How do you do a low carb/low fat diet

[ailz]

Truly, I want to know.

I'm using low carb to get my blood glucose under control, but also want to lose weight. I don't add much in the way of fat to anything. Standard food for me for a day is:

2 Eggs - though I'm totally fed up of them - boiled or an omelette cooked in a little coconut oil.
150 ml Tomato juice with Worcester Sauce.

Lamb chop, green beans - or 2 sausage, egg & baked beans. Usually meat or fish with 1 veg.
1 orange.

a Sainsbury pepperoni stick & some cheese.

I'll often have 5 almonds in a morning and sometimes 5 whole walnuts in an afternoon.

I have 1 or 2 cups of black coffee and lots of water during the day.

My last meal is 6pm and I'm usually in bed for 7.30 - asleep usually between 8 and 8.30.

I never hit ketosis and last week I put on 2lbs.

Am I eating too much fat - am I overeating in general. I get no exercise - not even walking up the stairs as I have a stairlift. The most I do is seated exercises every day.

Someone help and tell me where I am going wrong - please.

Cheers
Ailz

 

[ailz]

I'm bumping this up as I'd have thought that someone would be able to help. Yesterday Ka-mon was saying that I possibly eat too much fat. Do I?

I know this isn't a diet site and perhaps I should be happy that my bg is now in a good range, but I would appreciate help with diet.

Cheers
Ailz

 

[cugila]

Quite simple really ......analyse your food by checking out Carbs/Calories/Protein/Fat etc in all your meals, then see what effect those foods have on your Bg levels. Keep a record of all that you do and hopefully you will get the same results as myself, losing over 5 stone and keeping excellent Bg levels.

you might want to try some small amounnts of exercise as well, even those in wheelchairs can find something that they can do.

BTW, I am no skeleton and my brain power is absolutely fine.

One other thing.....I see elsewhere that you were critical of my posts, well lets hope this one doesn't offend you...........

 

[jopar]

Perhaps it's do to with ratio's?

There are many reason why a fluction of weight can occur over a week, water retention, food retention are just a few of these.. If you weigh yourself in the morning and then at night you are likely to have a different weight, either higher or lower dependant on what's happened during the day..

You've could have sweated or disposed of several litres of water, due to changes in ambulient temps or exercise.. You could be heavier if you've got a bowl full of digesting food that hasn't been disposed off yet!


It may be that your diet menu plan doesn't suit you as an individual so the ratio's of the different components are out..

A lot of low carbers do find with weight stall increasing their carb slightly can kick the weight loss back in again..

Or it may be purely down to that your over-all calorie count is still higher than what your body is burning off so it stalls it as fat..

Or Fat is being turned into muscle which is heavier than fat! So you may need to take body measurements into consideration to determin what is actually happening..

And I don't blame you for being a tad fed up with all those eggs, not only would I be but I would be a tad egg bound as well.. So pehaps seeing how you can expand your menu plan to bring in other sources of protien other than eggs might be good for you?

There you go, plenty to think about

 

[Patch]

If you're not hitting ketosis, it might be worth missing the baked beans and tomato juice. It's certainly worth a try...

One other thing.....I see elsewhere that you were critical of my posts, well lets hope this one doesn't offend you...........

Way to keep it amicable, Ken. Pre-emptive strikes? Mod edit: sarcastic comment :lol:

 

[Dillinger]

I personally wouldn't have the baked beans or the tomato juice, I think Bernstein and Atkins both are quite down on the humble tomato.

Possibly also look at how much Metformin you are taking; I think you can go up to 3 grams a day. It sounds like you are pretty insulin resistant so upping the Metformin might help?

I'm a Type 1 but have asked to go on Metformin (as I think I'm quite insulin resistant) and even though at the same time I stopped doing regular exercise once I hit the right Metformin dose I dropped a stone (without changing my diet at all).

I don't really want to get involved in the low carb/low fat back and forth (it's quite amazing the excitement this has caused over the weekend), but I don't understand the problem with fat for diabetics; it has no effect on your insulin levels and that is the key thing.

The more insulin resistant you are the more insulin you'll release in response to carbohydrates and the more fat you will put on, so to try and break that cycle it makes sense to me to be very careful about anything that will raise your insulin levels.

For instance did you know that as a Type 2 even drinking low calorie coke will cause an insulin response? Or indeed anything that is sweet; even thinking about eating can produce a phase 1 insulin response (!)

As an aside one way of I suppose low carb/low fat is to eat lots of spring greens which are in season at the moment. Much nicer if you fry them in butter and add salt and pepper, but there you are...

Best

Dillinger

 

[ally5555]

Could we have some evidence for that Dillinger - I know it has been circulating around all the blogs for ages !

 

[Patch]

As an aside one way of I suppose low carb/low fat is to eat lots of spring greens which are in season at the moment. Much nicer if you fry them in butter and add salt and pepper, but there you are...

Could we have some evidence for that Dillinger - I know it has been circulating around all the blogs for ages !

I can confirm that spring greens DEFINITELY ARE much nicer if you fry them in butter w/salt n' pepper. :wink:

 

[cugila]

Possibly also look at how much Metformin you are taking; I think you can go up to 3 grams a day. It sounds like you are pretty insulin resistant so upping the Metformin might help?

That's old levels you are talking about. the current BNF61 lists the max dose of Metformin as being 2g per day. I used to be on 3g but it was dropped to the lower levels about 18 months ago. Dropped to 1g as well and hoping to be off it soon !

I'm a Type 1 but have asked to go on Metformin (as I think I'm quite insulin resistant) and even though at the same time I stopped doing regular exercise once I hit the right Metformin dose I dropped a stone (without changing my diet at all).

I don't really want to get involved in the low carb/low fat back and forth (it's quite amazing the excitement this has caused over the weekend), but I don't understand the problem with fat for diabetics; it has no effect on your insulin levels and that is the key thing.
There is more to life than just Insulin levels...... some of us who have previously had heart problems are very wary of ANYBODY who tells us to up our fat intake, there are other ailments where you might need to lower your fat intake. Might be an idea to know something of the person's medical history first which of course a GP or consultant would know.

The more insulin resistant you are the more insulin you'll release in response to carbohydrates and the more fat you will put on, so to try and break that cycle it makes sense to me to be very careful about anything that will raise your insulin levels.

For instance did you know that as a Type 2 even drinking low calorie coke will cause an insulin response? Or indeed anything that is sweet; even thinking about eating can produce a phase 1 insulin response (!)
Really.....news to me as when I was testing and drinking diet Coke/Pepsi etc it ghad not the slightest bit of effect on my Bg levels. I suppose it affects people in different ways.

As an aside one way of I suppose low carb/low fat is to eat lots of spring greens which are in season at the moment. Much nicer if you fry them in butter and add salt and pepper, but there you are...

Best

Dillinger

Eat a good all round balanced diet including meat, fish, veg and small portions of certain fruits and you won't go far wrong...........oh yes, test, test, test..........hope that helps.

 

[ally5555]

Well said Ken

Allyx

 

[Dillinger]

I can confirm that spring greens DEFINITELY ARE much nicer if you fry them in butter w/salt n' pepper. :wink:

There you are - peer reviewed; and confirmed... :lol:

Other than that which bit of my post did you want evidence for Ally?

 

[jopar]

I personally wouldn't have the baked beans or the tomato juice, I think Bernstein and Atkins both are quite down on the humble tomato.

Possibly also look at how much Metformin you are taking; I think you can go up to 3 grams a day. It sounds like you are pretty insulin resistant so upping the Metformin might help?

I'm a Type 1 but have asked to go on Metformin (as I think I'm quite insulin resistant) and even though at the same time I stopped doing regular exercise once I hit the right Metformin dose I dropped a stone (without changing my diet at all).

It may be the fat content that is causing the insulin resistence, so reducing fat content may well improve insulin resistence

I don't really want to get involved in the low carb/low fat back and forth (it's quite amazing the excitement this has caused over the weekend), but I don't understand the problem with fat for diabetics; it has no effect on your insulin levels and that is the key thing.

I don't want to get involved in a low fat debate or high fat one for that matter, but do like to ensure that correct information is given, Fat doesn't have a direct impact on blood glucose levels as it doesn't break down into glucose, it still has a calorific count which does have an effect, Fat has over twice as many calories as protien or carbs (Fat has 9 per 10g, protien and fat have 4 per 10g) A calorie is a measure of energy and the body uses energy to work, so if your total calorie intake is more than the body uses, it will store it as fat (spare fuel)

Fat is also insulin resistent, hence why most T2's are overweight with high blood sugar levels when they are DX'd

The more insulin resistant you are the more insulin you'll release in response to carbohydrates and the more fat you will put on, so to try and break that cycle it makes sense to me to be very careful about anything that will raise your insulin levels.

For instance did you know that as a Type 2 even drinking low calorie coke will cause an insulin response? Or indeed anything that is sweet; even thinking about eating can produce a phase 1 insulin response (!)

Put in a very missleading manner, yes phase one is kicked in as you said, but phase two isn't purely based on carbohydrate intake, otherwise we would be pretty stuffed when it came with the body's ability to keep the protein in check


As an aside one way of I suppose low carb/low fat is to eat lots of spring greens which are in season at the moment. Much nicer if you fry them in butter and add salt and pepper, but there you are...

Best

Dillinger

There is a misconception about fats from all sides...

Yes I would agree that there is no need to avoid fats like the pleague, unless you've got a medical condition that requires this, but neither do think that an free for all approach should be used either..

You need to balance fats at a point where yes it's giving the bulk out value to help with blood glucose control, but not causing other problems with other areas such as promoting insulin resistence, or putting calorific intake above the body's limits that you either fail to take off excess weight or actually put it on!

I'm a low/moderate carb eater (around 90g to 120g a day on adverage) fat wise I don't seek or avoid it as such, as a T1 diabetic I use very little insulin to cover this intake (17 units give or take a unit per day) but it is dependant on what I've chosen to eat, as a high fat meal will actually take slightly more insulin to counter act than a lower and perhaps a slightly higher carb meal does!

If I followed Berstiens principles I would actually use more insulin than I presently do!

I give you an example

A plain omellet made with a dash of cream I have to have more insulin than if I chose to eat two digestive biscutes..

Best advice is to look at all aspects of your diet, tinker with carb/proten/fat ratio's to find the one that suits you..

 

[Dillinger]

Cugila - I didn't know that about the Metformin - interesting; why do you think that was? I thought it was generally considered to be a very benign drug (which is why I'm on it by choice).

The phase 1 response to diet coke has been reported; tried to find a link but couldn't, but apparently the phase 1 response is also the first to go awry whilst developing diabetes so that could explain why you didn't notice it; I've got no insulin response at all, alas, so admittedly haven't spent a lot of time looking into it. In all likelihood it's probably not a massive issue for Type 2's, but I thought it was interesting.

On the not eating fat because of cardio or other issues; that's fine, but this is a diabetic website first and foremost and it would be pretty impossible to comment on anything if you had to think whether what you were saying was appropriate for every possible person reading it. If someone has a problem with fats then they need to take that into account when reading these types of threads.

By the way; Spring Greens Recipe is (c) Dillinger 2011. :lol:

Dillinger

 

[ally5555]

The diet coke !

 

[catherinecherub]

Die Soda.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diet_soda "faulty insulin response at least in cattle and rats......."

 

[Dillinger]

It may be the fat content that is causing the insulin resistence, so reducing fat content may well improve insulin resistence

I think that is the main issue of disagreement here; because as I understand it it is exactly the opposite that happens. The way I understand it is; insulin resistance causes an increased level of serum insulin which leads to more glucose being laid down as fat and simultaneously inhibits the 'burning' of fat and hence weight gain, which in turn causes greater insulin resistance. Weight gain in diabetics (and arguably in anyone) is a consequence of the problem not a cause. Calories in versus calories out doesn't take into account the hormonal response to food.

What is your thinking on fat content causing insulin resistance? I can't think of how that would work. This is a link describing how fat is metabolised http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_acid_metabolism and the only place that insulin comes into it is through inhibiting the break down of fat.

Dillinger

 

[Patch]

Great point. Some diets (weight loss diets, that is) advocate a "Fat Fast" lasting 2 or more days, where fat is eaten in higher qty's than usual. This is to stimulate the burning of stored body fat, and get you OFF that weight loss plateu.

Google "Fat Fast" if you're interested.

 

[Sid Bonkers]

but I don't understand the problem with fat for diabetics; it has no effect on your insulin levels and that is the key thing.

A link posted by Cowboyjim a few weeks ago seems to tell a different story "The consumption of high-fat food causes more insulin to be released by the pancreas"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 121839.htm

At the time this link was posted it seemed to pass everyone by, I have read it several times now and still do not fully understand what its all about, probably just me as I'm dyslexic and find scientific stuff pretty hard going :? But I would have thought it warranted some sort of response from someone.

For instance did you know that as a Type 2 even drinking low calorie coke will cause an insulin response?

If by low calorie you mean diet or zero drinks I have tested diet coke and coke zero, fanta zero, lilt zero and 7up zero and not one of them made any difference to my bg levels so in my case at least that statement doesnt ring true somehow. You may have had different results testing diet and zero drinks but I would be extremely surprised if you did.

 

[Patch]

Hi fat foods is a pretty broad description, though. Pork Chops would have a different effect to Spagetti Carbonara...

 

[Dillinger]

A link posted by Cowboyjim a few weeks ago seems to tell a different story "The consumption of high-fat food causes more insulin to be released by the pancreas"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 121839.htm

Wow, I just had a read of that and that can't be right - surely it's a journalist misquoting the study ? "The consumption of high-fat food causes more insulin to be released by the pancreas." That's just not true - unless, as Patch says, they mean by 'high-fat food' carbs AND fat. If you eat a pat of butter you will not have any insulin response. You will not feel well, but you won't need insulin to deal with it.

Also, why use the phrase 'high fat food'? That's so unspecific when they could have just said 'fat' if that's what they meant.

I guess we'd need to see exactly what was said, because it seems to me that this is really an article about the mechanics of satiety and insulin's effect on that. But that would mean a copy editor and/or journalist had GOT SOMETHING WRONG - and that's not going to happen is it..? :wink: