How to lose weight and keep it off.

Chana Miriam S

Tue, Aug 13 2019, 8:06 am

amother [ Pearl ] wrote:

Thank you so much for sharing all this.
Would you be able to share a typical menu of a few days or one full week? I'm just trying to come up with filling meal options/snacks that don't include grains/sugars and the other things you mention you don't eat anymore.
Is it salad and eggs, salad and tuna, salad and chicken, etc? And if you're making tuna salad, can u add mayo, or is there a substitute for that? And if you prepare chicken, is it just oil and spices, without any sauces? It's in these nitty gritty details that I'm left scratching my head.

I make my own spice mixes. I don’t really use sauces but then never really did, it just isn’t my style. I was thinking about how long it’s been since I made canned tuna. It’s not something I particularly like either. I make my own mayo. Not hard with a stick blender and some internet guidance. I don’t eat a ton of veg but it tends to be grilled with olive oil or puréed cauliflower or pickled green tomatoes when I do. I’ve started making them myself because it’s a fun experiment every time.

I use a sous vide to cook most of my meat and finish it in the oven or in the grill. I can let it sit for hours and still have steak done exactly as I like or chicken cooked perfectly

I eat a lot of fat. Butter, olive oil, avocado oil and then fat from meat. Rib steak, dark chicken, salmon, burgers....I eat eggs regularly when I run out if other food. I am not huge into dairy, but use heavy cream in my coffee and eat the occasional cream cheese.

I like grebben very much and eat it when I can get it. I’m not walking around hungry.

My menu is created by cooking lots of plan friendly food for Shabbat and eating leftovers all week. I fast intermittently because working on my insulin resistance. When we run out of leftovers there’s always scrambled eggs. Oh- I forgot. We love lamb sausages made belt shefa meats in toronto. lamb and salt.

My eating is literally decided as I stand in front of the fridge and see what we have. I eat til satiety. Last night I had rib steak, beef adobo ( made with scraps of fat and meat from a local wholesale) and a small chicken thigh. Was just perfectly full. Won’t eat again until 4:30 pm

Chana Miriam S

Tue, Aug 13 2019, 8:23 am

amother [ Teal ] wrote:

At any point of your history in your weight loss struggles, did you ever consider bariatric surgery? If you did, why didn't you pursue it at the time? I came across a Facebook group for the low carb/keto diet tweaked specifically for bariatric patients, and many describe it as a perfect one-two punch against severe obesity.

Please don't misunderstand my question. I have no agenda. I'm looking to learn all perspectives.

I did not. Because I was out of control and was afraid I’d bust a gut with surgery. When you’re as out of control as I was, it’s inconceivable that surgery will work. Even the prep- I’d been on optifsst as part of my diet career. The second I started eating again I was out of control. And most recently I had not been able to follow a food plan at all.

I know many people who are right back where they started with surgery. They eat their usual diets, just less and I guess eventually they stretch things. I don’t eat things that make me want to overeat. I have one friend who had surgery and maintains with low carb. Many people treat surgery as a license to eat whatever in limited quantities. I didn’t want that. I’d rather have stayed fat and not roller coasted since I was so out of control. I knew what was gonna happen. Now, ironically I could stuck to the plan, but why endanger myself when I feel so good and am doing so well?

amother

Tan

Wed, Aug 21 2019, 2:39 pm

OP is it possible you have PCOS?
It causes a issue processing insulin aka carbs and sugar. Those with PCOS generally have most of their weight by their stomach and have a hard time losing it. I am very similar to you. I love my carbs and fruits and I recently found a book about the South Beach Diet laying around by my friends house. In the beginning it said something about it being very beneficial for those with PCOS and so currently I'm trying to convince myself to give it a go.

The basics is 3 stages:

1 - 2 weeks: No carbs or sugars (even fruit) No very fatty things like butter or cream cheese.
2- From then until you lose the weight you want to lose: add in some whole grain carbs and some fruit back in. But not too much. Like 3-4 a week. Limited quantities. No potatoes.
3 - What you're supposed to do for the rest of your life - add some more fruit and healthy carbs in but again, don't have too often. See the effects different things have on your body and cut out whatever is necessary.

If you ever feel like you are gaining weight you can always go back to stage 2 or 1 for a few weeks so you lose some of those pounds. But the idea is to live with stage 3.

I really like the idea of this since I've never been a "Fad" diet person. I've always thought about the bigger picture and I think I need to make lifestyle changes not drink juice for 3 weeks straight. This diet really appealed to me since it is very into the idea of a diet that someone can actually maintain for the rest of their life.

Chana Miriam S

Wed, Aug 21 2019, 2:51 pm

amother [ Tan ] wrote:

Um. I’m the O.P. read my post. If you don’t have patience for it let me help:

I am five one
I used to weigh 315.
Now I weigh 220.
I never, ever cheat. Since May 11, 2017. I will never stop. And it’s not hard for me.
I dont eat sugar/grains/starch/fruit/sweetener, ever.
Im 51. I never had pcos although I did have endometriosis.
I am no longer diabetic. No meds.
I overcame 44 years of disordered eating by doing what I do. I don’t have cravings. I don’t go off plan, ever.

Here’s the most important part. EATING CARBS WONT HELP YOU PRODUCE LESS INSULIN.Period. It’s chemistry.

Do what works for you but pretty sure that what is working for me, is Best for me,who wants to lessen insulin resistance. The fact that I choose no longer to be type 2 diabetic is proof of that.

You go ahead and try whatever diet you want but I’m saying what works for me, proven for over two years and I’m sticking to it

amother

Tan

Wed, Aug 21 2019, 3:27 pm

andrea levy wrote:

I'm still trying to understand how insulin works and carbs. I know they are related. You seem to know more, care to explain?

Chana Miriam S

Wed, Aug 21 2019, 4:04 pm

amother [ Tan ] wrote:

I'm still trying to understand how insulin works and carbs. I know they are related. You seem to know more, care to explain?

Your best resource for understanding this is dr. Jason fung. Basically, insulin is necessary to life, so for example, type 1 diabetes where you make none is a problem because without insulin to reduce blood sugar, the body is damaged. Type 1 always have to take some insulin just to survive.

Type 2 means that through( often) over exposure to insulin, because for example you eat a lot of things that require insulin to lower your blood sugar, your body Becomes too tolerant of insulin or insulin resistant. Your body can no longer regulate blood sugar with insulin unless it makes more and more. Eventually, your blood sugar is not sufficiently co trolled by insulin and your blood sugar rises and you need to start taking actual insulin to bring your blood dugar down, which, yes, makes you even more insulin resistant

Type ones can become type two by requiring too much insulin because of too many carbs in their diets. Dr Bernstein is a good resource for understanding type 1

Insulin. Nevesssry to life, but too much makes it very difficult to lose weight. Too much increases your visceral ( organ) fat levels. Too much makes you fat in other ways as well.

From a macro nutrient perspective, carbs get the highest insulin reaction, regardless of source. Protein gets a smaller response than carbs. Fat gets almost no insulin response if at all.

Thus, people who eat high fat, moderate protein, low carb. They are reducing insulin resistance by eating that way, because when we don’t need a lot of insulin, we who are obese, especially become more tolerant of it and it allows us to either maintain our weight ( instead of gaining) or lose weight.

Don’t even get me started on glycogen production and how fatty liver relatesto all of this.

This is a massive oversimplification of how it works. Massive. I highly suggest the obesity code and the diabetes code books.

If you have pcos, you are, in addition to any infertility issues, more likely to have gestational diabetes and eventually type 2 diabetes and it’s complications. Pcos is complicated by high blood sugar. You’ll see references on this board to many who have suffered it and had symptoms relieved by going low carb.

Also, with pcos, it’s not like it’s limited to being overweight. Some people with pcos are normal weight but still have blood sugar issues.

In any case, watch Fung’s videos or read his books. He explains in a way that non science people can understand. I have an English degree lol

Chana Miriam S

Wed, Aug 28 2019, 11:47 am

NSV- @rescaling August 28/19

The thing about changing my way of eating...it’s changed so many things in my life, not really because of weight loss, although some of it could be. But I’ve lost weight before and not had this happen, so something has well and goodly changed over here.

I always thought that ‘being goal weight’ was the ultimate thing. It’s kind of funny, because as I get closer to another milestone loss number wise, what I appreciate most is what’s changed in my life. And I’m nowhere near that goal in numbers, but so far beyond my wildest dreams in quality of life.

I’ve always been such a slob. I am a pretty messy person. I hate cleaning and being organized. It’s not innate for me. So nothing surprises me more than the fact that in the past two years, my messy quotient is way down.

I was putting away my clean laundry the other night- yes, you read that right. Putting away my laundry. Not leaving it in a bin. Folding, hanging up and even putting my stuff away from the trip I returned from the day before.. No luggage sitting around. No laundry sitting for weeks after.

When I started writing this it was almost shabbat. In the past, no matter what, there’d be piles and piles of dirty dishes lying around. My sink was pretty much empty except for what marc was making as I wrote. Now, I clean as I go.

Over the past two years I shut down my participation in the Niagara Falls restaurant and slowed my catering business to a trickle. I cleared out my basement kitchen and rooms and rented out my basement. I’ve cleared almost all of my storage under the eaves of my house, hopefully to be finished this week before my daughter goes back to school.

Even my fridge/pantry has changed. For example, we used to regularly have to throw out food that either sat in the fridge too long or became freezer burned in some corner of the freezer.

Now, almost always, the food is finished up and not thrown out. We buy meat at a wholesaler and vegetables at Costco or nations. We buy large amounts of meat and freeze it properly protected and moderate amounts of vegetables so they get used up

Our pantry used to be full of processed foods and spice mixes that would go either get binged on or go stale. Most of which, we no longer eat. Now the pantry holds whatever ingredients don’t fit in our kitchen cabinets and holds extras of things like mason jars, foil pans and other things we use regularly but since we almost never go to a grocery store these days, we buy in bulk and use up. We were thinking about turning it into a freezer space!

It’s so bizarre that eating better could be so much better for the environment.

Even shopping and clothing accumulation. Once I weeded out my old huge clothing (donated mostly unless trashed) I wore the heck out of the next dresses I bought. Lo and behold, as they wore out, donated them. The place I donate to makes and sells rags, so even that was recycled.

Now, I am more careful about what I buy with regard to both ‘stuff’ and clothing. With clothing, I buy a few things that look really nice on me, instead of accumulating a lot of stuff that doesn’t. I get things altered when they get too big as they have been consistently over the past two years, instead of just ditching them.

With stuff- it’s so crazy- I can’t believe I have two amazon.com gift cards and went away to Lakewood with more than enough declaration space to bring whatever we wanted back. Really, we bought almost nothing that wasn’t food.

I did buy a salad spinner recently so that when marc makes pesto he can do it with less work. But I’m getting rid of other things as well, when I acquire.

This is such a massively different perspective than I ever had before.

It’s like the care I’ve taken with my food has translated over into my whole life. My ability to discriminate between my wants and needs has changed so drastically! My impulse control is so much better!

These are things I would never have foreseen changing when I was diagnosed with retinopathy and changed my way of eating. Who knew?!?