Over weight

[Smartmam]

After staying home since March, My deal of not eating bread is all gone. Put on so much weight. No idea what to do.

one problem lead to another one.

over weight, depression.

Any idea, any suggestions welcome. 🙈🙈🙈

[Sewnknit]

Well, you've made the first step in looking at the problem.You don't say what your domestic arrangements are, but the first suggestion is not to buy it.

I love nice bread and the panettone I got in for Christmas is really calling me, so I know what you mean.

Have you spoken to your Doctor about your feelings?

My next thought is what are you eating if you are here on the LCHF forum? Are you eating enough of the good things?

Sorry for the interrogation! Just trying to help. Theawfultoad did a paper on this way of eating that may help, perhaps a mod will find the link.

Take care, we're all here for you!

x

[Subtle_badger in reply to Sewnknit]

Yeah smartmam, you have to get that bread out of the house. At this point (I had a quick look at your history, and you have been fighting this a long time). No matter what your situation, if you live with people that love you, they should support you in this. You must treat this as an addiction, because from this and your earlier posts, I think that is what it is. If you were addicted to alcohol, your family would stop bringing it into the house. Annoying and inconvenient for them, but necessary for your health and well being. There are many things to eat that aren't bread, and they can also have bread when they are out. It can't be in your home any more.

I don't know if this is helpful but I also love bread and while not addicted, had a pretty unhealthy relationship with it. I haven't had any bread in over a year, except 4 hot x buns over Easter. I have been gazing wistfully at panettones in shop windows, but have resisted. I think I will enjoy a small, muffin-sized one on New Year's day, and then no more bread for a few months.

I did this by going cold turkey. I followed the Fast800 for a month, and then gradually added back in the fat at the end of the month. I did not add the carbs back, grains, potatoes and other beige carbs have no place in my diet.

I would recommend you try something similar. Maybe not Fast800, which is calorie restricted as well as low carb. You could try dietdoctor.com 14 day introduction, an Atkins induction or even experiment with fat fasting.. thefastingmethod.com/what-i...

The only advantage of the Fast800, is the reduced calories gives fast weight loss, which might inspire you and help with that depression.

healthunlocked.com/fasting-...

I would not advise the Toad's plan, as that is about gradually cutting down. That may work for those who aren't addicted, but like alcohol, some people can cut down on how much they drink, but alcoholics generally have to give it up entirely.

If you decide to talk to your doctor about your depression, do not take mirtazapine: it made me and at least one other forum member inhale carbs.

Good luck. Post back so we can cheer you on.

[Smartmam in reply to Subtle_badger]

Thankyou so much.

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador in reply to Subtle_badger]

I think you may have misunderstood my plan, SB. I've introduced a "pre-induction" week during which people are supposed to:

(a) start gently with a low-carb breakfast without any of the other trappings of LCHF. I did this because a lot of people make excuses for not even getting started. I wanted to get people to make a minimal commitment that they would then (hopefully) follow through on.

(b) get all the trash out of the house. After that, it's two weeks of full-blown keto. Again, this is designed to get people to commit. If the restocking period isn't too dramatic, people are less likely to feel intimidated by it all ... but when the restock is done, they have little option but to follow through.

There is no gradual reduction, because, as you said, it generally doesn't work.

I had quite a bit of feedback to the effect that it wasn't entirely obvious what the first week is for. I need to stress that it's mainly a re-stocking period: junk food gets used up, or given away, and new stuff gets bought in. My updated draft makes it much more explicit.

[Subtle_badger in reply to TheAwfulToad]

Well, to be honest, I only gave it a cursory glance, and to be honest, I found it a bit circumlocutory for my taste. I like a summary so I have a big picture view and can then dive in for the details. I didn't critique it at the time, because I was not your target audience, so it didn't seem helpful.

Now you have explained it, I don't see the point of the first week, at least in "getting rid of the junk". Most of the foods I have stopped eating have an extremely long shelf life, so there is no way I would have used up all the rice, bulgar, couscous, pastas, sugar etc etc in a week.

Just went to my cupboard: bag of red lentils (expired 3 years ago 😳 will feed pigeons) and bag of arborio rice goes to the food bank while it's still got a few months left. I really expected I would make risotto in the last year, but I haven't.

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador in reply to Subtle_badger]

The first week is based around a trick typically associated with salesmen and charity collectors. It exploits a psychological foible whereby humans can be roped into large commitments by making a small commitment first (and a related one known as the 'sunk cost effect'). In the worst case it's the way perfectly normal people end up joining apocalyptic cults or marrying abusive partners, but it can also be used in more benign ways. A lot of people fear keto, even though there's nothing to fear. They think they're going to be curled up in the bathroom feeling like death, Trainspotter-style. If you drop them straight into it, they'll back off.

If I'd thought about it a bit more I could have fine-tuned it, but it got a fairly good response during testing. "Just make some scrambled eggs? Is that it? Yeah, OK, I can do that".

Sure, some people have several weeks worth of food in the cupboards. Most people, though, tend to do a weekly shop. Close enough is good enough, IMO. But I do need to make it clearer that all that stuff needs to go, one way or another, during the first few days. Either via a binge, or giving it away.

I'm surprised you found it wordy. I trimmed it as close as I dared to, without losing the essentials. I wanted to make it much, much shorter than the average diet book, which has pages and pages of explanation in the first chapter (most of which is bollocks). The basic problem I faced is that LCHF is diametrically opposed to "eat less and move more", which means people will go into it with a lot more skepticism than usual. I had to give them a couple of pages of explanation, and then straight into the eating plan.

The Q&As and sidebars were based heavily on repeated questions that we get here, and some oblique references to the NHS 12-week plan.

[BridgeGirl in reply to TheAwfulToad]

And that all makes sense, the first week and all the rest. I found your guide approachable, direct, clear, and with the right balance of "here's why it works" and "here's an easy step through the door".

Most of all, it makes it un-weird, which I think is crucial in debunking concerns and letting people see it is compatible with "normal" life, including life with family members who may not be on board.

Where can I find your latest edition? This may well be the time to engage new folks.

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador in reply to BridgeGirl]

Thanks BridgeGirl . I appreciate that vote of confidence

Yeah, "un-weird". That was the central point I had to get across, and it's damn hard when every man and his dog is telling people "oooh, you stay away from that low-carb nonsense, you'll die of a heart attack!"

I'm doing the update in two versions. One will be a similar layout to the original which I will continue to hand out for free to members here. The other I'm reformatting in HTML/CSS with a different page layout; this will end up on Amazon's Kindle Store so I can reach a wider audience. There's a fair amount of work and expense involved here so I'm just getting it done as and when. Hopefully sometime in January!

[Subtle_badger in reply to TheAwfulToad]

I'm sorry if I offended you. It wasn't my intention. I am very much not your intended audience; I am already through the looking glass, so I don't need coaxing to cross over. It clearly worked for your target audience, so well done!

What I wanted was to have some overview of the plan. So I offer this to you as a suggestion: have - somewhere in the document - a summary of the actual diet. Think of it for people like me, who might want recommend it to a friend, we can check out that we are on-board with the eating plan. And for people who you have convinced, but just want to remember what they can and can't eat can refer to.

Oh, and if that is already there, apologies. I was reading it on my phone, so your html/CSS version will address that.

I am happy to continue this discussion if you want, but please start a new topic. Smartmam needs support, and I don't want to clog this topic with my nitpicking about your excellent book.

- me

[TheAwfulToad Ambassador in reply to Subtle_badger]

No offence taken I consider all criticism in the spirit that it's given. And I don't think you're nitpicking. One's experience is what it is. I might dismiss it if it appears unusual (and therefore can't accommodate it) but I'm not going to tell you you're wrong.

I get what you're saying about the summary. I tried to do that on the closing page of Week 4. But it boils down to "try to avoid this, eat more of that, and eat when you're hungry". It doesn't need pages and pages of exposition because it isn't trying to describe the Ideal Diet. That's the beauty of LCHF.

I agree that there needs to be more detail on what sort of foods the diet involves - other people have mentioned this. I have fleshed it out a bit.

I was deliberately keeping it vague because, as I said, I wanted to get away from the idea that there is one perfect diet that we should all be eating: partly because there is no such thing (humans can adapt to a wide range of diets except high-carb, low-fat diets) and partly because I don't want to get the book embroiled in a Holy War with the "everyone needs carbs" brigade. I had to tread a fine line between being "inclusive" (I hate that word, but I think it's the right one here) and ensuring that I told the truth.

[Smartmam in reply to Sewnknit]

Thankyou.

[Smartmam]

Thanks for your input. You are one of the lucky one. I am happy for you. Everyone 's body and blood group is different. So I always struggle with bread.

I love bread. Unfortunately bread does not feel the same way. So Thank you. 🙏

[Hidden in reply to Smartmam]

I would rather eat a large chunk of granary bread thick with butter than anything, but resisting it at the moment. Stay strong! Di

[Lesley1234567 in reply to Smartmam]

Hi smartman, bread is not my best friend either and I I used to eat loads of different breads. But now I enjoy the food I eat minus the carbohydrates simply because I am not carrying the excess weight and I don’t have food constantly on my mind. Only you can do it and once achieved there’s no going back and you will never look at bread in the same way again.

New year new beginnings go for it. Remember LCHF is not a diet it’s a way of life and you won’t even notice once you have got there. As you will no longer feel hungry and you probably won’t even look in the bakers window.

[Smartmam in reply to Lesley1234567]

Thankyou

[S11m]

I was depressed following the death of my late wife - but losing 5½ stone has helped.I used a medium-Carb, Medium-Fat (LCHF) diet and 20:4 Intermittent Fasting.

See:

healthunlocked.com/fasting-...

[Smartmam]

I do feel, my post has lost its way. 🙈🙈🙈

[Smartmam]

Thankyou Happy new year.

[Subtle_badger]

Let's try dragging this discussion back to you, Smartmam

How was your Christmas and new year? are you feeling more hopeful, ready to face the world with renewed strength?