Diabetes reversal - reversed. Weight back on.

[pil79]

Here is where I sheepishly confess to having lost 28 pounds in about a month (January) following the Newcastle Diet (and there have been a number of discussions about how hard this diet is to follow - it is very hard) only to have lost my motivation, will, stamina, capacity, whatever...control...and I've put virtually all of it back on. Okay, so maybe 20 pounds of it. But, by god, what a misery that extra 20 pounds is!! I feel awful. Worse, my morale has taken a beating, and I've felt really sad since I've 'watched' myself lose this battle (thus far) with 'diabetes reversal'.

Then again, I had my A1C tests done two weeks after I started the downhill slide back to binging like MAD on sugary foods - I do not understand my own psyche here, honestly - and the last result in February was 37, down from 42. Basically, my doctor said I'm in the non-diabetic range. But that is WITH metformin - or while taking 1000 mg/day of it.

How does one even begin to interpret results like this? In fact, before I had the test, my doctor had told me I was in the borderline diabetic range.

Meanwhile, I am having some serious foot problems this week - cropped up VERY fast and I can guess it's related to the weight re-gain. Or maybe it's not. Maybe it's neuropathy. Whatever the hell it is, it is upsetting. Some days I honestly just cannot cope and today is one of them. I'm sitting here crying, thinking about this and thinking: just one more step, and one step at a time, again. Again and again. Because there is no other real option, really.

Thanks for listening.

MM

I have been eating high fat low carb for about 5 weeks now basically since diagnosis and have found it to be a revelation. I think the key thing is not to think in terms of being on a diet but as someone who has a bad physical reaction to certain foods and makes their food choices based on their lifestyle.

 

[Brunneria]

Hi @memememeiii

Your experience EXACTLY mirrors mine when I tried fast, dramatic weight loss (the original Cambridge diet was 330 cals a day, plus supplements). It worked. It was fab. I may have felt ravenous and wobbly half the time, but heck, it was working. I felt like I could conquer the world... Until one day I started normal food again and simply couldn't stop.

All food control vaporised. I fell face first into chocolate. And me eating was like a shark feeding frenzy. The feeling of being powerless and self loathing was enormous. And the weight gain... Well I ended up larger than I started. Every time.

After several bouts of this, over a couple of decades, I just gave up. My body rebounded and sabotaged every attempt I made, and frankly, why fight an impossible battle?

I switched to focusing on nutrition, good enjoyable food, listened (more) to my body, and steadily moved lower carb. And recently, I discovered higher fat. At which point I lost some weight! Without trying!!!

Now, I'm NOT pushing you into LCHF. I think it is wrong to push anyone into any way of eating. I'm just telling you my experiences.

But if you have the same kind of low carb tolerance, rebound powerlessness and carb cravings as i do, then removing the particular carb cravings was, for me, key. It may be wheat, or sugar, or root veg. It may be a certain no of g of carbs a day that tips you over. Whatever it is, you need to find it out and work with it.

While eating enough good, nutritious non-trigger foods that you avoid hunger. Cutting down on calories just switches my body into starvation mode.

For me, wheat and grains give me carb cravings. Sugar just makes me keep eating. Like a robot. I just watch my hand keep placing sugary foods like Dairy Milk into my mouth. It's like it doesn't belong to me. Oh, and to avoid this surreal process, I need to stay grain and sugar free, and well under 50g carbs a day. Preferably at around 20g.

If you want to PM me, you are welcome.
Sometimes it's just good to know that others share your particular brand of Hell.

 

[Katiesgran]

I'm glad it's working for you, but it isn't recommended long term

"Dr Eric C. Westman, MD and president elect of the American Society of Bariatric Physicians, has 15 years of experience helping patients lose weight and improve their health using low carb. He has also helped do several high-quality scientific studies on low carb."
" Don't do low carb low fat " @4.00 minutes in to video

Just to clarify I didn't mean low fat really. I have bacon eggs meats cream etc but past cholesterol results have shown when I used butter freely both hdl and lidl increased. That may be of course because I love butter and didn't skimp on portions. Since using low fat spread my cholesterol overall has gone down to 2.4. So I would agree with everything on the interesting clip you had as long as people don't interpret it as giving carte Blanche to adding lots of fats you would not normally have. Just love this forum and the chance to listen to so many points of view. Just wish my doctor would be open minded enough to read all these posts and perhaps admit that the diet he advised me to use was slowly killing me.

 

[jack412]

Just to clarify I didn't mean low fat really. I have bacon eggs meats cream etc but past cholesterol results have shown when I used butter freely both hdl and lidl increased. That may be of course because I love butter and didn't skimp on portions. Since using low fat spread my cholesterol overall has gone down to 2.4. So I would agree with everything on the interesting clip you had as long as people don't interpret it as giving carte Blanche to adding lots of fats you would not normally have. Just love this forum and the chance to listen to so many points of view. Just wish my doctor would be open minded enough to read all these posts and perhaps admit that the diet he advised me to use was slowly killing me.

are you on a statin? mine got down to 2.8, now back up to 3.4 [and my trigs are still high 1.5]..they say 3.5 is a minimum cholesterol..high HDL is good, low trigs are good
Losing weight can throw your bloods and cholesterol out
http://www.wheatbellyblog.com/2012/06/i-lost-weight-and-my-cholesterol-went-up/

this is a good video on bloods and cholesterol

 

[v1b1n]

Here is where I sheepishly confess to having lost 28 pounds in about a month (January) following the Newcastle Diet (and there have been a number of discussions about how hard this diet is to follow - it is very hard) only to have lost my motivation, will, stamina, capacity, whatever...control...and I've put virtually all of it back on. Okay, so maybe 20 pounds of it. But, by god, what a misery that extra 20 pounds is!! I feel awful. Worse, my morale has taken a beating, and I've felt really sad since I've 'watched' myself lose this battle (thus far) with 'diabetes reversal'.

Then again, I had my A1C tests done two weeks after I started the downhill slide back to binging like MAD on sugary foods - I do not understand my own psyche here, honestly - and the last result in February was 37, down from 42. Basically, my doctor said I'm in the non-diabetic range. But that is WITH metformin - or while taking 1000 mg/day of it.

How does one even begin to interpret results like this? In fact, before I had the test, my doctor had told me I was in the borderline diabetic range.

Meanwhile, I am having some serious foot problems this week - cropped up VERY fast and I can guess it's related to the weight re-gain. Or maybe it's not. Maybe it's neuropathy. Whatever the hell it is, it is upsetting. Some days I honestly just cannot cope and today is one of them. I'm sitting here crying, thinking about this and thinking: just one more step, and one step at a time, again. Again and again. Because there is no other real option, really.

Thanks for listening.

MM

I have too been diagnosed as borderline, weight is not much of an issue for me, I was on the old healthy eating ways, high carbs low fat in order to not have trifecta issues but that diet caused my issues, the other factor was not signing up to a new gym after I moved jobs because I am always working and have a stressful job. so always focusing on what I eat makes it easy for me to change to a low carb high protein diet, I never liked leafy veg or salad but now needs must so I eat it all the time.

It's a mindset, its changing your diet not going on a diet (very important difference) At the min I cut all sugar from squash and breakfast, stopped coffee, pasta, rice, bread, crisps and choc biscuit for lunch) ham, bacon, cereal..... these days I eat some raw veg, lots of fruit and lots of veg, I just bought a steamer, if I stirfry I use water instead of oils, for lunch I boil up veg add seeds and chicken and stock, sometimes I have a few new potatoes

Just stick with it, research what is good and what is not, try getting cook books for ideas you will probably find healthier ways to get the hit you missed from sugary foods, me I snack on carrot, fruit or nuts.... in fact I eat more now than I did before, due to low carbs my weight is falling off. I signed up with a new gym, I went every night for a couple of weeks now I do a full workout Mon, Wed, Friday and on Tuesday and Thursday I do and hour cardio, the only issues with this is eating late but I take carrots with me so blood sugars don't dip

I been through a lot I had a very bad accident as a kid and it was a long hard road getting back on my feet so now having High Blood Pressure, High Blood Sugars and High CholesteroI have to fix this, I feel I can't have gone through all I did to go down like this
I am lucky, I like the gym and missed it, if I had signed up to another 7 years ago instead of working all the time I probably would not be in this boat now

YOU DON'T IT ONCE! YOU CAN DO IT AGAIN! remember its not going on a diet, there is no end, it is changing your diet, your life style for the better so you can live a long healthy life

 

[v1b1n]

Hi MM, I think pretty much everyone on this forum would agree that we all have 'blips' from time to time (some bigger than others) where we lose control and fall off the wagon. The important thing is getting back on. In Jenny Rhul's book 'Bloodsugar 101: Low Carb Diets' she states 'the best diet for you is the one you can stay on for life'. So true ..... and something like The Newcastle Diet is very strict and no doubt you have experienced rebound bingeing from feeling so deprived. I reckon a reduced/low carb diet would help as it will get those blood sugars more stable and prevent the sugar cravings. It is certainly helping me .. I am not super low carb, I don't count but would say around 80g per day as I like to include fruit and eats lots of veg. Never thought I could live life without bread (never was a fan of rice or pasta) but it's surprising what you can live without once you get going. Good luck!

There is a book I am reading called living low carb by Jonny Bowden to learn more about nutrition as things stand today (much different from 10-15 years ago when I followed what was considered healthy eating) the second half goes into 23 diets so you know which better suits your genetic make up so you can stick to it easily.

In fact I have so little info only just being diagnosed I have started on 3 books, have various cook book and kindle books to get through, such a mine field, you get articles about the same subject saying opposite things, there is so much conflicting info on the web, the only subject I haven't looked for in books is blood sugar lol bit of an oversight lol I always had hypo issues even as a kid but doc said skinny fast metabolism eat sweets :-/

 

[Brunneria]

Hi @v1b1n

Have a look at the links and books in my signature -they are the best I've found (so far).

The 101 website is fantastic for blood sugar information.

You may also find it interesting to search for some of the reactive hypoglycaemia threads we have on the forum. Simply because if you were hypoing as a child (like I did) then they may shed a little light.

Good to have you with us.

 

[memememeiii]

Hey everybody! I'm back! And thank YOU so much for sharing as you have, because it's giving and has given me inspiration to get going again. I've also just finished with a study commitment that was adding untold amounts of stress to my mind and life. Two more months and I'll be done the degree I'm doing. This is important. After watching the documentary online about reversing diabetes with a raw foods diet, I agree that there are several approaches here that one can take, and certainly I'm interested in taking the 'this is for life' mindset re. these changes, so the moderate ideas suggested in this thread and the attitude of curiosity and experimentation sit well with me. Thank you. I am going to keep going. x MM

 

[memememeiii]

OK. So you hit a bump in the road? It's no great disaster. If this condition was easy to handle, and understand, none of us would be here. We'd just get on with it, and skip off into the sunset with our perfect scores and fabulously fit and toned bodies. Unfortunately, it's not like that.

I've written quite a lot about how I might have tackled my early days, had I known about the ND, and every time I think it through, I come up with a slightly different approach to myself. It strikes me as being a hard, hard regime to follow it. Great if you can, but Prof Taylor openly States itanot or every. Not everyone can do it for lots of reasons.

But, I would suggest now is an opportunity for you to take personal stock. What you have proven is that by dropping some weight, and defeating your organs you can improve your general health, including your diabetes and weight, so please do take that as a positive. If you have regained a proportion of the weight you. Have lost, don't lose heart. Not all of it will be fat. Carbs encourage a bit of fluid retention, which is why we lose quickly, when we reduce them, so some of that gain will have been fluid.

I might suggest you perhaps create an environment where you can get your head around forgiving yourself for the hiccough you have suffered. It's not the end of the world, and in a few months time, you'll look back and think, "oh yeah. I remember that happening." Beating yourself up doesn't positively impact on anything.

If you could make a bit of a contract with yourself to get on the straight and narrow for each day of a week or so, you will undoubtedly feel better. I don't mean the and, I mean eating sensibly; reducing your carbs, but not being hungry. No need to increase fats, unless you are hungry, but no reduced fat foods, for sure. Just not punishing your body will make you feel better. Moto go from a starvation regime to binging like mad ( your phrase?) can't have been easy for your body to handle. It's a bit like abstaining from alcohol, then going out on a bender. Everything affects you more, and they a governs are usually worse, AND the only thing that feels like it'll make you feel better, is more of the same. Carbs are addictive.

It might be gentler on your system to think of the long game, rather than the short, sharp shock. My stats are in my signature. I merely reduced carbs, and only upped the fats once I needed to stop the weight loss. Prof Taylor States it is the weight loss that is important - to below the Personal Fat Threshold PFT), rather than how rapidly, or the method the wait is dropped. That lifestyle got me into the habit of eating sensibly, for a diabetic person, and educated me in new foods and tastes along the way. I wasn't on any countdown, nor did I have big challenges at the end of "what the heck doieatnow? Pass the create egg!" I just plodded on and added a bit more food and some fats at the end.

It's atoughhie. But one thing you do have to do is get your foot looked at. Don't ignore anything. Ifthee re is no cause for concern you will be reassured, and if there's something to be done, it'll be noted early.

Good luck with it all. Keep posting, becuause you know you'll be supported, whatever you decide to do.

This was heartening. Thank you. I'm down to 212 lbs but yo-yo-ing. Now trying to do more fruit and protein as it's just hot here. It's counter to the advice on low carb but I just get sick if salads and meat and eggs. For some reason I feel afraid to eat dairy. But I'm doing it. Years of dietary evidence about dairy causing allergies etc have also added to my confusion.

Yes. Patience and compassion are needed. It seems wheat is my biggest enemy.