My intermittent fasting low carb journey

keto
(Chuck) #222

It wasn’t intentional I ate all that I felt comfortable eating. It has been a long time since I was able to eat what the calculations say I should eat for maintenance or even close to it. At 75 I eat what I can comfortably eat. I have been do this so since my mid fifties. I have known for a long time that I have issues metabolically. Even with hiking and biking from the time I was 10 years old, I haven’t ever been able to eat like others, when it comes to the amount or even the same types of food.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #223

That’s the ticket!

(Chuck) #224

Two months now on this plateau, but I seem to continue to lose fat from my whole body. It is even noticeable by me, not even considering that my clothes are much looser. I shouldn’t be surprised as this is what I weighed my whole Navy years. My Navy uniform is a little tight but it fits even now. I am not worried at my weight as much as my health.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #225

If you are losing fat, that’s not actually a plateau, at least as we think of it here.

(Chuck) #226

While I can agree with you, I am fighting old outdated thinking from a nurse practitioner, that doesn’t seem to understand anything that doesn’t toe the line of her stupid charts.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #227

You have my sympathy, then.

It probably won’t work, but you might try the following: Would she prefer you to look as though you’ve lost 30 lbs./14 kg and still weigh the same, or lose that amount and still look just as fat? Might be worth a try, if it wouldn’t ruin your relationship with her.

(Chuck) #228

I tell her that I simply don’t care about what the scales say. My gage is my lab results, how I feel, and how my clothes fit. And my blood pressure.
I have asked her if she believes the lab results or some mathematic calculations created for an insurance company, before the modern age of medicine.

(Chuck) #229

I have decided to take a break and just maintain, and see what comes of it. I am going to concentrate on getting back into my routine like I as before the cruise.

(Robin) #230

That’s the best bet for finding your groove again.

(Eve) #231

I am curious what the decisions are based on when some of you in this forum start off as keto, so with some carbs, albeit very low, and then eventually move to carnivore. I would be very interested to hear any of your insights :blush:

(Chuck) #232

I don’t believe in eating nothing but meat myself, I need a certain amount of vegetables, fruit and nuts. I am not even really doing keto, I am doing low carb. My goal is to stay at or as close to no more than a total of 50 carbs per day. That gives me the amount of fiber that my digestive system needs. The rest of my diet each day is fat and protein, I am eating a little more fat than protein calorie wise. My only no no is grain and potatoes, even there I will take a few bites of rice or potatoes once or twice a week. The key is finding what works for you. Don’t depend on anyone else to tell you what to eat and not eat, except if you have a medical condition that requires you stay on a strict diet.
At 75 and many attempts to stop yo yo dieting I have learned to depend on my experiences of what does and doesn’t work for me. I also learned that I could not even listen to the medical professionals and nutritionist as all they preach is a high carb diet. Then they scream at me for gaining weight. With the eat less and be more active.
The key is eat as few carbs as you can my research says less than 100 carbs is the very max for me. And eat more meat of all kinds. I have also learned that the screams for less salt is wrong my digestive system is working better with way more salt than the recommended amount and the combination of diet and weight loss has improved my blood pressure and digestive system to the point I am off medication. Now I can’t speak to diabetics as I have been blessed with not having it even though it runs in my mom’s side of the family.
My advice is research and experiment and experience.

(Chuck) #233

This morning after deciding to maintain for a while I am seeing a little weight loss, not much but it is encouraging. May @PaulL I haven’t been eating enough? I have felt guilty at eating so much the last few weeks.

(Eve) #234

Makes sense ! Thanks

(Chuck) #235

Just finally caught up on my logs my worst carb day on the cruise was 130 crabs, my next worse day was 116. But the rest of the 13 days were well below 100 crabs a day. My calories stayed at or just below my maintenance level. So I did great for being on a cruise where food was everywhere and way too easy to get.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #236

As Dr. Stephen Phinney likes to say, “We are not what we eat; we are what our body does with what we eat.”

If we are eating in a way that does not force our body to store fat, then we are fine. Within reason, our metabolism increases to meet the amount of food coming in, just as it decreases when rations are short. Dr. Phinney says that he and Prof. Volek have data to show that on a ketogenic diet eaten to satiety, fatty-acid metabolism actually increases, which is the reason our body can metabolise both the fat we eat and some of the excess stored fat we want to get rid of.

(Chuck) #237

In the past I had my doubts about that but I am slowly becoming more confident in that fact. But I don’t think it is true for a high carb diet, at least it didn’t work before. It may have worked when I was on the Atkins diet but back then I didn’t even have any knowledge of what a calorie was and while I did keep a general log of what I was eating it wasn’t even detailed enough to get any kind of guesstimate of the quantity of food I was eating. But I have logged using the loseit app since July of 2011 and to be honest it has only recently given me the ability to see micronutrients details. What I can say that since September when I started keto/low carb that I have eaten more calories than anytime on a high carb diet and I have exercised less. I am still active for my age but no where close to the 7 miles in less than two hours like I used to do while on the eat less move more BS.

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #238

It is manifestly not true on a high-carb diet, which is the whole point of keto/low-carb eating. It has been known to the medical profession for the past two hundred years that sugars, starches, and grains are fattening. I am old enough to remember when this was still the common wisdom.

It was only after they decided we shouldn’t eat fat, and they realised our energy has to come from somewhere, that suddenly the “common wisdom” shifted, and carbohydrates suddenly became health foods.

The Atkins diet, at least the initial phase of it, is a low-carb/keto diet. In fact, Dr. Stephen Phinney says he got interested in the Atkins diet in an attempt to prove Atkins wrong, and instead ending up proving the benefits of nutritional ketosis.

As far as calories are concerned, this is a hot-button topic on these forums. But a quotation from Amber O’Hearn is relevant: “We need a caloric deficit in order to shed excess fat, but we don’t need to restrict calories in order to achieve such a deficit.” Or, as Dr. Eric Westman puts it, “Calories count, but we shouldn’t count them.” And Dr. Phinney: “We are not what we eat, we are what our body does with what we eat.”

#239

Lucky! I definitely never lost fat on keto while eating as little as I did on low-carb (I ate A TON on high-carb, that probably would make me fatter even on keto if I could manage to eat that much long term).
But apparently many people have different experiences. Enjoy the boon! :slight_smile:

(Chuck) #240

It feels great to be back on my 15 to 21 hours of fasting. I find 17 to 20 hours of fasting to be fairly easy for me. But getting to 21 or more hours of fasting is a stretch for me. And when I have to do less than 17 I feel like I am cheating myself out of my best health benefits. I also find that the longer I fast in a day the less carbs I eat and even desire.

(Chuck) #241

I know I am 75 and things happen slowly for me when it comes to my weight, but I am amazed anytime I look in the mirror, I have no belly rolling over my belt now, this hasn’t happened even when I was at my lowest weight back in 2017 and 2018. I feel like I have lost weight this week but refuse to step on the scales until Sunday morning. My BP is great and I don’t seem to stress over things like I use to. I am eating more calories and a few more carbs and my clothes are even feeling looser. I haven’t had the courage to try my cowboy cut wrangler jeans since returning from the cruise. I can’t imagine them fitting when I am weighing about 15 pounds more than I did when I wore them before. I am back in my intermittent fasting grove and it has cleared my head and has returned my digestive system to a normal state. I woke our Vespa Scooters up from their winter nap and mine seemed to be faster than before, I guess it is relieved not having to carry the extra weight. I prefer my morning smoothies to eggs and bacon or sausage, even with the higher calories and carbs.