Thank you for sharing. You are so right about degrees of awareness. Your reply resonated deeply as one who has experienced the wide ranging spectrum. Acceptance is the fertile field to start change within… thank you for sharing.
When is enough loss enough?
Cosmic1
(Laura)
#42
As a veteran of the low calorie, high carb diets, I did lose weight, but was miserable all the time because I was hungry! So, I would always give in and start eating and gain everything back plus more. I thought that I was a failure with no willpower, etc. I had terrible self esteem due to never being able to withstand the hunger.
When I found Atkins, for the first time in my dieting life, I was not hungry. It did not require any willpower on my part to resist sugar and carby food. I was amazed and then angry at all the misinformation and years of beating myself up for being weak. It isn’t me; it’s the food.
So, for that reason alone, I think Keto is a fine WOL for anyone who wants to be healthy. I do think it is valid to keep an eye on folks who might be inclined to have an ED. However, someone who struggles with that can abuse any WOE, correct?
CarlKeller
(Carl Keller)
#43
And I apologize if I took your comments out of context. 
Without direct quotes above your comments, I hope you can understand how they might be taken at face value. I read the OP hours before I came back and read the comments.
And I respect your opinion that I don’t respect your opinion. 
PaulL
(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?)
#44
Yet I believe that even such people might come in time to appreciate the other benefits of a well-formulated ketogenic diet. I suspect, however, that anyone begining keto with the idea that it is just another typical weight-loss diet is unlikely to have enough patience to stay the course.
Which is a shame, but on the other hand, I can’t really complain at there being more bacon left for the rest of us. . . . 
(Sheesh! I proofed this post before posting, read it again right after posting, and still find a major error! Oy!)
KetoMomof2teens
#45
♀ Me… lol…
but I also love all the other health benefits and after being Keto over a year already, I’m a devotee for life! In addition to all the benefits everyone always talks about, I’ve also not been sick AT ALL in over a year which is amazing!!
anon13588705
#46
This was addressed to me so I am going to respond just once and then I am not going to revisit here because it appears I am unable to stay on the topic and the topic was of interest to me in terms of is this a good and safe forum to refer people to.
I think as an admin of the forum you could ask the BMJ or any major medical publication to give you the information you are seeking or alternatively ask Jason Fung? Richard Morris?
…I am not sure why this is something you would ask a member to clarify for you…when you could ask someone informed such as @Brenda who is also admin here.
I am just a member, not a radiographer or a medical professional currently.
I got the information I personally rely on from Professor Maria Fiattarone Singh who is a Professor of Medicine at Sydney University Sports Science and Harvard Medical School…she does a huge ammount of research in both countries on strength training for diabetes and geriatrics and allsorts. The body composition test at the beginning and end of each study is the DEXA and the research is widely published and peer reviewed.
I think you need to find someone and ask yourself otherwise it is just a circular contention that I think they are accurate and you don’t. Which is completely pointless.
I participated in the Tai Chi for Diabetes study, The LO study and about four more of Fiattarone Singh’s published studies in the last few decades. I can’t imagine they would publish inaccurate data, she is incredibly focussed on data as proof of benefit or not.
Since you are suggesting a DEXA is inaccurate, could you perhaps show some evidence or reference for that claim rather than ask me to show you are wrong?
I don’t really feel that is appropriate.
Daisy
#47
It was a discussion and, in a highly ironic twist, I have been reminded of who I and @LouiseReynolds had the conversation with. It was the editor of the BJSM! You gotta admit that is kind of funny 
I forget his exact words - maybe @LouiseReynolds will have a better memory - but they were along the lines of “Don’t waste your money” which is why I haven’t!
I suggested there was doubt about the accuracy of DEXAs and that they might not be as accurate as people think. I am not saying they are wildly inaccurate. I’m not saying that I am correct. I am saying that people who know what they are talking about put enough doubt in my mind that I wouldn’t bother having one because of it. Please don’t put words in to my mouth or get so het up. By all means dismiss my thoughts on the subject but don’t tell me I can’t have them.
FYI - @siobhan is crazy smart and also, hilariously, an admin (albeit a behind the scenes one).
Emacfarland
(Erin Macfarland )
#49
It’s important for me to have integrity and to be honest about what I’ve been through. It helps take the stigma out of sharing difficult experiences- letting go of judgment helps free up space to find out who you really are.
Janie
(Jane)
#50
^^^ This
I’ve lost weight in the past but never got any other benefits other than a number on the scale and needing a new wardrobe.
Compared to keto - the list of health improvements is extensive - some subjective from observations and some evident on lab results such as my husband’s PSA going down and testerone going up from last year.
Brenda
(8 year Ketogenic Veteran)
#51
Opinions are just that, opinions. There are a lot of them out there. And if you look hard enough you’re going to find conflicting studies in just about everything. That’s just a fact. It comes down to which experts are you going to believe and what is working for you. By the way a DEXA, dual energy x-ray absorptiometry scans, are not equivalent all over the world. The machine itself. There are different companies, different depths, different styles, different variabilities and different accuracies. To lump them all together is ludicrous. I’m very lucky the DEXA center I use near Minneapolis is extremely accurate and will tell me my visceral fat to the gram. Now if I don’t prepare properly before the dexa, and come in dehydrated or overhydrated, it can screw with some of the results. Which is why I follow their instructions. I’ve been getting periodic DEXA scans several times a year for over 2 years now and they correlate exactly to what is happening with my body. So if you don’t want to get a DEXA scan? don’t. And move on. For those of us who find value in it, that’s our choice.
Frankly based on @Matrika 's experience, she’s the expert in this thread on dexa scans. Not the editor of the BMJ or an intelligent forum associated friend.
If I was talking about my DEXA and someone said to me that “there is doubt about the accuracy” and more or less name-dropped someone from a journal to prove their point, I suppose I would be insulted too.
Megan Ramos, co-founder of www.IDMprogram.com, used my DEXA scans for her talk at Low Carb Breckenridge 2018 to show that my intensive fasting only proved to build my lean mass. A critical point in advocating for the safety of fasting.
She has a master’s in research, and she’s one more person who believes in the accuracy of DEXA scans. Would I listen to the editor of the BMJ before her? Absolutely not.
Remember, show me the science.
It’s not dropping if she’s a co-worker, right? LOL
PaulL
(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?)
#52
bluemoons
(Stephanie Criner)
#53
Always good advice. I have to say that compared to other diet programs Keto has more positive body imagery, more compassion than anything i’ve ever seen. Most of the folks I follow came to Keto because of horrible yo-yo diets, negative self-talk and are reforming how we think about our bodies.
gabe
(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” )
#54
“When is enough loss enough?” Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full. For the vast majority of people, your body will drop fat until it reaches a new homeostasis at your new insulin levels.
This is part of why I agree with Stephen Phinney that the extended fasting trend isn’t healthy and can be dangerous. While I believe I could do a longer term fast, I think that ignoring hunger signals isn’t especially healthy. So if someone on a low carb diet is dropping “too much” fat, the first question I’d ask is whether they’re fasting.
By the way, this is not a problem I struggle with. I’ve reached my Phinney weight, and I think most of us hit a point where we’ve stabilized at a weight higher than where we’d (aesthetically) like to be. My bloods are great, though!
ChrisW
#56
There’s a few reasons why I’ve stopped at this current weight and am currently on maintenance.
- Based on a detailed BMI which took into account sex, weight, height, age and various body measurements, I’m at my goal weight.
- Trivially, it’s a nice round number- 20kgs lost.
- I read somewhere that to roughly work out the minimum weight to gain muscle for aesthetic reasons (without seeming skinny muscly) was my height in centimetres minus 100 and that gives your minimum goal weight to start weight training. So, my height is 173.5 cms - 100 = My current weight 73.5 kgs (note- not sure if there’s any science behind that thinking but it works for where I’m currently at, so I’m running with it)
- Even though I’m maintaining my current weight, I’m also weight training, which means I should be gaining muscle and if I’m looking to maintain my current weight, it stands to reason I’ll still be losing fat to do so. So maintaining weight while gaining muscle and losing fat. At least that’s the plan anyway.
If you see any holes in my way of thinking, let me know. It’s all n=1 at this stage.
peggo
(Peg Prince)
#58
It would appear that weight loss is a goal for most, if not all, of us. Is there a plan for maintenance? If so, are any in this forum on maintenance?
PaulL
(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?)
#60
Willy-nilly, I seem to be in maintenance. But I’m different; while I love being sixty pounds lighter and would love to be sixty pounds lighter still, I came here to deal with metabolic syndrome and stave off diabetes. I have succeeded in doing so, and thus have no intention of returning to a sugar-based diet.
In maintenance, nothing has changed. I still avoid sugar as though it were cyanide. I still keep my carb intake as low as I can, while eating protein and fat to satiety. The amount I eat may have changed over time, but the eating pattern has not.
I must say, the two real delights of eating this way are (a) never having to go hungry, and (b) never having to count calories. Were either of them not the case, that would have been a deal-breaker for me.