Carb treat: on its own or with a meal?

LalaALH said:

@bulkbiker - What I’m eating is 8-900 calories low carb high fibre each day as 1 meal (or one meal plus a snack). Aiming for 25 gms fibre.

Breakfast - 2x psyllium husk capsules plus water and a mug of bouillon.
Lunch - chicken breast and 2 rashers of back bacon with 3-400 gms of green veg, always including brussels sprouts as at least half of this. I was having a small slice of home made spelt and seed bread and butter but I wasn’t getting enough fibre so instead I also have at lunch 40g All-bran with 159 ml of almond milk and 59g raspberries. 2 more psyllium tablets with 2 large glasses of water.
Evening - repeat of breakfast plus a light snack if I’m hungry - Edam slice or 6 pecans, or a bowl of Prawns radishes and harrissa paste.
Evening -

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Thanks for that.. interesting food combo..
I'll admit I'm not a severe calorie restriction fan but wish you well. I think I would need more fat so chicken thighs with skin as opposed to breast.
Is the fibre for a specific reason ?

I was also going to ask if fibre is for a particular reason.

LalaALH said:

The fibre is just the amount my body needs to avoid really bad constipation on a calorie restricted diet. Even with this amount of fibre there is only 1 movement every 2-3 days. Any less and it’s very painful and hard. I’m a bit sick of people telling me ‘just drink more water’ - the above result is while drinking 3.75 litres of water a day.

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1 movement every 2-3 days is hardly surprising with the small amount you are eating. I'm hoping you are aware of some more recent research that possibly points at fibre not being so great for digestive issues? How's your salt/electrolyte intake? With that amount of water you could be starting an imbalance there. Do you have to force the water down or are you thirsty a lot?

LalaALH said:

I haven’t seen the stuff you mention on diet and digestion.

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Short and sweet.. enjoy..not saying it will work for you but hey all knowledge is power.

LalaALH said:

@bulkbiker. I think my salts and electrolytes should be ok because of the 2 mugs of (salty) bouillon per day - but it’s why I don’t want to drink more than 3 litres of water in addition. . And I wouldn’t be worried about the amount/timing I was passing if it didn’t turn into a mass of concrete that is impossible to pass without straining for ages. I also take a dulcoease tablet for stool softening. All-bran has always worked well for me, and it’s natural, and it makes for a more bakanced than ketogenic diet. I think my body is beautifully adjusted for a stoneage diet. (It runs in the family; I remember my dad eating All-Bran 50 years ago...) would be interested in any data on fibre though, I haven’t seen the stuff you mention on diet and digestion.

I don’t have to force water down, I get thirsty but not unusually so. It feels about right to me.

Am trying a chia pudding instead today. Only half the amount of fibre for the calories though.

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Just thought are you supplementing with magnesium ? That can have quite miraculous and speedy (stay close to the loo the first time) effects on your problem.

I go to the loo every 2-3 days and have been like this for years. Once when I was having difficulty I ate all bran everyday but didn’t have a bowed movement for 7 days! Very uncomfortable. I must say tho that when I ate high fat/no carb for a while I was going 1-2 times a day, yes, every day! I’m back to eating minimal carbs now and back to 2-3 days; there’s no logic. I also drink loads of water

LalaALH said:

@bulkbiker. I’ve been taking magnesium calcium Vit D and K2 - because I had an overactive parathyroid which was taken out 2.5 weeks ago - so I needed to build up everything that helps remineralise bones. So magnesium is taken care of. I’ve been like it all my life, it’s just a big problem on reduced food.

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Forgive me if this has been discussed before, but if you are having such problems with a severe calorie restriction, should you consider stopping it and going back to low carb with normal calories?

LalaALH said:

@Elaine p. Your 7 day experience sounds terrible! Often like that when you get a ‘plug’!

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Ha ha , my friend actually gave me the first bowl of all bran, she then went on holiday for the week, came back and couldn’t believe I was still holding on!

LalaALH said:

@Ribbet - I found some fat reduced almond flour locally! so will be trying that, thanks for the suggestion. I’ve toasted seeds before and loved the flavour but had forgotten all about them - will definitely give it a try. Particularly to moderate the rather strong taste of Brussels sprouts (which are good for fibre). So far I’ve been using bacon or cheese to ring the changes. Seeds will be new!

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haha - I LOVE Brussel Sprouts! It’s my number 1 favourite vegetable!!!! I just love them boiled so they’re nice and soft, then mix a little white wine vinegar with mayo and drizzle that over the top, exceptional! They’re a great low carb/low cal treat to have in the fridge too if one happens to get the morning or afternoon munchies! Mmmm, drooling thinking about it haha. It’s a shame you're not so fond of them as they’re a great little healthy vege in a package! Indeed, high in fibre though so a really good choice in the present moment.

Anyway I was reading some of your earlier comments - in particular the one you made to brassyblonde900…

LalaALH said:

@brassyblonde900 - My main interest in posting is figuring out how to blunt sugar spikes when needed - eg I eat something ‘not allowed’ - this is not for now, but in future when I get to the right weight.

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So I really just wanted to just bring some thoughts to you regarding that and also speak to you from my own experience.

When I was diagnosed with type 2, my levels were really high (hbac1 of 109) so I knew I had to make some fairly radical lifestyle changes. So I cut out all sugar and sweets except for a little sweetner in my coffee (0 carb so I was ok with that) plus a limited amount of coke zero (0 carb) till I found better alternatives, and started eating a lot more whole food. Any direct ‘sugar’ input was from fruit only - and I usually ate apples because they would fill me and sufficiently hit the sweet spot enough to keep me away from the bad stuff. Then what happened over a period of time as I followed the diet changes is I began to slowly but surely lose weight and feel a lot better. Plus my hab1c was coming down. Then rather oddly and to my surprise at about the 6 month mark I had something rather sweet and was completed blown away at how sweet it tasted, and I say surprised because I did not expect this to happen at all! I’ll just mention also that at this time I also had absolutely no idea what Low Carb High Fat diets were. I was simply following some basic dietary advice my diabetes nurse had given me and making intuitive food choices that happened to be aligning very closely to a LCHF diet I was latter to discover. Anyway by the 12 month mark of following this intuitive dietary pattern and feeling quite comfortable and satiated by it, and having lost a lot of weight, off meds and with an hba1c now in normal range, I had another ‘revelation’ one day that was as impacting as the one I had at 6 months. I realised that for the most part I didn’t WANT the foods I used to crave. Somehow my body had done an about face and it was asking for the whole foods now. Now I have to tell you that surprised me as much as the sweet shock did when it dawned on me. I realised my body was just as responsible for the asking of the foods I was eating as my mind was. And my body now WANTED the good stuff now. I was like - WOW - now that is a real change! And I say that not in anyway pridefully but more from a place of wonderment and amazement.
So it was then also that I realised that this was not just something temporary, but a lifestyle change had taken place and I knew also the necessity of staying on that diet so I could maintain my new healthier state. I have since tested that theory and have learned that deviating from the diet dis-improves my health and deteriorates my hba1c so I am certain now this is a lifestyle that I must maintain in order to stay healthy. That said, as I mentioned the body now wants the right stuff so it’s not at all difficult. There is very little will involved now because my body asks for the better foods. My only real choice is to appease it.

So where am I going with this…?

Firstly to pick up on you comments above and gently say that your body is in transition which is why you are still craving the not so great stuff. That is completely normal. However the purpose of my writing is to also encourage you that that will change as you pick up on a healthy diet that satisfies your appetite while still helping you achieve the dietary and weight goals you need in order to obtain the healthiness you desire. Your body will changes as mine did as you follow the new dietary lifestyle. It will begin to ask for the right foods more so than the not so great ones. You will want them!

This leads me to the second thing I wanted to encourage you to think about is that when you are through your present phase, my experience and many others here as you no doubt already know is a LCHF diet would be ideal for you to carry on from where you are at, in order to be able to maintain weight loss and ongoing improvement of health markers - and it is through this diet you can obtain the types of correction your body desires and needs to be able to maintain your health easily and for life. One of the greatest stumbling blocks people new to the diet hit is ‘how can fat be good for you?’ Let me explain it like this; Carbs are a source of energy. So are fats. They essentially do the same thing in the body - energy givers. However, the benefit of fats it they are like a slow release form of energy which is why our blood glucose doesn’t spike anywhere near as much as if we have carbs, leading to improved blood sugars and general health over time. Fats also satiate appetite far more effectively than carbs, keeping you fuller for longer which is also most beneficial in the weight reduction process. You generally want to eat less. Fat is not the enemy. It is our friend because it effectively cures our disease and makes us whole again! Isn’t that amazing! So opposite to what we have learned, but now a very very well proven scientific and experiential fact that can not be denied!

The third thing I wanted to also encourage you in is that a LCHF diet doesn’t have to be boring. Quite the opposite in fact! I personally find it to be an adventure into the unknown with many great, fun and exciting rewards! One of the most satisfying and enjoyable processes I found early on in my journey towards better health and wholeness was the process of finding new healthier food alternatives to effectively replace the old ones I had been consuming. So new kinds of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, treats and drinks. I’d think about some of the foods I’d been consuming and go of on an adventure to see what lower carb and healthier alternatives their might be. It’s a great opportunity to be creative and the way the internet is growing with low carb sites is really making it a lot easier these days I must say! It’s an important process to involve yourself in because you’re arming yourself for battle the next time a wayward desire enters in to try and deviate you off the path while the body is in the process of changing it’s mind about what it wants.
I also enjoyed purposefully taking the time to wandering thought the supermarket looking for new low carb healthier foods I had not noticed before. It’s surprising what you come across when looking!

Anyway, these are just some thoughts and tips I thought Id share to help. Your are going well, may it continue!

An sorry for the long post, it’s just my writing style

Oh, and a recipe you can use that almond flour in… a little teat when your calories can go up again. It's an example of what I meant about finding alternatives... Plenty out there to discover Enjoy!

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/threads/post-your-recipes-here.2856/page-23#post-1905529

LalaALH said:

@bulkbiker. I just read your post with collected resources on statins - I've been put on Lipitor/atorvastatin and have been neglecting to take it because I wasn't sure it was needed. This was an EXTREMELY useful post for me - so thanks to you - one more person who is off statins! Thanks for taking the time to do this.

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One thing that really strikes me, especially after following Dave Feldman's work, is how incredibly volatile our cholesterol results can be in response to what we eat it used to be thought (and I may have said it myself) that what we eat does not impact our cholesterol levels but it seems it does just not in the way everyone thought. Fasting for example seems to send LDL levels up so not eating gives you higher total cholesterol..! Once you start to look at what LDL may in fact be doing that makes more sense although at first glance it seems crazy.

Resurgam said:

be prepared for a disappointment if the 'treat' is sweet - you could find yourself retching at the awful sweetness of it.
I find that normal food is oversweetened after almost two years eating low carb with very little sweetening from anything either artificial or natural.

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4 months in, I’m still waiting for this moment to arrive. Just had black coffee with no sweetener with breakfast. This was vile three months ago and now qualifies as drinkable, so I guess I’m making slow progress towards the desired sugar revulsion level

LalaALH said:

I wish there was data showing it does what the Newcastle diet is said to do and ‘reverse diabetes’.

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You could check out Virta Health here
https://diabetes.jmir.org/2017/1/e5/
That is the report of their first study where they put people on a ketogenic diet and used the same criteria for "reversal" that the ND does.
By the way ND doesn't "cure" you completely and to be fair to Prof's Taylor and Lean they have never claimed that it did. The criteria they use is HbA1c below 48mmol/m for a period of time. And in fact Prof Taylor believes that it is mostly down to fat loss from around the liver and pancreas which causes the "reversal". Many people who follow LCHF have even better results than those on either study...