Hi guys
I am now a perfect weight for my size and don't want to lose anymore, how can I keep the same weight safely
Thanks
Hi there,
I see from your previous posts that you were diagnosed prediabetic in March, began a low-carb diet and presumably have been losing weight since? How much weight have you lost in total since then?
Do you test your fasting blood glucose levels - first thing in the morning? If so, did those levels drop, how low are they now, and how much weight have you lost since those levels stopped dropping? Have you had a HbA1c blood test and/or lipid panel (blood test for cholesterol) recently? A HbA1c test along with the triglyceride result on a lipid panel can be very informative in trying to figure out the likelihood that you may have lost enough weight to 'reverse' your prediabetes, partially or perhaps even completely.
The short answer to your question is eat more food. If you would like to maintain a low-carb diet then more fat is probably best and foods like nuts and cheese are good low-risk ways to maintain weight. As you are (or were) prediabetic though, never having progressed to full diabetes, and may have lost quite a lot of weight since you were diagnosed, it might be perfectly safe to eat more carbs if that's something you'd like to be able to do. Even before the science of how Type 2 develops in most people was identified there were many prediabetics who never progressed to Type 2 in their lifetimes. Never changed their diet, never got worse and never suffered any health consequences. It now seems very likely that weight gain is a big part of what causes prediabetes to progress to Type 2, and that big weight loss achieved soon after diagnosis can make progression to full Type 2 diabetes very much less likely in most people. What might be safe for you to eat today may be worlds apart from what is safe for many others who may have been fully diabetic for years before they achieved the necessary weight loss to halt progression.
It's actually a tricky thing to figure out what you can safely eat while at the same time figure that out in a very cautious way. The simple way is to get a HbA1c test and if the result is low, change your diet and see what happens. It's possible that so long as you don't gain weight again you may be able to eat pretty much whatever type of foods you want. Avoiding weight gain is very important though - you may have freedom with the types of foods but not with the quantity. I personally don't like that 'see what happens' approach though as it means waiting months to see the result, months where I might be eating more carbs than is safe for me. I've spent a lot of time using with Continuous Glucose Monitors (CGMs) and doing experiments with diet and exercise to try to figure out a more cautious way to do it, to find the best balance between diet, levels of exercise and medications (if I even need them anymore). I've even started working on software to help me with that which I hope might help a few others in this situation to answer these kinds of questions in future. It will be a every long time before I finish it though, if it ever works at all the way I hope it might.
For now perhaps just eat more nuts, cheese and other fatty foods that you enjoy. If you haven't had the blood tests done recently and if you have access to them, they might be very informative. It might be time to figure out if you're still prediabetic, whether there's any significant risk of progressing to Type 2 diabetes any time soon (so long as you maintain your weight loss) and what safe food options might now be available to you now and in the near future, if that's something you'd like to explore.
