I like lchf but I am gaining weight

[Swiggy]

Since starting lchf five months ago I have gained 22lbs. My blood sugar has improved but fbg has remained at 8 and my lowest premium meal level has been 6.4. I have been testing before and after meals and rarely increase by more than 2.0. If I do I avoid that food.

I took the advice of forum members not to eat too much protein. That has been easy as I feel full for hours after eating. I think that my downfall has been the double cream in my coffee and the slices of butter I have taken to eating, @bulkbiker you are not the only person to do this lol. I giggled when I read that you like your butter, I thought it was just me. I have also stopped weighing out my cashew nuts. I was having 25g per day but now I am scoffing them by the handful every time I go into the kitchen.

I have decided to give Newcastle another go. I went from an hba1c of 119 to 54 following my diagnosis and lost just over 2 stones. I reduced my carb intake and my last hba1c was about the same in April but I was gaining. I now plan to do Newcastle for eight weeks then go back to lchf but reigning in the cream and avoiding the butter.

I know some forum members have regular stints on low calorie intake. Do you have any thoughts on this?

 

[bulkbiker]

Hmm cashews are pretty high carb though.. (one of the worst nuts?) 27% carb..
So if you were trying for a very low carb diet then cashews ain't good. Macadamias are better 5.2% carb (Tesco's sell them for about £16.60 a kilo which I then roast at home).
I would avoid the cashew nuts rather than the butter.. the cream some can have and some can't so worth experimenting with.
Have you tried fasting as opposed to Low Calorie. I find it easier than eating low calorie meals and once fat adapted don't get so hungry. It usually has a great effect on your blood sugars too. Just a thought..
Good luck anyway
Regards
Mark

 

[ickihun]

I'm doing low carb, low fat and I'm losing!
Low carb for bgs and low fat for xenical/orilstat slimming tablets.
I've been lazy this past week so I'll reign myself in. Hoping to lose on friday.
Poached egg on toasted protein bed is my fav. Mackerel on toasted protein bread to make crackers is another fav. even thou mackerel is quite oily.
I stopped nuts, pork scratchings, cream and cheese.

 

[Swiggy]

Hmm cashews are pretty high carb though.. (one of the worst nuts?) 27% carb..
So if you were trying for a very low carb diet then cashews ain't good. Macadamias are better 5.2% carb (Tesco's sell them for about £16.60 a kilo which I then roast at home).
I would avoid the cashew nuts rather than the butter.. the cream some can have and some can't so worth experimenting with.
Have you tried fasting as opposed to Low Calorie. I find it easier than eating low calorie meals and once fat adapted don't get so hungry. It usually has a great effect on your blood sugars too. Just a thought..
Good luck anyway
Regards
Mark

Well I started to have my dinner at 7pm then nothing until coffee with cream the following morning at 11am then having something (usually two boiled eggs with Mayo or some tinned corned beef with Mayo) at 3pm then dinner at 6.30pm. I go to bed at about 10.30pm and get up at 6am. I'm not sure if this counts as fasting because of the cream.
I was weighing out the cashews in 25g portions which the packet said was 4.5g carbohydrate (Tesco Jumbo Roasted Salted Cashews, 17.8g per 100g. 592 calories per 100g wow!) I was being very strict but I don't think I have any willpower around nuts so they are best avoided.
I am going on holiday in twelve weeks so I am feeling motivated to get some weight off for that, no way do I want to have to ask for a seatbelt extender on the plane. I felt really good on lchf so I will go back to it. Thanks Mark, I will definitely try macadamia nuts. My brother loved them but he put me off by describing them as little balls of fat lol.

 

[Swiggy]

I'm doing low carb, low fat and I'm losing!
Low carb for bgs and low fat for xenical/orilstat slimming tablets.
I've been lazy this past week so I'll reign myself in. Hoping to lose on friday.
Poached egg on toasted protein bed is my fav. Mackerel on toasted protein bread to make crackers is another fav. even thou mackerel is quite oily.
I stopped nuts, pork scratchings, cream and cheese.

Ooh low carb and low fat? That sounds like a plan @ickihun, good news about the weight loss, good luck for Friday. X

 

[GrantGam]

I know some forum members have regular stints on low calorie intake. Do you have any thoughts on this?

Sure, eat low carb but don't concentrate on ensuring that every meal has a lot of fat.

There is far too much focus on the HF aspect of the LC diet. You need to introduce enough in your diet for energy and satiety, but not so much that your weight increases when you don't want it to. 22lb in 5 months is a lot of weight to put on, but I'm sure you'll lose it very easily if you knock back your fat intake.

Given there are three main macros (protein, carbs and fat) and you've mentioned that you're 'not eating too much protein', then too much fat for your personal requirements is the likely cause.

What about exercising; is this something which you partake in regularly?

 

[Swiggy]

Sure, eat low carb but don't concentrate on ensuring that every meal has a lot of fat.

There is far too much focus on the HF aspect of the LC diet. You need to introduce enough in your diet for energy and satiety, but not so much that your weight increases when you don't want it to. 22lb in 5 months is a lot of weight to put on, but I'm sure you'll lose it very easily if you knock back your fat intake.

Given there are three main macros (protein, carbs and fat) and you've mentioned that you're 'not eating too much protein', then too much fat for your personal requirements is the likely cause.

What about exercising; is this something which you partake in regularly?

 

[serenity648]

My understanding of this is that the HF bit is to compensate for the LC bit. Not that we need to eat lots of fat. So, for me, as i want to lose weight (or at least not put any on) I only have a quantity of fats to equal my calorie intake for the day. Any more than that and i put on weight.

I mean, when you think about it, eating too many calories, whether its in fat, carb or protein, is going to put weight on, isnt it? Low carbing doesnt magically make the fat calories any less.

 

[Swiggy]

Thanks @GrantGam I am sure that it was the cream and butter that resulted in my weight gain. I really enjoyed the feeling that I was full, I never felt hungry. I also didn't get high glucose levels which was great but I didn't get the lower ones I was expecting to see.
So shakes for a while then low carb with just enough fat and a bit of protein. I feel quite optimistic. X

 

[Swiggy]

Sure, eat low carb but don't concentrate on ensuring that every meal has a lot of fat.

There is far too much focus on the HF aspect of the LC diet. You need to introduce enough in your diet for energy and satiety, but not so much that your weight increases when you don't want it to. 22lb in 5 months is a lot of weight to put on, but I'm sure you'll lose it very easily if you knock back your fat intake.

Given there are three main macros (protein, carbs and fat) and you've mentioned that you're 'not eating too much protein', then too much fat for your personal requirements is the likely cause.

What about exercising; is this something which you partake in regularly?

Sorry @GrantGam I meant to say I could do better on the exercise front, I am quite the couch potato these days but I am aiming to increase my activity levels.

 

[GrantGam]

Thanks @GrantGam I am sure that it was the cream and butter that resulted in my weight gain. I really enjoyed the feeling that I was full, I never felt hungry. I also didn't get high glucose levels which was great but I didn't get the lower ones I was expecting to see.
So shakes for a while then low carb with just enough fat and a bit of protein. I feel quite optimistic. X

You can still have the cream and butter, but just be wary of the quantities that you consume. Although a T1 so possibly not applicable here, too much fat causes me temporary insulin resistance. As a T2, that's something that you don't want to encourage. It's a hotly debated topic however, but you'll only know yourself by measuring your BG to monitor the impact it has on you

The weight will come off no problem, I can assure you!

Sorry @GrantGam I meant to say I could do better on the exercise front, I am quite the couch potato these days but I am aiming to increase my activity levels.

We could all do with a bit more exercise in our lives so don't worry too much about it. The good news is that it's never too late to start. Also, given that we're into summer - it's a lot easier to get out for a nice walk in the evening or a cycle

 

[bulkbiker]

I was weighing out the cashews in 25g portions which the packet said was 4.5g carbohydrate (Tesco Jumbo Roasted Salted Cashews, 17.8g per 100g. 592 calories per 100g wow!

That's weird.. when you look at the unroasted ones they are 27g of carb per 100g.. does roasting reduce their carb value? I would have thought through water loss alone it would have increased the concentration per 100g. I have no idea why the diff.. still good luck with your ND I know I couldn't do it so I think you deserve much admiration.

 

[Swiggy]

That's weird.. when you look at the unroasted ones they are 27g of carb per 100g.. does roasting reduce their carb value? I would have thought through water loss alone it would have increased the concentration per 100g. I have no idea why the diff.. still good luck with your ND I know I couldn't do it so I think you deserve much admiration.

 

[Swiggy]

The ingredients list includes rapeseed oil and salt which may explain the difference @bulkbiker. It's amazing how motivated one can be when faced with the possibility of having to ask for a seatbelt extender. I am off to Istanbul in September and I don't want to have to buy new clothes either. I will let people know how I get on.

 

[Kristin251]

You can still have the cream and butter, but just be wary of the quantities that you consume. Although a T1 so possibly not applicable here, too much fat causes me temporary insulin resistance. As a T2, that's something that you don't want to encourage. It's a hotly debated topic however, but you'll only know yourself by measuring your BG to monitor the impact it has on you

The weight will come off no problem, I can assure you!




We could all do with a bit more exercise in our lives so don't worry too much about it. The good news is that it's never too late to start. Also, given that we're into summer - it's a lot easier to get out for a nice walk in the evening or a cycle

This is a mystery to me. I get that fat, especially saturated fat can make us insulin resistant. Here's my dilemma. If I eat tuna, egg, chicken etc salad with mayo and my veggies I go higher and stay higher than if I simply add 1/4-1/3 avocado to the meal. Then I stay rock steady. I e tried changing bolus timing to no avail.
Any ideas?

 

[GrantGam]

This is a mystery to me. I get that fat, especially saturated fat can make us insulin resistant. Here's my dilemma. If I eat tuna, egg, chicken etc salad with mayo and my veggies I go higher and stay higher than if I simply add 1/4-1/3 avocado to the meal. Then I stay rock steady. I e tried changing bolus timing to no avail.
Any ideas?

The only thing I can think of would be that because you're ULC/keto, that your gluconeogenesis for the protein is fairly hefty vs that of someone who eats a moderate amount of carbohydrate. Your situation (as I interpret it) is one of the main reasons that a keto diet didn't work for me, protein consumption when following that diet had a similar impact as carbs would have. Because of that, I didn't see much point in chucking the carbs, given that the protein would act in a similar way...

The avacado would act to dampen your spike from the protein being converted into glucose. Likewise, if you don't have the avocado - your BG shoots up because the protein is converted more rapidly. Makes a bit of sense in my head, what do you reckon?

 

[chalup]

I love cashews but here's the thing. They are NOT nuts. Cashews are legumes. If you are going to eat nuts then macadamias as mentioned but also walnuts, hazelnuts, and pecans are good. Nuts are very high calorie as well and well known to stall weight loss or cause weight gain on LCHF.

 

[Brunneria]

@Swiggy

Can i ask how many g of carbs a day you were eating, on your lchf? Including all the virtually invisible ones that we often forget to include (i have fallen into this trap too often to count!).

Voleck and Phinney talk about how variable our personal reactions to low carbing can be. One person may get the full benefits of it on 80g carbs a day, while another might need to be under 20g a day for ever.

In my case, i had to work out where my personal carb tolerance lay (and sadly, that was under 20g a day) in order to see the blood glucose levels I wanted. This is just speculation, but if you were low carbing and high fatting and gaining weight, then it sounds like you were in a vicious circle of too high carb (causing insulin resistance) and too high fat. Insulin is the fat storing hormone, so we can only eat raised fat and not gain weight if our insulin levels drop enough - and that means dropping the carbs enough. And for some that is exceedingly low carb.

I know that it was a depressing day when i first realised that for me, my low enough was well under 20 g, and that if i stray over 40g carbs and have even normal fat for more than a day or two, the weight piles on.

 

[Kristin251]

The only thing I can think of would be that because you're ULC/keto, that your gluconeogenesis for the protein is fairly hefty vs that of someone who eats a moderate amount of carbohydrate. Your situation (as I interpret it) is one of the main reasons that a keto diet didn't work for me, protein consumption when following that diet had a similar impact as carbs would have. Because of that, I didn't see much point in chucking the carbs, given that the protein would act in a similar way...

The avacado would act to dampen your spike from the protein being converted into glucose. Likewise, if you don't have the avocado - your BG shoots up because the protein is converted more rapidly. Makes a bit of sense in my head, what do you reckon?

Just as I figured. Well I guess I'll just have to keep my avocado!! I don't digest any carbs very well so that's not an option. And as you said, protein will raise me just as fast and just as high.

Thanks for the confirmation.

 

[Swiggy]

I love cashews but here's the thing. They are NOT nuts. Cashews are legumes. If you are going to eat nuts then macadamias as mentioned but also walnuts, hazelnuts, and pecans are good. Nuts are very high calorie as well and well known to stall weight loss or cause weight gain on LCHF.