A topic floating around in side my head for some time (rattling more like as there isnt much else in there).

Those of you familiar with the 'Montignac Method' will know that his diet is based on the concept of lowering insulin levels (amongst other concepts) but how he interprets this is by dividing carbs into those that have a low glycaemic index (below 50) and those that have a high glycaemic index.

I'm totally into the low carb way of thinking but when I read Atkins and ever since, I wondered why no mention of glycaemic index came up.

Doreen you may be able to answer this - having been a diabetic (and now again recently), I would assume that this glycaemic index is kosher as a concept. We are always advised to eat complex carbs because they release slowly into the blood stream and even out blood sugar levels. Avoid fruit because they give you a big peak and then disappear quickly.

On this topic - my question is - why do we solely concentrate on carbs and not on the types and frequency of carb ingestion? If some carbs promote a lower insulin release than others are these more allowable?? Presumably 40 carbs of chocolates has a more dramatic effect on your insulin levels than 40 carbs of veges?? IE: Not all carbs are created equal. Therefore we should be able to eat a larger number of some kinds of carbs than others.



Issue 2, I'm a bit concerned about maintaining blood sugar at a certain level because again, with diabetes you get it drummed into you that you musnt let your blood sugar drop below about 1.5??? Currently I dont have a testing kit so I dont know what level I'm at, and being non insulin dependent (yay!!) I've just been given the standard diet of about 50 gms of carbohydrate per meal with preference given to complex carbs and less fruit.

I dont have any symptoms of hypoglycaemia? so I presume that what I'm doing is healthy and I'm having another GTT next week (doesnt that stuff make you want to throw up??) ( to say nothing of getting a sore bum from sitting around so long...) which I really hope will show enough of an improvement to get me back into the normal range. I know Atkins does a diabetic book which I have on order but as I seem to be getting more and more angry/stressed on a daily basis (out of character) and I do need to try some additional B vitamins but I've got a funny feeling it is due to low blood sugar. So I suppose what I'm saying is - do type 2 diabetics have any issues with low blood sugar and need to eat certain types of carbs or more regularly or what?

Issue 3 - I know Ketostix are not a favourite topic of some and that their pinkness can vary for a range of reasons but if your sticks are always pink therefore you are losing fat but are there any rules of thumb as to what that rate is likely to be?? I mean can you have pink sticks and only lose a pound in a month or does it tend to mean that you'll lose at least a pound a week.

Issue 4 - Does anybody out there with an electronic scale have trouble getting them to settle on a weight?? I presume it has to do with being very heavy but my scales constantly flicker across a 6lb range and the only way I know that I'm losing weight is that that range gets lower and lower each week. I assume that theres nothing wrong with the scales as my 11 stone husband doesnt have any problem with them. Does anyone else find this or should I just get new scales???

Something more positive now...Went past a fat persons clothing shop today (sorry no star trek uniforms) and went in and tried a few things on and discovered that I have dropped 2 dress sizes in just over 4 weeks

Nicola

I bought a new electronic scale 2 weeks ago. I think its a pretty good one (certainly not cheap). Perhaps it is too intelligent and was accidentally imbued with a sense of humor. I think it produces random numbers for fun. Between going to bed at 12:30 last night and waking up at 6:30 this morning, I gained 14 pounds. But that's ok because one day last week I lost 8 pounds during breakfast. Luckily I kept the old Healthometer analog scale that shows me at one consistent weight every day. There is no rhyme or reason to its madness.

As for ketosis and weight loss, I have been wondering the same thing. My caloric intake should have me losing about 1/2 pound a day and my carbs are always under 20, yet here I sit. Same weight, day in and day out. Those strips are purple which should mean I'm burning fat but I don't think I am. Some people on the board talk about things that stop weight loss (like lemon juice and aspartame) but if you look at it logically that should not be able to make THAT much difference. I would like to truly understand the chemistry of weight loss but I'm coming to the conclusion that it may all be ...magic/voodoo? ... divine intervention? ... karma? .... luck? .... happenstance? I don't know. And it appears that no one else knows either. My rational scientific mind is screaming for answers but there do not appear to be any.

As for different kinds of carbs, you are absolutely right. I could eat a girl scout cookie for 2 or 3 carb grams or eat a salad for the same carbs and have a drastically different outcome. I have a friend who was born and raised in Europe and now lives here. She did Atkins for a few weeks and then added in her favorite bread which is pretty much nuts and seeds glued together. It is not the kind of bread an American would choose to eat but she loves it. It is high in carbs but she has found that the difference between having a slice or two of that a day versus a bowl of pasta for the same carbs is astonishing. It really makes a huge difference in how she feels. Obviously, there are categories of carbohydrate and maybe we need to spend more time identifying what they are and what foods fall into what category. There is much more to this than just the number in the daily carb counter.

Sometimes with diets we get so caught up with the shape of the bark on the trees that we really do miss the forest. My husband is following weight watchers and counting points. The other night I served Swordfish and rice and salad (I didn't eat the rice). Afterwards when he counted up the points he had gone over because Swordfish is very rich in Omega 3 oils and therefore has a high fat content. He said that he can't afford to eat fattening foods like this on WW. But really, Swordfish is incredibly healthy and certainly not fattening. But WW preaches the low fat mantra which encourages York Peppermint Patties over Swordfish. How smart is that?

Hi Patti

I'm so glad I'm not the only one with totally annoying scales, I've been wanting to go down to the shopping centre and weigh myself down there but its very public and I keep feeling too embarrassed to do it.

I must admit I keep wondering about how healthy low carbing is and I already know for a fact that WW is not healthy. My mother did it for five years and ended up with malnutrition type conditions.

I've got a sneaking suspicion that the more you eat on this diet the more it works. I also think that a reasonable amount of low glycaemic carbs balanced throughout the day helps rather than hinders. I'm a healthy eater but when I look at what Karen eats each day, I probably only eat about 1/2 as much. Also I definitely feel better if I have a reasonable amount of carbs (50) spread fairly evenly throughout the day. I think I'm going to do some more reading on the whole low carb thing as bits of it dont seem quite right (although it does work).

I find one of the problems to be that the appetite suppression is so strong that I have to push myself to remember to eat and if I'm busy like tonight with my ratbaggy little baby, I didnt even think about dinner until after 11pm. Also healthwise, whilst I feel more energetic, I'm getting lots of niggling little things like brittle nails, lots of cold sores because of the arginine in many of the foods on the diet, a frequent slightly sore throat to say nothing of the uncontrollable stress monster and a few gallstone attacks.

A friend of mine is doing what appears to be a low fat, high protein, montignac type diet and he has lost a lot of weight. Its an interesting arrangement of food but quantities are strictly controlled and the food range eaten is very restricting.

I suppose on this diet its also very hard for you to eat the quantities required and that could be holding you back. But for me like it or not, this is the only diet I've found that I can stick to so I'd be too scared to stop doing it, lest I end up a fat person for the rest of my days.

Have you read the Montignac Method?? Its a strange diet which seems to hybridise elements from a number of different diets but again I do know quite a number of people who have lost weight on it. It really differentiates between 'natural foods' and processed foods and these correlate quite clearly to 'glycaemic index'.

He also has the idea that you dont eat fats and carbs at the same meal as the insulin released causes the fat to be stored as fat there and then. There is quite a bit of logic there. If blood glucose falls fairly quickly, presumably insulin does correspondingly therefore what is to stop you eating carbs at one meal and then eating fats 4 or 5 hours later. Surely the insulin produced earlier on would have gone by then??

I think dieting is like what they say about advertising - 50% of it works but nobody knows which 50%!!

Got to go, no peace in this household, baby's waking up again!!!

Nicola

That's 'cause there are NO fat people in the United Federation of Planets! They obviously ALL low-carb! You notice Captain Picard putting sugar in his Earl Grey (hot) tea? You notice Klingon "glucckkkk" being served with a side of toast? You notice half-eaten bags of Snackwells lying around the observation deck? And what does THAT tell us?

I've got my uniform on order....I like maroon!

Rachel

Another trekkie!!!!

Rachel - why does that not surprise me?

In England we have a saying - 'Sad, seriously sad'.

Nicola

Scales: We had electronic scales for a time and found that it depended upon the location it sat as to how much we weighed. It became too easy to look for fast progress and if it wasn't there we felt defeated and depressed over it, gave up and ate junk. We now go to the clinic to weigh in on their scales once a week.
I had a young couple walk by me a few weeks ago while I was weighing myself. They probably would have kept on walking if I hadn't burst out with laughter and screamed my enthuisiasm as for the first time in ten years I went under the 200 lb mark on the scales. But they turned and I smiled and the man rolled his eyes and shook his head like I was a freak. I am! Love it! I heard the man say to his wife that he was sure glad that she didn't weigh a ton like the lardo on the scales! Ignorance is also in the tongue! I was stunned when I discovered that his comment only made me laugh and pity his rudeness because he wasn't aware of my progress. When I weigh in, I don't care who walks by because I know what I'm doing and who I'm doing it for. If you weigh in and are determining your progress on a daily basis, you may become discouraged over the fluctuations. Try weighing once a week or bi-weekly or even once a month! Begin to think of yourself, not as fat, but as becoming a healthy person and smile a lot. Smiling is great!
Size: I think one of the first things that I read in the book "The Type ll Diabetes Diet" was that weighing in was optional and not a good indicator of fat loss. Muscle weighs more than fat and when you begin to replace fat with more lean muscle from your excercise routines, you will not see a significant weightloss on the scales. However your body will change in proportion and tone up giving you smaller sizes and more selections at the shop.
Sugar: I now try to put into practice the thought of eating like an infant. We feed our babies natural foods, low in sugar and no preservatives and then as they grow we add what we eat and poof we have new heart attacks waiting to bloom when they are grown! Now, being an artist has it's strange quarky things in it and it makes me think of things differently. I'm not afraid to ask a dumb question and I wait for a satisfying answer that my right brain can understand. Sometimes I have to read and do extensive research, but then I have an understanding of how and why things work. Have you ever seen what sugar actually does to a human cell? Have you seen what it does to an organ or a cancerous tumor? They all go wild with either increased growth, movement or they go into shock! I'm not a scientist, but my brothers, father and many other relatives are (I'm the odd in the bunch) and they profess that of all the evils to put in our bodies, the major one is what sugars do to it. By the way they are all at their ideal weights and are healthy and they have always been meat eaters!

If your diabetic and your on this diet, don't do alcohol! Oh, except for Sunday Communion. That's a given. Alcohol is sugar and probably the biggest stopper of fat loss that you can do.
Oops.. I went on way to long. Sorry for the time and for you having to read all of this.

Kat

Not at all. Thank you for your wisdom and your courage.

Nicola

Why is the grass green? Why is the sky blue? Why is there air? ...

There is much confusion, misinformation, arguments for and against Glycemic Index being used as a dietary tool, diabetics, yada, yada, yada. Phew, my eyeballs hurt from all the reading. I'm working on answers to these questions, and will be posting SOON .. .

In the meantime, I will post here my thoughts on ketone sticks

First, ketone strips only indicate that ketones are present, meaning fat is being burned as fuel. They do not indicate whether it is BODY fat, or dietary fat from a recent meal. Another factor which can give false positive, or falsely high readings is dehydration .. if you're not drinking enough to keep the ketones flushed out of your system, they will accumulate and concentrate. This can work against you because the high concentration of ketones in the blood will inhibit further fat-burning. So, drink up.

As for being in ketosis, this is a YMMV (your mileage may vary) thing. Generally, if you are following very low carb intake, such as during Atkins Induction (20 carbs) you "should" be in ketosis. At higher carb levels, you will be burning fat and losing weight, but the ketone sticks may not register the ketone losses. Note that some lowcarb programs such as Protein Power and Carbo. Addicts are NOT ketogenic, yet are very successful for fat- and weight-loss.

Make sure the sticks are fresh, and kept stored airtight and away from moisture. Make sure your fingers are dry when you go to dig out a stick....... moisture in the air or on your hands will inactivate the chemical in the little pads on the end of the sticks. Check the expiry date on the package, and discard any unused sticks 6 months after opening.

The time of day that you test makes a difference too. The LEAST amount of ketones will show in the morning, the MOST "generally" in the late afternoon/early evening, after you've been active for the day.

So, one can see that the ketone sticks are not really a useful gauge for the RATE of fat loss. Dark sticks don't always mean big losses of fat, and wonderful whoosh losses can come with sticks that never turn. However, they can be useful for new starters on Induction, and during the gradual increase of carb intake to determine one's CCL (critical carb limit) to see if one is on the right track. Atkins himself states that you should only be looking for the least trace of ketones, which is indication enough that ketosis and fat-burning is taking place. The concern over "I must get the sticks to show as dark as possible" is unfounded, and unnecessary.

Doreen

Thanks Doreen

I'm sure that a lot of people here didnt realise (although the logic is clearly there with hindsight) that the Ketostix dont differentiate between the burning of dietary or stored fat. Therefore as you say, their only purpose is to tend to indicate that you havent 'fallen off the wagon' and depending on the individual, this may also not be accurate.

Many thanks for the perspective.

Nicola

Me again, you will all be sick of my questions,


I noticed this thread and wonder if I have missed something, I can't recall finding any mention of ketosis being necessary in the montignac book. Are we aiming for ketosis here or not. I thought I had seen the end of peeing on those sticks.

you are most definitely not aiming for ketosis whilst on Montignac.

I've no idea why this thread is here!

spang