After the decades of low-cal dieting that i did, it's psychologically VERY hard to increase the amount i eat. When i'm eating a ketogenic diet, making progress, and experiencing the lack of hunger i do, it's VERY tempting to take the energy intake lower. This, however, is a big mistake.
Whether it's because i have a "weak" thyroid to begin with or merely normal response to under-feeding, going too low in energy-intake quickly puts me in "conservation mode." Lowering intake further -- no matter what the CICO-promoters think -- also lowers fat-burning by the body. (This SHOULD be good news for some of the obese bloggers we know, but they're so invested in their paradigm they're not even willing to trade their egos for improved health.)
My husband derived determination and inspiration from the LC cruise seminars, and when we got home last month we started applying some new techniques to our diet-and-lifestyle practices. We procured a blood-ketone meter and found that our ordinary LC diets didn't get us to the range recommended by Phinney and Volek. Using recipes from the "Fat Fast Cookbook" (adding to our regular regimen, not doing A fat-fast), we managed to raise our fat intake from sixty-something to eighty-something percent of energy, and this has done the trick. We're BOTH losing.
Additionally, i find that by eating to appetite, i'm not taking in enough food to convince my body it can afford to "waste" fat to fuel me adequately. Upon the 1200-1400 kcal/day intake, WHICH SATISFIES MY APPETITE AMPLY, my body prefers to being in starvation mode. When i ADD TO my desired intake by drinking bulletproof-recipe coffee in the morning and consuming a very high-fat dessert, i DO lose. At a moderate-protein, VLC, VHF level of eating, the body is willing to burn body-fat generously at 2000 kcal -- for me, this is astonishing.
Not only am i writing this as a progress report for a pair of overweight middle-agers, but as a refutation of the confusing information provided to mature women by young male paleos on sites like facebook. The LAST thing new female low-carbers need is input from half-informed individuals about how little an obesity-resistant representative of an entirely different demographic has to do to achieve success!
Thank you for posting this Tess- you are right, it is sooo hard to wrap the brain around the need for higher fat/calories with ketosis, especially despite the decreased appetite! I was doing the 80% fat thing this winter and my blood pressure shot up, but bp is normal now and I'm thinking of trying again and seeing how it goes. I appreciate you reporting actual numbers. Keep us posted on the progress, pitfalls, etc. Also, can you give a typical "day in the life of..." menu? I'm always curious what other people are eating. I run out of ideas.
ReplyDeletethank YOU, Kim, for being such a positive commenter! :-) ... ya know, with so many people posting what they eat/drink on a daily basis, i was reflecting on how hard that would be for me to do. when J was out-of-town on business so much, my diet was exceptionally simple, but now he's retired it's quite the opposite.
ReplyDeletehe likes to cook, so he often does our breakfasts (quiches, shirred duck eggs, scrambles, etc), and if i get a fancy for one of the dishes he excels at making, i speak up and he delivers. :-) if we have a late breakfast (because BP coffee really fills you up), we often do two meals a day. dinner is ... whatever sounds good. :-) we love seafood, steaks, pork roasts, lamb racks and shanks, ribs, ... oh, lots of things! in the old days we'd have two vegetables (one of them usually starchy) with a meat main dish, but these days it's usually one LC side. occasionally, there'll be oopsie rolls or a paleo biscuit. more and more these days, we're eating shirataki noodles (the non-tofu kind) as found in Fat Fast, and also their desserts (J's favorite is the "pudding" made with sour cream).
i have a very large collection of cookbooks, and we enjoy trying new cuisines. but i tell ya -- if i were doing ALL the cooking, our menus would be much simpler! :-)
(:
ReplyDeleteoh yeah...and "right on" re: "...The LAST thing new female low-carbers need is input from half-informed individuals about how little an obesity-resistant representative of an entirely different demographic has to do to achieve success!"
ReplyDeletethanks yet again. :-) it's a subject i feel rather strongly about, as you probably know!
DeleteWonderful!
ReplyDeleteBut I wonder how many people fail at LC because they're trying to do a high-protein version of it.
probably quite a few! or eating LC treats instead of meals of whole foods....
DeleteSo glad to read about this, Tess. Love it. You are my go-to person for thyroid. Glad to hear you've been able to apply what you learned on the cruise, and that your husband is on board.
ReplyDeleteI cannot have any diary, including even ghee. Whaaaah. I must say, I get envious sometimes- reading about the butter and the dairy- not you in particular, but I miss it. I can't decide what is worse, the dairy sensitivity or my pork sensitivity? I say dairy.
So glad you are having success. Dialing it in feels so good physically and mentally. Doing the happy dance for you. :)
thanks, Karen! ...i think i'd be with you, and miss dairy more than pork! there are SO many things we (as a culture) eat which are dairy based, that until coconut came along you must have been limited indeed. :-( if you're even sensitive to ghee, i'll bet goat- and sheep-dairy are out too?
Deletethere seem to be a few different "versions of hypothyroidism" out there, and i've come to think i'm a bit of an out-lier! if my experience is valuable to you, then i have accomplished what i set out to do. :-)
I'm always amazed that when I eat more fat the weight loss happens, when I skimp on calories I stall. I've had people (on low carb sites!) call me a liar and insist that starvation is the only path to weight loss. Eventually starvation works, but that's clearly NOT sustainable!
ReplyDelete:-) i call 'em "low-carb apologists".... they insist LC works, but can't get away from the notion that it works BECAUSE of the inhibited appetite and reduced intake. well, i'm an example of a person who can't lose effectively on low calories (i even hate to use the c-word these days), and if it's low-cal-hi-carb i can't lose AT . ALL. a motto that i find usable is "you aren't what you eat, you are what your body DOES WITH what you eat," which is obviously pretty variable between individuals!
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