Perplexed and need some help

[relaxme]

For some reason I just can't get my head around this and I'm hoping some of you can sort me out.

Like many of you I've lost and gained and lost and gained, up and down to the point I find myself at now, over 300 and just can't get it together. I decided to go low carb again last month and I stayed with it for almost 4 weeks before some bread got into me and that was it. Full carb addiction going again for the past 2 weeks. Tomorrow I will cut them off again. I have no idea if I lost anything during the 4 weeks as I banned scales long ago but I think I lost a bit. My doctor says I should lose 1 lb a day if I am doing it right and that did happen the first time I did Atkins but hasn't been my experience since. That's not my question though.

Here is my confusion. I totally thought I understood the theory of low carb, even blood sugar, getting the metabolism going, etc. It also explained to me why low calorie never did anything for me, starvation mode and all that, until I watched these shows like 'big medicine' which basically deal with stomach surgery and now I wonder what's what. I can't say I've ever looked into the surgery much because I believe I should be able to get a handle on things myself. As I understand it, the surgery means the person is eating less and losing because of that...so what happened to starvation mode? I would like to find out what they eat because if they can lose, why wouldn't I be able to adopt that diet? On one show they even had a patient drinking protein drinks to lose prior to surgery. Now that to me would be heaven. I did that in the 80's with the Cambridge diet and lost over 60 lbs without even blinking and it actually stayed off for a few years. I loved it. No cooking, no prep, no feeling full but my doctor just looks at me like I am an alien when I ask about such things and tells me to do Atkins. About all he pushes is whey powder which I like and could happily do 2 or 3 times a day but he says no to that idea and it really only addresses my thing about missing meals vs getting some proper nutrition while I'm at it.

In my experience, when on Atkins and other programs, they say to eat, never go hungry, and sure enough if I don't eat I either have a complete stop to any loss or I gain. It's actually a big problem for me and I think the times I do get no where it's because I just don't feel like eating. It's no big deal to me to go all day without eating at all so I end up forcing myself a lot. I can't see it being a lifestyle change when I feel like I am force feeding all the time and I'm pretty sure that is why I fall off the wagon. I am sick and tired of meat after a few weeks and I was pretty much a vegetarian before I had to deal with low carb and my hypoglycemia so it's hard to stick with over the long haul. It just seems like food all day long to me even in small doses. I keep thinking I should be able to eat small bites of things like the folks with surgery but that doesn't seem to work for me either.

So how come the people getting smaller stomachs and eating very little can lose but I, who could easily go without eating, can't lose unless I force feed myself? I just can't seem to eat enough to get the burn going anymore so I am feeling frustrated.

It seems to me the two are complete polar opposite theories but both seem to work for people except neither works for me. What's the deal? Is it calories or keeping blood sugar even (low carb)? Why does my body behave the way it does and what do I do to be able to get some result other than a gain? Can anyone help me understand?

[Kisal]

The stomach surgery makes the stomach smaller so the person can only eat a small amount at one time. But they eat several small meals a day. You can do the same thing on low-carb, and over time, your stomach will shrink naturally, without surgery.

The problem with stomach surgery, IMO, is that many people who have it eventually end up regaining all their weight. It does not stop a person from overeating for emotional reasons, and the stomach can and will stretch again to hold a lot of food. Stomach surgery is not the "magic bullet" that will guarantee that you will lose all your excess weight and keep it off forever. You still have to address and solve the problems, emotional or whatever, that caused you to overeat and gain weight in the first place.

The reason you cannot go without food and continue to lose weight is that your metabolism automatically slows down when there aren't enough calories available. Often, the metabolism remains slow as a result of not eating enough, such as in people who spent years yo-yo dieting. Greatly increasing exercise is about the only way to speed it up again. Of course, if you stopped eating at all for a long enough time, perhaps a year or more, you would indeed lose weight. But you would also become extremely ill, as anorexics always do, from lack of sufficient nutrients. The heart muscle is damaged when the diet lacks sufficient protein.

I eat several small meals a day. I'm particularly fond of deviled eggs! :yum: :yum: I could happily eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. :lol: But I try to eat a reasonably balanced diet, including meats and veggies, in addition to my beloved deviled eggs. :)

I don't much like to cook, so I tend to make things that I can just munch on all day. Earlier today, I cut a piece of London Broil into thin slices. It's marinating in the fridge right now, and tomorrow, I'll put in the oven at a very low temperature and turn it into yummy sf beef jerky that I can chomp on when the mood strikes me.

I pre-make salad and keep it in the fridge, too. I chop all the veggies I usually like, except for tomato and avocado, mix them all together with baby lettuce and baby spinach, and keep it all in a big covered bowl in my fridge. I can grab a handful or two, toss it in a bowl, add tomato and/or avocado if I want, pour on some dressing, and zip, my salad is ready to eat.

Another thing I do is make Omelet Muffins for my breakfasts. Just put some chopped veggies, some cooked sausage and some cheese in each cup of a standard-sized muffin tin. Scramble some eggs and slowly pour into each cup until it's filled. Bake at 350* until slightly brown on the top. I keep a dozen in my fridge all the time. Although I've read that they freeze well, I haven't tried that yet. I just grab 2 in the morning, heat them in the microwave, and voila! Breakfast is served. :)

One thing I've learned about myself is that if something isn't easy, then it will never appear on my menu. I'm just basically lazy, I guess! :lol: :lol: :lol:

[relaxme]

So, do you know how much (calories or carbs) a person whose had the surgery eats in a day? I guess I am trying to get a sense of whether it's really a matter of fewer calories (as in the infamous 600 cal diets which is what I have been thinking they do) than a normal diet vs they just can't eat as much as before and have to spend their food allowance on things like low carb...I just have no idea. As I mentioned the whole starvation mode thing is something that makes sense to me but I don't understand how the folks who have had this surgery are losing so much if that's what they do.

I really don't know about the whole surgery thing although it certainly seems to be very successful for many people (at least initially I suppose). As you mentioned there is still the central issues to deal with and to me it's almost another version of when people had their jaws wired (what ever happened to that?). Meanwhile I have been wondering what the program is as far as eating goes... and that protein drink they have before.

You sound like me with the aversion to cooking. I have to make big pots of things that will last a lot of meals or I don't do well at all. Unfortunately it might mean some boredom and it does generally mean I do one meal and just forget to eat again. The other thing is I've never been a breakfast eater but having a whey shake is one of my favourite things so I have that to get my blood sugar even first thing and it seems to fill me up pretty much all day. Maybe I should get one of those big Costco trays of cold cuts and veggies to munch all day.

What I wonder is if by eating once or so a day if I haven't shrunk my stomach or something since I just don't feel like eating usually. It would be interesting to figure out just where that line is that spurs the body to shut down and store.

You are lucky you love eggs. I wish I liked eggs. It seems those are a good solution since they can be done so many ways and are a good size. Alas, they make me gag and have since I was born.

[Rissa6247]

The liquid diet is probably something like Medifast which I've heard works well while you are on it and stick to it strictly, but if you don't learn proper eating habits while doing it, you'll regain quickly when you get off it. That's the secret to success I suppose...learn to change your eating habits forever.

Good luck. :)

[Kisal]

There are lots of other things you can have for breakfast. How about little meatballs, or chicken wings? You can roast a big pan of them and keep them in your fridge. When you want a small meal, just dunk a few in your favorite sauce (I like garlic butter, or Frank's hot sauce mixed with melted butter). No need to reheat them, unless you want to.

I have a big plate of celery stuffed with cream cheese in my fridge right now. I grab a couple of stalks every so often.

I guess what I make mostly are things that could be termed "appetizers." I don't eat much at any given time, but I do eat often.

As for calorie requirements, except for people who exercise a lot, or those who are quite petite, starvation mode won't set in until you eat fewer than 1000 calories per day for an extended period of time (a few months). I try to keep mine between 1100 and 1200. I can get away with going as high as 1500 a couple times a month, but I try to average around 1150. If you eat 4 meals of 300 calories each, you will have gotten 1200 calories for the day. Three hundred calories is not much food. Consider that it amounts to about 3 Tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise!

[ValerieL]

I'm not sure what you are asking exactly.

You don't seem to actually want surgery. That's fine.

You do seem to want the liquid diet, but your doctor is against it. Liquid diets do exist, medically supervised ones. If you really think it's the right choice for you, you need to go against your doctor's advice or find a new doctor who does liquid diets.

You are asking about starvation mode. Starvation mode is a pretty vague notion and it means something a little different to everyone, so let's nail it down. When you are referring to actual starvation, it means that your body starts eating away at the muscle in your own body to feed itself. One assumes that though the surgery patients eat very little, this isn't happening. They get enough protein so that the body uses protein for the functions that it requires protein for and utilises the fat on your body for the remainder of the energy. The second issue is metabolic slowdown. Though no one has been able to pin it down completely, the general consensus is that any type of long term caloric restriction (including low-carbing) will result in a slow down of the metabolism. Some studies seem to indicate that this slow down of the metabolism persists after the weight is lost, some studies indicate it doesn't. The differences in those studies may be in length of time after the weight is lost when readings are taken and whether the study participants were already obese or whether they were normal weights fattened up for the study and then dieted. Regardless, the amount of metabolic slow-down has never been shown to be more than 30% to my knowledge. This means that you can always outrun it and take in less calories than the slowdown and keep losing weight.

From my experience (as one who had the surgery & regained afterward) the weight loss comes primarily from the fact the new stomach is smaller and you can't eat as much and so the calories the patient eats is smaller. You might want to note that as more research is done on ghrelin and it's role in obesity, there is a possiblity that ghrelin is impacted by this as well as it's made in the stomach, I think. It's possible that there might be more than the obvious calorie reduction that accounts for the comparative success of weight loss surgery against traditional dieting.

You need to figure out how you want to eat. You are right, you need to figure out what works for you. If multiple meals a day doesn't work for you, then don't do it. If being on Atkins makes your appetite disappear to the point where you are forcefeeding yourself on multiple meals a day, then don't. Just eat enough protein to make sure that your body isn't catabolizing your muscle. You can eat only once a day if you like.

You say if you don't eat, you stop losing or gain. I'd like to know the timeframe on that. The body goes in normal up & down cycles of weight loss. I recently was on a less than 1000 calorie a day diet and my weight didn't change for six days. My weight loss wasn't stopped, I was just retaining water and going through a very short stall.

Val

[MorganMac]

I think the whole issue can be summed up rather easily..

If you are really ready and committed to losing the weight.. then take control for yourself. Only you can control what you put into your mouth. Just do it :)

Sure there are challenges, my husband likes his oreo cookies.. and it is hard to munch on celery while he's eating them, lol. BUT, I've made the choice and the commitment to do this and I will.

Why have surgery to force yourself into a diet where you can only eat a few tablespoons of food at a time? (And not anything you want, anyway.)

Why go on a liquid diet and try to fight off the urge for ALL food?

We need to learn how to eat properly, we won't do that by cutting out half of our stomachs or only drinking liquid diet meals.

You can do a low-carb plan and you won't be hungry, you won't have all the sugary cravings and you'll have crazy energy!

Just make the decision to stay in control of what you allow yourself to eat, and you're good. It's easy to write and not so easy to do, unless you are ready on a very deep level.

Motivators are important. I have a posterboard next to the computer with pictures of all the things I am going to do / purchase / explore when I hit goal weight. I look at it constantly and think - do I want to cheat or do I want to do those things on that board?

So, find your motivators, take control and make the honest decision to do it - and you'll be fine :)

[jschwab]

"I would like to find out what they eat because if they can lose, why wouldn't I be able to adopt that diet? On one show they even had a patient drinking protein drinks to lose prior to surgery. Now that to me would be heaven. I did that in the 80's with the Cambridge diet and lost over 60 lbs without even blinking and it actually stayed off for a few years. I loved it. No cooking, no prep, no feeling full but my doctor just looks at me like I am an alien when I ask about such things and tells me to do Atkins. "

There is no reason you could not eat liquid meals at least once a day, just figure out a low-carb shake idea and mix it up once a day, homemade, but you could also do commercial shakes, too.

It sounds like you are like my friend who is bulimic. She cannot find a way to diet safely for her, so she doesn't do it. It might be a revelation to you that many people who do Atkins love it because it allows them to eat real food. If a dieting by numbers approach works for you and you are willing to stay on protein shakes for the rest of your life, why not? It can't be worse than most diets. Not everybody has the same taste for food. My mother has a very limited palate, for instance, and gags easily. When I was pregnant sometimes there were only 3 or 4 foods I could eat and I had to actually be force-fed. Maybe you gravitate towards bland, but unfortunately high-carb, food. Try to work within your limitations.

Janine

[MizKitty]

As I understand it, the surgery means the person is eating less and losing because of that...so what happened to starvation mode?

When one eats enough to fill their stomach, a message is sent to the brain, "we're full, turn off the food".

When your stomach is only big enough to hold a thimble's-full of food, that message gets sent on much less food, but it still get sent.

As long as the message is sent to the brain that the stomach is full, starvation mode will not result.

That's my take on it.

[diemde]

I agree with the other posters that you need to find a way of eating that works for you. Most of the successful folks here have tweaked their way of eating so that it's comfortable and something that they can enjoy. However, I do think eating only one meal a day is not good because you increase your risk of catabolism (losing muscle).

One of the things that happens when people diet by cutting back on protein is that they lose fat and muscle. If you've done this for a number of years, off and on, you have probably lost a lot of muscle. When you lose muscle, you burn less calories, so you have to cut back even more on calories. This leads to a viscous cycle where eventually you just don't eat much and still can't lose weight.

It sounds to me like you have a very slow metabolism. If you are eating only once per day and you aren't hungry the rest of the day, then you aren't burning enough calories throughout the day. At your weight, you should easily be able to eat 2500 to 3000 calories per day and still lose weight (assuming you are eating low carb). I would first focus on fixing your metabolism.

There are a number of things you can do to increase your metabolism. Eating a little something 5 or 6 times per day is the number 1 thing I would do if I were you. I know you don't want to force feed, but what I am suggesting is very small amounts. If you start small, then you can increase as you are comfortable. So, for example, eat a chicken wing in the morning. Then about 2 or 3 hours later, each a cheese stick, then 2 or 3 hours later, eat some cottage cheese...in essence, spreading your food throughout the day. You will want to get some protein with each snack since that will help to preserve your muscles.

Adding exercise, especially resistance training (lifting weights) will help to increase your muscle mass. That in turn will increase your metabolism. At minimum, you want to do enough strength training to maintain the muscles you currently have while you are dieting. I know a lot of people believe you have to build muscle, but for those of us in the TDC, we already have a lot of muscle just from carrying around all of our excess weight!

There are other things you can do to help with metabolism and I would recommend searching on the internet as there are ideas and suggestions all over the place.

I can't answer why the folks with smaller stomachs can get away with eating less, but I bet a lot of them are losing muscle in addition to the fat.

[LacyOkey]

The surgery is pretty darn drastic if you ask me.Honestly I think alot of people consider it.Realistically though why?
This isnt easy and giving up isnt an option.Just do it!
I guess with the surgery you wouldnt have a choice to overeat or not maybe thats the easyness of it.personally the risks out weigh the benfits.
I like to cook my chicken breasts up in bulk and cut them up and store in the frige .That way when I am starving I can grab a handful and am less likely to binge .
This gets easier it really (for me anyways)can seem like your going no where fast.Logging your weight in a thread like the weekly weigh in can help.One by motivating you and Two by realizing there are many in the same boat .
Good luck to you.

[relaxme]

Just to clairify, I don't think surgery would do anything for me since over eating isn't my issue. Yes, on occassion I can eat a lot when it comes to carbs but it was never often and never really more than an average person would eat (I'm pretty sure I'm not in denial about that). It does interest me though, as I mentioned, to find out what they are eating after the surgery.

My metabolism is totally screwed up. I curse the first time I tried to lose 5 lbs as that set this off and the spiral of lose, gain with interest, etc. and so on. I was converted to low fat at 14 when my dad had a heart attack, cut calories over the years, you name it, all the things you've heard of but I always stayed low fat. Even at that, until my 30's I was never more than 30 lbs over and at that time I would have considered that extremely fat for me because I was so conditioned to reject even 1 lb over (thanks to a neurotic mom). The years of low fat are what I hold most responsible as I became hypoglycemic. Add in HRT, stress, and the really significant gains started.

I am in my early 50's now and in the past 10 years or so there seems to be nothing I can figure out when it comes to losing. I gain and gain and gain. I have had spurts of stress where my weight will increase over a lb a day for days and days (as many as 50 at a time) with no increase to food intake. There are others in my family who are like that too and it just seems to darned weird to put on fat when you aren't taking enough food in to warrant it.

I changed doctors when mine kept accusing me of lying about eating fat and with the doctor I have now, and what I have learned explain it was the low fat eating, cutting calories, combined with the other things causing me a lot of problems (boy did that doctor have a fight on his hands trying to convince me to eat butter, do Atkins, drink cream). I really do understand how carbs were killing me, why I should eat low carb, why it should work, and it seems to me my big issue is I just don't seem to be able to eat enough to get the burn going. I like the suggestion to concentrate on moving my muscles and maybe I have become to sedentary and need that to get my appetite back. Tonight and the next few days will see me painting my fence. Maybe that will trigger some hunger.

Today is a good example, I had my whey drink this morning and it's now after 6 PM. I haven't eaten anything else but the drink and had some water and I am not hungry. I have food in the fridge, cooked beef, prepared salad fixings, individually wrapped cheese and I don't want it. If someone said I could have anything I wanted right now (including cookies or bread or cake), I just can't think of a thing I want to eat other than another whey drink a little later.

I guess the other thing I have learned now is that the folks that have the surgery are probably still eating more than I am and that's what I needed to know. Thanks for the info.

[Kisal]

Low-carb diets do have an appetite suppression effect. It happened to me. I actually went an entire week, eating nothing more than 2 cups of coffee with cream every morning. I realized that was not good for me, but I honestly had no appetite at all.

I began setting a kitchen timer to alert me every 4 hours, at which time I would go eat something. I didn't eat a lot, just a couple of deviled egg, or a couple 4" stalks of stuffed celery, maybe a couple of tablespoonfuls of tuna salad. Anyway, you get the idea.

Within 2 weeks, my appetite returned. I no longer needed the kitchen timer, because my stomach would start to growl loudly every 4 or 5 hours! :lol:

That's just how I approached the problem of not having an appetite. It might not be something you want to try, or for that matter, it might not even work for you.

If you believe you'd do better on one of the liquid diets, then maybe that's what you should do, as long as you believe it's a healthy way to eat for the rest of your life.

[Bat Spit]

Relaxme, another poster here, Rightnow, has a similar problem in that if she doesn't eat enough, she won't lose.

I am also a hypoglycemic. I have found that if I keep my carbs too low I don't get appropriate hunger triggers either. You might consider upping your carbs to 30-40 if you're lower than that, or consider a slightly different plan like Life Without Bread which uses 75 as the goal for carbs.

If you add carbs in as a little more fruit and maybe some higher carb veggies like some sweet potato, regular spagetti squash, things like that, you might be able to keep your carbs low enough for the benefits but still have enough appetite to eat.

Is it possible that you have a dairy intolerance? If all you want are the whey shakes, its possible that is an issue.

If you're pretty sure that isn't it, I don't see any reason, if vegetarian is your preferred food selection, why you can't use whey shakes as your protein sources and eat all the veggies you want with some fruit and nuts to round out your meals. I think thats a viable long term plan.

[relaxme]

Thanks for the tips. I really do need to find some sort of combo that works for me and my screwed up metabolism.

Is it possible that you have a dairy intolerance? If all you want are the whey shakes, its possible that is an issue. I'm not sure how me wanting whey shakes would indicate a dairy intolerance. Can you tell me what I would look for to figure that out?

BTW I caught a show the other day on stomach surgeries which answered one of my questions. They said post surgery the diet was at least 60 gms of protein and one or two people mentioned they weren't hungry because of it and had to remember to eat. So I guess it's the same problem for some of them too in that regard.

[CheMari]

I don't know if this is relevant to your question but I read some where that it takes 12 calories to sustain one pound. You multiply your current weight by 12 and this gives you the number of calories that it takes to support your weight. Any thing less would be a deficeit and cause a loss in weight. I try to keep my calories below the limit and carbs below 20. It has worked well for me. I average losing 6-9 pounds per week.

[Bat Spit]

I'm not sure how me wanting whey shakes would indicate a dairy intolerance. Can you tell me what I would look for to figure that out?

It is common in people who have a food intolerance (as opposed to allergy) to crave that food over just about anything, and its usually the hardest of anything to give up.

Some people with dairy food problems have a tendency for gut aches and loose stools and bloating. Some people have sinus and respiratory allergies that go away when we quit. I'm sure there are other people with other problems, but those seem to be the 2 major divisions I've seen here on the forums.

If you like the shakes because they're easy and fast and taste ok, then you're probably fine. If you never want to eat anything else and you crave them when you don't have one, then you might want to skip them for a few weeks and see if you lose better or feel better. Its a very hit or miss proposition to track down food issues.

[~Bri~]

I don't know if this is relevant to your question but I read some where that it takes 12 calories to sustain one pound. You multiply your current weight by 12 and this gives you the number of calories that it takes to support your weight. Any thing less would be a deficeit and cause a loss in weight. I try to keep my calories below the limit and carbs below 20. It has worked well for me. I average losing 6-9 pounds per week.


That's fascinating! Wow, hard to believe I'm eating that many calories... to stay where I am. I'm goign to really have to start keeping a food journal. Thanks for sharing!