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Need help gaining weight/need advice

J

jkrc717

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A little over 2 years ago I diagnosed myself with "pre-diabetes". My BG will reach up to 170 1 and two hours after eating. Fasting BG is normal(averge is in the 80's). After about 3 hours my BG crashes down. My A1C tested 2 years ago was 5.2. 3 different doctors told me it's normal. Saw an echo doc and he told me I have some insulin resistance, but to stay away from fat. Carbs are not the problem.

Basically I'm on my own here.

I also have celiac disease.

I am a 40 y/o male. I've always been very thin my whole life. However, since starting the LCHF diet I lost over 30lbs. My BMI(which I do not trust) is borderline low. I look like a skeleton. I look like someone who has an eating disorder and it's put my life on hold.

I averaged about 25 grams of carbs when I first started. I found out that I can tolerate about 30 grams at a time of certain complex carbs. Keeps my BG below 120(1 and 2 hours after). Apples is the food I can tolerate. So I upped my carbs to about 90 a day. Three apples a day drenched in peanut butter.

I try to eat a lot of meat for the fat and calories. Trying desperately to gain weight while staying away from carbs. It's not working. My stomach isn't able to tolerate all that meat. The carbs aren't high enough. Sometimes too much fat will make me feel sick.

I do not do well with a LCHF diet. All the warnings that have been called "myths" I've got. Including nerve problems and kidney stones.

I don't want to quit the LCHF diet, because I don't want type 2 or even type 1 diabetes(rare, but can happen to celiac patients).

I've seen a nutritionist who tried to convince me that mixing protein and fat with carbs will keep BG from spiking. That isn't true. She also tried to fill me up with 300 grams of carbs a day.

I'm desperate. I need some advice. I don't know what to do. I'm in serious distress.

Please help.
 
Hi @jkrc717 Sorry you're so down. Hopefully you'll get help and support here. Bear in mind this is a UK forum so may be a little quieter now as it's our night.

Could you try an in-between approach? You've been advised to eat 300g carbs but you say you currently eat 90g. Could you increase that gradually until you find the 'sweet spot' for you?

I have Type 1. I'm also very slim and can lose weight quickly. To,put on weight, I increase my carbs (spread over the day, including snacks) and up my fat intake.

Do you use an app like My Fitness Pal? Sometimes that can spot 'missing' calories or carbs, fat, etc.

Your HbA1C is normal, but you obviously have concerns. Have you spoken to a dietician about gaining weight?

Finally, if you're able to,give us a normal day's meals for you, members can take a look and make suggestions.
 
azure said:
Hi @jkrc717 Sorry you're so down. Hopefully you'll get help and support here. Bear in mind this is a UK forum so may be a little quieter now as it's our night.

Could you try an in-between approach? You've been advised to eat 300g carbs but you say you currently eat 90g. Could you increase that gradually until you find the 'sweet spot' for you?

I have Type 1. I'm also very slim and can lose weight quickly. To,put on weight, I increase my carbs (spread over the day, including snacks) and up my fat intake.

Do you use an app like My Fitness Pal? Sometimes that can spot 'missing' calories or carbs, fat, etc.

Your HbA1C is normal, but you obviously have concerns. Have you spoken to a dietician about gaining weight?

Finally, if you're able to,give us a normal day's meals for you, members can take a look and make suggestions.
Click to expand...
I have celiac disease so I don't eat wheat, rye or barley. Or anything contaminated with them. LCHF and celiac makes my food choices limited.

I'm desperate to gain. My typical diet is red meat. Usually ground beef hamburgers cooked in olive oil. I'll eat 4 of them. I'll eat 3 apples drenched in peanut butter every 4 hours. I wait till my BG goes back down before I eat carbs again. I'll sneak a banana in. Eat a salad with veggies, olive oil and high fat calorie/fat dressing.

I do use My Fitness Pal. Even with all the food I mentioned I barely get 2,000 calories. I get about 130 grams of protein, 100 grams of fat and 90 grams of carbs. I'm not sure how to tolerate more carbs. I can only tolerate about 30 grams at a time and I have to wait till my BG goes back down before I eat carbs again. I try and make sure my BG is never higher than 120. My goal is to not progress to type 2 or 1.

I did not know this is a UK forum. I hope that my numbers are understood.

I appreciate any and all advice.
 
@jkrc717. Sorry at the physical discomfort. My BMI was 21.0 when very young, now it's been 20.0 or less for decades. It hurts to sit. To have lost 30 pounds, I guess you weren't quite as thin as me.

Below, I have several food suggestions. I haven't gained weight on them, but I enjoy eating. It's a very high fat diet.

Our symptoms are so similar. My blood glucose can rise to between 140 and 185, I often get drowsy after a meal (reactive hypoglycaemia). But for me, eating fats, proteins, and carbs together kept the peak glucose down to 140.

You might look into the possibility of a digestive disorder, along the lines of insufficient secretion the pancreatic juices, which contain enzymes needed for the digestion of each of the three major nutrient types. This is unlikely for your age, but then again, so is your weight status. It's likely at my age. I tested deficient in both vitamin D3 and magnesium; I supplement them now. Maybe I'm really deficient in every trace nutrient due to my food undergoing only partial digestion, and with few exceptions, only the digested food is absorbable. I tested high for the the carb digesting enzyme, amylase, but sort of low for the fat digesting enzyme, lipase. Certain vitamins, such as D, are found only in fatty foods.

I don't seem to have celiac disease, but I don't eat wheat either.

I eat lots of dairy. Sour cream by the tub; cottage cheese; regular cheeses, the higher fat the better; yogurt. Also nuts, like cashews and peanuts (I hate almonds). What about eggs? I don't think they'll lead to weight gain, but you have more HDL and more protein. Eggs are high in cholesterol, which is the starting compound for important hormones.

You could try eating fat directly. I tried sipping coconut oil, but it gave me a mild stomach ache. Maybe because of the lipase deficiency. Coconut oil consists of medium chain triglycerides, and MCT's are said to be one of the few fats that can be absorbed directly from the intestines without digestion (as opposed to short chain and long chain TG's). Clarified butter is a staple of Indian cuisine. Butter is melted and the solids at the bottom are tossed. You could try eating this straight.

There is a delicious and nutritious food, quinoa, which I love. Botanically, it's not a cereal. Like eggs, it has close to the perfect balance for humans of the various amino acids. I never gained weight on it, but it's something you can slather butter and other fats on, besides being exceptionally nutritious. See what celiac support Websites say about quinoa.
 
@jkrc717 Theres a section for people with coeliac disease here :)

I don't have coeliac disease but a friend does. I know she has to be very careful about what she eats. However, she isn't underweight. As suggested above, it may be worth ruling out other causes.

Your diet does sound quite limited. How about small servings of potato or gluten-free pasta or rice? Or pears, berries or other fruit? Do you eat high fat foods such as avocado? Adding calories that way can help. Oily fish is good too - and good for your general health. Cheese is good for calories too.

You say you diagnosed yourself with pre diabetes - your HbA1C doesn't show pre diabetes. Did the doctor you saw who mentioned insulin resistance to you say any more about that?

Just to reassure you, Type 1 is an auto immune disease. It's a different condition than Type 2.
 
If you can find dr oetkers sugar free mousse or other sugar free instant mousse, make it with heavy cream. Once it has thickened whip several tablespoons of spreadable cream cheese into it. This is very very good and very high calorie and fat. Texture and taste is a lot like cheesecake filling. Carbs are moderate. A 1 cup serving is around 15-20 g carb
 
Hi @jkrc717 , I'm going to suggest something controversial and for this I apologise. Please bear in mind that I fully appreciate that I don't know you and the only thing I am basing this on is what you have posted above. I could be misunderstanding, I could be taking it out of context, I could be just plain wrong. So please feel free to entirely disregard what follows, but know that it is said with the best of intentions and isn't intended to be a judgement.

So, take yourself entirely out of the equation and imagine you, like me, read on an Internet forum that someone:
  • Had a normal hba1c of 5.1
For reference, you have been told by a number of doctors this is normal because a hba1c of 5.1 is normal. Any thing below 6 is normal. 5.1 might sound like it's only a little bit below 6, but it is in fact far below and very firmly in the normal range.
  • Had random glucose of 170 (9.4) after eating something carby
For reference, a random blood glucose of 170 (9.4) is not diagnostic of diabetes or pre diabetes. For this you would have to go up to 198 (11). Yes, going up to 170 (9.4) is a bit high and I can understand your concerns, but it is perfectly possible and normal for non diabetics to peak after something carby.
  • Had been told by doctors there was a bit of insulin resistance but no diabetes or pre diabetes
I can understand why you are concerned by the insulin resistance when combined with the high random glucose discussed above. It is admirable that you are taking steps to tackle this with your diet. However, I would be concerned that you may be being to strict in terms of your carb restrictions (90g per day - this is pretty low and I understand the motivation to tackle the insulin resistance but would you consider upping to 130/150g to give yourself a bit more flexibility, maybe with low GI foods) and your peak glucose target (120/6.6 - I would suggest that is too tight when 140/7.8 is considered an entirely normal random glucose result).
  • Despite the medical advice and blood results to the contrary, had diagnosed themselves with pre diabetes
  • Had decided to treat their self diagnosed condition by limiting food intake to an extent that it has "put their life on hold" and made them "look like a skeleton"

My controversial suggestions is that you give some thought to seeing a psychologist for health anxiety and relationships with food - eating disorders aren't about always wanting to be thin, they can be about wanting to exert some control over our bodies, this is especially true if you have celiac so have had to be hyper aware of what you are eating and the impact it has on your body and the knowledge that your body doesn't always work as you would want it to. It does sound like you are restricting your diet to an extent that is making you very unhappy and I'm not sure, purely based on what you have posted above, that there is a clinical medical reason for the extreme of the restrictions that you have self imposed.

I've not looked into it to any degree but I am aware that whether or not a very low carb diet actually tackles insulin resistance can be a controversial area. There is some argument that it could have a neutral or adverse effect as it takes away your body's practices at metabolising glucose. Of course, there are arguments the other way that low carb does help insulin resistance and I'm sure a lot of people will say that is nonsense - but it's not 100% definitive and of course, what improves things for one person, might have no effect on a second person or make things worse for a third.

For the avoidance of doubt, a low carb diet will have absolutely no impact on your propensity to type 1 - type 1 is an auto immune disease and no one knows what causes it. It's not caused by diet and isn't associated with insulin resistance.

Surely the point of wanting to eat a healthy diet is so you can stay healthy and live your life to the full - at the moment, with your weight loss and putting your life on hold, it doesn't sound like your diet is allowing you to be healthy or happy so I hope you might consider speaking to someone about it.

Very best wishes C.
 
I have to agree with @catapillar

Regarding weight gain, your current way of eating is not, unfortunately, sustainable and needs changing for your long term health.

Have you come across any nutritional calculators?
I am going to try and post a link to one below, but I am using a mobile phone which has decided to pick up a mobile link, so I don't know if it will work. If it doesn't, you can find the calculator in www.bloodsugar101.com
http://mobile.dudamobile.com/site/phlaunt1?url=http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/&utm_referrer=#2647
The same site has some excellent info on what normal glucose levels are, which you may find interesting.

I get that you cannot eat a lot of foods due to coeliac, but I think there are some you could increase to vary your diet and gain weight. I am thinking stuff like avocados, chia seeds, flax and coconut oil. Green smoothies are infinitely adjustable, and you can beef them up into amazing nutritional powerhouses with the fruit you tolerate, greenery and the foods I just listed.

Bernstein suggests increasing protein for weight gain, but if you are struggling with red meat, then quinoa, soya, pulses, eggs, fish and cheese are all options. Combining them in meals with combinations of fats/carbs/proteins will reduce spikes and queasiness at the richness.

If you tolerate apples well, maybe check out other fruits to find a range that will give you more variety. Berries are low carb, so are cherries, and pears can often be tolerated better than sweet tropical fruit.

Hope that helps, and I am sorry if any of my suggestions are not suitable for a coeliac diet, I only understand it in broad terms.
 
If you want to test your BG response, I'd be inclined to follow the instructions in the following video. If you use potato or sweet potato, they should be safe foods for you. You just need to weigh the food and work out the suggested amount of carbs for that weight.


Alternatively, you could do the equivalent of an oral glucose tolerance test following the instructions you can find on the internet.

As @catapillar said, it doesn't sound like your BG levels are approaching levels that a doctor would use to make a diabetes diagnosis.
 
I'm coeliac too, but I can't lose weight! But please bear in mind I have no medical credentials.
Are you one of those people who don't ever get really hungry? I think we differ greatly in the size of our appetites and I'm told that grazing all day is not a good way to lose weight - so perhaps trying that might 'gain' it?
Have you calculated how many actual old fashioned calories you eat (you may be surprised by how few).
If you can't tolerate fat, life must be very difficult for you and as this is the case then don't force yourself to eat it, I'm surprised no-one on here has suggested nuts as a source of fat too.
However might I suggest you try a week on a dairy free regime - many coeliacs develop a temporary intolerance to dairy (check on internet for suggestions) and find their digestion improves when they cut out milk products. I think you can have yoghurt if dairy free (this could be wrong) but do you buy Full Fat ones, or the widely available reduced fat ones? I can't find Full Fat in normal supermarkets.
Do you belong to any coeliac forums/chat rooms? I find the 'Coeliac, HD and GlutenFree' site very useful
Here is the link (I hope it scans OK)
http://members2.boardhost.com/glutenfree/index.html?1410816035
 
I'd like to thank you @catapillar for your post - reading it has really made me start to think about my own way of eating. I am obsessive when it comes to my numbers, and since I started using my Libre (although I love it, treasure it and couldn't be without it) I have become obsessive about any spikes in my graph. Choosing to eat lower carb has given me very, very pleasing results in the blood glucose department, but that, added to the amount of exercise I'm doing these days, is affecting my weight, and I have become very lean, bordering on skinny. I am tall with a very broad frame, and it really does show.

@jkrc717 I think there's some really useful advice for you in the posts above.

Being type 1 I do of course have the option to eat higher carb and cover it with insulin.

This thread has reminded me that there is perhaps some middle ground to investigate.

This is, by the way, the first time I have acknowledged to myself that I'm a little concerned about my new size, and that's a big deal. My head needs to have a serious talk with itself.

Thank you, love Snapsy
 
catapillar said:
Hi @jkrc717
/ / /
  • Had a normal hba1c of 5.1
/ / /
  • Had random glucose of 170 (9.4) after eating something carby
For reference, a random blood glucose of 170 (9.4) is not diagnostic of diabetes or pre diabetes. For this you would have to go up to 198 (11). Yes, going up to 170 (9.4) is a bit high and I can understand your concerns, but it is perfectly possible and normal for non diabetics to peak after something carby.

/ / /
  • Had decided to treat their self diagnosed condition by limiting food intake to an extent that it has "put their life on hold" and made them "look like a skeleton"

My controversial suggestions is that you give some thought to seeing a psychologist for health anxiety and relationships with food
/ / /
Click to expand...

He wrote 5.2, not 5.1.

@catapillar, although you plausibly, and gracefully :) , raise the possibility of pathological health anxiety, I will argue that the information about diabetes in this quote is wrong and that you missed the boat as to the numbers presented by this person (assuming all the numbers were correctly typed).

9.4 (170 mg/dl) "at 1 and 2 hours"? No: that is diagnostic of prediabetes, especially at 2 h. In the standard oral GTT, prediabetes is having 7.8 or higher at 120 minutes. Recall that the OGTT is designed to be a more aggressive challenge than you'd get from any meal, ie, blood glucose is going to test higher with the OGTT than it will test with any meal. For example, two liters of orange juice with no sugar added contains close to 75 g of sugars. A meal consisting of a beverage that is 99% sugars and water, the beverage unaccompanied by fat or protein -- is there a meal of any other composition that would raise blood glucose more? Again, drinking 75 g glucose will inevitably raise blood glucose more than any 75 g of any beverage which is less than 100% glucose. If you are at 9.4 at 120 minutes, you do meet the clinical definition of "impaired glucose tolerance", which is a variety of prediabetes.

(Loren Cordain, Ph.D.'s table of "sugar content of fruit" shows that sucrose, fructose, and glucose all make up significant portions of most fruit juices. BTW, a fair proportion of people do have glucose response curves which have about the same value at 1 and 2 hours.)

Robert Beaser, MD would not agree that it is perfectly possible and normal for non diabetics to peak after something carby. In Joslin's Diabetes Deskbook (2e, 2010), he writes that in an individual who is not diabetic it is "nearly impossible" (or was it "almost impossible"?) to make blood glucose rise high. I think this was in Chapter 1; I read it yesterday. In this regard, 9.4 is close to the level which triggers the kidneys to spill glucose into the urine, and glucose in the urine is a pathological event.

If you are over 7.8 at 60 minutes, that too is impaired glucose tolerance, just to an extent that hasn't been defined as a disease entity.

Where I am with you is the point about "5.2, three doctors have told me it's normal". That rang false with me, too, because anybody who was to research the topic as well as supposedly was done here would not reasonably harbor doubts that 5.2 is normal.

Let's not be sure from the wording of the post that this person hasn't already tried raising the carbs. I agree that this person should look up lists of gluten free carbs. I like rice -- I wouldn't touch white rice, I like whole grain rice.

Be sure to get the implications of the claim of a 30 lb weight loss in someone who was "very thin" to begin with. An unintentional weight loss. This would easily be a 15% weight loss at least, which would constitute a medical condition. To take another perspective, if your height is 6'0", a 30 lb. loss will mean a drop of 4.1 BMI units! Unless this person's idea of "very thin" is BMI of 27, or unless the 30 is incorrect, this is a dreadful weight loss. I don't believe someone would intentionally lose so drastically unless they were anorexic. But I also don't believe that a person motivated by anorexia would post that they never intended to lose the weight and are eager to gain it back.

Finally, I'll emphasize that I found this person credible because my own weight loss problem has been much like this person's, forever, even without the extreme carb avoidance or the celiac. I hated being BMI 21.0 as a teenager, and I've just kept getting thinner. Until a few years ago, I ate large quantities of sugars and starches. As of a couple of years ago, now I have weight swings. Whenever I lose pounds, daily living is yet more painful, bodily. I rapidly lost 8 lb last fall, just when my health was brightening (with A1c below prediabetic for 10 months -- which I achieved with no dietary changes), and stayed at that level for 2 months. (The A1c also shot up, but it has fallen again.) I haven't gained all of it back. Nowadays, my carbs consist almost wholly of sugar (don't do much cooking), but that's 100 to 400 g per day, sometimes 100 g at once. The rest of the diet is 70-100 g of protein a day, and lots of fats. This year, I've had state of the art endoscopy and radiologies to show there's no pancreatic cancer, etc. I also don't have any infections of a -- ahem -- viral or any other type. BTW, when an elderly (like me) person has unintentional rapid weight loss, doctors don't think it's overanxious to suspect cancer.
 
OP hasn't mentioned doing an OGTT, he has mentioned his own post meal readings, which can be equated to a random blood glucose. WHO guidelines say that a random glucose of greater than 11 can be used as a starting point to query a diabetes diagnosis. The WHO guidelines also say that greater than 11 at two hours post OGTT is what is looked for - https://www.diabetes.org.uk/About_u...itoring/New_diagnostic_criteria_for_diabetes/

In terms of unintentional weight loss, while the weight loss is unintentional in that OP doesn't want to be losing weight, I think common sense suggests the cause of the weight loss is the restricted diet he is following. He says he lost 30lbs since starting LCHF. He says he barely gets 2000 calories a day according to his MFP tracking - 2500 calories per day is what is generically recommended for weight maintenance in men - http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1126.aspx?categoryid=51

Are you a HCP @sud5nala ? Out of interest, what is your diagnosis - have you been given your diagnosis formally, by a qualified medical professional?
 
Thank you everyone. I did not expect to get so many responses. I truly appreciate it.

@catapillar Thank you for being so honest. I appreciate honesty. No offense is taken. I welcome the firm response. The information you provided is very interesting. It is controversial and adds to the confusion. A lot of people think eating low carbs and keeping BG low will stop(or reverse) the progression of type 2 diabetes. I have also read that it might cause insulin resistance.

I have often tried to convince myself that 140-175 one and two hours after eating high carbs is normal like doctors have told me. Because it doesn't stay that way. After about 3 hours my BG will crash back down. For example: My starting BG might be 85. I'll eat about 40 grams of carbs(or more) and in one hour my BG will be 140-175. It will be the same(give or take) in 2 hours. After 3 hours it will crash down to the 80's or sometimes low 70's. It still slightly fluctuates after that, but remains in the normal range(70-90).

Because my BG crashes back down after 3 hours is the reason my A1C test of 5.2 is normal.

However, reaching those numbers is not normal. It is pre-diabetes. I wish those numbers were normal. I wish my body was just made that way, but it's not the truth.

I even considered eating as many carbs as I want and risking the progression of diabetes and just dealing with it if it did happen. However, that would not be smart.

The problem with doctors is that they aren't necessarily trained to teach someone how to prevent disease. Their learning is also very outdated. Most doctors in the US will only test your fasting BG. Which is a very poor way of testing. Until you have the actual disease then doctors will treat it.

@sud5nala Thank you for clearly understanding my situation. Thank you for your insight. Your response is exactly what I have learned and been aware of.

I thank everyone else for their advice. I will take it all into consideration.

I also want to note that my brother has type 2 diabetes.

I don't know why I've always been so thin my whole life. I was always around 125lbs(56kg, 8.9 stone). I had no health problems that I knew of or that any doctor found. As I got older (mid 30's) my weight gradually went up to about 155lbs(70kg, 11 stone). It's possible that I have had celiac disease for a long time without knowing. Maybe I have a very fast metabolism.

I didn't eat often, but I used to eat a lot of carbs when i did. My entire diet was carbs. Bread, pasta, pizza and fast food. Because I was always thin I was able to eat whatever I wanted.

I personally believe that someones pancreas cannot handle excessive amounts of carbs. A simple trip to a fast food place will net you 500-700 grams of carbs from one full meal. Sooner or later your pancreas will weaken. It will no longer be able to handle it. This is a controversial belief, but I do believe it. No one is supposed to eat such large amounts of carbs.

My weight loss is caused by the low carb diet. I know this for sure because that's when I started losing weight and it was expected. It was also my own fault. I became obsessive. I was terrified of the disease. I never allowed my BG to reach 100.

When I first discovered that my BG was too high I panicked. I knew nothing of food or nutrients. I didn't know how to read labels. Society says fat is bad. I went into the diet blindly. I wasn't eating a LCHF diet. I was eating low fat, low carb and moderate protein.

It took me a long time to learn.

I went from 155lbs(70kg, 11 stone) to 125lbs(56kg, 8.9 stone).

I am no longer obsessed with it. I have been eating more carbs. Right now I eat 3 apples drenched in peanut butter. Which is about 90 grams. I'll also have a banana which is about 20 grams. So I'm up to about 110 grams a day(give or take). My goal is to keep my BG under 120(at least under 140). Which would be about 30 grams at a time. Then waiting for my BG to go back down before eating carbs again. So I can eat carbs every 3-4 hours. There are only so many hours in the day.

You also have to be careful of what you eat. Quinoa has a lot of carbs. Pasta has a lot of carbs. Pasta can make your BG fluctuate for many hours. It can spike, go down and spike again for several hours.

2 years ago I had an endoscopy done. A biopsy was done confirming celiac disease. Everything else was normal. I also had a CT scan of my abdominin which came back normal.

9 months ago I had another endoscopy and colonoscopy done. Everything checked out normal.

4 months ago I had another CT scan(without contrast) and kidney stones were found. They didn't mention anything else so I assume everything else was fine.

The reason I mentioned type 1 diabetes is because celiac is an autoimmune disease. When you have one autoimmune disease it's possible to get another. Type 1 diabetes is linked to celiac. Rare, but could happen.

I'm always sick. I think years of my BG reaching high levels has damaged me. Damage starts to occur anytime you reach 140. The reason I became suspicious of diabetes is because I have all the symptoms. Even mild feet neuropathy. Which can also be caused by celiac disease.

Also, I am low on vit D. I now take supplements.

The problem at the moment is what my post is basically about. I need help gaining weight. Trying to figure out a way to eat more food without excessive red meat and adding more carbs without spiking.

I also joined a gym hoping to add muscle.

Life is hard at the moment. I truly appreciate each and every one of you. Words cannot describe my gratitude. Thank you for even taking the time to read my long posts.
 
@jkrc717 Have you had an oral glucose tolerance test eg over three hours? It would be interesting to see the result of that, and it may show any abnormal spikes in your blood sugar.

Your weight does sound low so I can understand why you want to put on weight. How tall are you?

For me, to gain weight takes a concerted effort - day after day. I have a fast metabolism so if I'm busy or get slack on my eating, I can lose weight easily. So to put weight on, I set eating times and have meal and snack options and make sure I do that every single day.

You say you're always sick. Have you had blood tests to rule out any other issues that might be causing that?

Have you had your thyroid tested?

Edited to add - yes, GF pasta has carbs as does rice, but if you weigh/measure your portion you can control the amount. Eg tonight I'm making a curry with coconut milk and spices and chicken. I'll have veg with that, plus a small side salad plus 30g carbs of rice. The calories in my meal will be nice and high (I put olive oil dressing on my salad) but still within your carb limit of 30g per meal.

You've only mentioned fruit and beef. I think if you expanded your food options and added in more fat, you would put weight on. Salmon, avocado, olive oil, cheese, Greek yoghurt, etc And expand your carb choices maybe - potato, rice, sweet potato, etc. easy to add fat to those too.
 
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Thank you @azure. I've tested my BG myself many, many times. After 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4, hours, 5 hours, 6 hours. It's usually the same. I have a good idea of what the numbers will be that I hardly test anymore. It's only when I introduce new foods that I test.

Celiac disease gets in the way of my food choices. I'm also never been a good cook. I know very little about recipe's or even what to add to certain foods like you mentioned.

Beef, fruit, peanut butter, olive oil(in salads and I cook my beef in olive oil) are my go-to foods. I hate avocados. I try to force myself to eat them in a salad drenched in dressing. Not easy.

The other problem I have is that even though I can tolerate about 30 grams of complex carbs.. I wait 3 -4 hours before I eat carbs again. There's only so many hours in the day.

I'm also basically forced to eat a high protein diet. I've read that it could turn into glucose and even damage kidneys.

It's a tough situation to be in. I'll adding lots of nuts to my diet.

I'm just under 5'9
 
jkrc717 said:
Thank you @azure. I've tested my BG myself many, many times. After 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4, hours, 5 hours, 6 hours. It's usually the same. I have a good idea of what the numbers will be that I hardly test anymore. It's only when I introduce new foods that I test.

Celiac disease gets in the way of my food choices. I'm also never been a good cook. I know very little about recipe's or even what to add to certain foods like you mentioned.

Beef, fruit, peanut butter, olive oil(in salads and I cook my beef in olive oil) are my go-to foods. I hate avocados. I try to force myself to eat them in a salad drenched in dressing. Not easy.

The other problem I have is that even though I can tolerate about 30 grams of complex carbs.. I wait 3 -4 hours before I eat carbs again. There's only so many hours in the day.

I'm also basically forced to eat a high protein diet. I've read that it could turn into glucose and even damage kidneys.

It's a tough situation to be in. I'll adding lots of nuts to my diet.

I'm just under 5'9
Click to expand...

I wasn't implying your testing was wrong at all, I was just thinking that an oral glucose test gives a scientific result and can be compared very easily with the responses of other people. Don't rule it out :)

Your BMI works out at around 18.6 so yes, that's definitely low. It's lower than mine and I'm very slim. So wanting to put some weight on is perfectly understandable and, in my unmedical view, a good idea.

I do appreciate that you have to think about your coeliac/celiac disease, but when you're cooking for,yourself at home, it's a easier to control what you eat. There are lots of suitable foods out there, and packaged foods are usually clearly marked as suitable (in the UK, at least). There are also many, many unprocessed foods that you can eat.

Thank you for saying a little more about your daily diet. As I said early on, it does seem very restricted. That's an observation not me being rude :) If you could increase the variety of foods you eat, then I think that would help. It's difficult to get all the nutrients we need on a restricted diet.

I also think maybe planning your week's meals might help because you could work out how to,add calories and variety if you plan a week at a time. There are really good pdf weekly menu planners online that you can print off and fill in. The one I use even has space for a shopping list :)

You're going to have to systematically add calories. If you want to,leave gaps between your carbs, you could eat carb breakfast, non-carb morning snack, carb lunch, non-carb afternoon snack, etc. That way you should be able to fit in all the calories you need. If I had time, I'd work out a sample menu for you which would give you a nice lot of calories and still remain within your carb target and be suitable for a person with coeliac disease. But I don't have the time, I'm afraid, so that will be something you'll have to do. Keep it simple to,start with.

Cooking is a great skill and not as hard as people like to make out. Browse through some normal cookery books, watch some TV shows and see what inspiration you get. There are also plenty of recipes online. Eating around 110g carbs a day gives you a good level of flexibility. You don't need to go for extreme Bernstein style low carbing. Just adjust normal recipes as and if necessary to stay around your stated aim of approx 30g carbs per meal. You can then make up any 'missing' calories with fat (or protein).

It's ok having favourite go-to foods but having variety is better. Chicken, pork, lamb, oily fish (great for healthy fats and vits), cheeses, whole milk, Greek yoghurt (full fat), eggs (so many ways to,cook them), butter, coconut oil (use it to fry foods), berries, carrots, broccoli, greens, red cabbage, cauliflower, peppers (chilli and capsicum), eggplant, butternut squash, rice, gluten-free flours and pasta and crackers and bread, shrimps, olives, potatoes, sweet potatoes - and on and on. Lots and lots of foods to choose from :)

Food can be a 'medicine' but it should also be a pleasure. Make small changes to improve your diet, add variety, add fats, add calories, and you should see results :)
 
@jkrc717 Thanks for filling in details of your signs and symptoms. There are some inconsistencies between your posts, and the narrative is sometimes disorganized. However, these difficulties don't change my assessments. For example, you said you've been very thin all your life, then lost 30 lbs. Now it turns out the 30 lb loss followed a 30 lb gain. Another example, either and LCHF hasn't been adopted at all, or you switched to one midway through the 30 lb loss. The reason for the big weight loss, it seems, was slashing calorie intake in both fats and carbs.

To gain weight, eating a lot of calories isn't working for me, but shouldn't it work for a person who has recently lost big by slashing calories? Let them be mostly fat calories. Fats contain about twice the calories of starches, and three times the calories of sugars.

Also, some previous statements were confusing. For example, to "not trust your BMI". That's like me saying "I don't trust my weight". This can make sense as a rhetorical device, eg, that I don't trust using weight as a criterion of something. But body weight itself isn't something that can be trustworthy or untrustworthy.

I'd like to suggest that your concern with minimizing carbs is single minded and disproportionate, given the mild degree of the glucose intolerance. You might gain some reassurance by researching the progression of prediabetes and diabetes in detail. An excellent resource is the book, Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution. Look for its Website. Dr. Bernstein, a diabetes specialist and T1 diabetic, recommends very low carbing.

Counter to your strong worry, here's my take on your numbers. The complications of high blood glucose (hyperglycemia) will inevitably be milder at prediabetic levels than diabetic. Not all prediabetics progress to diabetes -- perhaps not even a majority, and it's not certain that all prediabetics will develop detectable complications. At least two of the complications (retinal and renal) develop only slowly, over 15 years, and they can be detected by the first 2 to 5 years by regular checkups, whereupon medical interventions can be done. We all agree that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but glucose intolerance should not necessarily be chosen as the top clinical criterion of your health.

Just 40 g of "carbs" is enough to send you to 170 (9.4 mmol/l)? I agree that's a bad metabolism. You report high peak, long duration of postprandial (apparently 3 to 4 hours), and extreme sensitivity (only 40 g). Any of these signs suggests at least mild glucose intolerance. By the way, is 40 g of starches enough to produce this rise, or does it have to be 40 g of sugars?
 
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