed results and with the weight loss group being less successful than I have already been in losing weight. But after tens of thousands of cases of low carb diet, new data about long term management must be accumulating somewhere.
A new string of long term diet experiences would be a good idea.


TwoRivers, as you have some questions in your post, and I detect you might like some feedback, this post could do better as a thread of it's own? Sometimes, when people have said all they have to say on a topic, they don't revisit a thread, even though there are new replies. I'd hate you to miss out on feedback, if that's what you'd like.

If you would like your post to become a thread of its own, I or any of the Mods can move it for you and create that, in a trice, so it's certainly no big deal - either way.

Huge,....... in fact, massive well done on getting off all those meds, including insulin, What a result!
 

TwoRivers

Well-Known Member
Messages
49
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Obesity.
TwoRivers, as you have some questions in your post, and I detect you might like some feedback, this post could do better as a thread of it's own? Sometimes, when people have said all they have to say on a topic, they don't revisit a thread, even though there are new replies. I'd hate you to miss out on feedback, if that's what you'd like.

If you would like your post to become a thread of its own, I or any of the Mods can move it for you and create that, in a trice, so it's certainly no big deal - either way.

Huge,....... in fact, massive well done on getting off all those meds, including insulin, What a result!

Yes please! Good idea. Thanks.
 

ianpspurs

Oracle
Messages
16,485
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
Only just noticed this string. I have wanted for some time to start a discussion of long term low carb and the difficulty of continuing to lose weight after the first year.
I started in June 2017 when I was grossly overweight and taking metformin, insulin four times a day etc after seven years on insulin and seventeen as a registered diabetic. Since then I have lost between 30 and 35 kilos and my diabetes is in remission, with Hba1c of 36 in the most recent blood tests and always well below diabetic levels for well over a year. I walk three or four miles a day (well actually seven miles today) wear clothes I have not been able to get into for decades, and am basically rejuvenated.
The difficulty is that even on a diet of under 1500 calories a day, it is now very hard to lose much weight in the way I did during the first nine months or so of the diet --- even though my diet is far stricter now. And if I relax the diet, as I did at Christmas, my weight shoots up by several kilos in a day or two. Well, I don't mind my new life style and am so happy to be liberated from all that medication, that I get the message. I police the diet hard on the food scales and in an app, identify marginal foods which can be cut (butter is one for me), but I have still had quite a lot of hunger pangs. Most disappointing the very low weight loss rate continues despite the tighter diet: My weight has been going around in a band of about 4 kg for the last four or five months. I do notice that, apart from the low carb component, the lower my calorie intake is, the more I tend to shed weight and I am currently also working on strictly keeping protein to 1g or less per kg per day. That is yielding some results after a few days. However the mystery is why the ultra strict diet is defying arithmetic when eighteen months ago I was eating much more, yoghourt, fruit, coleslaw even -- and shedding weight fast. Today I stick to around 1200 calories, concentrate or green vegetables and seafood and generally under 35g or so carbohydrates, but the weight hardly comes off. Is this just the metabolic syndrome trying to hang on to its victim? Recently I have taken to cutting out breakfast or eating just a little salad then. Surprisingly a week of doing this has been rewarded with weight loss (back down to earlier levels) and seems to keep the hunger pangs away. But it is early days yet. Have I encountered intermittent fasting without planning to do so.?
My low carb diet so far has brought me huge benefits and there is no way I will change this life style. But I still have a somewhat overweight BMI and would like to lose up to 20 kg more, which would put me back where I was in my twenties. (When I was never skinny.but perhaps sometimes slimmish.) So does anyone know of cases of weight loss of more than 35 kg and how they were achieved, how long they took -- and most important of all -- whether remission is sustained for life if one can hold weight down permanently? Surely this data is being recorded somewhere? Most of the medical reports I read are vague statistics about groups dieting for less time than me with mixed results and with the weight loss group being less successful than I have already been in losing weight. But after tens of thousands of cases of low carb diet, new data about long term management must be accumulating somewhere.
A new string of long term diet experiences would be a good idea.
Excellent news on the very positive effects of all the changes you have made to your lifestyle and the pleasure this gives. I have been eating LC since about June 2015 and dropped 24 kgs from that point to last June - took me to a BMI of 21.6. Weight loss for me slowed after I reached a level of around BMI 22.5-22 maybe because I wanted to stay around 11 st 8/9 anyhow. My simple mind suggested I have a set point around this weight since that was my weight when I played lots of competitive sport. Also, at the start of this process just moving that extra weight around surely consumed more energy that now? I have read many posts people who have lost far more weight than I have and probably at the level you are aiming for. I would also be interested in the stories, hints and tips of long termers so thanks for starting this and best wishes - keep us informed.
 

Brunneria

Guru
Retired Moderator
Messages
21,889
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Hi and welcome @TwoRivers

While low carbing is often held up as some mystic Answer to Everything far beyond the control of blood glucose. The reality is that not everyone has that experience.
There are many of us (myself included) who find that it helps with some weight loss, and then there are stalls, and sometimes a bit of weight regain. Others lose and lose and lose, and then have issues halting the weight loss.

It all seems to depend on personal health history and hormones, with factors like thyroid function, polycystic ovary syndrome, reproductive hormones, age and (to some extent) activity levels playing a part.

One theory that I have read is that it is largely dependent on insulin resistance. Some of us are able to reduce/eliminate insulin resistance much more easily than others - and those people are the ones who lose the weight easily, and keep it off.
They may have had high insulin resistance at diagnosis, but the lifestyle changes they made were able to reduce or remove that insulin resistance, and 'the weight falls off'.

On the other hand, others of us make the same (or more) effort with lifestyle changes, but our insulin resistance is more persistent (especially where there are other hormone dysregulations happening), and we may see some weight loss and health improvements, but we don't see the transformatory weight loss. I count myself in this group, since my weight dropped slowly, but then plateaued. I continue to plug away, and every so often I see a few pound loss, and no regain. But I have no expectation of ever tranforming into a whippet.

If you want a detailed explanation of how weight loss is limited/affected by insulin resistance, then the ketodudes forum is an excellent place for it. One of the founders of the forum is an expert in the science, and offers some extremely helpful information on both breaking stalls in weight loss, and understanding why they happen.

Another factor is the amount you have cut your calories. I don't know your height or other details, but your calorie intake is very low for a sustained diet with that amount of exercise. It is proven that when we go on long term calorie reduction, the body is very efficient at reducing our energy needs, so our calorie needs drop, and it becomes necessary to cut calories more and more - which is ultimately unsustainable, and one of the big reasons why 'diets don't work' for so many of us. Slowed metabolic rate is something that many long term dieters encounter. There are ways that will raise metabolic rate (for some of us), but once our bodies have learned this particular trick, it is something that affects all weight loss efforts in the future.

https://idmprogram.com/biggest-loser-diet-explained/

Hope that helps.