Low-carb eating: reporting in

Ok, I have officially been eating "low-carb" for just over a week now. What a revelation! I am NOT hungry. Those of you who have been following my journey may recall that was my primary concern...I am thinking now that I've been actually kind of starving myself for years with a low-fat, high-carb diet.

Breakfast: protein shake or scrambled eggs and bacon.

Lunch: a tin of sardines. Today I made a chicken salad. The sardines are better though.

Dinner: Something fantastic from Low-Carb, Quick and Easy. Tonight it is cheeseburger salad. Lots of anchovies in the dressing, yum!

NO feelings of depravation. I'll walk over to the gym today for a very accurate weight measurement.

MoneyGal wrote:...What a revelation! I am NOT hungry.

Yes, isn't it?

MoneyGal wrote:Ok, I have officially been eating "low-carb" for just over a week now. What a revelation! I am NOT hungry. Those of you who have been following my journey may recall that was my primary concern...I am thinking now that I've been actually kind of starving myself for years with a low-fat, high-carb diet.

Breakfast: protein shake or scrambled eggs and bacon.

Lunch: a tin of sardines. Today I made a chicken salad. The sardines are better though.

Dinner: Something fantastic from Low-Carb, Quick and Easy. Tonight it is cheeseburger salad. Lots of anchovies in the dressing, yum!

NO feelings of depravation. I'll walk over to the gym today for a very accurate weight measurement.

Also, you need to make sure you are not over-exercising.

Consider visiting this site to learn more about a healthy and sustainable low-carb "lifestyle" as opposed to a low-carb "diet".

Primal Blueprint 101

DreamStalker: I am stalking that site.

I'm mos def not over-exercising and I take your point about "diet" vs. "lifestyle." I am very pleased, as well, to be freed from the thought that I have to be at the gym 4-5 times per week. I'm already a non-long-cardio-doer, but mostly because I find that SO boring. I am mos def in the "lift heavy objects" and HIIT style of exercising, because that's all martial arts and weightlifting (the things I do) are.

It's just all so ... so wonderful, bizarre, and perfect.

Edited to add: if I had know that this is the place that my OSA diagnosis was going to bring me, I'd have wished for it WAAAAY sooner than I already do.

[quote="MoneyGal"]Ok, I have officially been eating "low-carb" for just over a week now. What a revelation! I am NOT hungry.

MG

That is the best bart of this lifestyle change because it gives the hope that what we are doing is permanent. I am at 22 lbs since Jan 1st with another 83 to reach my 1 year goal of losing 100 lbs in a year. The pain in my lower back is diminishing enough so that I can now exercise with little or no discomfort. Keep up the good work and enjoy your new lifestyle!!

nobody wrote:http://www.quackwatch.org/06ResearchProjects/lcd.html

...To lose one pound a week, you must consume about 500 fewer calories per day than you metabolize...

Assumes human metabolism works like the nuclear furnaces they use to reduce a food to ash when calculating calories. Sorry, the body doesn't work that way and the calories in-calories out theory has been shown to simply not work for most people; it's the hundreds of chemicals -- enzymes, hormones, proteins, etc -- and frequency of eating (affects hormones, enzymes, proteins, etc.) and physical activity and stress (both of which significantly affect hormones) that determine how efficient our metabolism works and what our particular body does with the products of metabolic breakdown. Then too, there's the whole rate-limiting effect of whether we have in our bloodstream the right mix of chemicals for cellular respiration, maintenance, and growth/replacement for our particular needs at that particular moment. Nope, not like a nuclear furnance at all .

From another thread, more appropriate in this one.

DreamStalker wrote:Here is a link to Lyle McDonald's explanation and "refeeds" as he calls them.

He seems to think reduced carbs means reduced calories...often not the case...which makes me wonder if those effects he discusses are from reduced calories or reduced carbs -- biochemically they are not equivalent states. DS, have you been able to figure out which set of 'effects' might occur following low-cal vs low-carb?

Reduced protein synthesis does not occur with protein adequate or hi-pro eating, thus why lowing carbs consumed must be accompanied by adequate if not higher levels of protein. Reduced protein intake causes the body to breakdown muscle tissue (catabolism) far as I know as the need for protein varies little unless ya go nuts exercising or need huge amts for cellular repair (illness, accident); assuming no pregnancy with its increased needs to create a new little human .

Coconut oil increases or at least helps the conversion of T4-->T3; I thought downturn of thyroid was related less to eating and more to increased stress driving higher cortisol creating more reverse T3, a biological blank, that occupies the thyroid receptors -- and reverse T3 I understand is the prime mechanism that the body uses to regulate metabolism...no?

MoneyGal wrote:Ok, I have officially been eating "low-carb" for just over a week now. What a revelation! I am NOT hungry...

And much more simple to cook/fix! Tell us the wt loss...I'm sure many are curious!

Calorie counting probably doesn't work for many people because they are unaware of just how many calories are in the food they eat.

Right! I'm just gonna skip that post. Muse-Inc, I honestly do not know whether I will have any weight loss or not (and I am now out of time to walk over to the gym...I'll go tomorrow and report back then). Do you really think I will have lost weight? Hmmm.

Last December I had an appointment with my Cardiologist. I weighed 320 lbs. I just started eating low carb the first of this year. When I went to the new Sleep Doc on Monday I weighed 280lbs. The sleep doc is in the same clinic as my cardio doc and I was weighed on the same set of scales. Pretty amazing if you ask me.


JeffH

Muse-Inc wrote:From another thread, more appropriate in this one.

DreamStalker wrote:Here is a link to Lyle McDonald's explanation and "refeeds" as he calls them.

He seems to think reduced carbs means reduced calories...often not the case...which makes me wonder if those effects he discusses are from reduced calories or reduced carbs -- biochemically they are not equivalent states. DS, have you been able to figure out which set of 'effects' might occur following low-cal vs low-carb?

Reduced protein synthesis does not occur with protein adequate or hi-pro eating, thus why lowing carbs consumed must be accompanied by adequate if not higher levels of protein. Reduced protein intake causes the body to breakdown muscle tissue (catabolism) far as I know as the need for protein varies little unless ya go nuts exercising or need huge amts for cellular repair (illness, accident); assuming no pregnancy with its increased needs to create a new little human .

Coconut oil increases or at least helps the conversion of T4-->T3; I thought downturn of thyroid was related less to eating and more to increased stress driving higher cortisol creating more reverse T3, a biological blank, that occupies the thyroid receptors -- and reverse T3 I understand is the prime mechanism that the body uses to regulate metabolism...no?

Yes, he is referring to low-carb/low-fat which equals low calorie. However, I think it is pretty complicated and everyone is different, not only from everyone else but even from themselves over time. As you pointed out, there are many factors affecting not only hormonal production but also hormonal sensitivities.

Lower carb intake results in lower insulin which reduces amount of fat into storage which leads to decreased leptin production which signals pituitary and thyroid to down-regulate metabolic hormones including testosterone and so on. Then there are antagonistic hormones also working in response to the same carb reduction. Then throw in the other factors as you mentioned like illness, physical/mental stress, and just everyday life in general and you begin to understand how we endure/survive and somewhat adapt to years of untreated OSA, hypertension, CVD, diabetes, cancer, etc. (well, at least until our cells can't do it anymore and then we die).

The body has a very complex endocrine system to balance our hundereds of hormones for maintaining homeostasis to enable our body to survive and responed to environmental stimuli ... thus explaining why calories in vs. calories out does not work and why we can continue to live on despite being very sick. Our bodies don't need nobody's calorieking.com or to know how many calories are in the food we eat to maintain homeostasis, it is all done for us through hormones simulating our genetics at the cellular level in response to our environment. There is a reason why we (and most other living organisms) have survived for millions of years without calorieking.com or the USDA food pyramid (brought to you by big-agra corporations btw).

So anyway back to your comment, to supplement with coconut oil is a good suggestion because -- as I recall, medium chain triglycerides do not require insulin to be stored into adipocytes, so it will increase thyroid function via increased leptin production due to cycling of more fat in and out of fat cells. McDonald suggests refeed (carbs in particular) to do the same thing ... cycle triglycerides in and out of fat storage (while also doing intense exercise). His approach is geared towards body builders.

JeffH wrote:Last December I had an appointment with my Cardiologist. I weighed 320 lbs. I just started eating low carb the first of this year. When I went to the new Sleep Doc on Monday I weighed 280lbs. The sleep doc is in the same clinic as my cardio doc and I was weighed on the same set of scales. Pretty amazing if you ask me.


JeffH

Congrats Jeff!

nobody wrote:http://www.quackwatch.org/06ResearchProjects/lcd.html

Here. Quack on this ...

http://www.raysahelian.com/quackwatch.html