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Monitoring intake and losing weight

CherryAA

CherryAA

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,170
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I have lost 25 kilos on LCHF. During that time I not only did LCHF I also religiously recorded very morsel and made sure that my calorie intake was around 1250 per day, 30 g carbs.

I plateuaed at 89 kg for around 3 months, after a lot of effort I got down to 85 kilos and started to think maybe I had cracked the plateau.

During a very hectic week I stopped recording what I ate and decided to see if " listening to my stomach" works. During the time apart from one Indian meal, I stuck to the low carb, probably even lower than before, actually skipped a few meals because I wasn't hungry , still did some exercise, stayed in ketosis for the entire time and recorded blood sugars averaging under 6.0 mmol BUT - I am now right back to 89 kg .

It seems that that is the weight my body wants me to be - and unless I quite ruthlessly do something to change that- then that is the minimum it is going to be.

So its back to recording every morsel and sticking to 1250 calories and 30g carbs. It seems probably for the rest of my life - not disastrous but disappointing ! ho hum ,
 
CherryAA said:
I have lost 25 kilos on LCHF. During that time I not only did LCHF I also religiously recorded very morsel and made sure that my calorie intake was around 1250 per day, 30 g carbs.

I plateuaed at 89 kg for around 3 months, after a lot of effort I got down to 85 kilos and started to think maybe I had cracked the plateau.

During a very hectic week I stopped recording what I ate and decided to see if " listening to my stomach" works. During the time apart from one Indian meal, I stuck to the low carb, probably even lower than before, actually skipped a few meals because I wasn't hungry , still did some exercise, stayed in ketosis for the entire time and recorded blood sugars averaging under 6.0 mmol BUT - I am now right back to 89 kg .

It seems that that is the weight my body wants me to be - and unless I quite ruthlessly do something to change that- then that is the minimum it is going to be.

So its back to recording every morsel and sticking to 1250 calories and 30g carbs. It seems probably for the rest of my life - not disastrous but disappointing ! ho hum ,
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You've lost a lot of weight so try not to be so hard on yourself:) You have to give yourself some credit for what you have achieved so far.

I see that you're aiming for ketosis and are <30g carbs per day. It doesn't say in your signature what your fat intake is though? In my opinion, it may be worth reducing your fat intake and concentrating on the LC aspect of the diet rather than the HF part.

Exercise is another aspect worth reviewing. I see your doing a reasonable amount of walking, but is there room in your life and routine for some swimming or cycling? They tend to be the best forms of exercise as they're both core work outs, use a lot of muscle groups, low/zero impact and can be done at absolutely any pace.

Lastly intermittent fasting, have you tried that? When I'm needing to drop weight I opt for the 18/6 fast (basically no breakfast or eating after 6pm) and I seem to drop weight quite steadily. I understand our conditions and lifestyles may be different, but I see many T2's on here who endorse intermittent fasting.
 
GrantGam said:
You've lost a lot of weight so try not to be so hard on yourself:) You have to give yourself some credit for what you have achieved so far.

I see that you're aiming for ketosis and are <30g carbs per day. It doesn't say in your signature what your fat intake is though? In my opinion, it may be worth reducing your fat intake and concentrating on the LC aspect of the diet rather than the HF part.

Exercise is another aspect worth reviewing. I see your doing a reasonable amount of walking, but is there room in your life and routine for some swimming or cycling? They tend to be the best forms of exercise as they're both core work outs, use a lot of muscle groups, low/zero impact and can be done at absolutely any pace.

Lastly intermittent fasting, have you tried that? When I'm needing to drop weight I opt for the 18/6 fast (basically no breakfast or eating after 6pm) and I seem to drop weight quite steadily. I understand our conditions and lifestyles may be different, but I see many T2's on here who endorse intermittent fasting.
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Interestingly during the bit where I got to 85kg - I swam about half a km a day , was on very high fat and did little other exercise , and ate two meals a day.

after that I went on an exercise holiday - in 7 days I swam 4 miles , cycled 150 km in total and walked for another hour every day, whilst eating a slightly more varied diet in terms of proteins, still low carb I put 2 kilos on (including according to the tanita scales a bit of visceral fat ( which was very suprising) .

after getting back I went onto one meal a day plus bone broth and less exercise less calories overall and put on a further 2 kilos.

I am now going right back to the meticulously rcorded 2 meals a day, gentle exercise and 60% fat ! as that is what worked for me .
 
In so far as I can tell and thinking back on it , the BIG difference was actually a big reduction in the consumption of butter during the last two weeks compared to before. so that is back on the menu.
 
CherryAA said:
Interestingly during the bit where I got to 85kg - I swam about half a km a day , was on very high fat and did little other exercise , and ate two meals a day.

after that I went on an exercise holiday - in 7 days I swam 4 miles , cycled 150 km in total and walked for another hour every day, whilst eating a slightly more varied diet in terms of proteins, still low carb I put 2 kilos on (including according to the tanita scales a bit of visceral fat ( which was very suprising) .

after getting back I went onto one meal a day plus bone broth and less exercise less calories overall and put on a further 2 kilos.

I am now going right back to the meticulously rcorded 2 meals a day, gentle exercise and 60% fat ! as that is what worked for me .
Click to expand...
Good luck to you then:) It seems like you know what's working for you, so keep it up and I'm sure you'll eventually meet your target weight.
 
CherryAA said:
I have lost 25 kilos on LCHF. During that time I not only did LCHF I also religiously recorded very morsel and made sure that my calorie intake was around 1250 per day, 30 g carbs.
Click to expand...

Brilliant loss. Food diaries are important especially when reaching a plateau, it proves that you're not "cheating" or your perception of what you ate is totally wrong. I once saw a young lady on a TV program say that she only had a bowl of fruit for breakfast. When you actually saw this bowl of fruit it was almost as big as what you might see on the dining room table, enormous quantity amounting to several hundred calories.

I was eating about 1200 calories a day for some years, only dropping to 800 in an attempt to copy the Newcastle Diet has led to weight loss and more importantly BG on a much more even keel. Still work in progress though.
 
I've been frantically trying to think through what I actually did eat during the period when it all started to come back and there is no doubt its incredibly difficult to do it after the event.

I am a bit surprised that having been doing this for 9 months now, the results of stopping recording so precisely matched what happened on my old low fat high carb diet - not least because I feel like I have learned a lot and I know I really did not move into the snacking/binging caused by hunger of before. It really does seem that if you are heavily insulin resistant which I clearly am, then I really do need to make sure I am recording every single morsel .
It will be interesting to see if the 85-89 yo yos off as easily as it went on , or if I have just given myself another three months of effort for my 2 week experiment - it also shows that not having access to daily scales is in my case a disaster !
I'm not particularly upset by it all, I look and feel better than I ever did - its just kinda suprised me a bit .
 
In my opinion a food diary is as essential as testing.

I also recorded every morsel, kept to 1200 calories with low carb (I started with moderate carbs and gradually reduced them) I lost weight each week, no plateaux. I did this for 9 or 10 months until all my excess weight had gone (28.6kg) and then had to continue because I continued to lose weight and needed to stop. That was during 2014. I still keep a food diary but nothing weighed or counted as what I am eating is keeping my BS normal and maintaining my weight. So far, so good. If either of those change I will go back to counting.
 
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