Hmmm...OK, I finally read the details of South Beach...I guess my previous impression based on friends who like that diet was a bit misinformed. I am not someone who does well eating required snacks...I guess that is just in Phase I...

On my experimental journey to determine whether I can manipulate LDL, my first experiment, for the next week, will include 3 meals a day with no longer than a 14-hour overnight fast, limited saturated fat (basically lots of lean meats), increased fiber (lots of low carb veggies at each meal), as high carb as I am willing to go (3 fruits per day plus 2oz whole grains per day), and nonfat milk (!gasp!). My doctor will think that is healthy. It might be restrictive enough in fats, sugar and starch to allow a tiny bit of fat loss. At least I don’t think it will cause fat gain. I can probably stick with it through social eating while my DH is off work this week. I will run labs after a week of that plan. It will be interesting to see what limiting fasting while possibly allowing for fat loss (on a meal plan my doctor would approve) does to my LDL. Depending on the result, I might run 5 days of Stillman’s followed by 2 days of Keto (which is a combination that usually helps me shed fat) as my next experiment.

Hey Nemaste! Hope you are well.

I finished my first LDL-lowering experiment. In 10 days of being less than perfect in my “healthy diet” plan with no fasting (described in my prior post), I managed to drop my LDL 30% - low enough that I am no longer in the “needs immediate statins” category - my doctor will be satisfied with that result (though I think she will be stunned that such a big swing was possible). The experiment also dropped my HDL 16%, but it is still quite high, which will keep my doctor happy. I had planned to jump back into Stillman’s+Keto as my next experiment, but I decided it would be easier to drop all carbs if I first raised fats back up. For the next 5 days, I am trying Dave Feldman’s “lean mass hyper-responder” protocol (which basically involves eating strict Keto with lots of fat the 3 days before a blood draw). These 5 days of high-fat eating should make it easier to either follow Stillman’s or to intermittent fast, and it will validate that eating super high fat prior to having labs drawn does produce low LDL for me. I expect the impact on my LDL to be good. I am really curious to learn how Stillman’s impacts my LDL...

I finally got the results back from my second LDL-lowering experiment. For 5 days, I radically increased fats (dropping carbs back to below 20g) and ate above maintenance, all based on Dave Feldman’s “lean mass hyper-responder” protocol. My LDL dropped an additional 30 points for a total drop of 93 points or about 42% below the level that freaked out my doctor. My latest test put me just under the “optimal” cutoff for people with no cardio risk factors. My HDL also went back up 10%, which is good, I gather.

I am now almost 1 week into my third experiment which is alternate daily fasting with more generous carbs (lots of veggies plus 2 fruits per day for about 70g including fiber). I’ve decided to follow this pattern for a couple of weeks to see how that impacts LDL, as the aggressive daily fasting I did last Fall might have played a roll in producing the LDL spike. I will experiment with Stillman’s after this. Oh, and I dropped a pound below my low from 2020! .

So I haven’t posted here in an eternity… I’m back on the boards, still trying and failing at getting my weight down. The problem right now doesn’t seem to be sticking to a plan, the problem is, I just can’t seem to drop any weight. I’ve practically tried everything but after a few weeks of not seeing any losses I quit, it’s so demotivating.

It seems I’ve reached that dreaded age. I’m now beating myself up wondering why I didn’t get my A into G much sooner. I’d come across women in the past claiming that their hormones were playing havock with their weight loss but I never really got it until now. Over the last few months, I’ve followed Keto and south beach and Dukan with no joy, in fact I even went up a pound or two. So here I am yo-yo dieter me making a pact with myself to give Stillman another go… it worked before so it could work again I reason. Tomorrow will be my day 1 and all I can do for now is promise to give it my best shot. I’m so very miserable right now…

Nemaste! So nice to see you back! I just returned myself Oct 1. (I decided to try journaling here to see if that helps me stay on track.)

Sending cosmic hugs…it is truly frustrating to work hard and see no results. I hope a bit of Stillman’s jump starts some progress for you.

Hey there!
Thanks so much, it’s really nice to hear from you! Also, thanks for the cosmic hug, I really needed one. My metabolism is shot but I’m hoping Stillman will get things moving again. It’s not a long term plan but it’s where I’m at right now. How are things with you? I’ll drop by your journal and say hi.

I wanted to respond to this earlier, but had to leave to get my walking in, and I knew my response would be long!

I am quite a bit older than you are (I recently turned 65). Perhaps some of what I have heard/found about “aging metabolism” might be helpful. All of these ideas are theories of various clinicians who specialize in fat loss in menopausal women. Of course, nothing applies to everyone equally…

In no particular order:

1. The first idea (which I hated when I first heard it) is that as women approach and go through menopause, their bodies become “more reactive to stress”. This isn’t so much the idea of “calm down emotionally” rather it is about paying attention to the stress your body experiences. Apparently estrogens(?) buffer stress responses, the decline in estrogens take some getting used to. The recommendations to address this are 1) use slow, long duration movement (long walks, maybe gentle yoga) instead of hard cardio (yay! hate heart pounding cardio); 2) practice stress-reduction techniques that leave you feeling relaxed and positive about yourself. Some examples of stress-reduction practices are things like visualization/self-hypnosis, meditation/prayer, chanting, singing, playing with puppies/babies, soaking in Epsom Salts (whole bath, or just feet), saunas, massage, sitting in nature, gentle yoga, basically any activity that leaves you feeling relaxed, refreshed and good about yourself. The idea is to devote some time to these activities at least 3 times per week, but daily is even more useful if that doesn’t add more stress.

2. Another claim is that older women might need more protein and fewer carbs than younger women. All of the diets you and I follow are already well-aligned with that, but it is nice to hear research supports that!

3. Strength training, jump training, “high intensity interval training” are good stresses as long as you rest enough to recover in between. The idea is to work toward higher intensity (like train to failure) but for a shorter time period. It seems it might be better to do 1 heavy set to failure and keep the session brief (20-30 minutes) rather than doing 5 sets of 12 in a 1-2 hour session.

4. Restorative sleep is essential, even as it can become more difficult. I wish I knew how to fix this one for me!

5. Saving the worst for last…it seems it often takes 6-8 weeks of “doing everything right” before older female bodies show any progress. It can help to just focus on a plan you know should serve you, and judge success by how well you stick to the plan (assuming you are eating enough protein, moving, relaxing, and practicing keeping a positive view of yourself). No one seems to have useful theories about why we might see no results in the beginning, but it seems common. Some clinicians think it might be about hormonal balance, others think it might have something to do with water retention. I know I often start in January all “gung ho” to shed holiday pudge, stick carefully to a strict low carb eating plan, but fail to see any results until March. I thought it might be a seasonal thing. But, maybe it is just that 6-8 week hump that clinicians see. This year, I started attending zoom sessions in Jason Fung’s fasting clinic, heard this 6-8 week hump idea, and decided to just relax, eat low carb, do the alternate day fasting, and not expect any movement in my waistline until March. Sure enough, I saw no progress until March but then got nice results when I stayed on plan.

I hope some of that is useful.

I will be here cheering you on!

I m so grateful for this! I’ve never been the most patient person so maybe there is a lesson here for me to learn. Not gonna lie though, the thought of doing everything right with no progress for the first 6 weeks fills me with anxiety but I guess I just have to trust the process especially as nothing else seems to be working for me. When I feel discouraged, I’ll come back and read your post.

I watched a YouTube video by Jason Fung recently, he has a lot of followers who swear by his principles. Maybe I should buy his book, The Obesity Code? Have you read it, if so do you recommend it?

Although I still have monthly visits, I’m taking oestrogen and progesterone along with testosterone but I can’t say it’s made a difference to my weight. I’ve had my hormone levels checked and apparently they are in good order so that’s something I guess.

So do you fast every other day or do you work it so that you can eat daily but still go 24 hours without food? I once fasted for 5 days but haven’t been able to get my head around doing it again… I would love to though… maybe a 3 day fast is somewhere in my future.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply

I have read The Obesity Code, though it has been a few years. I had already read his entire blog before buying the book though. The book basically takes all of the info in his blog and organizes it in book form. I appreciated the information. His YouTube channel is also great. Oddly, it took joining the clinic and attending meetings for me to truly internalize it all.

His basic message is that elevated insulin makes fat loss harder (and causes all kinds of other health issues), so do anything you can to reduce your insulin. He has a kind of funny tag line: “I can make you fat. I can make anyone fat. I just have to give them repeated doses of insulin.” The book goes into detail on the many mechanism that lead to elevated insulin (foods, snacking, stress, etc).

To lower your insulin, he suggests doing as many as possible of the following:
- eat whole foods (no processed foods),
- minimize/eliminate foods that cause .your. blood sugar to spike (everyone has their own level of tolerance to sugar/starch, honor yours)
- eat satiating meals in brief eating windows with no snacking in between (3 meals with 4 or more hours between meals is ok to start, 2 meals with 5 or more hours apart is better - the time between meals allows your insulin to drop), best to keep each meal to around 30-60 minutes…don’t drag meals out to multiple hours
- consider eating your meals earlier in the day, having your second meal before sunset can help reduce the insulin response though this might be unrealistic for many people
- fast intermittently - once you build a consistent base of 2 satiating meals 5 hours apart with no snacking, consider skipping 1 meal every other day, aka 3x24 ADF (alternate day fasting)
- over time, feel free to push your fasts a bit longer, if you feel up to it, by skipping both meals on alternating days, aka 3x42 ADF.
- focus on consistently getting in 3-4 “therapeutic fasts” per week (>=24 hours) - this is not rapid fat loss. it is meant to be healing, it will take repeated fasting over time to lower your baseline insulin level
- you can fast longer less often, eg skip 3 meals in a row twice per week for 2x48, skip 4 meals in a row (66 hour fast) once or twice per week. but avoid fasting burnout - consistent adf is more powerful than sporadic multi-day fasts
- manage your stress level. stress raises cortisol which raises insulin
- get enough sleep, lack of sleep raises insulin
- move regularly (but not so much that it is stressful) - movement makes your muscles more sensitive to insulin which allows your insulin to drop

Wow, that got long! So, yes, my alternate day fasting can be just 24 hours so I am eating every day. That was where I started and is what I am building back up to. I got a bit thrown off course this Summer when I started walking, which initially caused a lot of pain. I have also mixed in some 0 meal days for 42 hour fasts. I have even done some 66 hour fasts, skipping all meals for 2 days in a row. But consistently doing some fasting 3-4 days every week seems most helpful for lowering insulin for fat loss…too many longer fasts can throw some of us off and make fasting the next week too hard. Longer fasts can be useful to address other health issues, but for fat loss, consistent ADF seems to be the advice.

When I was younger, I did 7 day fasts once a year for general health improvement. Ah, to be young. Now, 5 day fasts make me feel unwell. Oh well. Another area where patience is a virtue, darn it!

Thanks so much for the info, I actually got the book on audio and listened to it most of yesterday. I already knew a fair bit of what he had to say but the information was put together in a way I could better understand and apply, if that makes sense. Fung suggests moderate protein but I think gluconeogenesis is no longer thought to be an issue like it once was and as a result lots of Keto folk seem to be dropping the fat in favour of more protein. Personally, I don’t do well with too much fat, I find it makes me super hungry on Keto, no idea why.

So I’m not yet completely Stillman (forgot how difficult the first few days can be) but I’m easing in with around 30 carbs and a small bit of fat. I’m also considering fasting at some point but my head isn’t there yet.

How are you doing, any plans for the weekend? I’ve got a super quiet one which doesn’t do well when fighting hunger pangs and cravings. Going to find something to watch on Netflix, then maybe I can stop thinking about forbidden foods.

Hi there!

I also do better with a bit higher protein and a bit lower fat, though not super low fat. I recall Aleeeria (not sure how she spelled that), from LCF eating nothing but skinless chicken breast on her amazing Stillman run. I think that might have given me a headache, though I might have managed it when I was young. I think my mom and I ate lean hamburger patties and lowfat cottage cheese when we did Stillman when I was about 14 years old.

We are spending a somewhat quiet weekend. I found a new walking route this morning on a nearby, mostly flat, dirt road through the forest. Only 1 car passed me, which is nice. The trees are truly spectacular this week. They all seemed to have changed color at once. Now I am relaxing and knitting.

Oh how I miss LCF and the ladies… I remember Al well, she sent me a load of Crystal Light and I sent her some stuff from the UK. Pretty sure I have her address and email somewhere, I should see how she is doing. I was thinking of CCgirl just yesterday… she wasn’t well and then disappeared. We were connected on eBay but she suddenly stopped using her account and hasn’t used it since which is strange as she use to sell a lot of car stuff. I pray she’s OK.

Your walk sounds nice… maybe I’ll go for a walk tomorrow. There’s a lovely park a ten minute drive from me with beautiful gardens and a lake. There’s a Manor House hotel in the grounds and my daughter and I often stay there for short breaks just bc we love it so much. It’s dog friendly too so my daughter brings her dog (which is really the family dog). I have a nice park just a few minutes walk from my home, it looks on to the Thames but I my favourite place to go is the first park I mentioned, it’s very peaceful and has lots of hidden trails.

Your park walks sound lovely. Ah, to live in civilization again! I grew up in a beach town outside of Los Angeles, but DH prefers living in rugged wilderness…quite a change!

The LCF Stillman ladies were a fun group. Sad that it shut down, though many of the regulars had trailed off near the end.

When you do Stillman, do you drink the 8 x 10oz glasses of water he advises? If so, do you feel it makes a difference? I think I might not be drinking enough water…I might start tracking and increasing my intake slowly…

I was also wondering whether you eat 6 small meals as Stillman suggests (or whether the LCF Stillman posters ever discussed that). I have never followed that suggestion. I wonder whether it makes a difference. I have done some of his suggested exercises. They are kind of nice. Gentle. Easy to do. I might incorporate them in my plan for mobility.

I think you have also done Dukan? Is that basically alternate day Stillman with some added low carb veggies on the off days? Dukan might be the one lowcarb diet book I have not read. I wonder why he chose to exclude veggies on alternate days. Stillman did claim veggies slowed down loss in his patients. I’m not sure I understand the mechanism though.

Regarding Fung on protein - I think most of his patients had/have type 2 diabetes (very high insulin); for those patients, it seems too much protein at once can raise their blood sugar and insulin. He acknowledges that protein needs are individual and advises diabetics to monitor blood sugar response to dial in their diet. For non-diabetics, he mostly advises consuming whole foods (for general health) rather than protein supplements like Whey (unless there is a medical reason for pushing protein up).

Have you ever used Whey or other protein powders on Stillman? I have to admit, I kind of like unflavored Whey blended into tea, and use it to quash hunger sometimes when I don’t have convenient access to whole food protein. But I have never added it to Stillman.

Hope your first Stillman day goes well!

I try to drink plain water but get most of it in with herbal teas and SF squash. I like sparking water with lemon and have recently started drinking a fair bit of that so all good there.

I tend to go for three meals a day and snack if hungry. That said, my appetite seems to be out of control at the moment and I’ve no idea why. I seem to be constantly thinking of food. Fung says the more you eat, the more insulin will be raised… it does make sense. If I could start skipping breakfast like I use to, I’d do much better I’m sure. I don’t recall discussing meal times on the LCF Stillman thread… Its hard to eat a lot of lean protein, especially when that’s all you’re eating.

Dukan is a lot easier to do than Stillman. It’s pretty much the same but Dukan allows a small amount of onion and tomato to cook with along with 0 fat yoghurts, cheeses and milk. You also have an oat bran allowance which people make into pancakes and muffins etc. Once you’ve moved to phase 2 you can have veggies every other day.

I have used whey successfully on Stillman. The stuff I have is between 1 and 2 carbs per serving depending on the flavour. It never derailed my progress in the past so I see no problem with it. I also use unsweetened almond milK as it’s low in fat, calories and carbs.

So I logged my food on MFP yesterday and finished on 30 carbs… will be around the same today… I haven’t had a clean Stillman day yet but I’m getting there I remember losing 7lbs in a week eating low fat, high protein and around 30 carbs a day. Wonder if I’ll be as lucky this time around? I guess if you add up what you’d eat in cottage cheese etc on Stillmans the macros would be comparable. Well that’s what I’m telling myself. How are you doing? I must drop by your journal.

You are doing great! High protein, lower fat with 30g carbs sounds like a good base for launching into and out of Stillman.

I have had a couple of off days. Not the whole day, just some after dinner indulgences. I need to buckle down and get back into boot camp mode. Ah well, 16 on-plan days out of 18 should still serve me well. Just need to nip this indulgence pattern in the bud.

Hope you are still doing well!