Already disheartened

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  • posted by Birdy
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    I did this diet a couple of years ago and had excellent results, and then the weight crept back on for various reasons including starting HRT (I know that’s supposed to be a myth but every woman I’ve talked to, including the HRT nurse has had HRT weight gain).

    I started again on Monday 27 January, lost 5lb in four days then plateaued, then today I’ve put on 1.5lbs. I’ve lost virtually nothing round my hips or waist and my blood sugar has only gone down by a fraction. I’m sticking to 800 calories a day tracked by Cronometer. I’m not gaining muscle mass as I have PoTS and have to strictly limit my exercise as my body can’t cope with anything strenuous (but I’m still active with over 5000 steps a day and planking). My daily carbs rarely go above 50g. I’ve drunk 2l-3l of water a day for the last 20 years so I don’t think it’s water retention. I’m not constipated. I’m a dairy free, gluten free vegetarian (and have been for 25 years).

    Any clues on how shift the weight? Last time I dropped 10lbs in 10 days then plateaued for three weeks before reducing my net carbs to 50g or below.

    Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks!
    Birdy

  • posted by JGwen
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    Hi Birdy,
    We have another member of the forum who has been missing in action recently, so you may find that there could be some confusing responses to your post if people don’t realise they are talking to a different birdy. – Since you have been on the forum we have got into a system of having a couple of regular threads that most people hang out on. We have a monthly, and normally weekly (but this week it covers 2 weeks) threads with the dates the threads cover in their title. You are more likely to be able to join in conversations to help keep your spirits and motivation up if you join one of them.

    Please stop using the scales to measure your progress, its so easy to get disheartened that way. Each litre of water we drink weighs 1kilo. So if you drink 2 litres a day as we are advised to do our weight will fluctuate by up to 2 kilos depending where we are at on the water in, water out cycle.
    Then there is the weight of the food you have eaten in your digestive system. 800 calories of cheese weighs a lot less than 800 calories of celery.
    So you can see that your weight is going to fluctuate over the course of every day.

    Also we don’t necessarily loose weight from our hips and waist initially. Our bodies can be unhelpful because they decide where to make the first changes, for me it was my legs and feet and then neck and shoulders (I dropped a shoe size and my collar bones reappeared before I dropped a dress size) .

    Water retention occurs because a high carb diet means that our bodies have to store water to process the carbs. As we reduce the carb levels so our bodies can release the water stored.

    I have been a vegetarian all my life and grew up on a diet with a high carb content (my mother came from the era where it was normal to have bread or potatoes as part of every meal to fill you up and because I wouldn’t eat meat or fish I was given extra portions of bread or potatoes or fruit instead.)

    The idea behind counting carbs is to make sure that our carb intake is low enough so that we have low insulin levels. If our bodies have been running at high insulin levels for a long time then we become insulin resistant, which means that even a low level of carbs is enough to trigger an insulin response. Insulin levels do not just effect your health because high levels block your body from accessing your fat stores for fuel, they also interrupt a number of other hormone control systems, including the thyroid.

    We can tell if our insulin levels are low enough for our bodies to be able to access our fat stores because we start using ketones as a fuel. – I use a cheap breathalyzer an AT6000 bought from Amazon for around £10 to check for the byproducts of burning ketones in my breath. – One of the cheap breathalyzers can’t tell the difference between ketones and alcohol. Don’t worry the police don’t use the cheap styles.

    I have been following this way of eating now for 28 months. I have lost a lot of weight, I am much healthier and if I over indulge with Carbs on a special occasion I can get back into ketosis much more quickly than I used to. BUT I still need to stay under 25g of carbs to be in ketosis. For that reason I would suggest that you need to start monitoring if you are in ketosis (Don’t bother buying the pee sticks – they are heavily marketed but are unreliable. They are measuring excess ketones produced and then not used by the body, after a while the body gets more efficient and doesn’t want to generate surplus ketones. Breath and blood monitors measure ketones being burned for fuel.

    I would also suggest going through some of the posts on the Take a Look at This Thread, especially links to podcasts by Dr Bikman and Dr Fung. Both are good sources of information to explain how our bodies work, and understanding that gives us more motivation to stick with it. My personal favourate is a pod cast from Dr Bikman that I posted around a couple of years ago now.

    I would also suggest doing a search of the forum for discussions on trace elements. A couple of months ago someone was telling us about their experiences with taking an Iron supplement. I understand Omega 3 oils are particularly beneficial but I would spend some time going through the Take a Look at This thread because there are lots of links to podcasts that may help you address specific issues., .

  • posted by arcticfox
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    Hi Birdy,
    I’m not on HRT, but in perimenopause and showing all the signs of being estrogen dominant, including difficulty losing weight. I posted this link a little while ago that I found quite inspiring:
    https://thefastingmethod.com/women-and-fasting-top-tips-for-women-going-through-menopause-part-1/
    I’ve now switched from 800 cal/day (I was losing, but feeling cold, tired, grumpy and hungry) to trying to fast 36+ hours 3x per week. I haven’t lost much more weight yet, and had a difficult week last week, so didn’t lose any (I actually gained 2kg, but have now lost 1.5kg so was clearly water weight as I’m gaining and losing that all over the place at the moment due to wonky hormones), but I’m reminding myself to be patient as per the article. Most weeks I’m actually doing 38 or 40 hours 2x per week plus a 24 hour fast mid week when I’m at work. I’m weird in that I find it easier to fast when I’m at home than when I’m at work, but today I am trying to do another 36+ hours even though I’m at work. We’ll see how far I get!

  • posted by Birdy
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    Hi JGwen
    Thank you so much for such a considerate and detailed reply, I’m not so much disheartened now. I will look up your suggestions and research further into ketones. However, while I understand your suggestion to stop using scales, I know from past experience I need to weigh myself at the beginning of every day to give myself a reality check, and therefore more motivation.
    Thanks again, I really appreciate the time you took to look after me.
    Birdy

  • posted by Birdy
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    Hi arcticfox
    That sounds hardcore! I have to admit I’m not a fan of all day fasts, they make me very twitchy. But I’ll have a look at the article, as the literature out there for menopause is not great and any help or thoughts on the subject would be very welcome.
    Thanks for taking the time to reply to my post, it was very kind of you. Good luck with the fasts and the weight loss!
    Birdy

  • posted by SunnyB
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    I’m like you Birdy, I need that reality check each morning too. Okay, it can be tough when the reading goes up, especially when it happens for no apparent reason, but it does help to keep me focused and not so prone to straying.
    If full day fasts are daunting, just try varying your overnight fast/eating ratio … 16 hrs overnight fast to 8hrs eating window, or 18hrs to 6hrs etc. Anything over 12hrs fasting overnight is helpful.
    Please think about joining the weekly and/or monthly threads, as these are great places to vent frustrations and gain advice and support.

  • posted by arcticfox
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    Yes Birdy, I agree with Sunny about the length of fasts. Sorry, I posted a response before reading JGwen’s and I actually did think you were our other Birdy who is a very experienced faster. Certainly you don’t need to do what I’m doing and it has actually taken me almost 2 years of off and on fasting practice to be able to get to the point where I can do clean fasting for 36+ hours. I initally relied on 500 or 800 calorie days and on broth, etc. to get me through. Fasting is something that you get better at as you keep at it though. As Sunny says, anything over 12 hours will certainly be beneficial, and you can do that overnight. I’m taking more drastic action at the moment because I was just so fed up with not seeing any progress.

  • posted by Andi
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    HI Birdy! Exactly the same thing has happened to me! I started on 27 Jan – smashed off over 2kgs in 4 days and then the scales went straight up again by 1.8kgs and are taking their time to get back to the 2kg loss mark. Its been over a week now and I have ”relost” 1.2 of that jump up, but I too felt disheartened. However, like you I have done this before and know it works. Keep going 🙂

  • posted by Birdy
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    Hi SunnyB
    Thanks for your reply, and apols for my late one! And it’s good to know that fasting helps, because of the HRT and late breakfasts, I already fast 15hrs overnight so upping that shouldn’t be too difficult, I’ll give it a go. I’ll probably give the weekly/monthly threads a go too.
    Thanks again for the heads up
    Birdy

  • posted by Birdy
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    No worries! And I hope you see some progress soon!

  • posted by Birdy
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    Hi Andi
    Maybe there’s something in the stars that’s making it all a bit more difficult?! Or maybe second time around, our bodies are wise to what we’re trying to do (bl**dy metabolism)? Good luck, keep at it! All will come well in the end.

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