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  #1   ^
Old Thu, Mar-04-21, 07:40
gwynne2's Avatar
gwynne2 gwynne2 is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 1,700
 
Plan: Lowcarb/IF
Stats: 215/173.9/150 Female 5.5"
BF:
Progress: 63%
Default Help me make a ten-year mental jump.

Longtime returning lowcarber here. (Waves to old names.) Ten years ago this year, I hit my goal weight after a lifetime of obesity starting in childhood. I lost about 75lbs (I never weighed myself at the highest, but I was up to a US size 22 in jeans). Some details in my journal here.

I have now gained back 25 lbs. 10 of it in 2020. Which isn't a huge shock, because 2020.

The other 10-15 is weight I've tried and failed to shake since about 2017.

Once I realized I'd gained back a full 25lbs, that flipped the switch for me. The problem is that it's ten years later, and everyone is an internet expert/youtuber, the science is all over the map, and it's so hard to know who has good intentions and who is trying to make a buck or has a political agenda.

My default discussion platform these days is reddit, which means /r/keto for the most part--which is a bunch of people telling everyone none of it matters if you aren't in a calorie deficit. So the answer to most posts is: "your calories are too high". Which, while it has always been a lively debate, is not the message I had come away with post-Taubes, and not what ultimately worked for me (I never counted calories).

That said, I am ten years older, and my intermittent attempts to get the first 10-15lbs off have definitely been different from what I was eating when I first lost the weight, mostly from stuff I've picked up here and there from reddit, and god knows. It took reading the 'Croissant Diet' stuff to realize how differently I was eating and wondering if that's part of why I can't take any weight off now, even with IF (which was a magic bullet for my hunger issues).

Back then:

--Lots of red meat, usually ribeye steaks with the fat
--Lots of dairy, often in the form of heavy cream or cream cheese
--A fair amount of butter, usually in the form of a hollandaise sauce
--Salad dressings were always cream based (ranch, caesar, etc).
--Ate till satieated, zero fear of dietary fat
--Macadamia nuts

Now, after whatever messaging I've picked up over the years:

--Big salads with avocado oil-based dressing
--Chicken thighs with skin (I realize the Croissant Diet stuff (the stearic acid theory, essentially) may be a bit bonkers, but according to those principles I'm not getting the right kind of fats by having switched to chicken thighs, and skin in particular?)
--A lot more nuts, but not macadamia nuts. (Why did I do this? Maybe cost.)
--A definite attempt to limit how much I eat/ignore hunger (because now I'm older, right? can't have as many calories, right?)
--A weird phobia about dairy, that I actually can't place the origin of. Mentally avoidant of cream cheese, cheese, butter, heavy cream.
--Avoiding butter in cooking in favor of olive and avocado oils. (Again, I can't really place why I made this change.)

Now, trying to get back on the horse and reconcile all of this with whatever the current 'science' is is a nightmare. A very longtime blogger in the lowcarb community, for example, when I revisited their site after years, turned out to have some ... strong opinions on COVID19 that made me question their biases and ability to sort through data.

Can anyone who's been around the block a bit point me in the direction of some non-youtube resources, or anyone who is taking apart the science in a way I can read? (YouTube doesn't work for me. I want to be able to read stuff and then dig down to the sources.)

Also interested in personal thoughts/experiences. What people have been up to around here.

Random data point: for whatever it's worth, I just got a calcium CT score (what is the feeling on this around here?) and had a zero score. This was nice to see because my cholesterol numbers have always been weird, and of course as I got older I worried that it would turn out I really had done some kind of damage due to not being afraid enough of fat and meat.

(Disclaimer: I know I've mentioned the "Croissant Diet" twice. I'm not going to be doing the Croissant Diet. It just made me think about the fats I was eating and the fats I was avoiding.)

Thanks in advance, and hi again. (Werebear, if you're reading this, it's awesome to see that you blew through goal.)

Last edited by gwynne2 : Thu, Mar-04-21 at 08:04.
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  #2   ^
Old Thu, Mar-04-21, 08:29
lowjax's Avatar
lowjax lowjax is offline
Think, then Eat.
Posts: 10,291
 
Plan: LC / L-FODMAP / L-IgG
Stats: 276.4/231.7/199 Male 5' 5"
BF:
Progress: 58%
Location: The Land of Cheese
Default

Hi Gwynne. I remember your name from a long time ago, but don't know if we interacted much. I'm back on the board after several years off.

Things have morphed a lot since the old days. The good news is that there have been a ton of research and studies in the last 10 years that have provided more info, but at the same time, it makes things more confusing. I've been going through the same thing myself, trying to figure it out.

I know there are some great people here that have better answers than I do, but for myself, I've decided to let a lot of the new stuff go and just focus on what my body wants and what works. I'm re-reading all of my old journals from 2008 and so. I know I'm older now and my body doesn't react the same, so I will have to adjust a bit. I can't do high fat, so have switched to high protein, moderate fat, and low carb. Add that in with some IFing and it works. I'm essentially doing the same as before, but more breasts than thighs, NY Strip or Sirloin instead of Ribeye, 90% instead of 80% ground beef. Small changes like that.

I guess this falls more into the personal thoughts/experiences than some of the science and research you were looking for, but I hope it's a bit helpful.

And yeah... CICO doesn't work the same for everyone and isn't the answer to every question. Reddit can be wrong.

And welcome back!
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  #3   ^
Old Fri, Mar-05-21, 06:06
WereBear's Avatar
WereBear WereBear is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 14,602
 
Plan: EpiPaleo/Primal/LowOx
Stats: 220/125/150 Female 67
BF:
Progress: 136%
Location: USA
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by gwynne2
Werebear, if you're reading this, it's awesome to see that you blew through goal.


Hi gwynne2! Thanks. It turns out my dreams WERE too big! At least as far as goal pants go...

As you can see from my sig, I had years of successful low carbing which kept me around my goal weight for years. Then a health crisis derailed me, and created more challenges for me to solve. But solving that also gave me the best health, weight, and mood of my life. Which is astonishing at my age (she said coyly) so it's good to know it can be done. And I was sick! This happened with ZERO exercise.

A couple of tips on how I did it: just to confuse you more

Something I don't see enough discussion of is how individual our bodies are when it comes to what we eat. It took reading the book Death by Food Pyramid to learn that we inherit food digestion enzymes. KEY POINT: It doesn't matter how "healthy" a food is when we don't have the enzymes to break it down.

This clarified why I had such a problem going vegetarian, which made me fat and sick. (And this wasn't even vegan!) I don't have the enzymes to get enough protein from plant sources. Full stop.

I began having some distressing autoimmune symptoms. Side effects of conventional therapy was one of the reasons I had gained weight. It had also stopped working to control symptoms. So I wound up reading the book The Wahls Protocol, about this doctor's successful treatment of her Multiple Sclerosis. KEY POINT: Science errs in considering autoimmune diseases as different. It's all the same disease, expressed differently.

She discussed three different steps to her plan as a patient moved towards keto. Since I'm a cut-to-the-chase kind of person, I went backwards. I started with meat only. Since some people have trouble with certain kinds of meat, I stuck to grass-fed hamburger with pepper and salt. My body's reaction was YEAH! And my symptoms immediately improved.

I did that for almost a month, getting better all the time. So this test confirmed that -- at least in my case -- I was putting my autoimmune in remission by avoiding my trigger foods. Now I had to figure out what those were.

After doing this for two years now, I can confidently say I'm sensitive to gluten, lectins, fiber, most artificial sweeteners, and carbs in general. I need to stay under 20, like Atkins Induction Level. What can I eat? That turned out to be: meat, fish and seafood, eggs, dairy, and low-sugar botanical fruits.

As if that didn't make me enough of a mutant: I need much more protein than general recommendations. I do fine with fermented dairy like cheese, yogurt, and sour cream. My body loves fat and I can eat from animal sources, plus coconut oil and heavy cream, as much I as like.

See? I had to "break all the rules" to find out what my body was happy with. Sure, some people stall if they eat too much protein, any dairy, and have to watch their fat. But for me, that was key to my success.

Dr. Atkins himself praised vegetables, and so does Dr. Wahls. But I can't touch them. Maybe some salad greens but I'm now wary about those. Dr. Georgia Ede (her blog is diagnosisdiet.com) finds her health, particularly mental, improves with no plant matter at all. Those vaunted vitamins? KEY POINT: You gotta have the right enzymes to make them bio-available. And they are all found, often in greater abundance, in animal foods.

I totally understand your confusion. I kept looking for plans, but when it comes to ME, there is no plan. Conventional wisdom would restrict my red meat and fat and load me up with whole grains, soy, and vegetables. There's a doctor out there who warns about lectins, but he loves vegetarian. And even carb experts tend to share what worked for them and what "research supports."

I don't know of any low-carb leaders who write much about lectins. And for me, that was the missing piece that made the entire puzzle come together.

Which is why none of them agree. There is no one answer.

There's only YOU. And what works for YOU.

I would search for guidelines that match what you already know works for you. By starting with my health issue, I had an idea of what my problem was, and immediate feedback on what would work. If weight loss is your main concern, I would look into the foods that worked for you before, with close attention to something that might not be good for YOU, no matter how much it might be pushed, by anyone.

Another guideline is appetite. I discovered that one or two meals a day is a breeze when I'm not eating things that turn out to make me hungry. That's why I'm no longer eating salad greens. Dropping them for a week resulted in decreased appetite. Inflammation from plant elements that disagree with me, or tripping my leaky gut with too much fiber, makes me hungry. That's now the subtle signal I've learned to pay attention to.

I would never have known that if I hadn't reset my system by eating nothing that upset it. Much like my reaction to gluten sharpened greatly once I eliminated it, and accidentally got "glutened," which is now serious stomach inflammation. It turns out, now that I avoid soy like a vampire avoids garlic, it has an effect on me straight out of a Game of Thrones poisoning

Best of luck!
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  #4   ^
Old Fri, Mar-05-21, 10:25
gwynne2's Avatar
gwynne2 gwynne2 is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 1,700
 
Plan: Lowcarb/IF
Stats: 215/173.9/150 Female 5.5"
BF:
Progress: 63%
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by lowjax
Hi Gwynne. I remember your name from a long time ago, but don't know if we interacted much. I'm back on the board after several years off.

(...)

I guess this falls more into the personal thoughts/experiences than some of the science and research you were looking for, but I hope it's a bit helpful.

And yeah... CICO doesn't work the same for everyone and isn't the answer to every question. Reddit can be wrong.

And welcome back!


Thank you very much. The personal thoughts help a lot. Actually, your post and Werebear's reminded me of an important element to all this: I had to figure it out for myself the first time around, too. Expecting there to be a magic bullet, like ten years = all questions are now answered via research, was pretty silly.

Quote:
Originally Posted by WereBear
Hi gwynne2! Thanks. It turns out my dreams WERE too big! At least as far as goal pants go...

(...)

Which is why none of them agree. There is no one answer.

There's only YOU. And what works for YOU.



(Snipped both posts for space.)

Both of these were so helpful to me. (Thanks Werebear for taking the time to type out your whole story.)

Last night I had at least part of the epiphany: what got me set on the right path in the first place was Good Calories, Bad Calories. I checked in to see what Taubes was up to, and bought his most recent book (well, audiobook). So I'm listening to that. I'm also continuing to search my memories for what I actually ate during my loss phases (I had two major loss phases, 215-175, then about a year plateau/"screwing around", then 175-goal and beyond). And the answer is: lots of animal fat sources, mostly red meat, and a fair amount of avocado. Desserts were usually sugar free cheesecake. Vegetables were broccoli or asparagus. Occasional indulgence meals were carbonara (with Dreamfield--I know), loaded with bacon, eggs, cream and cheese. I ate salmon with hollandaise. If I ate chicken breast, it was roasted on the bone, then eaten with a mushroom cream sauce.

So, seemingly, the Atkins/Taubes style basics are what worked for me back then. I know I may not be able to eat exactly the way I did ten years ago, but whatever caused me to think I needed to eat giant kale salads and avoid red meat and dairy is something I definitely need to think about. While listening to Taubes.

Last night I went out to buy a steak. Couldn't find a decent ribeye, bought a filet. Almost no fat on it, so I made a peppercorn cream sauce. Cooked the steak in butter. Starting about two hours later, my body decided to dump a bunch of water weight (i.e., frequent bathroom trips), and then I had one of those 1.5lb weight dips this morning, something I haven't seen in forever. (I know it was almost certainly coincidence, but still.)

Anyway, thanks again for the replies!
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  #5   ^
Old Fri, Mar-05-21, 11:18
deirdra's Avatar
deirdra deirdra is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 4,324
 
Plan: vLC/GF,CF,SF
Stats: 197/136/150 Female 66 inches
BF:
Progress: 130%
Location: Alberta
Default

Welcome back, gwynne2! I visit other websites, but this one is still the first I visit to keep up with new information and ideas from reliable sources.

Over the past 10 yrs, Atkins-ish/Protein Power eating still works best for me, though I've added twists, including 2 meals a day in a <8 hr window. In maintenance I still have to keep my carbs <30g/day, make sure I meet my protein needs (>80g/day) and let the fat fall where it may to keep me satiated. Mostly the fat naturally found in food, with a bit of butter for taste and cooking. Real foods, not processed. No grains & mostly LC vegs as the sources of carbs. Dairy proteins cause me cravings, hunger, stuffed up sinuses, itchy eyes, headaches, inflamed mucous membranes & ~15 lbs of extra weight, so I avoid them, but don't have a problem with dairy fat (butter and some full-fat cream cheese).

The more active threads on here that I check daily are:
- "LC Research/Media"
- "Dr.Bernstein & Diabetes" - I'm not diabetic, but it has lots of info and links to the most up-to-date and reliable info on intermittent fasting, LCHF, and things posted on the DietDoctor, Jason Fung, Optimizing Nutrition websites and others
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  #6   ^
Old Thu, Mar-11-21, 11:54
lowjax's Avatar
lowjax lowjax is offline
Think, then Eat.
Posts: 10,291
 
Plan: LC / L-FODMAP / L-IgG
Stats: 276.4/231.7/199 Male 5' 5"
BF:
Progress: 58%
Location: The Land of Cheese
Default

Hi Gwynne! Just checking in and seeing how things are going. I hope you are still around and working through your plan.

Hang in there!
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  #7   ^
Old Sun, Apr-11-21, 21:10
nrmoeller nrmoeller is offline
New Member
Posts: 1
 
Plan: Atkins
Stats: 245/180/165 Female 5'5"
BF:
Progress:
Default A Similar Boat

Gwynne and others.....
I read your posts with great interest. I guess I was led to them. Back in 2012 I had bariatric surgery (gasric sleeve) for a lifetime weight issue. I lost 80 pounds. But if you don't change the way you eat, the surgery ends up as an exercise in futility. I low carbed my way through years of maintaining my weight loss. Then came 2020. 'Nuff said.....

I'm struggling now to get back to where I was after falling off the wagon big time. I haven't stepped on the scale, but my clothes tell me it's probably 20-25 pounds. I'm up a size and threatening to go up yet another. LC is the way for me. Low cal/low fat never worked. I am struggling to get back into the correct mindset and to lose all the bad habits I picked up during the last year. And now I'm 70 years old and it ain't easy! My body is playing around with some autoimmunite stuff on top of it.

I just wanted you to know that your words encourage me. Thank you! I'll be struggling to get back on track along with you!
Nancy
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  #8   ^
Old Sun, Apr-11-21, 21:30
Ms Arielle's Avatar
Ms Arielle Ms Arielle is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 19,176
 
Plan: atkins, carnivore 2023
Stats: 200/211/163 Female 5'8"
BF:
Progress: -30%
Location: Massachusetts
Default

Nancy, I hope you will stick around and make a journal. There are others who gave also gone the bariatric route. So much sharing goes on around here, you may like the info.
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  #9   ^
Old Sun, Apr-11-21, 21:50
wbahn's Avatar
wbahn wbahn is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 8,651
 
Plan: Atkins-ish, post-WLS
Stats: 408.0/288.0/168.0 Male 72 inches
BF:
Progress: 50%
Location: Southern Colorado, USA
Default

Nancy, I'm one of the folks that had gastric surgery (Roux en Y) and, like so many, lost a LOT of weight (over 100 lb) and then put all of it back on because I obviously didn't believe what they tried to tell me over and over and over.

So now I'm trying again, for will hopefully be the final time. So far I'm going really great (nearly 50 lb lost since the first of the year) and I "think" that I am finally making the necessary changes in my perspective and attitude and mindset to make it stick (but that's not the first time I've thought that).

Definitely stick around and let others support you while you support them.
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  #10   ^
Old Mon, Apr-12-21, 03:53
JEY100's Avatar
JEY100 JEY100 is online now
Posts: 13,368
 
Plan: P:E/DDF
Stats: 225/150/169 Female 5' 9"
BF:45%/28%/25%
Progress: 134%
Location: NC
Default

Hi Gywnne, I’ve been around this forum for more than a decade, and have tried various hacks, but only a few months ago blew through my long-term goal. At the age of 70, I am at a lower weight than when I stopped my first low carb program.

Yes, calories count, but it is impossible to count them. New short summary by Dr Ted Naiman:
https://youtu.be/0eBKljuK7i8
Dr Eric Westman, the first clinical researcher to study the Atkins diet, has never said any different. He has a new book, and makes clear that you are allowed no more than 6T added dietary fat, and you don’t have to even use those if satisfied with the fats in fish, meats, etc.
I still use Dr Westman's food lists, and combine it with Dr Naiman's P:E ratio of the foods. https://www.dietdoctor.com/dr-ted-n...ter-weight-loss

I tend to follow medical doctors who treat actual patients, and a few engineers who approach nutrition with a technical/scientific bent. Marty Kendall has posted some of the "Keto Lies" on his blog. https://optimisingnutrition.com/ket...ontent=12455676

What I added this year in addition to a lower fat, more vegetable low carb diet was a type of Fasting based on my blood glucose. I usually eat two protein heavy meals in a 6-8 hour window, no snacks, no extended fasting.

Check out the two active threads at the top of the semi-LC plans....Dr Ted Naiman and Marty Kendall.
https://forum.lowcarber.org/forumdisplay.php?f=138

Last edited by JEY100 : Mon, Apr-12-21 at 04:30.
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  #11   ^
Old Sun, Apr-18-21, 08:02
slimmama's Avatar
slimmama slimmama is offline
Senior Member
Posts: 209
 
Plan: Atkins
Stats: 233/196/185 Female 5feet 6 and a half inches
BF:
Progress: 77%
Location: Ontario,Canada
Default

The OP is like looking in the mirror. I too am back. Tried counting calories but I spent all day thinking about food and how to get the most food for the calories. Low carb is not easier the second, third, forth,fifth time. We know how to play the game too well.
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