Questions for Jason Fung and Megan Ramos


(KCKO, KCFO) #102

I would like a podcast on what Jason and Megan have found out with their TOFI patients. DH is a T2D, but we struggle to keep weight on his 6’ frame. At 68, we know he should go too low with his weight. But even at 155 lbs. it is a stuggle to keep it there. He is not on meds, just doing exercise and diet. Oh exercise is light, yoga, walking 30 mins.+ per day, skipping colder days.

Even if IDM crew doesn’t have time to address this I would love another TOFI podcasts from the 2ketodudes. :slight_smile:


(carl) #103

I lost my 80 pounds from Feb to July 2016. Since then I’ve been on a plateau with a range of about 10 pounds.

My blood sugar is consistently 80-90. Non-diabetic. I’ve stopped looking at it as a flaw, a problem, a dysfunction. It’s not. It’s my body resetting itself - however it needs to. I haven’t done a Dexa but most people gain lean muscle mass when they go keto. I can definitely tell that’s happening. I’m shrinking but not losing weight. That tells me I’ve added bone and muscle and lost fat at the same time.

Anyway, @TomSeest, who has lost over 300 pounds and had plenty of long stalls, convinced me to stop worrying about it. @richard stalled for 2 years also, and only now has he started losing weight again.


#104

Gosh, @carl, I’m sorry about the diabetic question. I would have sworn on a big ol’ stack of bibles that you said on the podcast that you were diagnosed T2D when you started keto. I guess I got that part wrong. These days I blame everything I forget, etc. on “stroke brain” lol. I was developing a theory about T2Ds and stalls, etc and overly high insulin responses possibly for years after BG normalized, and I was beginning to wonder if my “maintaining the loss” since October was actually just a form of an extended stall (just thinking out loud here) since I have more fat to evict off of me. Guess I need to rethink that one. Thank you, Carl.


(carl) #105

No, you’re right. I was diabetic. I’m not now. My A1C was 7.4 when I started. Sorry if I wasn’t clear…


(What The Fast?!) #106

I’ve tried it all! I started out tracking EVERYTHING and I stayed under 25g total carbs. That wasn’t working, so I started doing IF right after that (lunch and dinner). That didn’t move the needle, so I decided to go Zero Carb. I tried that for a month and gained a couple lbs. (It also made social situations more difficult.) I went back to just IF with regular keto, then I signed up for the Fat Burning Female project with Shawn Mynar…she encouraged you to stress less by allowing a few more carbs, upping your fat intake, and trying to relax the approach. I gained a few more lbs… Then I had the revelation that I should just stop eating altogether (fasting). I started doing back to back multi-day fasts with just a day of refeeds in between. That’s been the first thing to drive my weight down, although it tends to jump right back up when I feast. I’m now about 4 lbs less than when I initially started 10 months ago. I have stopped tracking meticulously (a few months ago now) because I realized that it was causing me tons of stress and I really wasn’t enjoying eating because all I could think about was macros.

I work out (cycling, bootcamps, yoga, etc), I don’t eat tons of protein, I’m not afraid of fat. I used to eat lots of vegetables but found they made me bloated and exacerbated constipation. (That’s a HUGE issue for me - I’m talking extremely painful, even with supplementing magnesium citrate out the Wazoo, eating lots of salt, and trying things like chia seed. The only thing that helps is having a slice of low carb bread or some sort of grain, which I only do rarely, and only if I balance it with fasting and working out - and I test my ketones to make sure it doesn’t kick me out.)

My personal situation aside, I think there are a lot of people who don’t have IR (I had my fasting insulin tested at 2.2, HOMA:IR at 0.38, hbA1C at 4.7, and my Trigs/HDL ratio is well under 2) but who still can’t drop weight. I would love to hear Megan and Jason talk about their patients whose bodies just seem to be stubborn when it comes to weight loss and what has worked for them. I’ve read lots of stories like this on the forums and while I’m definitely trying to KCKO…I’d love to hear how people are overcoming this hurdle. :slight_smile:

FWIW, I can do all the activities I want at this weight - I hike, I bike, I ski, etc…but I know how much more enjoyable all those activities would be at minus 20 lbs…


(carl) #107

Do you use sweeteners?


(What The Fast?!) #108

I stopped them all for awhile, but it didn’t make a difference. I now use Erithrytol only because I haven’t seen an increase in BG when testing it, (I don’t use Stevia because I’ve heard it can increase insulin without affecting BG), and occasionally I use liquid sucralose, but rarely.


(carl) #109

How’s your stress and sleep?


(What The Fast?!) #110

I sleep like a baby!
Energy: great, but it always was before keto (I have eaten whole, mostly unprocessed foods for many years)
Sleep: amazing, always was
Stress: tends to be high, I’m just kind of a high strung person in general, but my work can be highly stressful.
Mood: great, always was - though I experience more calm now
Hormones: had em all tested and they’re all normal
Dave Feldman says my numbers look just like a lean mass hyper-responder, except I’m not lean.


(What The Fast?!) #111

PS Sorry to hi-jack this thread.


(carl) #112

Have you been measuring fasting insulin at your blood tests? Stress is killah


(What The Fast?!) #113

I got it measured once and it was 2.2. I can go get it done again.


(carl) #114

Were you as stressed as you are now when that was measured? :slight_smile:


(carl) #115

Sorry if it seems like I’m asking dumb questions…


#116

Have you had a Kraft assay done? Maybe your fasting insulin is good But you’re hyperresponding when you eat. Just a thought. Also, I don’t think you’re leaving enough time between fasts. I believe Megan said minimum one or two days feasting for each day of fasting (it was in a podcast). I’ve got a great resource for constipation that I need to run check that may help you in that area.


(What The Fast?!) #117

Nothing has changed drastically since then. I got it tested a few months into keto.
A side note - I underwent 2nd degree burns on my chest from near-boiling water a few weeks after I started keto. I assume that caused a significant stress response for the following month or so it took the wound to close. I’m now 9.5 months out from that burn, so I can’t imagine it’s still causing issues. (The fasting insulin test was taken 3.5 months after the burn.)


#118

Man! I type way too dang slow these days, lol! Sorry to repeat what others said!


(What The Fast?!) #119

Not every fast is like that. I did that a few times, but now I leave more time in between. What’s a Kraft Assay???


#120

That’s a multiple glucose test with insulin levels. They may not call it that anymore. They take a baseline fasting glucose and insulin. Then they give the glucose goop to drink. Then they retake veinous blood and insulin draws every hour for 4-5 hours. (The first one may be at 1/2 hour.) Personally since I’m T2D I would ask for enough blood draws to cover 6 hours. You can Google this and find the insulin patterns that Dr. Kraft discovered. There’s also an interesting video of an interview he did with Ivor Cummins.


(What The Fast?!) #121

Thanks. I’ll take a look at this. I’ll also do a baseline insulin test again to see if that helps. I’m in the middle of a 100 hour fast right now, but I’ll do that probably next week!