Disillusioned...?

[bigalxyz]

Hello forum,

I'm a new member here but I've been following a low carbohydrate diet for much of the last 6 years. I think I have a fairly good understanding of the science behind it. In particular, I've read both of Gary Taubes' books on nutrition, which were very instructive.

But...

It seems to have stopped working for me.

I have always struggled with my weight, but going down the low carb route in 2005 was quite a revelation - I lost something like 30 pounds with very little effort. The first 10 days or so were difficult (the usual stuff - headaches, light-headed, tired, irritable, etc.) but after that I started to feel very well indeed.

I've been prone to lapses, which has meant that I've tended to lose weight and then regain it. Nevertheless I went back to it, and in 2009 I went zero carb for about 6 months, lost a lot of weight, and felt fitter & stronger than I had for 20 years.

Again, though, I've regained the weight I lost, and more besides. This is in spite of continuing to eat very few carbs. I think I've gained about 50 pounds in the last 2 years - A LOT.

I have suffered from recurrent bouts of quite severe depression during my adult life, often lasting a year or more - and when depressed I tend to overeat, oversleep and get very little exercise. I guess these things are no help with weight loss (nor are some of the meds I've taken)...and this was what happened during 2010 and the first half of 2011, where I did almost nothing and sometimes was 99% bedbound.

Also in June 2011 I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a result no doubt of my weight gain & lack of exercise over the last year or two. Currrently however this is being controlled very successfully with metformin (1500mg daily) - my blood glucose levels are absolutely normal now.

Thanks to a change in medication, my depression has improved enormously in the last 3 or 4 months. Also the medication I'm taking - bupropion (wellbutrin) - is associated with weight loss rather than weight gain. And I've been getting much more exercise. 6 months ago I could barely walk to the end of my street, but now I can do 15-20 mile walks without too much difficulty.

So that's all good news, and I'm delighted to be feeling so much better. But the weight just isn't shifting. I rarely eat starchy carbs, VERY rarely eat sugar, and I don't drink often. I'm more physically active. But my excess baggage remains. This causes me a lot of worry & distress.

I would also like to think that if I could really lose the excess weight, the diabetes would be reversed and that I might no longer need to take metformin. But how am I going to do this? Controlling my appetite has always been a problem with me. Avoiding carbohydrates is the only way I've ever found of doing it, and for a few years it worked very well, but now even this seems not to be working.

Grateful for any suggestions, advice, etc. :help:

Many thanks,

Alan.

[bigalxyz]

I should add: the way I worded the end of that posting made it sound as though my motivation for losing weight is to control my diabetes. This is obviously important, but equally important is my psychological state - I am very self-conscious about my body and I have a terrible body image, don't like being touched, and so on. This causes me more distress than I know how to describe.

[kidzma]

I'm new here too and it is because of diabetes. I am also morbidly obese but began my downword weight loss journey by following tha ADA guidelines until my bloodwork came back A1c 11.2 and my first test with a monitor 387. So much for low fat! Now I have until mmid Dec. to gain control or insulin begins! Hopefully we can get lots of inspiration and help from those who have already been there. This seems like a wonderful place with wonderful people. They will help us succeed!

[Kirsteen]

I'm really sorry to hear that you've had such a tough time with depression. It is a terrible illness, and many people simply don't understand how disabling it is.

I feel a bit awkward making any specific suggestions regarding your diet, because we are all different, and you have been low-carbing for a lot longer than I have and probably know far more than me about it. I do think that keeping a strict journal and using My Plan to count absolutely everything you eat, including calories, might enable you to find a way forward.

My own thoughts are these:

I think that you shouldn't worry too much about the excess weight shifting right now.. You will be building up your muscle and changing your metabolism by being more active now, and over time, these changes will start to impact on your weight. You need to give it time. Many people find that it is harder to lose weight on a low-carb diet after regaining it.

Regarding your boom and bust eating: I wouldn't be able to stick to ultra-low carb all the time. I'd find it too limiting. Instead of eating ultra-low carb and going through lapses where you regain all the lost weight, you need to find a way of evening out your eating. Over time, you need to learn how to include some carbs in your diet and learn how to moderate your food intake to avoid blood sugar spikes, without relying heavily on the medication - try to view that as a safety net. I myself am not diabetic, but I had dreadful blood sugar problems when I started low-carbing, and it took a lot of trial and error before I managed to get a handle on them. I agree that it is easier to keep to ultra-low carb, but if you can strictly limit your carbs, then it is really worth experimenting to find a balance which agrees with you, and gives you sufficient nutrients and a more interesting diet. Can I suggest that you start by adding some garlic to every meal - even breakfast. Garlic really helped me to control my blood sugar. Then try adding another vegetable - preferably one with plenty of fiber - to lunch and dinner - keep the quantity small and stick with the same vegetable so you can guage it's effect. Every few days, change the vegetable to another with plenty of fibre, and see how that feels. Very, very slowly, start to raise the number of carbs you eat in your lunch and evening meal, but keep the breakfast as close to zero-carb as possible. After you have built up a variety of vegetables, I personally would suggest that you skip the fruit and try adding in a very small quantity of lentils, chick peas, or another pulse/legume - try a teaspoonful at lunch and dinner, and see how that works for you. I personally have found small quantites of those very, very helpful in my diet. They're satisfying and take a long time to digest, so they don't spike the blood sugar, and stay in the stomach for ages, so you don't feel hungry. People think they are carby, but in fact, they aren't that bad if you only add a small amount. The counts vary, but I think a tablespoon is about 10 carbs. I only cook lentils from raw.. All the other legumes I buy already cooked in jars which I can keep in the fridge, and use gradually.

Another thing I'd like to suggest is that you try specific diets. Dr. Bernstein has reversed his own diabetes through his diet.. I have found the Atkins diet very helpful in controlling my own blood sugar issues, and I'd recommend reading the New Diet Revolution book, because Dr. Atkins does go through a lot of different suggestions for people who cannot lose or are stalled. I also try to avoid thinking of sweet stuff and don't drink strong caffeine beverages.

As far as your feelings about your body go.. How about trying a hand or foot massage, just to start you feeling a bit more comfortable with physical contact? You could also try a shoulder massage, with your clothes on. I wonder if you have a loving physical relationship with someone? Having a good, close and loving relationship makes the world of difference in terms of how one feels about one's body. I personally had very little confidence when I was slim and in great shape.. After more life experience and having gained well over 100lbs, I felt desirable, sexy and good about myself, not as a result of changes in myself, but as a result of forming a close and loving physical relationship with a well-adjusted, affectionate person who valued me for myself and wasn't looking for a supermodel and was very happy with me just the way I was. You might find some cognitive behaviour therapy useful to combat your feelings about your body, but there is nothing like someone loving you to heal feelings of low self-worth. In terms of my own physical preferences, I am not aesthetically or physically attracted to skinny people, and don't really like the way they look - male or female. Given a choice, I would select someone plump or fat over someone thin or slim. That is honest. Having said that, I have a boyfriend whom I really love and I want him to be as healthy as possible, so obviously I am happy with whatever size he is, and love him equally well regardless. There is a lot of peer pressure and media influence nowadays which pushes people towards feeling that they have to be thin or slim, but in fact, we are all different, and there are many of us who find fuller figures more pleasing to the eye. I know that my ideas are nothing to do with you, and you'll know all this anyway, so I hope that I am not aggravating you, but I do hope that you can begin to look for positive things in your body and start to enjoy your life more. There's a section in this forum about body issues, and I am sure that you will benefit from going there and reading the advice given to others about the issue.

I wish you all the very best with your diet and hope that you become a regular poster here and find the support you need to turn things around.

(((Hugs)))

[bigalxyz]

Thank you!

I'll reply in more detail later, but one thing just occurred to me: I'm in the UK, not the US (which is where I assume the majority of this forum's members live), and I think the word "carbohydrate" is used slightly differently here. If I'm not mistaken, fibre (or fiber!) is considered (for these purposes) to be a carbohydrate in the US but over here it's not - fibre is considered to be separate from starchy carbohydrates.

What this means I guess is that when I've eaten what I call a zero carb diet, it has still contained quite a lot of fibre from (non-starchy) vegetables & salad leaves, etc. Just no starch & no sugar.

Just thought I'd clarify that, in case of any confusion.

More later...

Alan.

[bigalxyz]

~kidzma in spite of my difficulties with weight loss, I'm convinced that a low carb diet is very useful for diabetes. The "Diabetes UK" organisation (our equivalent of the ADA) also advocates basing the diet on regular amounts of starchy carbohydrates. Given that starch is just chains of glucose molecules, chains that the body very quickly breaks down (using amylase), giving that advice to someone whose body has difficulty handling glucose seems REALLY STUPID to me. And yet they continue to give out that message, as do most doctors.

Your HBa1c figure of 11.3 is high, granted. I suspect though that if you can cut out the carbs for a while, you'll see it drop. Mine got up to about 9.7 but is now back down at 6.3. The metformin may have helped a bit too, but (from what I can gather) this alone wouldn't account for such a big difference - more likely to be a result of me avoiding carbohydrates and being more physically active.

[bigalxyz]

~kirsteen re: your comments about body image, etc. I'm not in a relationship at the moment. In fact I haven't been in a relationship for about 9 years, which is when my ex-wife and I split up. I think I need to learn to like myself again, and I don't think I've been very successful at that. I hate looking in the mirror, for example. If I accidentally catch sight of myself in a mirror I avert my eyes immediately - it's too painful to stare directly. Objectively I know I don't look that bad - I see far worse a thousand times a day just walking along the street - but I've learned to hate my body and that's proving very difficult to cope with.

The massage idea is interesting - I used to have a full body massage quite regularly (once a month, perhaps) but not for a long time. Again, it would be uncomfortable at first, although it might be something I could cope with - and I can see why you think it would be helpful. You might be right.

I doubt if me being single for 9 years has much to do with the way I look. I think it has much more to do with what's going on inside my mind - I've usually been very isolated, reluctant to meet new people, and very anxious when I do, which means that the side of my personality that appears when I'm feeling relaxed - I can be quite witty and charming - remains hidden, and instead I'm stiff and incredibly inhibited.

I have a lot of work to do...

It looks like I'm going to be able to join a local group CBT course soon. I'm familiar with how CBT works so I may well use these group sessions to explore some of this stuff. I'm kind of only living half a life at the moment, and time marches on - I don't want to look back on my life in 40 years' time and wonder how much more it could have been :-(

[Kirsteen]

Can I make another suggestion.. If you can really brace yourself to be strong, how about going swimming? You could choose a quiet time, such as around 5-6pm when most people are eating, (or phone ahead to ask the staff what day and time the pool is most quiet) then once there, choose a changing room/locker near the pool/shower, so that you don't have far to walk before getting into the pool, and just go for it. It will be very difficult to do it initially, but I think once you've done it once or twice, it won't feel so difficult, and I think it will help you to accept your body a bit more. It's also a great way to get some exercise and if it's a leisure pool then you can potter around and relax afterwards. You could go once or twice a week. It's low impact and can be very relaxing. As I told you before, I used to feel terrible about myself, and I forced myself to go swimming, and it made a huge difference very quickly. I stopped feeling so self-conscious and in a relatively short time, my body streamlined into something akin to an olympic swimmer (I was very slim back then, so it didn't take long). I do recommend it both for exercise, confidence and as a way of relaxing. I used several different pools on different days/times of day, but my favourite was a leisure pool which had an outdoor part with piped music. It was quite magical on winter nights, with snow falling softly and the (warm) water steaming slightly, listening to love songs over the tannoy while swimming around - usually with the pool to myself, as I went late at night and less people ventured outside when it was cold.

Another suggestion I have is that you join a social group. I don't know where you live, but there is an organisation called "Spice" which organises social events for people.. http://www.spiceuk.com/home?handshaked=true

There's one where I live and I have heard good things about it.. I believe there a lot more women than men at these events, so you might find yourself at a premium ;). If you can't afford something like Spice, then depending on where you live, you might find something which is run by members and not so expensive, or even a night class, if you're able to join one at this stage in the year. You could try something which puts you into physical contact with people, like ballroom dancing, jive or salsa, or a martial arts course.. or one which reflects your interests. I think a lot of men find it a lot easier to socialise if there is a focus for activity.

In terms of a relationship with a woman.. remember that you don't really need to like yourself to be in a relationship.. You only need to be liked and like the other person, and actually you can start with platonic friendships and just take things slowly. :).

I agree that you need to grasp your life with both hands, particularly at times like now, when the depression is under control. I'd be so happy if you were to try at least one of my suggestions and stick at it.. :D

[Seejay]

I too have had depression and difficulty with weight loss.

Have you had your vit D and mineral levels checked? In particular, iodine, selenium, and magnesium. Those are connected with depression and a previous life of excess carbs (the carbs deplete minerals).

I was low carb for years and didn't know I was massively low in vit D. (the range here is 50-80 ng/mil and mine was 5!!)

How's your omega3 intake? Compared to omega6?

Also, are you having organ meats with your low carb, or just muscle meats? without organ meats like liver, kidney, bones, skin, it's hard to get good minerals.

[amandawald]

Hi Alan,

I'd like to come back later (when I have time, which might not be till next week) so for now I'm just subscribing.

Just one formal thing about using the 'at' sign on this forum. Because email addresses will apparently attract some kind of computer bug, all any email addresses which have the 'at' sign in them will automatically get changed to that squiggle you see above.

So, if you want to address someone in particular, just write "Hi" or "To" or something other than the 'at' sign.

I like to use the quote button or to copy and paste the bits I want to respond to and use the quote facility to separate it from the rest of my own text.

Oh, and hello from a fellow Brit!!! I live in Germany now, but I still proudly hold a UK passport (well, apart from when there are riots or football hooligans going bonkers etc!!!).

Take care,

amanda

[heirloom10]

hi there... i feel your pain :(. the other day i found this, i thought you may be interested.

http://www.krispin.com/imagine.html

i don't believe in god in the christian way, so whenever the article mentions god i just think something like "the universal life force". it really helps to get the bad thoughts out of the head, it was kind of an epiphany at least for me to read that article.

you might also consider reading this http://www.krispin.com/magnes.html#Deficiency . magnesium (the right kind) is good for the mental health and ... bodily health.

[Nancy LC]

I'd suggest getting your thyroid checked out. Hypothyroid can sneak up on one and you might not notice the myriad symptoms that go with it because they come on so gradually. It can certainly derail weight loss.

It does affect women more often than men, but that doesn't mean men are immune by any means!

[WereBear]

Don't let your weight become the excuse for your social problems. People think "If only I were slim and gorgeous!" but confidence is not entirely built of such externals. Sixty pounds made a great difference in my appearance, but not my personality!

It's great that the depression is lifted, but don't forget that all the "habits of mind" you created are still there. Shyness is a matter of practice, and most shy people never get out and realise they can relax and the world won't fall in. You get into a bad habit of not relaxing and not showing that witty, comfortable side you spoke of. It doesn't matter a bit what you look like then!