For all you nutrition experts out there

[Jayne]

I'm starting to become a bit frustrated, and it seems there's a lot of knowledge here so I thought I'd ask for some advice. Warning - this may be a little long since I want to share all the details with you.

I have been overweight since puberty. Everyone in my family is obese. Type 2 diabetes and heart disease run in my family (no big surprise).

I've had some success over the years, and have had the most in the last year. Last summer I started working with a personal trainer and doing yoga. I'm not working with the trainer at the moment but still exercising regularly. I lost a total of 30 lbs, then gained back about 7 when my husband and I separated. I know the cause of that - while I didn't increase my calories, I relied way too much on refined carbs (comfort food) and wasn't getting enough protein.

Here's my weekly exercise routine:
Monday 75minutes of Power Yoga (very aerobic, strength building as well)
Tuesday Yoga, Walking or strength training with my bible study group
Wednesday 75 minutes of hatha yoga
Thursday 60 minute walk / jog
Friday off
Saturday 75 minutes of power yoga
Sunday 60 minute walk / jog

My muscle tone is great since I've started yoga, and it hasn't diminished since I stopped working with the trainer.

4 weeks ago I made a drastic change to my eating pattern. I'm hypoglycemic and I know I am insulin resistant. I knew I had to eliminate sugar and refined carbs from my diet. I have also eliminated all artifical sweeteners, except for an occasional cup of tea with stevia. I drink close to double the recommended amount of water each day. (Between 2 and 4 liters a day). I'm on a multivitamin, take magnesium and garlic. No prescriptions other than birth control (and stopping is not an option due to medical issues).

Here's my typical eating for the day:
6am Light multigrain (8grams fiber) english muffin with 1/2 cup egg beaters
9am 1-2 servings fruit with a handful of nuts (normally almonds)
11am 4-5 cups green salad with grilled chicken breast and very little dressing (i often use salsa), 1 serving fruit (all fruit is fresh)
1pm 1 serving fruit with 1 piece lowfat string cheese
3pm 1 serving fruit with 2-3tbsp hummus or more nuts, sometimes a few pita wedges made with organic oat and millet flour and flaxseeds
5pm 1 serving fruit with a handful of nuts
8pm steamed vegetables and chicken breast - sometimes with organic brown rice or whole grain pasta (but not more than once every 2 weeks)

Dinner is normally at 8 because yoga goes until 7:15 and I can't eat much before yoga.

If I count my calories, I'm normally around 1500. Based on discovery with my trainer, anything less than 1500 puts me into starvation mode.

Now here's the deal - by all calculations I should be losing 2 lbs per week. I have a total of 30 left to lose. Since I changed my eating 4 weeks ago, I have lost 2 then gained 1 back - so I'm down net 1lb in 4 weeks. I would expect much more from eating this way. I previously lost 1 lb a week by restricting my calories but still eating sugar. This has to be working better, right?

Maybe it's too much fruit? Would appreciate any insight you can offer.

[infinitethoughts]

Originally Posted by Jayne

I'm starting to become a bit frustrated, and it seems there's a lot of knowledge here so I thought I'd ask for some advice.

To give you perspective on why you're not losing weight look at other countries.

Why are they not overweight and most amercians are?

They do not use synthetic chemicals in their foods and drinking water.

You'll notice immediate (2-4 days) results when you completely cut out any chemicals (processing, pesticides, irridation of vegetable, and herbicides) in your foods, drinking water, (research water filters that take out all chemical in your drinking water) personal care products, household cleaners, etc.

Why is this?
Synthetic chemicals do not get digested/processed in the human body, stay in your body and as a result a person gets overweight.

[SmellyOrc]

When you're just eating 1500 calories a day, for weeks at a time, your metabolism will adjust to that. You will digest your food even slower, therefore you will need less and less food to keep loosing weight. That is why you're not loosing any weight. Since eating even less food is not really an option, I suggest the exact opposite: eat more food, but of the right kind. Get back to around 2000 calories a day. Initially you will gain some weight, but that doesn't matter. Keep eating around 2000 calories a day, and increase your cardio (imo, less yoga, but that's up to you). Normally I'd recommend HIIT, but since I don't know your current weight, how long you're doing doing cardio already etc, I just might send you to bed with an injury. Nobody wants that, eh?


Recommendation: Buy the book 'Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle' by Tom Venuto. It's an excellent read on how to loose fat.

[VacMan]

Jayne,

I think that it's too early to tell for sure if what you are doing is working or not.

I also think that regardless of chemicals you should most likely be losing fat with a 1500 calorie diet.

Try and focus on things that are more accurate than weight in determining if your diet is working.

More accurate measurements than just weight include:
-Body fat measurements
-How your clothes fit
-How you look in the mirror

The reason why weight can be deceptive, especially at the beginning few months is:
-Muscle weights more than fat
-You are probably gaining a bit of muscle through strength training
-You could be retaining water
-You may not be weighing yourself under the exact same conditions every time so fluxuations in weight are expected.

Basically, what you are doing most likely is working, but try and take a better and more inclusive measurement of your progress than simply the scale.

Keep up the good work!

[Wit and Itch]

First of all I’d like to congratulate you on a very health life stile. You should be proud of yourself.
Than:
You are leading a healthy lifestyle to maintain your weight, not to lose it. If you had a bucket with sand, and every day you take out a cup of sand and every day you add a cup of sand, amount of sand will stay the same. So in order to lose weight, you need to add less than you use. Don’t listen to theory about “starvation mode”, if this was true, nobody would ever lose any weight.
Considering your health issues I would strongly recommend that you go on a “Raw food diet” for at least 4 months. This is when you don’t eat anything that was in any way processed except cutting.
Replace few of your fruit servings with vegetable.
Less nuts.
Change your walk / jog to run.
Very effective exercise is skipping a meal. It is very healthy not to eat anything for 24 hours once a month.

[maclinda]

Your current "diet" is very fattening. You have simple carbs throughout your day (yep fruit counts) so you insulin level is staying high all day long. You don't drop weight with an elevated insulin.

[coleflowers]

I gained a lot of weight with my pregnancy, and it took awhile to lose it. I worked with a bariatric physician to lose the weight since my own effort were producing minimal results. My husband is also a personal trainer and has taught me a lot of what he knows. So, while I am no expert, I have some good experience in the weight loss field.

First-You stated you had been overweight since puberty. Our bodies really like to maintain homeostasis, so the longer you have extra weight, the harder the body works to hold onto that fat. Plus, plateus are a regular occurence in the weight loss process, so just because you don't always see a two pound loss at the end of the week, it doesn't mean your body isn't adjusting and working to lose. Also, if you have been doing the same exercise routine for some time than your body has adapted and the same activity will be using less calories. Varying your diet will also help the scale to budge.

Second-As you lose weight your metabolism slows, meaning you need to eat less calories to continue to lose weight. You said you figured out with your trainer how many calories you should be eating, but unless you have had a doctor perform a basic metabolic test, any calculations are just assumptions.

Third-While yoga is a great exercise, it does little in the way of calorie burn for weight loss. Serious cardio like running, cycling will burn way more calories. Jumping rope is also a major calorie burner. Also, adding muscle mass will help raise your metabolic rate and burn more calories over time. You sound like you do have some muscle from yoga, but adding something like weight lifting would help you.

I don't agree with previous posters advice about raw food diets since I think that is likely to set you up for failure. Eating a super strict diet, with little in the way of taste and variety will set you up for a binge. While chemicals in food are not great for you, there is no evidence to prove chemicals will cause your body to hold on to weight.

Overall though, everyone's body is not the same, so a one pound weight loss per week may be what is best for your body. I do know that people who lose weight at a slower pace have been show to keep it off longer. Plus, there are numerous factors that can inhibit weight loss like an increase in stress, or recent illness.

And even though I just spouted out a long post on what I thought you should try, I think you might have better luck finding your answer by consulting with a nutritionst, trainer, bariatric physician, or other specialist. You also will probably find more accurate information on web sites dedicated to weight loss. sparkpeople.com comes to mind, but I am sure there are other sites as well.

That's my two cents...I wish you the best of luck on your weight loss experience and congratulate you on the hard work you have done so far.

[maclinda]

I *am* a bariatric physician.

Do you have any in your area you could see? Make sure they don't just throw pills at you, but instead focus on helping you learn about nutrition and exercise. Medications can help, especially in the beginning while you're learning new patterns of eating and movement, but you need long-term knowledge.

[escapee]

Your current "diet" is very fattening. You have simple carbs throughout your day (yep fruit counts) so you insulin level is staying high all day long. You don't drop weight with an elevated insulin.

An apple a day keep the doc away , the second brings him/her back

By Udoraemus

[Catlover]

I too have hypoglycemia, so I have an idea of what you are going through. With our condition, I've found that it takes a longer time for the body to adjust to changes in my eating plan. If you are just returning to your eating plan after a period of increased simple carbs, I've found that it takes about twice the time I expect to start losing weight well, but then the weight loss seems to kick in. I suspect it's because of the insulin levels taking a while to level out. And I find the first couple of days of getting off of simple carbs to be torture--I sometimes think of is as detox. In fact, it's so torturous that I've actually starting looking at things like donuts and just pretending that they have a poison sign over them. Things like that are really starting to lose their appeal after the many struggles trying to get off of them. However, please know that while it may take a little longer to see the results you want, you will see them plus you are going to feel 100% better once your body detoxes from the simple carbs.

You asked whether the number of fruits may be causing a problem, and I agree that they may. I was told when I was pregnant and craved 5-6 fruits per day that I was flirting with diabetes by eating that many. They could not identify diabetes by my blood tests, but I did deliver a high birth weight baby. I would think the 2-3 fruits would be safe and maybe you could substitute 2 vegetables for the other fruits. Also, the actual fruits themselves matter--some are higher glycemic than others as I'm sure you already know.

One thing that I didn't notice in your diet was much fat other than the nuts, and although they are a great source of fat and I rely on them as well to help maintain a stable blood sugar, I often use peanut butter as well. If I were eating your breakfast, I would probably put a thin layer of peanut butter on my English Muffin. Another thing I've picked up recently is how bad commercial salad dressings are--loaded with corn syrups and the like. I wouldn't even eat them in small amounts. I have switched to a very light portion of olive oil with balsamic vinegar, and I like it much better. I have noticed that to lose weight really well, I cannot eat cheese.

One thing I've noticed works really well for us hypoglycemics is good ole walking. The weeks that I walk a lot I lose more weight than when I just do cardio at the gym. I too do a little yoga but don't rely on that for anything other than strength building, stretching and stress control. However, the latter, stress control, is extremely important for us because I think the stress hormones like cortisol also pack on the pounds and maybe cause an increase in insulin as well (I'm not in the medical field so I am not completely sure about this interaction).

I hope that some of these suggestions will be helpful. I know that you will be successful. I hope that you will post here again so that we can all benefit from the wisdom of your experience--especially us fellow hypos.

[m0vingon]

Hi. I'm hypoglycemic too. Since having my youngest child 3 years ago (to the day!) I've been working on losing weight as well. Thus far I've lost 35 lbs and I'm working on losing another 20. I'm a lower weight now then I was when I got pregnant, but I was 20 lbs over to begin with.

Anyway, like Smellyorc, I am a Burn the Fat recruit. I highly recommend the book to anyone who has weight loss struggles. The exercise portion is hard-core and it's geared toward body builders, but following the eating plan and doing moderate exercise did wonders for me.

That aside, I find that the best (and only) way for me to lose weight; since I'm so carb-sensitive, is to drop the starchy carbs 6/7 days a week, stick with mainly lean protein, some fats, and fibrous carbs. I generally don't have more than 1 piece of fruit in a day. Looking at your plan those are the things I would suggest you try.

Also, I am a big believer in zig-zagging calories. Having some higher calorie days and some lower calorie days keeps your metabolism "guessing". I almost always found that if I hit a plateau I would start losing again after a day of eating more!

I see that you have received a lot of differing opinions, which I'm sure you expected on this board with such an eclectic group. I think you probably know what things are best for you intuitively. Try what sounds appropriate for a month or so and see what the outcome is. Good luck to you!

[maclinda]

Another thought: recognize that people with insulin resistance (and therefore generally high insulin levels) are hungry frequently, and tend to crave sweets.

When I see a new patient, I put them on a no sweet/no starch diet. Think protein and veg's. No fruit (temporarily-we compensate with a dynamite good vitamin). The reason for that is people who are craving sweets will substitute tons of fruit ie. sweets. If you eat 6 bananas, you might have been ahead to have just had the snickers bar, as far as weight loss is concerned.

Exercise boosts the insulin lowering effect.

Later we add back carbs, one at a time to see how they're tolerated.

[bdp]

Your diet isn't optimal for fat loss, it is better suited for a lean, active person maintaining his weight. Your body is likely very resistant to fat loss if you've been overweight most of your life. If this is the case, you have to eat a much more nutrient-dense diet (and I would recommend you read "Eat To Live" by Fuhrman).

Eat more leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables.

Eat only low-sugar fruit, especially if you eat as many servings as you claim. No watermelon, raisins, dates, or bananas.

Eat beans instead of animal products and grains.

I will leave the rest of the issues, including hypoglycemia, to Dr Fuhrman. Read these two pages: Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for ... - Google Book Search

[Jayne]

Thanks all for the suggestions. I knew there was a wealth of knowledge on this board! No way I can respond to everyone, so will offer a few more details here.
- I'm staying away from the high glycemic fruits - no raisins, watermelon, pineapple. Was having bananas every day - now cutting down to 2-3 per week and having them with protein
- I do have a lot of olive oil in my diet, so fat isn't a problem (kind of hard to give you ALL the details in one post) - and I take a fatty acid supplement
- Yoga actually is a cardio exercise. It's very aerobic, and elevates my heart rate MUCH faster than walking or any other activity I can do.
- Running isn't an option due to joint issues
- I had my metabolism tested this weekend. I'm burning 2,340 calories per day. This tells me my activity level is right, and my frequency of eating is right.

I keep thinking maybe I need to eat more - and I actually tried that over the weekend - but just couldn't. I'm not hungry. Since I cut out the sugar, my food is staying with me.

Here's the plan for now - I'll give it another month as I know my body is very slow to respond. I have a full physical planned for September at which time I will further evaluate. In the meantime, here's my plan:
1. Cut back on bananas
2. Cut back my fruit to 3-4 servings a day initially, then 2-3 servings a day
3. Vary my calorie intake from day to day.
4. Have a protein shake for breakfast

I'll give that a month and see how it goes. Further changes I will make:
Replace one of my walking days with yoga, which actually moves my heart rate up faster.

If that doesn't help, then we'll see what the doc says when I do my physical.

Appreciate all the input! You guys are a great source of information.

[endless]

Jayne,

You're doing a great job. Here are some suggestions that may help get things moving along.

> Add some bodyweight interval type training.
> Add a "refeed" day every 4th day. Increase your Calorie intake 250-500 on this particular day (time it so you take in a good amount of this right after a workout).

A quick and simple bodyweight interval workout would be alternating the Dive Bomber Pushup with Bodyweight Squats.

Richard

[drklig]

Without going into great detail, I'd just like to add a few simple suggesstions:

When you want to lose weight, you need to create a slight energy deficit and keep it going for a while. Your body will metabolise fat to cover the deficit.

Ways to do this: (a) a healthy diet with a bare minimum of processed and artificial foods. If you live in the USA, you may find this difficult, but learning to cook properly from bare ingredients is suprisingly fun. This will help your blood sugar issues too.
(b) Some regular cardio work - running, cycling, walking, swimming, whatever.
(c) resistance training: the more muscle you have, the faster and more efficiently you metabolise fat. Don't worry about becoming a hulking beast.

Things to remember: (a) don't get fixated on a number - aim to have a well-functioning body.
(b) why are you trying to lose weight? Is this actually a good idea? Will it make you healthier?
(c) Muscle weighs more than fat by volume: adjust perceptions accordingly.

Hope this helps!

[John Hill]

I have been a personal trainer for many years and so many of my clients have asked me why can't I lose weight, so I wrote this article Why Diets Don't Work, it gives a thorough explanation of the dieting process and tips on why eating more food might make you lose more fat.

John

Muscular-Fitness