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Finished Diet

rmz80

Well-Known Member
Messages
332
Location
Leeds
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
I do not have diabetes
One question I don’t think has been asked before. What do you do when you have reached your desired weight? (whether by LCHF or low cal diet).

Do you revert to a normal diet but be more careful next time?
 
For myself, LCHF tends to be a lifestyle choice. You get used to it. and people get used to feeling better, having better blood glucose control etc.

I have no idea what your definition of "normal diet" is. If it means going back to eating as you were previously, then you will most likely see a return where you were before... a not so happy state.
 
If you are calorie counting, then simply eat the number of calories required to maintain the desired weight based on the amount of exercise you do. There are various online calculators that do this, or you could consult a dietitian or your doctor.
 
Unfortunately not.
The danger period for any weight loss diet is when you finish. You have to work out how much more you can eat, but often it's not much more than the diet. Jenny Ruhl has a good book on diets and what works or doesn't work.
 
What I did was slowly add a little more fat in, but then cut back on them if weight started creeping on. I've left protein and the very few carbs I now have at the same kind of levels, dependent on what my BG readings are pre-meals.

I've been the same weight now, give or take a couple of pounds either way, for the best part of 18 months.
 
rmz80 said:
Do you revert to a normal diet
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Is there such a thing? I know some don't count calories, but if one is prone to put on weight, knowing how many calories to eat is important, it's a good start anyway. Calculations like the Harris Benedict formula, which is now over a hundred years old, but has been updated, is useful, although I know from personal experience, I can't eat anything like the calories it recommends.

The frustrating thing with calories is weighing everything, estimating is too inaccurate. You might find that you gain with the recommendation, so you need to do some fine tuning. The other issue is that the rate at which we burn calories not only changes with exercise and muscle mass, but in my experience during times when least expected. For example, why do I always lose weight on holiday? There's so many variables.

Hopefully, it will be more straight forward for you, just eating what the calculations say. Bare in mind water retention and intestinal transit times can both effect weight. I usually weigh every day, despite advice from dieticians, that way I can see when fluid etc has affected the numbers on the scales.
 
Once you have attained your goal weight then comes the tricky bit that is maintaining that weight to do that you need to find a balance and that is a trial an error process of adjusting your diet so as not to lose more or put too much back on it takes a while and to be quite honest it's still an ongoing process in my case.
 
I have to count calories now - I lose very slowly on 1200 ( not prepared to go lower) discovered I stay the same on an extra 50 cals a day and slowly gain on 100 extra a day - I would up your food very slowly to see what you need to do to maintain- you may find it's not that much extra- but then it's a lifestyle not a diet


Edited as predictive text turned it into total gobbledygook
 
Several people on here have suggested that you have a "natural weight". My experience seems to support that idea. I adopted a low carb diet and my weight dropped from 14st to 11st 7lbs in 6 months. I have continued with exactly the same diet for 2 years and my weight is still 11st 7lbs.
 
Low carb is a normal diet, the other sort made us fat and ill so why revert to it?
 
Way back in the last century before the one we left started, there was Banting, and then a hundred years later there was Atkins - they had advice on maintaining - a whole section of the book in the case of Atkins - it is definitely not a case of going back to what caused the problem in the first place, but you need to get maintenance right, and be vigilant or all your effort and your success goes to waste.
 
Resurgam said:
but you need to get maintenance right, and be vigilant or all your effort and your success goes to waste.
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100% agree. It took me a few weeks of trial and error, vigilant weighing or measuring of both foods and body, recording, food diary and testing. I had to do it because on low carb I just continued to lose and became scrawny. Once I went a week without gaining or losing I knew I had the balance right. It was more difficult than losing the weight in the first place. In my case I actually reduced the carbs to further improve my BS, and increased fats from protein sources. A very fine balance. It became second nature to me, and still is. I still weigh myself regularly and I still test my BS several times a day.
 
Reading the current advice on this thread it looks like there's no such thing as finishing a diet, you just go from a diet to lose weight to a diet to maintain a weight
 
rmz80 said:
Reading the current advice on this thread it looks like there's no such thing as finishing a diet, you just go from a diet to lose weight to a diet to maintain a weight
Click to expand...
Isn't that what everybody who needs/wants to lose weight has to do regardless wether they have diabetes or not? If what the person was eating before was a good way to eat why do they need to "diet" in the first place- like I always say it's a change of lifestyle not a diet. Why go back to the lifestyle that got them there in the first place
 
Not all carbs are created equal. For me I can never go back to eating grains even when I reach my target weight. The body aches, mental foggyness and BG spikes caused by them are not worth it.
 
For me, as a type 2, LCHF isn' t a weight loss diet, it's a glucose control diet, and such has been my permanent lifestyle diet for both keeping myself healthy and managing my levels for over four years now. It can also work as a weight loss diet, and if that's the case it's possible to stay with it and adjust fat consumption up or down slightly depending on whether you need to gain, maintain, or lose weight. And again, after losing some weight initially mine has remained fairly stable since I begain eating this way..

And I entirely agree with other posters - a high carb diet is definitely not normal for many of us! It's what caused our diabetes, and under any circumstances a normal diet certainly should never make you ill.

Robbity
 
I don’t look at this way of eating as a diet. This is just the way I eat. Diet implies for me that there will be a end. This is how I will eat from now on.
 
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