Hi, my 15 year old daughter suffered from undiagnosed hypothyroidism and put on a massive amount of weight from the age of 11. We have struggled to regulate her thyroid levels over the last few years since getting a diagnosis and despite her being active (dance, rugby, badminton etc) and me watching her diet her weight has increased to 97Kg (she is only 160cm tall).She eventually got referred to an endocrinologist in September who has ruled out various other medical conditions but has confirmed she is insulin resistant. Her thyroid levels now seem to be responding to 200 levothyroxine daily so our main concern is how to get her down to a healthy weight. He recommended the 8 week Blood Sugar Diet and also prescribed Metformin. We are both determined to give it our full commitment and have bought the book and several recipe books. I am making healthy meals which have completely cut out bread, potatoes and pasta, but use full fat dairy, and I have stuck to the 800 – 850 calories per day , From what I can work out her carb intake is also very low at under 50grams per day, I am completely at a loss as to why she has only lost 1.4Kg in the first week and nothing in the second week. I find all the info on carbs, calories, fat very confusing and actually worried that she was not getting enough. She is trying so hard and we are so disappointed at the initial results, does anyone have any advice as to where we could be going wrong – thanks

Hello,
I’m probably not the best qualified to answer you, however I think I’ve read that people with insulin resistance may need to reduce carbs to well below 50g, nearer 20g. There are others on here with personal experience and hopefully one will answer you
I wish you and your daughter good luck in your journey.
xx

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply, I am at my wits end as to how to help her .x

Hi Tasha,

Is she still eating rice, grains, cereals, high sugar vegetables like corn and beets? What are you using the calculate the carb count? I use MyFitnessPal. Others on this forum find Fat Secret a more intuitive app/website. Are you weighing each ingredient before you add it to meals? If you don’t have precise measurements and data about the nutrient content of ingredients, it’s easy to miss the mark because things you never expect to be carb-laden can sneak up on you, particularly veggies (onions, tomatoes), grains and legumes. Given your daughter’s medical history, you may need to go drastically lower on carbs, and that means cutting out beans and grains, even ones that are ostensibly healthy like lentils, oatmeal and quinoa.

I am insulin resistant as well and I keep my daily carb count well below 20 grams a day. I am your daughter’s height and lost 200 pounds or so in a year and a half. Before I started the BSD, I had no idea how much I was eating and how many grams of carbs were in it. If I hadn’t had MyFitnessPal to do the math with, I probably would still be miles off.

The first step is weigh and measure everything, and I do mean everything. The next is to look up those foods in an online database/food tracker like MFP or FS, enter the amount you used, then look down at the columns on the bottom to see the tally of macronutrients. Do this before you make the meal so if you need to make adjustments to stay within the limits, you can easily do so.

I feel for your sweet little girl so much (we’re with you Tasha, Jr.!) and how painful this road has been for her from such a young age. You are 100% doing the right thing. You just need to push it a little further because she unfortunately has a very pitiless condition that went undiagnosed for a long time in the span of her short life.

If you find the fitness trackers daunting or need to know how to do something or what the count of something is, please don’t hesistate to ask. We are here to help. 🙂

Hi Tasha, welcome.

I so feel for you and your lovely daughter, and Esnecca has given some excellent advice.

But have you also considered Tasha Jr’s gut bacteria. Latest research is proving that those deficient in good gut bacteria often find it difficult to lose weight. Dr Moseley has a book / diet giving advice on this, so may be worth looking into. There was also a BBC Dr in the House programme where an active, but obese 11 yr old couldn’t lose weight, despite the support of his family and a decent diet. After gut analysis and reintroducing the correct bacteria, his weight started reducing and his high insulin levels dropped. Sadly the programme is no longer available on iplayer but it’s available on youtube if you’re interested, though you will have to wade through the entire (interesting) programme to pick out the relevant bits.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bNOLnuS0iPA

Certainly many successful BSDers are committed to fermented foods, and whole fat live yoghurt. Just a thought.

I really hope you can help your daughter and wish you both every success.

Thank you Esnecca for your reply, It has actually made me quite emotional to hear your kind words. I had to fight for so long to get any doctors to listen to my concerns about her weight at the start. I knew something wasn’t right but I was fobbed off and made to feel that I was in the wrong for voicing my concerns over her unexplained weight gain. After breaking down in tears in the surgery they eventually ordered blood tests which showed no thyroid activity. By that time she was also in a lot of muscle pain and limping, again no one listened until an x-ray showed she needed an urgent operation on each leg for a slipped femoral epiphysis and she now has two pins in her legs. Its not easy for a young girls at that age struggling with her weight, but she is bubbly, a member of lots of groups, and a sports volunteer. All we need to do now is crack this diet. Although her specialist suggested this diet, I have really been left on my own to try and learn all about nutrition and there is so much conflicting advice out there. I am scared that I may do her some harm if I get it wrong.

She does not like rice and the only cereal I make is 27g of porridge a couple of mornings for breakfast with milk and some seeds. Other mornings I give her a 2 egg omelette or Greek yoghurt with fruit and some toasted nuts/seeds. She gets soup at school for lunch and I give her a Satsuma or some berries for a snack. I make a meal from the BSD recipe book for her dinner and serve it with different veggies like cabbage/green beans/carrots/spinach. I have a book which gives me the carb and calorie content of food, but I do not tend to weigh out the vegetable as I thought it would be okay for her to eat them instead of pasta/rice/potatoes. I will look into the fitness app and start weighing out the veggies too. I am a bit confused my the labels on food for carbs. I have been using the total carb figure , is that correct. I have read that sometimes you deduct the fibre content from this but I was not sure?

Thanks again for your help
x

Hi Theodora

Thank you for your advice, I will have a look at Dr Moseley`s other book as well, and perhaps combine the two.

xx

Hi Tasha, I’m just into my third week of BSD so quite inexperienced but can vouch for the helpfulness of the advice you will get from the experienced and successful forum members. For me, one of the most best suggestions has been to weigh and then log everything into an easy to navigate weight loss app.

It is very simple but suits my needs. I’ve found some of the book recipes, though delicious, are a little higher in carbs than I’m aiming for but with the app, have been able,to oddity them – for example leave out the lentils (sob), or beetroots (more sobs). A bonus of this approach is you start to build up an intuitive sense of what will tip you over the daily targets and how to prepare for special occasions by lowering intake easlier in the day.

Once you get settled in it is also very empowering to learn that everyone’s body reacts at a different pace to this way of eating. For some the weight loss is fast, others more leisurely but consistent and some, like me, it seems a bit stop and go, even though I doggesedly stick to 800csls and no more than 20g of carbs. Despite these differences, however, it looks to me that it works for all these different response rates. Sooner or later bodies give up stored glucose and in the absence of replacement glucose, become efficient at utilising fat for generating energy.

Anyway, all my very best wishes for you and your daughter and let me say, how lucky she is to have you!

Tasha, I went back and edited my post with a link to a programme you may like to watch – I hope it works. Good luck and please keep us updated – just remember that, whilst we’re not medics, we do offer help and support so you are no longer alone.

Tasha, I’m sad to say that I’m not surprised to hear how horribly dismissed your concerns were. My insulin resistance is connected to Polycystic Ovarian Sydrome (PCOS) and I was put through the wringer for almost 9 months, sent to a revolving door of specialists, told I had a brain tumor, that I was just depressed, that the 40 pounds I’d gained in a year and a half was “college partying taking a toll,” given an MRI that was up until that point the worst medical intervention I’d ever experienced, put on meds that made me lactate and on and on until someone finally stumbled on the right diagnosis and then did basically nothing about it. Nobody told me anything about diet other than avoid desserts and years later, avoid refined carbs and stick with whole grains. I had to do my own research.

It’s disgusting, but women and girls are often treated like crazies and malingerers, their symptoms discounted as fantasies or inventions by medical professionals. Your daughter is very lucky to have had you and your undaunted dedication to her health and well-being during a confusing, traumatizing time.

Your diet for her sounds solid to me from what you’ve described. That amount of porridge shouldn’t be an issue, but you might want to consider cutting it out for now just to get the weight loss jump-started. Veggies look good except for the carrots. They’re quite high in sugar. I know this is a lot of work for you and I’m sure as a busy mom there are plenty of other things on your to-do list, so if your daughter is willing, perhaps you could make a few dishes on the weekend and freeze them so she has everything portioned out and calculated and you don’t have to be fiddling with scales every day 3 times a day for two months.

Broth based soups with mixed veggies like zucchini, Swiss chard, scallions, kale, chickory, escarole, a single medium tomato finely chopped, celery, fennel and fresh herbs are filling, taste even better reheated than fresh and can be enhanced dramatically with just a dusting of freshly grated parmesan before serving. Freeze them in freezer bags or containers in one-cup (8 oz) servings and she has a ready-meal good to go. Mashed cauliflower mixed with steamed spinach (chopped), ricotta cheese and butter makes a rich and velvety side to go with a simple roasted or poached chicken breast. Those are also made easily ahead of time and frozen as little TV dinner type dishes. One of my favorites is plopping a container of chicken breasts in the slow cooker/crockpot with some chicken broth and a large amount of chili powder, oregano, ground cumin and garlic powder. Cook it on high for 4 hours until the chicken falls apart when you stab it. Shred the meat apart with two forks and let it sit in the spicey juices until they’re absorbed. Turn the slow cooker to the warm setting and let it ride until it’s all nicely combined and moist. That can be frozen for use in taco salad (minus the tortilla bowls, of course) and it is better than anything you’d get in a retaurant for basically no effort. Romaine lettuce base dressed with a little sour cream, lime juice and hot sauce, then top with the chicken, avocado slices or coarsley mashed for a quick guac, a spoonful of salsa on top and grated sharp cheddar makes for a scrumptious feast.

Anything she likes that she misses eating we can come up with a replacement that while not the same, will give her a different kind of satisfaction. Poor baby needs a little pampering after all the nonsense she’s been through with an establishment who basically called her (and you!) a liar for months as she fell apart. The trick is not to associate dangerous high-carb foods with satisfaction and pleasure. Lovely fats are going to do that job from now on, and the good news is they’re great at it. Almost as great as you are a mother. 🙂

Thanks to everyone that has replied, I have had more sensible and helpful advice on this forum in 1 night than I have had in the last 4 years xx

Theo and Esnecca, as well as Flick & Pancita: Just wanted to tell you all how highly I think of you all being so very kind to Tasha and the issues she is dealing with regarding her daughter. The kindness on this website really is touching. People go out of their way to be gentle and tactful, and as helpful as they can be. It really is a soft place to land for so many that have had a tough go of it battling weight and often the bad treatment of others. I hope the excellent advise offered to Tasha may help her.

And Theo, thanks for posting the link to that terrific BBC program Doctor in the House….had never seen any of those before. Quite impressed.

Good luck Tasha…you are dealing with a tough issue but hopefully the answer is out there for you. Lower carbs and greater food diversity sound like great places to start;

Oh, I forgot to answer your question about carbs and fiber. In the US, fiber is counted a subset of carbohydrates and is therefore subtracted from the total number to get the net or effective carb grams. In the UK, labelling regulations split it into a separate category so fiber should not be subtracted from total carb count. Fat Secret defaults to the UK system. MyFitnessPal to the US.

Nothing’s ever simple, is it? After all the travails you and your daughter have been through just trying to get a single straight answer and save her future, mobility, health and wellness, having to wade through the complexities of nutrional guidelines is no fun, I’m sure. Anything we can do to make it easier we’re more than glad to do.

Oh, Tasha, you mentioned your daughter is on thyroid meds. That might be one of the reasons her weight loss is a little sluggish. There’s some info in this thread that might be of interest: https://thebloodsugardiet.com/forums/topic/is-there-anyone-doing-this-plan-that-has-an-underactive-thyroid/ . Forum member Nonna Mary has experienced very slow losses as well and I believe she’s on levothyroxine.

Thanks for all that info, I did not realise that the labelling system was different in the US, I have looked at Nonna Mary`s thread and realise that the meds may just slow things down a bit. I am going to check out the info on gut bacteria, look into the apps such as MFP and start weighing out food more carefully. I will keep you posted x

Hi Tasha
Just wondering how things are going for your lovely daughter now?