My Fat Loss Plan

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this. I've seen similar threads elsewhere but can't remember where they were posted!

I'm going on a "fairly fast fat loss with tight blood sugar control" diet.

My goals, in possibly this order if they can be ordered at all, are:
* Get fitter and stronger so I can start enjoying outdoor hobbies again.
* Avoid high blood sugar spikes.
* Avoid prolonged periods of elevated blood sugar.
* Avoid medication. Have been on 4xMetformin and GP told me I needed different types on top of that, so clearly my health was deteriorating. Currently I've managed to turn things around so don't need the Metformin any more. Hoping to keep it that way for the near future at least.
* Improve my body's ability to deal with carbohydrates.
* Get a better HbA1c score than previously.

The diet may vary, the exercise may vary, and the methods of keeping my blood sugar low and avoiding big spikes may vary.

GOLDEN RULES:
* Never having a reading of > 7 mmol/l 2 hours after food. This can be controlled either by food choice or exercising after food.
* Never going to bed if I get a reading of > 6.

FOCUS:
* Calorie deficit. Amount not important, speed of fat loss not critical, but going to try to do it fairly fast. If weight and stomach girth haven't reduced in a 7 day period, I'll know I'm getting it wrong.

NICE TO HAVES:
* Varied, nutritious food with plenty of vegetables.

No food will be mandatory or excluded, except for alcohol. That will be excluded completely because it would scupper everything for me. I may try many of the accepted "types" of diet, out of interest. "Normal", "Newcastle", "low carb", "ultra low carb" etc.

The things I will graph are:
Day number vs morning blood glucose.
Day number vs measurement around belly, at belly button. Never done this measurement before!
Day number vs morning weight.

Every two weeks I will also perform a fairly tightly controlled carbohydrate tolerance test to see if there is a trend towards improved tolerance. It will need to be quite a small amount of carbs in order not to break the 7mmol/l 2 hours after food rule.

I'll update here every 2 weeks with the graphs, any interesting thing I noticed, and the carb tolerance results.

The plan is flexible enough to make it much easier than the extraordinary efforts some people go to, so I'm hoping to be able to stick to it. But it will require focus and discipline. I'm starting today with elevated blood sugars and will need to work hard to try to get them down to 6 before going to bed. I'll also have to avoid plenty of foods that I currently like. I've been up for 3 hours and only had a handful of nuts so far! Should be easier once bgs get lower.

I'll be writing updates thinking of myself a few months ago - I scoured this forum looking for examples of what people were doing and the results they were getting, to give me ideas about what might work for me. Hopefully it will be of interest to some people in that sort of position.

Art Of Flowers said:

If you want to lose weight and lower blood sugar then consider intermittent fasting. There are a few videos on this by Jason Fung on YouTube or at Diet doctor.com

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That's a great one to try. I should have put that on my list! Thanks for reminding me of that.

Edit: I was actually thinking I may have to skip dinner tonight in order to try to get down to 6, so I could be starting this with a mini-fast!

Boo1979 said:

To throw another idea into the pot - you might want to have a bit of a read about food intolerances
I lost a shed load of weight (61/2 stone in 6 months) many years ago, and many years prior to diabetes diagnosis by testing for food intolerances and eliminating a few foods - calories increased, carbs were not low either but the weight just fell off. The weight has stayed off for nearly 40 years together with another 1.5-2 stone for good measure
Interestingly the guy I read a lot from re food intolerances (Dr Richard Mackarness) started off writing “eat fat, grow slim” in 1958 (updated in the 1980’s) advocating lchf but then noticed that many of the foods being eliminated in lchf were also in the top 10 of foods in terms of the incidence of them causing intolerance problems. He then moved on to hypothesise that lchf type diets work because of the elimination of these foods and to explore the role of food and chemical intolerance in physical and mental health problems.
When I was tested, some foods I was showing intolerances to were high carb (e.g. white rice, white flour, bananas, carrots) others ( e.g eggs, cows milk, tomatoes, coffee and tea) werent.
Ive recently decided to retest some of the foods that had crept back into my diet to become fairly additions ( eggs, dairy, tea and coffee) - my sugars seem flatter

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Interesting. By intolerances do you mean purely raise blood sugar? As in I should be testing blood sugar after foods even if they don't contain carbs / are very low carb?

Here's the "data" bit at the starting point of this plan, again I'm thinking of anyone scouring this forum for ideas that might apply to themselves:

Age: 45

Gender: Male

Height: 6ft

Diagnosed at age: 42. Just in diabetic range. Controlled with diet.

Diabetic low point: Started sleeping about 20 hours a day 6 months ago. HbA1c was 92. Hadn't been getting checked regularly, my fault.

Medication: Was put on Metformin and quickly upped to 4 a day. Couldn't get morning bgs lower than 10 in spite of that. GP said I needed different medication on top of Metformin. I asked for 3 months to try to turn things around naturally. That three months has just ended. He's just agreed to take me off Metformin.

Weight at diagnosis: 19.5 stone.

Other health issues: Nothing notable. Drank far too much alcohol and ate a large amount of unhealthy food, however, especially at weekends. I say that, but the alcohol amount actually turns out to be about the national average estimate per week (not the guideline, that's much lower). Which doesn't mean it's okay, just means there's probably a lot of unhealthy people out there!

External signs of health at diagnosis: Pretty good considering the weight. Found walking up Snowdon fine, and was doing 2-hour Aikido sessions 1-3 times a week. Was doing a lot of walking.

Physique: Bizarrely deceptive when wearing clothes and viewed straight-on it seems. The doctor when diagnosed couldn't believe I was that heavy. People told me I looked normal. I felt normal, because I was active and not struggling. At 17 stone quite recently, a doctor told me that I didn't need to lose weight. She had no idea what weight I was, but still she said that! I don't think I'm a TOFI however - viewed without a top on and from the side, the weight suddenly makes sense! It's not a beer-belly, it's all over body fat, with a huge stomach. I wish I'd thought to look at my naked body side-on in a mirror years ago

The starting point of this plan is after 3 months of focusing on health, food and activity. I've done pretty well, reducing HbA1c from 92 to 40, but I've still got a lot of weight to lose, my morning bgs have started to creep up, and I had a blow-out recently which has made me realise I do really need to focus, and that I also need to pay more attention to blood glucose. If anything that's more important than weight loss.

My morning bgs for the last 3 months:



My morning weights for last 3 months:

Boo1979 said:

When I tested foods to establish intolerances it involved avoiding the common suspect foods completely for 2 weeks than having skin prick tests in addition to measuring my belly immediately before eating a food then again at 15-30 min intervals ( cant fully remember but think 15) and noting other symptoms which varied - the results included
2 cherry toms blew my belly up 3 inches as well as causing a rash and asthmatic like wheezing
Coffee and tea produced projectile vomiting
Dairy produced bloating, sneezing and wheezing
Eggs produced a massive reaction on the skin prick test
I am unsure of the BS reponse as it wasnt a parameter tested at the time as I wasnt diagnosed but much of the literature I read at thtime made links between intolerances and later development of diabetes

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Interesting stuff. And quite miserable for you if you like those foods.

Boo1979 said:

Coffee and tea produced projectile vomiting

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I'm guessing you don't need specialist equipment to measure that!

lucylocket61 said:

I may have missed this but how tall are you?

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I can't believe I forgot that, I'll go back and edit, thanks.

6ft. The GP a few days ago measured me a little taller, sometimes I've been measured a bit less.

The GP told me a few days ago I've transitioned from obese to overweight, whatever value those markers have.

I think I've just realised why I couldn't find similar threads when I was working out where to post this ... should this be a 'blog' instead? I've just realised the big 'blog' button at the top!

I've decided to postpone the fat loss aspect of this till warmer months.

Avoiding long periods of elevated blood sugar is an important aspect I want to aim for while losing weight, and I've realised that, at this time of year, regardless of what I eat and what exercise I do, it's likely I'll get an illness at some point, and lose control of blood sugar levels.

So I'm shifting the focus to weight maintenance, and going to be experimenting with various 'ways of life', starting with low carb eating. I'm very curious about the effect a 'way of living' has on my ability to process carbohydrates, so the main thing of interest for now is going to be whether I notice a change in my carb tolerance test results after each 2 week stretch of living a certain way. So I'll still be putting up results every 2 weeks in case anyone is interested.

Having just had a blood test, now is probably a good time to focus on LCHF, as I'm due another blood test in 3 months. If I spend 3 months inhaling fat and my next results are okay, that will help me get rid of my fear of fat.