Square one

(Butter Withaspoon) #21

Hi Wendy, I’d also vote for prioritising protein at meals. Choose protein without trimming the fat. Eat that first then your vegetables. Perhaps low or low quality protein is preventing satiety.

Also may I suggest you make a list of goals that are NOT weight, and track those and measure progress. It might allow you to feel successful and confident in your body. Then you’re in a better position to try for some fat loss.

Goals might be-

Not being hungry all the time
Not being tired
Stronger in some way (body weight squats perhaps)
Better posture
Doing some walks

Obviously you have to choose what works with your joint pain issues. Good luck!

(Allie) #22

Yes definitely aim for higher, especially as you’re older. Make protein the main focus rather than fats and see how you go :slightly_smiling_face:

(Bob M) #23

How does one even eat 100 grams per day? I eat more than that for my first meal of the day, easily. I had ham and beef heart for lunch today, and I’m sure I’m over 100 grams in that meal.

I must eat too much meat, as eating just meat means protein levels will be high, or at least way higher than what many here (unless carnivore) eat.

#25

Track her macros since she’s eating too much and doesn’t know what she can get away with. She can get her RMR measured so it doesn’t take playing with them for weeks or months to find her threshold.

#26

If all goes as planned for dinner tonight, I’ll be at 104 g protein, 8 g net carbs, 92 g fat and 1300 calories. Let’s see if I’m still hungry before bed. ( That is my danger time :crossed_fingers: ) Maybe I should aim for a few more calories.

(Joey) #27

Very helpful - thanks for the clarification. Prompted me to lookup a local RMR test site. Surprisingly affordable test at a well-known university.

I do wonder how useful a spot RMR metric can be in terms of providing actionable info. E.g., regardless of the RMR result, if one is not eating to adequate satiety, the ability to maintain that particular way of eating becomes a self-limiting dead end at some point.

Perhaps better to toggle the types of food that will lead to slow/steady weight loss such that satiety makes it sustainable and enjoyable. I’m thinking sufficient protein + healthy fats. Carbs do nothing for weight loss.

(Joey) #28

Carb restriction sounds excellent given your long term goal. I would encourage you to err on the side of eating more fat - slowly eating - and getting attuned to your sense of fullness. When you feel “full” or “satisfied” then stop.

Keep this up and over time you will likely find you become satisfied with lower amounts of overall food portions than you may have become accustomed to.

Limiting calories to something abnormally low (like 1300) is going to invite your metabolism to slow down and defeat not just your weight loss aspirations, but your general level of energy and health.

(Alec) #29

This is what has happened to me… as an example, last night I had a reasonable portion of fatty lamb to eat, got quarter way through and realised I was becoming non-hungry, half way through I was totally stuffed, couldn’t eat any more if I tried. It is now in the fridge waiting for another day.

And oddly, my recent experience is the more I eat, the more weight I lose, but if I eat less, I don’t. Weird.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #30

When I first went entirely keto (I started by eliminating only sugar and sweets) I kept eating the same portion size as I was accustomed to on my high-carb diet (i.e., filling my stomach to the point where “wan more waffer theen meent” would spell disaster). Apparently my body needed that much food at the beginning, but one day, two or three weeks in, I was eating lunch and suddenly, with half a plate of salmon left, I was done. Couldn’t choke down another mouthful. And my stomach was nowhere near full. It was weird.

Since then I have found that some days I get hungry before noon and end up eating a lot, whereas other days I forget to eat and don’t even want all that much for supper. Of course, most days are somewhere in between. Since my weight is stable, I don’t worry about the variations in appetite. But I am consistently stopping eating long before I’ve run out of room in my stomach.

I long ago came to the conclusion that those first few of weeks of enormous meals were something my body needed, so as to get itself sorted out. I suppose if I’d been counting calories, I’d have gotten alarmed, but looking back, I can see the value in learning the distinction between my old high-carb habits and my keto eating to satiety.

(Robin) #31

I forgot about that! I remember the day I suddenly looked at my next bite and was positively NOT able to eat it. And I still had a lot of food on my plate.
But nope…NOT ONE SINGLE MORE BITE.
Comical, really. My body found its voice or my head found its ears.

(Allie) #32

If you are then it’s a sure sign you’ve not eaten enough during the day.

#33

You might be interested in Data Driven Fasting by Marty Kendall. Keto, low carb, vegetarian, carnivore-no bias on whatever diet you choose to follow.

#34

1300 kcal may be perfect for someone with a low energy need, actually but it is usually a really low one I think.
Sadly, the food needed for (especially long term) satiation and our energy need aren’t always in a nice relationship. My body rarely accept way less than my daily energy need for a meal - or when it does, I get hungry in 1-2 hours. Keto doesn’t helped. Carnivore was cool first, okay, still cool but first I was okay with smaller meals and less calories in overall, not anymore. I must do everything right to stay below 2000 kcal, the weird obsession of my body. It wants that, no matter what. I lost fat, lowered my carbs, my eating window diminished… My body STILL wants that.

But this “can’t eat more” is something that meat and lack of carbs can do. I very nearly always could eat a ton, it’s my great skill. But sometimes meat gives a stop sign. It was more apparent in the beginning on carnivore but meat is still special if I eat enough of it. It’s the opposite of carbs (for me, at least, some people get wonderfully satiated with them), they can tear apart my existing satiation often a big meaty meal.
Some vegs may not ruin this effect, it’s individual. It’s best for me to avoid them (maybe a tiny bit can remain, that’s okay), others benefit from more, it seems…

If 1300 kcal won’t be enough, it may be it’s the calories (easily, it’s too little for most of us). But maybe it’s the protein or the chosen items. It may take a lot of experimentation to figure out what works.
And of course, we aren’t robots. Some days we want more even if we aren’t super active on that day. So occasional “anomalies” don’t matter. We even can lose fat just fine with regularly eating at a calorie surplus, I lost fat smoothly on low-carb that way. 2000 kcal on most days, more on some others, it worked like a charm while my energy need was big enough. It’s possible my higher-cal days helped my body to know there is no famine (though 2000 kcal for a sedentary short woman - as it was my most inactive time in my life after I learned to walk - isn’t exactly famine, I would think but you never know with my spoiled body).

Good luck!!!
Oh and one single 1300 kcal may be fine if it’s just one day. It happens. I don’t force my body if it doesn’t want more than that (I actually celebrate to avoid eating too much… :D). But I make sure I eat better the next day as I know very much I need more than that.

(Alec) #35

This doesn’t necessarily mean you are not insulin resistant. You may need loads of insulin to get your blood sugar down to those levels. Raised blood sugar levels are the end state of insulin resistance, and you can be pumping out loads of insulin for years before your blood sugar starts going high.

#36

I guess it’s possible but that logic would lead to the assumption that everyone is insulin resistant: high blood sugar = body not responding to insulin; normal blood sugar = body needing to produce more insulin for a response.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #37

The late diabetes researcher, Dr. Joseph Kraft, believed that many more people were actually diabetic than were caught by the standard diagnostic criterion, which is out-of-control serum glucose. Dr. Kraft did a large number of oral glucose tolerance tests on a large number of “non-diabetic” subjects and identified five insulin-response patterns, four of which, he claimed, indicated that the subject would eventually qualify as diabetic according to the standard diagnostic. He called this variously “occult diabetes” or “diabetes in situ.” He said that these insulin-response patterns were sometimes obvious as much as twenty years in advance of an official diagnosis of Type II diabetes.

So yes, given how many people adhere to the diet recommended by the U.S. government, there are probably a lot more insulin-resistant people out there than public health officials are willing to admit. Part of the problem is that an oral glucose tolerance test is time-consuming and labour-intensive, and so is very expensive. Doctors don’t like to prescribe it, and insurance companies don’t like to pay for it.

Not only that, but there’s no pill you can prescribe to treat “insulin-resistance,” the way you can for “diabetes” once blood sugar is out of control. The only treatment is to stop eating so much carbohydrate, and where would the snack-food, candy, and soda-pop industries be then?

#38

I don’t disbelieve this. But not all of us have a history of drinking sugary beverages or overloading carbs. I don’t.

Well, I tried to do a sort of diy glucose tolerance test with a piece of cake and my keto mojo. I was amazed at how quickly my 156 spike went back to normal (below 100), which had me convinced insulin is not my problem. Out of scientific curiosity, I just might try that again!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #39

The speed at which the glucose drops is not the issue; the issue is the insulin response, which, alas, we cannot measure at home. Measuring insulin requires a radioimmunoassay, which requires a laboratory. An oral glucose tolerance test measures insulin at baseline and every half-an-hour afterward for several hours.

Dr. Catherine Crofts, a pharmacologist in New Zealand, did her doctoral thesis on Joseph Kraft’s work. She has given a couple of talks on the subject at Low Carb Down Under events, videos of which are available on the LCDU YouTube channel. There is also an interview with Dr. Kraft himself, which I believe is still available on Ivor Cummins’s site, www.thefatemperor.com.

(Bob M) #40

You have to test both insulin and blood sugar. Your blood sugar response might be “great”, because you’re over producing insulin. See this:

I saw a post from someone who gives a Kraft test to her clients. She had one client who took the test and had a GREAT blood sugar response. But his insulin response was terrible.

image

Say you’re in #4 above, which means you are overproducing insulin for a long time. Your blood sugar response will look good, as your blood sugar won’t go up much and/or will go down quickly. But your insulin response is terrible.

(Joey) #41

In a show of my ignorance…

If you’re “overproducing” insulin but have a blood sugar response that’s “great” doesn’t this imply a lack of insulin resistance? Put differently, if one is insulin resistant, wouldn’t the glucose response be “not-so-great” (e.g., Pattern #3 or #4)?

I would’ve thought that if blood sugar responds quickly, then one is still insulin sensitive.

OVER-RIDING THOUGHT: Of course, low carb (keto) eaters should expect pattern #5 when glucose self-testing pre/post prandial… because they’re not loading glucose into their bloodstream through diet in the first place.

Any serum glucose is coming almost entirely from gluconeogenesis … and it’s hard to imagine why the liver would produce more glucose than is needed - nor adequately handled by an insulin response.

Having said this, the OP @Wendy198 is experimenting with higher carbs, so it might be a little more challenging to ferret out the inputs and outputs.