Low carb high fat and weight loss

As a lowly T2 I would go with the BG being better than ever and worry about the weight once you settle into the diet. Good BG control is worth far more than a pound or two off on the scales.

With luck you will also want to eat less. Good idea to skip the evening meal if you don't feel hungry.

Personally I think you’ve chosen well. It’s really really hard to forget the fat is evil mantra we’ve had drummed into us for a generation and more. Large numbers of us in here have not only controlled our type 2 with lchf but have lost significant amounts of weight, often far more painlessly than with other methods. The reason so many type 2 gain weight and struggle to lose it is the diabetes and the inability to process carbs properly. Sort that out and the weight sorts itself out. Loads of non diabetics use lchf for weight loss too.

Take a look in here as well as across the forum generally for loads of anecdotal evidence. https://www.diabetes.co.uk/forum/category/success-stories-and-testimonials.43/

By and large I’d say don’t worry about calories, at least not to start with. I’ve never counted them. A few people seem to need to keep an eye but most don’t. I think in terms of grams of carbs so can’t comment too much on your amounts. Once you get fat adapted you will feel full and naturally eat less often staying full for longer and finally climbing off the carb rollercoaster. Take measurements as well as weight and blood details. Doesn’t show on the scales first and can take a few weeks but good things are still happening in the background metabolically.

Eat enough to feel full. Then stop. (Maybe this is why a few calorie count too if this mechanism doesn’t work well anymore) Carbs have a limit. Protein is a goal to protect muscles etc. (Some diabetics do have bgl raises from protein but to start I wouldn’t worry about this yet. It can be tweaked later if need be). Fat is the lever. Eat enough to feel full and satiated and avoid snacking. Once you are fat adapted the amounts may well lessen but it helps get you over the carb withdrawal period. No need to eat to a goal for fat. But once used to the idea of lchf remember fat that you eat will get burned up before fat that you wear in your body. So adjust according to weight goals. Less to lose, more to maintain or gain.

Edit: oops sorry I missed you are type 1 not 2. However I think the majority of the above will still hold true

Oh and don’t forget to keep well hydrated as it’s easier to get dehydrated without carbs soaking up fluids and in turn make sure you maintain electrolytes ( including potassium and magnesium not just table salt) as without processed foods and with more fluids this can drop and make you feel totally pants.

lcarter said:

Argh! I've been inhaling research on diabetic control and weight loss... and I have ended up with LCHF as the way forward...except I DO need to lose weight. I'm getting conflicting advice and different books say different things...so I just wondered what experience anyone had on here. Today I've had 1700 cals, made up of 71% fat, 15% protein and 14% carbs. I still haven't had tea! I've had double cream in coffee, pepperamis, full fat yoghurt, cheese, ham and cashews. Oh and 6 squares of dark organic chocolate. 4g of carbs in. My levels are ok, better than they have been. I haven't even had tea and I'm considering skipping it because I feel like I should be full?!

Any advice? I dont want to gain or maintain.

Thank you so much x

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Basically I would say to eat when you are hungry more than anything else, don't force yourself to meal timings unless you're doing some sort of fasting there. Would say that you may need to up the protein just a tad to keep within keto macros for adequate protein. Keep yourself going and the weight will come off naturally, you're eating less without trying already which means as hormones start to get back to normal you will lose the weight. But like what others say, worry not about weight for now and focus on BG control. Calories really shouldn't be a goal for now because LCHF naturally reduces intake and stressing about calories will hurt you more than anything.

What meds are you on right now too?

I are low carb high fat for some time without any calorie counting - and my clothes started falling off.
Possibly it was an increase in activity due to feeling better, maybe I ate less due to not feeling hungry - it is hard to quantify - it just happened without me apparently doing anything - just like the way my weight increased when eating high carb.
Perhaps relax a little in the calorie intake and see what happens in a week - refer back to what you ate that week to consider options.
Dr Atkins New Diet Revolution is an interesting read - there are various editions, all good in their way - but the CICO argument didn't seem to work for his many thousands of patients.

I did calorie count when I wanted to lose weight. I counted everything - carbs, calories, fat, protein, fibre, and this involved a lot of obsessive weighing of foods and a detailed food diary. I stuck to 1200 calories approximately, but not every day, and as few carbs as I could manage at the time with lots of extra fats and more protein. My weight dropped off me. I lost 4 and a half stones in 9 months. Whether it was the calorie counting or the low carbs I have no idea.

lcarter said:

Any advice?

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Hi Icarter, first from your picture doesn't look like you need to loose any weight. Is there a target weight your aiming for, some perceived ideal?

Weight loss is one of those things that effects people differently I can say what worked for me you may find it helps. I lost weight effortlessly by cutting out sugar. The very simple idea is starve your body of sugar and it has to break down body fat.

It is supposed to take 18 hours for an average non diabetic person to burn of the sugar stored in the liver by fasting alone.

IF you are topping up your blood stream with sugar (even a small amount you mentioned 6 squares of chocolate and pepperamis. ) then when does the liver get a chance to deplete its glycogen stores? Low Carb should help heaps by reducing the amount of glucose you can produce from the food you eat but if your topping that up with sugar you are kinda of defeating the porpoise.

Not sure if being type 1 (or a dolphin) makes a difference, but it should work.

lcarter said:

Argh! I've been inhaling research on diabetic control and weight loss... and I have ended up with LCHF as the way forward...except I DO need to lose weight. I'm getting conflicting advice and different books say different things...so I just wondered what experience anyone had on here. Today I've had 1700 cals, made up of 71% fat, 15% protein and 14% carbs. I still haven't had tea! I've had double cream in coffee, pepperamis, full fat yoghurt, cheese, ham and cashews. Oh and 6 squares of dark organic chocolate. 4g of carbs in. My levels are ok, better than they have been. I haven't even had tea and I'm considering skipping it because I feel like I should be full?!

Any advice? I dont want to gain or maintain.

Thank you so much x

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Based on my own experience, don't count calories, just count carbs. Count the carbs to ensure you take the correct amount of insulin you require. If you limit your carbs as much as you can, you will lose weight no matter what your calorie count is. If I keep my carb count less than 100, then I lose weight and I consume at least 3000 calories a day (mostly from cheese and fat stuck to meat). I am very thin, so if my weight drops too much, I eat more carbs.

I think it’s a bit different for type ones, as we’re (on the whole) not metabolically compromised or insulin resistant. I’ve managed to gain two unwanted stones in weight in the 18 months I’ve been eating low carb/keto - even with intermittent fasting, eating only one or two meals a day, and following the “enough fat to satisfy” thing. My sugars are amazing though. Despite the insistence by keto advocates that calories don’t matter, I’m now pretty certain that they actually do - you still need to be in calorie deficit to lose weight, and need to burn off more than you eat. That’s the case for me, anyway; my n=1 experience.

In your shoes I would join the Type 1 Grit Facebook site. Presumably you are doing LCHF for a flatter glucose curve - therein lies your potential route 1 answers.

Mel dCP said:

I think it’s a bit different for type ones, as we’re (on the whole) not metabolically compromised or insulin resistant. I’ve managed to gain two unwanted stones in weight in the 18 months I’ve been eating low carb/keto - even with intermittent fasting, eating only one or two meals a day, and following the “enough fat to satisfy” thing. My sugars are amazing though. Despite the insistence by keto advocates that calories don’t matter, I’m now pretty certain that they actually do - you still need to be in calorie deficit to lose weight, and need to burn off more than you eat. That’s the case for me, anyway; my n=1 experience.

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This was not true in my case regarding the calorie deficit. I have looked back at what I was eating when I lost circa 6 kgs. I was consuming around 3000 calories in clean LCHF foods and around 500 grams of nuts (I know this is at least 1500 calories). At most with my workouts I would Fibit burn maximally on my best days 4000 calories, averagely around 3500. I know my blood sugars were maximally in the late 5's, so insulin probably low. I lost weight and put Type 2 into remission. I was filling and eating a standard freezer bag of nuts everyday without fail (Brazil's, walnuts, pecans, almonds). NEAT and TEF (especially for quality protein) needs to be taken into account. There is no way 1000 calories of cauliflower metabolises in the same way as 1000 cals of dairy milk.

Mbaker said:

This was not true in my case regarding the calorie deficit. I have looked back at what I was eating when I lost circa 6 kgs. I was consuming around 3000 calories in clean LCHF foods and around 500 grams of nuts (I know this is at least 1500 calories). At most with my workouts I would Fibit burn maximally on my best days 4000 calories, averagely around 3500. I know my blood sugars were maximally in the late 5's, so insulin probably low. I lost weight and put Type 2 into remission. I was filling and eating a standard freezer bag of nuts everyday without fail (Brazil's, walnuts, pecans, almonds). NEAT and TEF (especially for quality protein) needs to be taken into account. There is no way 1000 calories of cauliflower metabolises in the same way as 1000 cals of dairy milk.

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But you’re type two, and I’m type one. I suspect we metabolise things differently. As I said, I’m only going by my own experience. I ate the fat and cheese to satisfy my appetite (fish and eggs for protein) while eating way less than 30g carb a day and put on a load of weight.

Mel dCP said:

But you’re type two, and I’m type one. I suspect we metabolise things differently. As I said, I’m only going by my own experience. I ate the fat and cheese to satisfy my appetite (fish and eggs for protein) while eating way less than 30g carb a day and put on a load of weight.

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I agree about the cheese and that our own body machine will yield different results on the same food. I must admit I am a little confused by protein and Type 1's. It seems that a bolus is required for protein due to gluconeogenesis, which doesn't appear as marked in a Type 2, unless they really pummel this. I am going to watch some more Dr. Troy Stapleton, I seem to remember him going into this in detail, unless someone else can chime in and explain. My results may have a confounder, that I was working out till I was exhausted back then everyday.

When I was focusing on the scales, I could see what excessive cheese could do. Off topic slightly but half a bottle of red wine added 2 kg to me and 1.5 kg to my wife over night.

What I can say is that the nuts were not spiking me, which does have some relationship to insulin production and use, and therefore weight.

Mbaker said:

I agree about the cheese and that our own body machine will yield different results on the same food. I must admit I am a little confused by protein and Type 1's. It seems that a bolus is required for protein due to gluconeogenesis, which doesn't appear as marked in a Type 2, unless they really pummel this. I am going to watch some more Dr. Troy Stapleton, I seem to remember him going into this in detail, unless someone else can chime in and explain. My results may have a confounder, that I was working out till I was exhausted back then everyday.

When I was focusing on the scales, I could see what excessive cheese could do. Off topic slightly but half a bottle of red wine added 2 kg to me and 1.5 kg to my wife over night.

What I can say is that the nuts were not spiking me, which does have some relationship to insulin production and use, and therefore weight.

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I don’t need to dose for most plant protein, eggs, or fatty fish. I do need to for nuts, lean (white) fish and shellfish, and at half the amount I would for carbs. I don’t eat much cheese because I’m allergic to cows milk, so have a small amount of goat and sheep cheeses - I don’t overdo those because I don’t want to develop an allergy to those as well.

My insulin doses have halved since beginning to eat this way, so I don’t think the weight gain is due to having more insulin circulating either.

Mbaker said:

I agree about the cheese and that our own body machine will yield different results on the same food. I must admit I am a little confused by protein and Type 1's. It seems that a bolus is required for protein due to gluconeogenesis, which doesn't appear as marked in a Type 2, unless they really pummel this. I am going to watch some more Dr. Troy Stapleton, I seem to remember him going into this in detail, unless someone else can chime in and explain. My results may have a confounder, that I was working out till I was exhausted back then everyday.

When I was focusing on the scales, I could see what excessive cheese could do. Off topic slightly but half a bottle of red wine added 2 kg to me and 1.5 kg to my wife over night.

What I can say is that the nuts were not spiking me, which does have some relationship to insulin production and use, and therefore weight.

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As far as I understand, protein will normally only cause noticeable BG rises in Type 2s in the absence or near absence of glucose from carbs.

Cheese is very calorific, similar to red wine. These were two of the foods/drinks I added back to my diet when I was losing too much weight and needed to maintain. Along with extra eggs, butter and mayonnaise, this worked for me and have held my weight stable for getting on for 5 years.

Thank you @helensaramay.
Dear @icarter,
You write that you need to lose weight.
Firstly:
Have you:
had your height and weight measured by your doctor,
had your body mass index (BMI) calculated,
been told by your doctor what your healthy weight range is, and
is your weight above that range ?
Secondly: as @DCUKMod has asked, is your diagnosis sorted and thus your need for insulin
and/or other medication been fully determined?
Without these two things it is tricky to know what best to suggest.
Best Wishes!!

Apologies if "you" are sensitive to male torsos. The below might be relevant to the discussion, as both Dr Ted Naiman and Dr Paul Saladino discuss the merits of fat and protein ratios in different people (there is a leaning towards performance and looks, but health is included). There isn't a reference to Type 1, but both have practices, and this is not just a lovin, they question each other: