• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

low carb, keto, medium carb, weight loss clubs....sigh...

B

Brambleberry

Member
Messages
10
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Has anyone found a weight loss plan that works and keeps on working ? One that doesnt grind to a halt? My body seems to figure out what I am doing and I do not so much as plateau as stop losing and body fights me to gain it back. I have been loyally following a low carb diet monitoring calories weighing things out using nutricheck and attending a gym class for those with chronic health issues. I have fibro and cfs as well as Type 2.I lost 26 lbs in 3 months but that was 9 month ago I have swung like the pendulum of a clock since and even cut back further on carbs! My blood sugars are fabulous....this week I gained 4 lb! It cannot all be muscle! I dropped a size in dress round my waist last month.. I am bewildered.....
my meds do not help fibro meds cause weight gain but I keep the dose as low as I can to try and prevent that. Lots of flare ups this year though.Poor sleep...maybe its that but thats a fibro problem and all the sleep tactics do not work for fibro.
So wondering if anyone else has had similar problems and how did you resolve them...or did you? Or is this life with Type 2?
 
I am exactly the same. Have been for very many years. Even when I figured out I had a carb problem many years ago. It is so frustrating. If I could exercise that might help a bit. I also find the hot weather affects me and tend to put on, even though drinking water like crazy. I wish there was a solution.
 
In a away having type 2 is supporting my argument that tis the fibro and the meds causing weight issues and not my lifestyle I get very defensive when medical people acuse me of poor lifestyle...its been an enforced one caused by a car accident. I have always had a health diet and always exercised lots til then. I am trying my best with this new gym class. If anything my HbA1C last time was 40 down from 96 in Ocober last year, and my bms range from low 4s to around 6.7 usually. If it goes higher I can usually pin point a respiratory infection as I seem to get lots of viruses wih CFS and my CRP is often raised with my WBC. Then they climb right back down again. So I manage bloods really well. I do think the increase in fats helps us manage and thankfully I do not have a cholesterol problem. But I realised today WW diabetic plan is a starvation diet! And to cut out greek yogurt and berries was not going to happen! They have been a life saver for me in overnight oats! Or chia seeds.they wanted me on 28 points of which a couple of tablespoons of 0% greek yogurt place handfull of berries was 4 points...I could see how the rest of the week would pan out and canceled before I began! SW passes the buck to the diabetic care team! who all have conflicting ideas low fat , high carb, higher fat/protein low carb..it makes you dizzy! I am not ignorant of nutrition. I lecture in nursing studies and nutrition, and disease processes and pharmacology come into it...so I keep ahead of things. But I hold my hand up as guilty of presuming the eatwell plate government guidelines were the stalwart...now I am not so sure!
 
Brambleberry said:
My body seems to figure out what I am doing and I do not so much as plateau as stop losing and body fights me to gain it back.
Click to expand...
That sums me up too! I used to say that my body would only be happy if I never ate anything ever again, and exercised 24/7.

I thought I'd found the solution with lchf, but after a good initial loss its ever so slowly going up again

In the past 2 weeks I have cut out nuts and alcohol and cut back hard on cheese and chocolate.... and lost 1 measly pound.

Be interested to see what others say
 
There has to be more to all this than meets the eye doesn't there. I am adopted but my birth mum who lives in Australia who never raised me of course or nurtured me, has encountered the same issues. Luckily she is not diabetic ( yet) aged 77 but has high cholesterol and high blood pressure and has always struggled with weight . Poor woman is only 4ft 9 big boned ( like me) with lots of muscle we are really to big in our frames for our heights ( I am 5ft 3 and size 8 shoe!) she found weight loss slow and would grind to a halt and it would go back on til she was eating less and less all the time. Her sister my aunt was skinny had high blood pressure and cholesterol too but exercised twice daily for fitness and still got type 2! There is no justice it has to be genetic , but also I do wonder what drugs do to us and what the food industry have done influencing our diet guidelines.Our doctors like to deny the drugs can cause type 2 and weight gain as well but recent studies show some antidepressents often used for chronic pain do and its not just because they make you eat more...they refuse to acknowledge this...but recently I had a guest speak come talk to my class of assistant practitoners for the NHS who I am training ( me helping with the NHS crisis!) and he is a clever lad aged 30 has a PHD in clincal pharmacology and senior lecturer all ready...I asked him what he thought of this and he told me I was right and especially the drug I was on was becoming recognised as a nasty drug...I am not sure what I should do...between a rock and a hard place I cut my dose today ( I am allowed to titrate as needed) nothing else seems to work...I have to keep a roof over my head...choices not always easy. But a bit of compassion from doctors and a bit of acknowledgment would be more supportive or we will back away.
 
Hi everyone, if you have read my posts on a few of the threads, you will realise, I have been around over ten years and have advised many others about control of their blood glucose levels! How you do that, is by an individual who explores their body's for his or her nutritious needs.
The problem with classic diets or weight loss plans and even the lchf diet, is that it doesn't apply to everyone, or even some of us. It is to broad, if I advise to 10g of carbs in a single portion of might be enough for you but too much for me (it is!)
It all depends on where you are in the journey of treatment, a newbie or an old hand. And your intolerance to carbs and sugars. It all depends on how bad the insulin resistance or circulating insulin, or your hba1c plus more factors of the imbalance in your hormonal response to how your T2 developed.
It is so individual that the eat well diet may work for some prediabetics, but it will be worse for someone with T2!
Treatment especially dietary control should be tailored made for every one!
You have to bear in mind where you live, culture, ethnic, religious, environmental, affordibility, availability and the usual, vegan, carnivore.
What works for one, probably won't work for you!

The best way to lose weight initially is to lower your carb intake, exercise more, reduce your food intake and portion size! And stay away from factory and junk food. There are so many hidden carbs and sugars in them.

Keeping a food diary, and getting a glucometer or a CGM, to monitor your blood glucose levels to see what food does to cause higher spikes that are keeping your hyperglycaemia up higher than they should be. And get your blood glucose levels in control as close to normal as possible.

A diet will only work when you know how intolerant you are!
And it's carbs, not calories!

For me, I'm almost totally carb intolerant! So I avoid them, because I'm carb intolerant, the intolerance dictates my health. And my health is a lot better when I avoid the carbs. I have been lactose intolerant since young, and I was told to avoid dairy. So if I'm carb intolerant, why is NHS advice to maintain a level of carbs that makes me unhealthy? It is not logical!

I was nineteen stone nearly before I was diagnosed, I was told by my specialist endocrinologist to stop eating high GI carbs, then because of my monitor I found that even the low GI carbs were spiking too high. Even a bowl of porridge, no milk, no sugar. (One of the so called super foods) was spiking me very high from near normal levels. (Which is not good!)
After a month or two(ish) I had lost six stone. Then it slowed, then stalled, then fluctuated, plateaued, then dropped a bit more, and I found my ideal weight. I maintain this by keeping to my diet, I repeat my diet! No magic, just eating to my meter and not being aware of what I'm eating, only fresh food!

As a T2 gets better control of their blood glucose levels, he may be able to eat more carbs, be less strict to their restrictions of food. And the intolerance will abate with less insulin resistance, less circulating insulin!

Fasting could be an important part of any diet, some can, some can't, again it's an individual thing! The number of meals you have, the less insulin you need, with insulin resistance, the less insulin you need, is not taking a strain on your pancreas, along with the rest of your hormones. The imbalance improves!

Yes, it's not easy, but it can be done.
I have been on a zero carb diet for over a decade (with a few hiccups) and it works for me.
If it hadn't worked, and I hadn't used this diet, I wouldn't be here!
I am approaching my seventies, and other than the list below, I'm as fit as I can be. In control and I want to be around for my great grandkids!

Find your own diets, control with monitor, find your intolerance levels, keep a food diary. Vary with better intolerance and choices when hba1c dictates.
Get healthy!

My best wishes on your journey.
 
Last edited:
Hi I agree with you it certainly seems that way. So pretty unfair that so many medics give people a hard time. I have managed great blood glucoses since day three of diagnosis! They took me off glicozide in February. I kept having hypos when away in Australia at my sons house in fact I ended up gaining weight trying to stop them so I discontinued them( I put my nurses hat on). My GP said I did the right thing. So its metformin for now and thankfyully no more hypos ( Having said that when I was a young woman in my 20s and 30s I often fainted with a low blood sugar and I wasnt diabetic...I just had hypos...fainted when scrubbed up in theatre!) So obsviously something was out of whack I was slim then too.
Despite the weight loss stall I am managing good glucose levels and hope next time to be officially classed as in remission. Having said that I am loathed to give up metformin because of my tricyclic regimen for the fibro as I think it helps counteract the insulin resistance the drug causes.
When you say you have no carbs at all, does that mean no veg no fruit? you said you are lactose intolerant so of course dairy is out. Or do you just mean the starchy grains, pasta rice potato etc?
I have found to my shock that if something is going to raise my sugars to over 8 ( I know the dietician laughs when I freak at that)...its soup any kind veggie, tomato doesnt have to have pulses in it or anything... also I love lentils and often made lentil lasagnes and bakes and dhals with them and am most upset to see they raised me to 10 as did baked beans with no added sugar.
So I have been avoiding beans and pulses with the exception of chilli ( I make a white chilli as well with butter beans and turkey mince its not a tomato based one its quite different and happy to share on another food recipe page if anyone wants it.
 
When I say zero carbs I only eat above ground salad vegetables, pieces of fruit, limited, and avoid starchy veg particularly spuds! From normal, a medium sized baked potato had a reading of eighteen mmols, and yes I did retest!
Soups, stews, curries and such should be made from scratch, most shop bought foods are full of hidden additives and industrial sugars, sweeteners which I have found to be not good, I will add the food industry filling basic production foods with oils, soya, palm oil and other such ****, that how it gets through stsndards, is a mystery.
Good saturated fats, natural saturated fats, are so much better to cook with, my endocrinologist who studied the impact on patients either having vegetable oil or saturated fats, told me, that, the science shows it is better without vegetable oils. Especially for my cholesterol.
I can't have grains particularly wheat. And it is not gluten intolerance. (Again don't eat wheat advised!) What the food industry replace the gluten with is potato starch! Mind blowing to someone with an intolerance to certain starchy vegetables!

I'm intrigued about your hypos, not the Gliczide ones, but before them! Did you find out what was causing it?
Hypoglycaemia is not that rare, because at times even normal people go below the hypo level. But it is a single episode, it does need help if they persist and episodes recur more often.

I don't even try to go above normal, around 7.5 mmols, when the trigger for the overshoot will happen., S so I'm very careful and along with intermittent fasting, is now I cope! And it works for me!

As a nurse you should understand the logic of what I'm doing! The health advice goes against everything I have learned and experienced with my condition.

Best wishes and keep asking!
 
I agree with your endocrinologist. I follw Dr Robert Lustig an endocrinologist who says the same.mThankfully majority of our meals are cooked from scratch including our sourdough bread, I can eat mashed potato just fin roast potatoes on a Sunday 40z usually ok only 6-8 mml Its weird how we all have these genetic makeups that make it so diffrent for us. I was watching the gut the second brain on prime last night some interesting studies on microbioms and mice and how the absence of certain bacteria in the mouses gut caused it to pile the weight on when given the same food ad the normal mouse....
 
I read about seven or eight years ago, a paper, from an American university, maybe Stanford, that the guy books is the most important part of endocrinology. That the gut, brain axis, or the signals linking the brain, gut, organs, hormonal response and the biome were intrinsic in how we develop the many types of conditions found in endocrinology.
Another paper, described the underlying signals of the axis, when, especially in my case and other types, the brain sends signals to release more hormones than is required. This is when for the likes of the adrenal glands secrete too much adrenalin. Many hormonal imbalance, have the same symptoms. To sum all this up. Your brain lies to you in many ways, trying to correct the imbalance.
Again in my case, why does my pancreas create the overall excess insulin! Then because of this, it sends a signal for me to eat more, the craving is incessant! Good job I can find things to avert it or eat something low carb.
It is very interesting and the history of how what we eat and the geo political decisions on what we grow and produce is unbelievable!

Best wishes, especially for those mice!
 
Stanford have done a lot on this. Including the impact of antidepressants in causing insulin resistance I am sure it was them. Also another interesting aspect is the work done on structure of cells. If you notice the shape and structure of a mitochondria is very bacteria like. It is suspected that at one time it was a bacteria that adapted to be a vital part of our make up. Interesting that fructose has a devastating effect on our mitochondria! Our little power stations, of cell respiration and energy source!
The insulin resistance and insulin production on Monday I drew a diagram on the whiteboard in class to show the cells the glucose in the blood and a telephone receiver ( insulin calling!) but the cells won't answer and explained how Insulin then orders pick up of glucose to store...and then explained how then the body got hungry. I likened it to getting a big shop at the grocery store but leaving it in the boot of the car! So when you get hungry you go to the fridge and its bare! So you shop again, leave that in the boot ( now you need a bigger boot!)...and STILL the fridge is bare...by now you are starving and tired!.....and your boot ( or stomach ) is getting bigger or wherever peoples genes decide to store it...it really made my class think and I tried to remind them not to be so judgemental of people who are overweight or type 2 and that there were more TOFIS out there than fat people with metabolic disorders! We talked of chronic health issues medications etc and I do hope they remember all this when back at work in our dear old NHS!
 
I took part in a study for a diabetic drug ,(sitagliptin), which had a minor effect on my first phase insulin response. It lowered my spike by a few mmols depending on the carb load of the glucose used on the extended oral glucose tolerance test. So instead of getting readings in the teens, the highest recorded was 8.6 mmols, it didn't stop the predicted hypo, but lowered the symptoms. I was patient A! It was in the Lancet.
As my endocrinologist found me an interesting case due to my intolerance, he put me on the spot during a half hour appointment, because he had a group of six medical students, who were in their last year at uni!
He asked me to explain my diagnosis, treatment and how I persuaded my endocrinologist that keto wasn't evil, and worked for me! When saying goodbye and shaking hands, he admitted I had taught him some reasoning behind why the science and the tests, research and evidence of how I could say that I had complete control of my blood glucose levels and my health had improved so much.
The students were impressed he told me.
I have had no medical training bar the usual sports first aid!
I had to!
 
There is a reason that the Kings Fund pushed for the role of the 'patient expert'!
 
Brambleberry said:
There is a reason that the Kings Fund pushed for the role of the 'patient expert'!
Click to expand...
If you had gone through my experience in getting healthy, I would certainly agree!
But then, some specialists are worth listening to!
The problem with health industry is the overwhelming lack of specialised diagnostic tests, with the people to do it. And the overall standard of care provisions due to the lack of financial instability.

If every doctor had a device to scan your health. That would improve healthcare so much! However pharma and the industry would lose so much, that any such device would be certainly blocked by them! Ha!
Watching too much star trek!
 
Dear Brambleberry, medical research has found that the weight your mother had while pregnant with you had an impact on your weight as an adult, across cultures and societies. And yes, there are lot of additional factors, including the food industry and the food pyramid, the subsidizing of certain types of food, the consumption of popular foods such as coffee and wheat and meat. Coffee is the second most traded good on earth, after crude oil. And what benefit is coffee to anyone's body.
 
If yo look at the history and science behind the modern wheat growth and it's properties.
A high portion of population has an intolerance to its properties.
it is not only gluten that has the labels warning you I bold.
wheat intolerance is there, and an allergy to a certain ingredient of the part that is ground to make flour.

Very big in the U.S. social media.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…