Hello, I'm newly diagnosed with heart failure, it was detected during a recent hospital admittance for sepsis (how long I've actually had it is unknown).
Until I became ill I was following a high-fat low carb diet and losing weight nicely.
However, after being diagnosed I want to eat healthily to help my heart.
Everyone I know has told me this is the wrong thing to do and I've been advised to follow a high fibre low-fat diet.
I am so confused and gaining weight.
Please, can anyone offer me some advice?
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lady-heaton
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Neither heart failure nor sepsis (well done for coming out of that in one piece, by the way!) would necessarily have anything to do with your diet - heart failure is a rather broad term that can have multiple underlying causes.
While I can understand this sort of confrontation with your own mortality can be scary, just ponder on the likelihood that a few months of low-carb eating has caused your arteries to instantly fur up and your heart to give out. Is it not more probable that you simply had a lifetime of damage that finally caught up with you?
Reading between the lines here, I'm guessing you're middle-aged or older, and have therefore been following the standard dietary advice for 50+ years and the LCHF diet for ... what, a year or two? Prior to starting LCHF, you know for a fact that you were already unhealthy because you were overweight. And here you are on a "healthy" low-fat diet, feeling yourself becoming unhealthy again. I'm not going to tell you what's right or wrong, but I suspect your own body is going to tell you sooner or later.
I would also add that LCHF is not a panacea. Exercise is crucially important, especially for older people, and even more especially if you have a desk-based job or are otherwise sedentary. Your heart muscle, like any other, will degenerate if you fail to use it. At this advanced stage it'll be quite an uphill struggle to reverse this, but it can be done. Just be sure to consult with your doctor on an appropriate exercise programme.
I'm sorry to read about your diagnosis, it must be scary.
I posted a few days ago about my blood pressure - I found my blood pressure was a good bit lower while I was following keto. It was never bad to begin with (120/80), but it fell to around 110/72 on LCHF, and rose to 128/78 again when I reintroduced carbs (I have a stomach problem, and I'm on orders to eat plain). It may not be the same result for everyone, but I think it's worth putting out there, in case it might have the same effect on you.
A low carb diet doesn't automatically exclude fibre either - I still achieved the GDA for fibre most days.
I would assess the types of fat you're eating though - hydrogenated vegetable oils, for example, are bad for heart health.
True, true... no matter how much you research, it always leads to more and more questions! I decided in the end just to take a leap of faith and throw out all the old diet/health advice So far, so good!!
Yes, I eat LCHF, but to myself I call it Low Carb, Healthy Fats (not "High" fat), as I think it best reflects what I do.
My Mum had some sort of 'heart event' in her early 50's, so for much of my adult life we were exhorted to follow a low fat, low salt diet, "make the healthy choices".. that phrase became a family catch-phrase or joke. For me, that approach led to obesity, severe, ongoing gallbladder attacks, and salt cravings. I was a slim teenager, and in my 20's. Not until I started following the "health advice" that everything started to go sideways! I've always been active, too, until recent years, so I knew that lack of exercise wasn’t the cause.
Approaching 50 myself now, and wanting to get to the bottom of what is happening - realising finally that I wasn't going to get the answers from my GP - and by accident happened across this forum. It has quite literally changed my life. After 5 months, I'm 20kg (44lbs) lighter, no gallbladder issues, loving running (following the NHS Bridge to 10km) and couldn't be happier.
I try to talk to my parents about what I've been reading, as they have issues with blood pressure, and I'm sure they could benefit from this way of eating, but it's hard, after a lifetime of indoctrination.
It must have been frightening to have been hospitalised with sepsis, and then to have been advised of issues with your heart. I hope that you're able to find your way through the maze of information and choose the route you know to be right for you! There are lots of very knowledgeable people here on the forum who will be able to give you far better advice than me, but I wish you all the best, and hope you will stay in touch with a follow up post on how you're getting on!
One thing I'm starting to look at is "intuitive eating", which is the idea that the body will send you cravings for the things it needs, if you just listen to it. You do need to get through the initial phase where it tells you it "craves" all the takeaways in the world first
Yes, exactly. It's all very intuitive once you get into the swing of things. Very natural. I just replied to someone about cravings, on the Fasting and Furious forum. Before LCHF I used to feel compelled to eat large bags of very salty crisps or pretzels from time to time. It wasn't for hunger, just for the salt. I didn't know why. Now I know it was because I was starving my body of salt in general! No problems like that now I have got over my previous brain-washing, and am now proud to be adding sea salt to my food!!
I think I have this problem too! I damaged my stomach because I ate so much lime pickle one night I realise it's a salt thing now, so I do need to start adding it to my cooking more often.
Only just found your message. My husband has lived with a Heart Failure diagnosis since 2010 - that was just a couple of years after receiving a T2D diagnosis, that we subsequenly learnt must have been for some years, but it was early days in the medical profession recognising insulin resistance. We have learnt that the name 'heart failure' covers multiple conditions. We were well into our LCHF journey then - but my husband admits he broke many rules on the holiday that led to that diagnosis. He has continued following the rules the LCHF approach and remained stable until a holiday last year and had another event.
You have done well to get over the Sepsis.
On our journey, having eliminated all the inflamatory issues in the diet, I have felt there was something else going on with my husband. Early last year, thanks to a posting from Ivor Cummings, I was introduced to Vitamin B12 Deficiency and how that can have a genetic component. Absolutely fitted my husband's family health history. These are the UK based resources I found to help us to learn more: Comprehensive B12 Information UK based: b12deficiency.info/
Dr Joseph Chandy – GP in Durham who has just authored this book:
Book “Vitamin B12 Deficiency in Clinical Practice” . Dr Chandy will send free to any GP who emails him. b12d.org. He has a brilliant 1 minute symptom checker.
While you learn more please keep to following the principles of LCHF as defined on dietdoctor.com as that will help minimise inflamatory issues from too much sugar in the blood triggering high levels of insulin:
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