I have been diagnosed with hypothyroidism and Hashimoto's disease this year, after 4 1/2 years of low-carbing. But I never thought of it as a "restrictive" diet as I didn't consciously limit calories in any way. Just carbs - plus eliminating gluten grains, sugar, and high-PUFA vegetable oils.

But I can't seem to *add* many carbs back to my diet either, as even a small serving of something carbish - like a little fresh corn on the cob or sweet potato, makes my blood sugar go through the roof! I get PP readings up in the 160s if I add a little extra carbs to my diet.

I mean I tried it the other night when at dinner with friends. I had some fresh corn with my meal, about 1/2 a cob- and stole a few french fries fried in olive oil from my friend's plate. One hour PP reading was 163 and 2 hour PP reading was 154!

Contrast that with today's lunch. It was not carb-free. But I had about 4-5 oz. grass-fed ground beef sauteed with some chopped onion and green pepper, and a bit of tomato sauce, with about 2 tbsp of home-made mayo (using olive oil). My 1 hour PP reading was 121 and my 2 hour PP reading was 116. BIG difference!

So I just can't see increasing my carbs at this point either.

Okay, I understand how your way of "upping" carbs is different from mine.

I now eat many more vegetables, and I don't count the carbs of any vegetable, beit endives, red peppers, onions, leeks, beet...

I have until now only eaten "very high" carb food in the form of one tablespoon of white beans in tomato sauce with my English breakfast last weekend and 1 piece of approx. 40 grams potatoe.

So, I do eat more carbs, but I don't exaggerate

The depressing part many of us are referring to comes quite late in the interview, starting at about the 51:40 mark. My post that started this thread is about that part, which sounds pretty hopeless to me.

I was trying to cheer myself up by thinking that at some calorie level I would just have to lose weight, right? The problem would be to have the will to maintain an extremely low calorie intake.

But maybe even that is not right. I seem to have a memory of a study, perhaps one that Taubes discusses, where obese lab rats actually starved to death while remaining obese. Their bodies couldn't access the fat stored in the fat cells. Anybody remember a study like that?

Yes. Pretty sure you can give yourself a malnutrition-sponsored disease and die prior to losing more fat than your body is willing to lose for god-only-knows-what-reason. You can only reduce carbs and calories both so much before malnutrition is going on.

PJ

Yea, I heard it. I'd pretty much resigned myself to it some time ago. When I stalled out two years ago, and every attempt to resume weight loss just made me gain, I pretty much realized it ain't happening for me. I'm not going back to the 130 of my young adult years. And watching other middle aged, menopausal women here struggle to lose and stall out the same as me, confirmed it.

The problem is the established "experts" in this field - and much of the rest of the population apparently - are so sure they know the answer (eat less, move more) that all effective research into metabolism and hormones seems to be at a standstill. (Of course, when I said that on this forum a few months ago, I was told I was silly.)

The only solution I can see is to climb into a time machine and go back my early 30's and take another run at it. Maybe I'll go low carb before I hit 250.

It isn't a question of calories. It's a question of hormones. For me, even on a very low carb diet, my insulin is too high.

In order to lower insulin, eat low carb. And what if you still have somewhat high insulin on low carb? What do you do next? How do you lower insulin? I don't know.

It also is most emphatically not a question of will.

Yes, that's a theme what comes up frequently in his book and lecture.

You might want to re-read the book, or maybe just listen to his lecture. The most recent one is available on youtube. His whole point is that the whole calorie in, calorie out model is downright flawed. And thinking that if you cut your calories just low enough, you might finally loose weight is an example of calorie in, calorie out.

So yes, he showed several instances, the rats being a striking example, where an animal would literally starve to death because his body is determined not to let go of the fat. The fat becomes a sort of tumour that exists for its own sake, and no longer plays nice with the body.

People aren't fat because they eat too much. They are fat because their body hangs on to fat and won't let go. You eat because you are fat, you aren't fat because you eat. Just like a child will eat more because he is growing, he isn't growing because he's eating.

The million dollar question is why is your body hanging out to its fat with the desperation of a wino hanging on to his bottle. I think that question hasn't quite been fully answered yet. Hopefully one day it will be, but it's discouraging because it seems that scientists aren't even looking in the right direction.

Yeah, that's the $64,000 question, isn't it? I wish I had the answer as well!

Taubes says fat tissue is controlled by hormones. We know that cells become resistant to some hormones. It's reasonable to assume that fat cells also become resistant to the hormones that they would normally respond to. Cutting carbs allows hormones to return to normal which allows fat to release its load of fat and return to normal size.

However, fat cells are not merely fat dumps whereby they simply grow bigger and smaller depending on how much fat they contain at the moment. They also require a vascular and nervous system which doesn't just disappear once we take out the surplus fat. This systems takes time to grow as we grow fatter over the years. It's reasonable to assume that if it's possible to get rid of that supporting tissue, it takes just as much time to do so. However, I don't think this tissue will just be destroyed like that, there must be an incentive like starvation or disease.

Merely cutting carbs will only allow fat mass, and supporting tissue, to return to current potential equilibrium, not past potential. 20 years of applying pressure on hormones and fat tissue has changed homeostasis permanently. Like skin that has been stretched too much.

The human body is not like a corporation where we can just downsize operations by selling buildings for example once we don't need them anymore. There's less fuel being stored but the infrastructure is still there.

Since we changed things by applying pressure one way over many years, it's possible to reverse this by applying pressure the other way over as many years. I'm just saying.

Amen, sister.

I think maybe the answer lies in getting as healthy as you possibly can, using strategies that are mentioned on several forward-thinking blogs. Things like normalizing your vitamin D and magnesium levels, re balancing your omega-3 and omega-6 ratios. Basically trying to correct all the issues that our modern diet has introduced. We know that our ancestors did not get obese. We know many different populations who eat their native diets and do not get obese. We know that the minute they start eating sugar and flour and the rest, they become sick and fat. Maybe reversing the cause of the obesity will cure the obesity, or it might be, and that's where Gary Taube was heading I think, that once the damage is done, it's irreversible.

But I think that we can console ourselves with one thing. If in our efforts to lose weight we achieve health, we are way ahead of the game. Being fat becomes pretty darn unimportant when you are faced with losing your mobility, your life, or your mental faculties.


Excellent points Martin. It might be that all those people who have "stalled" on the diet, haven't so much stalled as reached their equilibrium point.

However, here's a black swan to your theory. If that is true, why do people who undergo gastric bypass surgery usually achieve a more or less normal weight ?

It's not a black swan, it's the other side of what I wrote. If we got here by applying pressure one way for x years, then it's possible to apply pressure the opposite way the same amount of years. Gastric bypass means we starve all the time. Even if we eat a low carb high fat diet. Like I said, for that tissue to be destroyed, there must be an incentive like starvation or disease. Starvation will do.

But they don't.

They lose a lot of weight, but then gain a lot of it back. In the meantime, they are a great many absorption, malnutrition, and serious illness issues that make eating a real gamble.

I think the missing element is hormonal, and it is an ignored specialty. They can handle hormones completely missing in a sorta way, but nuance is beyond them.

From what I read, liposuction can make a difference. If you forcibly remove extra fat cells, your body may have an easier time shedding the fat away afterward. This would remove some inflammation and lower the amount of leptin produced, thus helping to lower leptin resistance and other negative hormonal feedback loops.

Patrick

ABSOLUTELY TRUE! I had to write a research paper for Anatomy & Physiology class, and I wrote it on Celiac disease. What happens in the body is gluten permeates through the wall of the small intestine into the lymph fluid, this causes the auto-immune reaction. Because the wall of the small intestine has been compromised (the killer T cells attack the cells of the small intestine)...and it is in this layer of the small intestine where the enzymes to digest dairy are produced. So, it makes perfect sense from a physiologic perspective why celiacs cannot digest dairy, the layer of the small intestine where the lactase is produced and released from is damaged by the gluten.