Hi everyone,
I’ve posted the below before, but thought I’d post it again for the benefit of the newbies or for those that have fallen off the wagon over Christmas.
I’m an ‘old timer’, been on the BSD since April 2016 and now on maintenance after losing 33kg and have successfully kept it off, even over Christmas.
Being overweight is not a matter of having no willpower, your hunger is driven by your hormones, particularly insulin and in order to lose weight, you’ve got to get that under control. Even now, doctors are still giving us the old incorrect advise of eat less and move more and when we fail, they blame us…”you eat too much and you don’t do enough exercise”. It’s crap! It’s not your fault.
Some tips:
– Read the book from cover to cover. Then read it again.
– Drinks AT LEAST 2-3 litres of water a day. I drink more.
– Eat full fat everything, no low fat or lite foods. You need fat in your diet to keep you satiated. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you’ll lose faster if you go low fat. You won’t.
– Read the labels on everything you buy, sugar/starches are unnecessarily added to a lot of processed foods which is why most of us eat and cook predominately real food.
– Most processed foods have either added sugar or polyunsaturated oils added. Don’t buy them. I now make my own mayonnaise and basil pesto and hummus.
– Count, measure, weigh and record everything you eat. Some do this manually but most use an app. I used EasyDietDiary but a lot of others use My Fitness Pal, once you get into the habit, it’s quick and easy to do.
– Carbs hide in virtually everything and it’s important to keep under 50g of complex carbs per day, lower if you have T2D or insulin resistance and/or you’re not losing. Some people have to go as low as 20g carbs per day to lose. It just depends on your genetics and how much ‘carbage’ you’ve put into your body up until now.
– Stay clear of bread, rice, pasta, sugar (including honey, molasses etc), potato etc
– I went cold turkey on all sugar (including most fruit) and all refined carbs. The only fruit I eat are strawberries and blueberries.
– Be warned, you may experience symptoms of what we call the ‘carb flu’ for the first few days. Headaches, foggy brain, aching limbs etc. just take a Panadol, drink more water and be kind to yourself. This will pass.
– If you cheat, it’s entirely possible that you will go through the carb flu again and it will definitely set off cravings for more.
The fear of this meant that I didn’t cheat!
– Plateaus are normal from week to week. Don’t panic, just keep on the plan and you will keep losing.
– Measure yourself when you start or now if you haven’t already done so. Some weeks you’ll lose weight but not inches and other weeks vica versa.
– Try to do at least 10,000 steps every day. Schedule it into your day so you don’t find a way of saying you’re too busy. I get up earlier now before work so I can fit it in. Take the stairs instead of the escalator, walk the dog after dark, park further away from where you need to go or get off the bus a couple of stops earlier to/from work. I tend to park the furthest away from the entrance to the shops in the carpark.
– There are some that haven’t been able to do the steps at first and they still lost weight and others, like Lucia, started very very slowly and worked her way up. Search for her name in the search box at the top and you can read her story.
– Read the forum every day, you’ll pick up lots of tips and there’s always someone around the world to answer any questions you may have. It will also keep you motivated.
– Don’t cheat. Every time you cheat with some simple carbs or sugar it sets off your hormones to expect more sugar/carbs and it will set off cravings. All carbs convert to glucose. Approximately 56% of protein that the body doesn’t need converts to glucose so don’t go overboard on the protein (I eat around 60-90g per day max). Only 10% of fat converts to glucose. My research indicates that you need approximately 1 – 1.5g of protein to 1kg of your IDEAL body weight (not your current weight) per day.
– Table sugar is 50% glucose and 50% fructose. Fructose is evil! It does really bad things to your body and is one of the reasons you keep putting weight back on as it can’t be metabolised by the body like glucose can and will go straight to your liver and convert to fat. This can cause non alcoholic fatty liver disease and creates your visceral fat. This is exactly the same fructose that you find in fruit, so that’s why I stopped eating most fruit as your body metabolises it the same way as table sugar.
– Your body can get all the nutrients it needs from vegetables, protein and fat (be careful of consuming vegetables that grow under the ground as they have way more carbs, as do peas which is technically a legume). Strawberries are fairly low in fructose, hence carbs. Apples, bananas and pears and sweet tropical fruits are very high.
– Eat saturated and monosaturated oils, like butter, lard, tallow, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil, avocado and macadamia nut oil. Stay well clear of all highly refined seed oils like canola, sunflower, safflower, peanut, soybean oils (also known as polyunsaturated oils). They have very high inflammatory properties and can do bad things to your brain and heart. Along with sugars, they are also thought to contribute to the growth of cancers.
– Put salt on your foods. When you cut out processed foods, you don’t get the added salt that they provide and you need salt for the electrolytes.
– Eat nuts or a cube of cheese if you hungry, but remember to measure and weigh as they are high in fat and calories will add up quickly. Macadamias are the best as they are very low in carbs and high in fat (4.5g/100g carbs), cashews are the worst – they are technically a seed (28g/100g of carbs).
– Stay clear of all artificial sweeteners, but particularly aspartame. It can cause a huge amount of side effects. In Australia it’s 950/951/955 and possibly other numbers. Not sure what they are in the U.K. and the U.S.
– It has been reported that having drinks and food with artificial sugar can also spike a release of insulin once your tongue ‘tastes’ the sweetness as your body thinks it needs to metabolise the sugar it thinks you are consuming. Perhaps use them to help you wean yourself off sugar, but in my opinion, it shouldn’t be something you consume long term. The jury is still out on stevia, but I don’t take the chance as it hasn’t been around for long enough for long term studies.
My goal was 60kg, and once I reached it, I decided to keep going with more fat in my diet to see where it took me (I did not increase my carbs) I now seem to have settled around 56-58kg. I still do not eat refined carbs or sugar because as soon as I do, my weight will go up and believe it or not, the cravings are gone. I haven’t had chocolate or ice cream since before April! A miracle for me!
The fat I consume triggers the hormones in my body to send me the ‘I’m full’ signal and I no longer count what I eat, but I know others continue to do so once they get to maintenance, it really is an individual thing. Don’t feel like you have to eat if you’re not hungry, a lot of us will easily skip one meal, sometimes two and it’s perfectly OK.
I had some bloods taken at the doctors last week and just got the results. Since I’ve started eating more saturated fat, my HDL cholesterol has gone up (the good one) and my triglycerides have gone down (the bad one) and the doctor says I’m in perfect health other than low iron which I’ve had for 30 years.
Don’t worry about what other people say or think. We had friends over for a BBQ last week and one brought a box of chocolates as a gift. I politely asked him to take it home with him as I no longer eat sugar and he was happy to do so! I’m sure he thought I was bonkers, but I just don’t care anymore what anyone thinks anymore because my health is more important to me!
The restriction of 800 cals per day is just to get the weight off quickly and keep you motivated, it is easy to do and don’t let anyone tell you that it is too low or that your body won’t cope or you will get sick. It’s bunkum. Also don’t let anyone tell you that your body needs sugar. Your brain does need glucose for energy but it can make it from complex carbs (I eat predominantly vegetables, not grains or legumes) and protein and fat. There are such thing as essential proteins and fats as your body can’t make them, but there are no such things as essential carbohydrates!
Give up alcohol for the 8 weeks. Hard, I know, but it’s better to eat your calories than drink them and it tends to make you want to cheat. Most are also high in carbs. Once you’ve lost the weight, you might want to reconsider, but I’ve found that other than the odd 1/2 glass of red wine, I don’t bother and don’t miss it. Beer is full of carbs!
I also listen to a lot of health podcasts, either whilst I’m walking or cooking and that is a huge motivator. I just didn’t realise that I didn’t know what I didn’t know!
Here’s an example:
https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/ask-the-low-carb-experts/id495159994?mt=2&i=114095842
https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/ask-the-low-carb-experts/id495159994?mt=2&i=165093383
There’s are heaps, just search for low carb or Keto.
If you haven’t started yet, start by clearing out all the crappy foods out of your cupboard, work out what you’re going to eat for the first week and go shopping. You don’t need the temptation whilst you are craving carbs in the first few days.
The recipes in the book are pretty good, I’ve made a lot of them but be careful with the cals/carbs etc as they are not always accurate.
You’ll also find a lot of low carb and Keto recipes online.
I took about 25 weeks to lose my weight and did not break at all. CaptainLynne checked with the ‘team’ and they said it was ok to keep going after the 8 weeks. Lynne has lost over 100lbs in just under 12 months.
Ask me anything you want, I’m happy to answer any questions.
Good luck. This is the best thing that I’ve ever done for myself and I no longer let other people tell me what’s good for me, including my doctors as most of them are not up to date but the science backs this up.
Good luck everyone.
Cheers
Linda