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[BigWeather]

No need to start tinkering yet mate - if you're anything like me you'll have some weeks where hardly anything happens, then others where there's a sudden burst of weight loss, all without changing a thing. My losses near the start went like this

6lbs > 4 > 1.5 > 2.5 > 2 > 2.75 > 0.75 > 0.25 > 3.25

True, a loss is a loss -- I'll give it a few weeks and see how it goes. It has been working pretty well for me already. Besides the weight loss I have a ton more energy in the morning (eggs and bacon vs. a big bowl of cereal) and the numbness I used to get in my hand when holding a fork, paintbrush, pencil, etc. is all but gone. And I'm almost never hungry.

 

[FryHole]

True, a loss is a loss -- I'll give it a few weeks and see how it goes. It has been working pretty well for me already. Besides the weight loss I have a ton more energy in the morning (eggs and bacon vs. a big bowl of cereal) and the numbness I used to get in my hand when holding a fork, paintbrush, pencil, etc. is all but gone. And I'm almost never hungry.

The change in hunger is what made it such a success for me. No idea if the whole 'high insulin makes fat stores inaccessible' theory is right or if it's just the satiating effect of fat and protein, but bloody hell did it make a difference.

 

[Dash27]

I agree, the not being hungry thing makes a big difference. In the past when I've cut down I was almost always hungry. I'm guessing when I get down to the final few pounds I'll really have to dial things in to see any improvement but I'm guessing the hunger part will be easier by dropping the breads and cereals.

 

[Phoenix]

Kill alcohol, soft drinks, and most processed sugars at any reasonable level and you'll burn a lot of weight fairly quickly.

 

[Pyrokai]

I just got this book in the mail and I keep skipping around in it. I'm going to sit down and give it good reading time soon, though.

I also finished the movie Fat Head.

I feel like I'm becoming a victim of a conspiracy theory or something. Whenever I tell people this stuff, they think I'm absolutely crazy. And who can blame them? I just started paleo and it literally goes against everything I've been taught my whole life in regards to nutrition.

This stuff is either going to come back to bite me in the ass, or it's going to rock the scientific and nutrition world in 15-25 years as we literally remove all the American Heart Association labels off oatmeal and cereal boxes and slap them on lard tubs and egg cartons.

It's just crazy.



Now sentimental talk: My mom is 55 years old, slim and tall but used to be overweight, and has type 2 diabetes most likely from eating improperly her whole life. What can I do to help her other than hand her this book and say "your doctor is going to tell not to do everything you read in this book, but do it anyway". I mean, she's going to think I'm crazy! But I love her and I don't want her to get heart disease in her sixties. I mean, she's doing what ANYONE would do: Trying to eat healthy with things like low-fat yogurt and fruit, Special K cereal, canola oil instead of butter.

I just want her to be healthy again. She's suffering from a lot of health issues right now and I want what is best for her. I'm tearing up just thinking about this stuff. Do you guys have any advice for me? I mean, maybe I can just say like "try and stop eating grains and eat more fats because they're actually good for you". I don't expect her to go full-on Paleo, but even if she adjusts at all it's going to be better for her, right?

 

[FryHole]

I just got this book in the mail and I keep skipping around in it. I'm going to sit down and give it good reading time soon, though.

I also finished the movie Fat Head.

I feel like I'm becoming a victim of a conspiracy theory or something. Whenever I tell people this stuff, they think I'm absolutely crazy. And who can blame them? I just started paleo and it literally goes against everything I've been taught my whole life in regards to nutrition.

This stuff is either going to come back to bite me in the ass, or it's going to rock the scientific and nutrition world in 15-25 years as we literally remove all the American Heart Association labels off oatmeal and cereal boxes and slap them on lard tubs and egg cartons.

It's just crazy.

Now sentimental talk: My mom is 55 years old, slim and tall but used to be overweight, and has type 2 diabetes most likely from eating improperly her whole life. What can I do to help her other than hand her this book and say "your doctor is going to tell not to do everything you read in this book, but do it anyway". I mean, she's going to think I'm crazy! But I love her and I don't want her to get heart disease in her sixties. I mean, she's doing what ANYONE would do: Trying to eat healthy with things like low-fat yogurt and fruit, Special K cereal, canola oil instead of butter.

I just want her to be healthy again. She's suffering from a lot of health issues right now and I want what is best for her. I'm tearing up just thinking about this stuff. Do you guys have any advice for me?

First off, disclaimer. I'm always slightly leery of offering advice to people with confirmed health problems - my attitude is always 'what's the harm in trying?' but of course for people with diabetes the harm could be significant if I'm wrong. You should make sure first that you're convinced that this is the right way to live before you recommend it to anyone. After all, I'm just some dude off the internet, and definitely not a doctor - take everything that follows with the requisite pinch of salt and finish reading GCBC (great book, I think), decide for yourself after seeing how it works for you. And of course with experience and more reading it'll make you a better advocate when the inevitable arguments crop up. And sorry if all that sounded patronising.

That said, someone I know who has diabetes switched to a low GI, higher fat diet after we talked about this and ended up 4 stone lighter, completely off their blood pressure meds and taking a much lower dose of insulin after meals. I was never diabetic, but lost 50lbs doing high fat low carb. Something about it seems to work, in my experience.

I think the older generation are actually a bit easier to convince, because they grew up eating eggs and lard and butter and experienced the whole low-fat advice as it happened - 'those damned scientists got it all wrong' is quite an easy sell, I've found. If she grew up eating those foods it could be easier to convince her there was nothing wrong with them in the first place. She may also be interested in watching this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo

Which is a presentation of the results of this study

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=205916

That showed superior weight loss for the Atkins diet AND improved lipid markers, which is the bit people have always fretted about on Atkins.

She may also find the books of Dr Richard Bernstein informative

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_K._Bernstein

as he recommends a low carb diet and eating to a glucose meter, checking your response to various foods.

There's also research such as this

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22562179

"Weight changes did not differ between the diet groups, while insulin doses were reduced significantly more with the low carb diet at 6 months, when compliance was good"

ps I promise I'm not stalking you, I just happen to subscribe to both the Paleo and Low Carb threads!

 

[Pyrokai]

It's okay, I know you're not stalking me . I appreciate your response and your posts in general! Thanks for helping!!

So let me get this straight, though: Eating carbs = raising blood sugar = need insulin but a diabetic cannot make enough insulin, therefore they shouldn't eat carbs and replace them with saturated fat, correct? That's the idea?

What if someone went from a 40/60 style diet of Paleo (following it 40% of the time) and went up to 70/30? Would that help a diabetic? Theoretically?

 

[FryHole]

So let me get this straight, though: Eating carbs = raising blood sugar = need insulin but a diabetic cannot make enough insulin, therefore they shouldn't eat carbs and replace them with saturated fat, correct? That's the idea?

I think so. My understand is that type II diabetics either don't make enough insulin because their pancreas has about conked out from years of struggling with high sugar/general energy excess, or they are insulin resistant - the pancreas makes a reasonable amount of insulin but the body's cells 'ignore' it, meaning even more insulin is necessary to normalise blood sugar levels.

High blood sugar being a very bad thing, something needs to be done and there are two potential solutions. The generally accepted one is to take enough insulin to deal with the carbohydrates eaten (and also exercise and lose weight to help the insulin resistance - this bit is a good idea). The other is to eat less carbohydrates. The latter is not often recommended, because you need to get calories from somewhere and the only alternative is fat, and fat is widely believed to cause cardiovascular disease. Once you accept that saturated fat doesn't cause CVD and is a perfectly healthy fuel source, I think it becomes the sensible solution - surely better to reduce your insulin dose than pound down a pile of carbs and then try to shunt it into your fat tissue with injections.

Here's another book that might help (it has a section about diabetes) - Life Without Bread by Wolfgang Lutz. It gives off a bit of an alt-med vibe in places, but overall it's a good how-to-low-carb manual.

What if someone went from a 40/60 style diet of Paleo (following it 40% of the time) and went up to 70/30? Would that help a diabetic? Theoretically?

Absolutely no idea, I'm afraid! Again, for someone who's just looking to lose a bit of weight, I'd say sure, it will probably help to eat better on a more regular basis and the cheat days can't hurt. But I don't know, I have no idea how such a way of eating might affect an individual. It'd be dodgy to make such a casual statement for someone with diabetes.

 

[PFD]

Thinking about picking up Why We Get Fat on audible. It's only 8 hours long. Do you guys still recommend it, or has anything better come out recently?

 

[Stinkles]

Thinking about picking up Why We Get Fat on audible. It's only 8 hours long. Do you guys still recommend it, or has anything better come out recently?

In this necrobump you need to define "recently"