Last Monday during my weigh in I admited that I was going nowhere with my plans of losing weight. I lost 3 stones 4 years ago, got pregnant and breastfed for more than a year, and stopped 6 months ago. Ever since Ive been trying to lose weight again but I dont seem to succeed.
So I joined the forum back and was welcome by everyone (you know who you are!) and I was suggested to look into IF in combination with LCHF. I ve been watching Jason Fung videos, listening to advice, reading the awful toad and other messages in the forum and started reducing my carbs a few days ago, and I wanted to do myst fast today or tomorrow.
However, yesterday evening, this article popped up on my feed:
It did kind of unsettle me a little, because I dont know if they're saying that because they are misinformed or if there are things I need to worry about but I just can't see?
If anyone had the time to read it and to tell me why this diet scored so low, I feel like it'd really help me.
Thanks a lot again.
N
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Nussaybah
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Hello Nussaybah an LCHF diet was judged on many factors here and it can be good for quick weight loss but it is very restrictive and rules out many healthy carbs, so was not deemed a healthy diet.
If you want to fast and lose weight with an LCHF diet then I can't see any problems, the secret is to stay well nourished so it's the quality of our food that really counts.
I'm in a similar place, Nussaybah , so I will tell you what I am doing. Cutting out potatoes and grains. Despite what you read, it's really clear they have no essential nutrients. I am still enjoying most other veggies, though you could cut down on other starchy veggies probably. No one could argue with those decisions. I am still doing 5 a day, or sometimes much more with veggies replacing bread and pasta. Keep with the healthy fats - for now olive oil and avocado and oily fish, which are healthy by almost everyone's measure. I am considering adding "bad fats" like butter, lard or tallow, but holding back until I do more reading. So that's a keto-ish diet I can stick with, that isn't outside the official recommendations in a way that scares me.
But the next thing is important: I got a broad blood test in October, which was all "good" but could be better. I am going to ask my GP to repeat this test after I have achieved my goal weight + 3 months maintenance. I will compare the values between the two tests, with the help of Google and maybe my GP and if the changes are largely positive or benign, I will keep doing it. If not, I will have to look at another approach. If I am struggling to stick with it (or have already failed), ditto.
I am treating myself as an experiment of 1. I can't compare life expectancy for various approaches using only myself, but I can see how it improves (or otherwise) the biomarkers. The one biomarker I can test myself without any special equipment, my waist measure, has gone from "see your GP Now!!" to nearly (1 cm to go) "you fine, dog" in 3 weeks. That does not seem bad for the worst diet possible.
So, get an up to date health checkup, try the diet and see if it is making you healthier or sicker. The reason I am waiting 3 months is that one test, A1c measures your blood sugar average over 3 months, so I want to see what that is after 3 months of my new way of eating.
(note: I may not stay full low carb, but shift to a 5:2 pattern)
Trying to insist that all men should have a waist measurement of 37" regardless of height is ridiculous - a better yardstick is that your waist should be no more than half your height, which mine is - at 37 or 38 inches.
Your waist or waist-to-height-or-hip is an indication of body-fat percentage and visceral fat, and I am on the fit/athletic borderline at 14% bodyfat.
Hi S11m the NHS guidelines do not insist that all men have a waist of 37'' but that they should try and lose weight if it is 37'' or more and if it is 40'' you're at a very high risk of seriously health issues.
NHS guidelines are gradually changing (in spite of pressure from Big Pharma and Big Farmer).
The NHS even gave Dr David Unwin an award for saving them tens of thousands of pounds a year on Diabetes drugs though his low-carb diet treatment of Diabetes!
Hi S11m and Nussaybah , I've done every diet I've ever heard of and I've been doing the 16/8 fasting for 2 year and lchf for one year, in my humble opinion they are both excellent weight loss tools and I can see myself doing them forever, which incidently is the problem with all the others. Sure they work, I've lost 5 stone twice before using them but they aren't something I can sustain forever and yes, you guessed it, the weight came back !
The real beauty of these two methods is I'm not hungry between meals and im eating less than I ever have. My nails are in the best condition they've ever been in and my spot prone skin hasn't had one breakout since the day I started?? Try it for yourself and just listen to the messages your own body will send you, good luck ! x
Thanks everyone, very interesting reading. I think I can see one mistake I made: I thought keto diet and lchf were the same thing? Now I'm getting that keto is more extreme than lchf?
It helps to remind yourself that these are the experts who shepherded the population from (in the UK, for example) 7% obesity in 1980 to nearly 30% today.
Are you sure you can go keto that way? My understanding (via professors Google and YouTube) is that high protein will indeed produce glucose, but that glucose might easily knock you out of ketosis.
I followed the links - and they say absolutely nothing.
diabetes.co.uk do know what they are doing - and run a monitoring service for reversal of diabetes using the low carb diet.
Dr David Unwin, a UK MHS GP, won an NHS award for using the low carb diet to save tens of thousands of pounds per year (in his practice) on drugs for diabetes.
"There is always a standard retort that the long-term effects aren't known."
Yeah, but they rate The Biggest Loser Diet as much healthier than keto, yet the long term effect of that is known: BMI rebounded to over 40, and often higher than it was before.
That's fine thanks for drawing my attention to that. I did adopt Intermittent Fasting (my eating window is 12pm-8pm) combined with Low Carb after starting this thread, and I am losing weight so far. I dont think ive reached full Keto diet though as I havent totally suppressed all carbs, but so far so good. I need to figure out a way to keep that kind of diet even after I reach my goal if I reach it that is. (Im 83kg Id like to be 70kgs)
IF has completely changed my life! I'm 56 with Atrial Fibrillation for 25 years, was 285 pounds and pre-diabetic. Struggled through regular diets and even got to 205 at 50 years old, and gained most back by 52. NOW, I've been on healthy keto ( high fat, low low carbs, lots of starch free veggies). Now at #195 with limited struggled (yes, it takes some willpower, but 70% less than standard diet). My blood tests look like a healthy 25 year old. HGH improvements made me pretty muscular for an old guy. This shit is ALL good. It took 15 years off my look, but more importantly I'm a picture of health. Carbs/sugar is the heart killer, inflammation. Most medical doctors still talk low fat even though heart desease has increased every year since we started it.
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Sugar awareness week ends today. 🧃