I have started the German diet almased. I have tried everything I know of to lose this prednisone weight of 15lb. which has been gained in two years. I haven't had any success. My friend told me about Almased and thought it might be just what I needed. It is quick weight loss, not muscle only fat and it works very fast; (one to 2 lbs a day.) I did some research and there doesn't seem to be any problem with taking prednisone and the Almased. My concern is, in the literature it states that it will lower cortisol levels.
Don't know if this is a problem or not. I am thinking my cortisol levels are probably non existent at this time. Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated.
I am currently on 13mg prednisone.
Thanks a Lot
Written by
Linny3
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I would be VERY sceptical and cautious about any diet that promised a weight loss of 1-2lbs a day. Even 1-2 lbs per week is extremely good going and far better for you. Having looked it up - what a load of mdooly, IMHO!! Save your money and put it towards eating better real food.
Weight loss on steroids is generally not easy, no-one will claim that, but you can safely cut carbs drastically and still eat well and lose weight, Many of us have done so. I eat no processed carbs, eat large amounts of above ground veg and moderate amounts of animal-based protein. I lost 35lbs of pred weight and now have little trouble maintaining my weight even on 15mg pred/day currently.
I did try it a few years ago - not sure but probably pre GCA - but to be honest it was boring.
So it got ditched.
Tbh I’ve lost a lot of weight post GCA, post Pred without really thinking about it! The only difference for me is less stress and having more time to think about food and eat properly.
Hi Linny3....good luck with this. I wouldn't last a day before I was wanting proper food. I just had smaller portions and reduced carbs as much as possible. I used soya bean pasta (edemame) and noodles which are higher in protein and low carb. If I have bread I have seeded, rye spelt or sourdough that release more slowly. Low carb high fat approach used via diabetes UK and other carb controlled eating programmes. Anyone can join their low carb recipe program online. Again. Good luck and hope you do well. 🌻
I am so tired I don't want to think about fixing food. I went thru all my "tried and true" ways of losing weight and nothing happened. I need something really simple and right now I don't seem to care that much about food. Amazing because I usually suffer from the pred hunger.
I have lost 6 pounds and I am not hungry and I barely mis the whole food. I did a lot of research and this seems to be really good for diabetes, high blood pressure and of course obesity. Cuts down on dishes I have to clean, and the grocery shopping is cut to almost nothing.
You have my sympathies. I put on nearly 2 stone in just over a year thanks to pred !! I joined slimming world on line 5 weeks ago and am delighted to have lost 7 lb.
Much safer to loose weight slowly and eat healthy which slimming world diet is.
Well, it might work but any extreme change in the body’s state will cause stress. Is that good when one’s body is not well? Probably not. 2lbs a day is extreme and there will be some cost. I doubt there is any research directly checking with PMR either.
What did you do that wasn’t successful and how did you measure success?
That is one of my concerns about pmr. and doing this. I am so miserable now and all this weight (I had gained weight before pmr) is just so bad for me. Believe me I wish I could go to a gym (like i Use to) but just can't do exercise. Sitting at home most days is just not conducive to weight loss. Least not for me. Congrats. on the weight loss.
The moment I see anything going on with the pmr I will stop.
This meal plan is suppose to be good for people with diabetes and high blood pressure to name a few. I read the science behind it and it is very interesting.
I haven’t been able to go to gym for 2 years and all I do is walk the dogs. The great thing about cutting out all refined carbs is that I could eat masses which is just as well because Pred made me very hungry and I was bored to hell having lost my job.
May I ask what you’ve tried so far?
The problem that I can see that it isn’t a straight, if PMR flares I’ll stop. It’s all the invisible stuff I worry about. For example the depletion Pred causes such as bone and muscle loss, potassium, magnesium depletion to name a few. You need extra of a number of things including anti inflammatory and antioxidant foods. I know a few people who have done this sort of diet (Cambridge) with great success but they all ended up back to where they were, morbidly obese. In all of them it was because the diet didn’t allow them to develop a good relationship with normal food for lifelong nourishment. As soon as the diet was off the same eating patterns were back. I think the success came from the diet plan with shakes being so out of the ordinary it was easier to do than dealing with the food that caused them so much difficulty, but you can’t do it forever and real food has to be addressed sooner or later. So if you do go ahead, be mindful.
I couldn't exercise either - I was on crutches! It has been shown that exercise isn't actually that important in actual weight loss - although it is significant in toning muscle which makes you LOOK more shapely and slimmer. Muscle weighs more than fat so as you develop muscle and lose fat you may not lose weight overall but clothes fit better. And rapid weight loss is often just water - which goes back on if you go back to your previous eating habits.
Note specifically that if this is all you're consuming three times a day, you're only getting 6% of your needed fiber intake, and somewhere between 70-80% of essential nutrients like Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin E, calcium, most of the B vitamins, sodium, potassium and iron. We're already having our calcium issues due to pred. I don't see anything on the list like Vitamin D (which is required to bind calcium to bones), There are other nutrients missing as well.
I'd stay far away from this, unless I was using it to replace only 1 meal a day. And then I'd add an apple for desert.
I don't know who is suggesting that this is a good way of dieting with high blood pressure or diabetes but whomever it is should be shot.
My OH is Type 1 Diabetic and a diet so low in calories and the right nutrients would at the least send him to hospital , if not make him fall into a diabetic coma.
People with health issues on strong medications, or with blood pressure and insulin issues, should definitely not attempt any sort of diet like this , it may seem fine in theory but it will eventually do harm.
It might be a quick fix for the young and healthy losing a few pounds to get into a bikini but it's a quick trip to the GP for the likes of us , and our ability to process our steroid intake would seriously be compromised in a way that could easily cause a flare up in PMR , without us having full physical ability to process any increase in medications used to combat it.
To parallel it with the "Newcastle diet" - the newly approved approach to potentially reverse Type 2 diabetes. They use 800 calories per day over 8 weeks under close medical supervision. Once upon a time even a 1000 cal intake was supervised in hospital!
But the bottom line is what sennetta says - diets don't work. The only thing that works for life is changing your eating habits, for life. You have to learn to love the right sort of food for YOU and accept that life's not fair so while OH can eat chocolate biscuits and still struggle to gain weight, I only have to look at a cake and it jumps onto my hips...
It's not just the calorie content but what form the calories come in that is important , and that any diet for any person with health issues should be approved by a GP and medically supervised , especially one that reduces calorie intake below 1000 calories is well known.
The only way you lose weight that you want to stay off for good is by following a healthy diet , even if you cannot exercise regularly.
Any drastic change in your metabolism just pushes your body into " Starvation Mode" , your brain doesn't just act to use some stored energy it panics and believes you are starving . If this is allowed for any longer than 1- 2 days at a time the brain recorrects all the body to prepare for the day that food returns. Not just when the diet finishes , but when normal meals are introduced the body then works to metabolise all the food into stored fat . Basically , it's like a squirrel , desparately collecting nuts for winter and storing them up .
That's why Yoyoing occurs.
I read the whole page on this diet , it's basically just like the drinks given to people in hospital when they are too sick to eat to maintain some baseline of nutrients and energy until they can get you on full meals again and you start to put on weight. The recipes are good healthy low carb food ideas , to be honest you'd probably be better off just eating them three times a day with healthy snacks to lose weight for good.
Interestingly , the very first comment I read from a user was negative , complaining that it didn't work and when they'd started eating on the later plan ( with food) again they'd put on 5 lb , science and point proved on its own webpage!
My grandma always said , " All good things take time " , she was a clever woman , whom ate a good varied diet and didn't become even mildly overweight ( except for some spells on medication) until in her late eighties , despite having Severe Arthritis since age 11, one leg 3 1/2 inches shorter than the other , an back brace and walking with two sticks . If she could do it we all can.
This is me sounding angry , extreme dieting , especially those often encouraged by people on many weight loss sites , even on HU , are not suitable for people with complex health issues , don't work , increase depression , and are just things that feed off the desperate in a negative way.
Give up sugar, processed food and refined carbodydrates and don't worry about unprocessed fats. You will lose all the weight you have gained because of pred and any excess you had before and feel much more healthy. Watch "That Sugar Film" which you can find in it's full length form with some persistent googling on Vimeo. Also watch another Film called "Sugar Coated" Look at the writings of Jason Fung, in particular his book The Obesity Code. Consider changing your mind set from the concept of "diets" to "way of life" Be aware that sugar feeds inflammation and illnesses of all sorts.
I have tried all the old ways of losing weight and they aren't working. I realize everything everyone has said to be true but I just needed a jump start. It is only for 1-2 weeks, whatever I am comfortable with, and then I start adding food back in. I haven't had the pred hunger all week and I have lost weight. I am not taking as long of naps as I was a week ago. My ankles which have been terribly swollen have now gone down to almost normal. All in all I understand what everyone is saying and worried about. This type of plan is never meant to be long term. Actually you can just follow the plan for a week and then start the next phase which includes solid food.
Thanks for everyones input. Taking 7 lbs off puts me in a new state of mind.
The "old" ways of dieting do not work - they never could. The whole concept of caloric intake vs calories out and loads of exercise is not scientifically supportable. We have been being duped by the medical establishment, pharmacieutical companies successive governments,biased scientists, the processed food manufacturers, the sugar corporations...I could go on....since the 70s. We should have just continued to listen to our grandparents - "you are what you eat" - "keep away from sugar and carbohydrates if you want to stay trim" and "don't snack between meals or you'll spoil your tea/dinner/lunch" and just eat steak/cheese/ salads veg to lose weight. Eating fat has got nothing to do with putting on weight or coronary heart disease. Sugar, refined carbs and processed foods have. Do some serious googling and reading - the information and sound evidence is there for the taking.
But may I point out that everyone feels good in starvation mode because you body is not being asked to do its job. And if you ate poorly in the past , with lots of sugar, processed foods , high carbs or inflammatory foods your body will feel better.
It's after a week that your body will begin to show warning signs , and when foods properly return and you say you do not like to cook and spend time on food , the food will cause a reaction again .
I know you say you have tried diets before and they didn't work , but how much did you need to lose ? How long did you give it?
Diets take time , there are always slow loss times , plateaus , the odd weight gains , as your body gets used to changes , rebalances or struggles with its work .
On steroids or other drugs , losing weight is incredibly slow , on a healthy plan , the odd few pounds is the slowest .
That's why diets cause you Yoyoing , people don't realise they can take time and when they start old habits the weight just goes on again.
Sorry for being like a Mum, but I know that people with ill health can make themselves very sick , and increase their depression , inflammation and pain if not during , then after doing diets like this.
Yes you are absolutely correct. I cut carbs and sugar ate a lot of veggies and no snacks. I was serious about getting this weight off. After 6 weeks absolutely no weight loss. I was ready to see a dr. when I came across this plan. It is not something I would do for more than 2 weeks. I feel it will jump start the process. I think I have had such good luck with it because I have 5 weeks of no sugar and low carbs to begin with. 5 days in and pmr has not flared. I feel a lot of the stress of the whole weight loss thing has been lifted a lot.
I do detect a flaw in your argument. I remember a drawing in Prof John Yudkin's book about sugar and weight loss years ago. He showed how 3 different people could go on the same diet, lose the same amount of weight but their pattern of weight loss was totally different. One person started a diet and lost steadily over the following 2 months, another lost nothing for the first few weeks and then suddenly lost the lot and the third lost steadily from day one but got stuck halfway through. Maybe you are the second?
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