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Coming off low carb effects

T

TPO

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Low carb dieting is definitely for me. I'm probably not as strict as everyone else as I do come off for maybe a week at a time and have a cheat week. Since I began, I've lost about 8 stone overall and completely come off meds - the doctors reckon that my type 2 has gone away so all good.

My question is how much weight do you think you put back on as soon as you come off the low carb diet? Presumably it's the water retention that causes the immediate weight gain?

To the people who have come off low carbing before, how long was it before you noticed your clothes getting tighter/belt needing to be adjusted?

I'm just curious of everyone else's experiences.
 
As I haven't got a choice, it's not something I want to think about.

I have come to realize during my long, long battle, that, anything that encourages my insulin to over produce, would make me ill, and that the weight loss would be a waste of time. I would start storing the fat produced and therefore all the symptoms and the health risks induced.

I am happy for you that you are able to have these treats! (My OH is type 2 and she waves her odd treat in front of me!!!!)
 
nosher8355 said:
As I haven't got a choice, it's not something I want to think about.

I have come to realize during my long, long battle, that, anything that encourages my insulin to over produce, would make me ill, and that the weight loss would be a waste of time. I would start storing the fat produced and therefore all the symptoms and the health risks induced.

I am happy for you that you are able to have these treats! (My OH is type 2 and she waves her odd treat in front of me!!!!)
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Sorry to hear that, I didn't mean to rub it in :-(
 
Sometimes, it's that green eyed monster, envy, that creeps into my posts!

Enjoy your treat, I'll have my yoghurt and chocolate later.
 
I easily gain 6lb of glycogen but depending how you eat this will come back off. Carbs make you retain water, in really simple terms, which is why this happens. If you came off low carb and stuck to a reasonable moderate carb diet you'd see the 6lb go again but most of us come off for treats...

I've seen people who gain between 4 and 10lb seemingly immediately but being glycogen it's a false gain really - I can take the 6lb back off with a couple of days of low carb.

Congrats on your amazing progress so far!
 
greendress said:
I easily gain 6lb of glycogen but depending how you eat this will come back off. Carbs make you retain water, in really simple terms, which is why this happens. If you came off low carb and stuck to a reasonable moderate carb diet you'd see the 6lb go again but most of us come off for treats...

I've seen people who gain between 4 and 10lb seemingly immediately but being glycogen it's a false gain really - I can take the 6lb back off with a couple of days of low carb.

Congrats on your amazing progress so far!
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I've found that as well. I'll gain a lot almost immediately when I come off a low carb diet but within 5 or 6 days, that extra water weight has gone again.

So do you think that if you were to come off a low carb diet for say a month, you'd put on the immediate water weight but then if you ate reasonably well (within your recommended daily allowances for example) you wouldn't necessarily put on any more weight after that initial gain?

Thank you :-)
 
My experiences mirror @greendress exactly.
(Except the 8 stone weight loss, which is awesome)

@TPO you say you have reversed your type 2, which is fabulous! And that means that you should have normal BG levels after carbs. :happy:

For those of us who still get spikes after eating carbs, there is a period where our BG goes haywire if we reintroduce carb, and the BG peaks can get disturbingly high.

It works like this: when we low carb, our bodies get used to only needing to produce small amounts of insulin - because that is all that is needed.
Then, when we have a carb 'treat' our body is unprepared to mobilise insulin quickly, and our BG rises quicker and higher than should, because the pancreas is 'out of practice'. I have heard it called 'lazy pancreas' and 'enzyme lag'.

I think it happens to non-diabetics too.

Anyway, these high BGs and delayed insulin releases will continue for several days, sometimes weeks.
In my case, it takes about 2 weeks for my pancreas to get back up to speed. Once this readjustment has happened, the pancreas can cope with carbs to the same extent as if it hadn't gone low carb.

For this reason, I personally try to avoid these 'treats' as much as possible (although I fail sometimes). It just seems to me that the sudden rises and drops may be more damaging than eating carbs consistently , which would make the low carbing a bit pointless...

But I do want to stress that I'm only mentioning it now, because I think low carbers need to know about a possible downside to sporadic treating. Although I should imagine that a non-diabetic will experience significantly less 'lazy pancreas/enzyme lag' than a type 2.
 
Yes, I think for most people eating a moderate diet would mean at least most of the water gain would come back off. Everyone's different though, I seem to be really sensitive to water fluctuations.
 
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