 |
| It's time to evaluate Atkins Induction and make a few adjustments. |
Trying to juggle over a dozen health conditions is a huge pain. And I mean HUGE. You get sick and tired of being . . . well . . . sick and tired.
Ever since I went back to Atkins Induction in order to get my blood glucose to behave itself, I've been spending far too much time in the bathroom.
I'm exhausted from the lack of carbs and haven't experienced the drop in hunger or upsurge in energy you get when you're easily burning fats for fuel.
While my blood glucose is finally under control, I have not lost a single pound.
I think I'm eating too much fat.
(Yes, low-fat, low-carb is a THING.)
At my age, height, and activity level, I have to severely reduce my portion sizes to see any decent loss on the scale. Up until now, I've been more concerned with getting my glucose numbers back in line, but I've reached the point where:
This time, I want to take the time to do it RIGHT.
I want to design a unique low-fat low-carb lifestyle that's practical and doable. Similar to what I did to lose over 100 pounds a few years ago. One that will bring increased health and well-being into my life.
But I have to do this without hubby noticing what I'm doing.
I don't want to give him nightmares of eating chicken or turkey breast and soggy cabbage three times a day like we did when I was doing HCG. I also can't expect him to eat a lettuce salad every night and like it.
It was enough to see the look on his face when I put a head of cabbage in the shopping cart last Saturday morning. I could hear his thoughts whirling around in his mind.
"It's for egg rolls," I said.
The relief on his face was self evident.
And at that moment, I realized that any low-fat low-carb food plan I come up with has got to taste good. Can't sacrifice flavor. There's no other way to pull this off.
So, I'll be easing into my brand new lower fat lifestyle. No radical changes. Just some slight adjustments here and there to help move me toward my target weight.
I know what you're thinking.
I've totally jumped off the deep end of the pool. Low-carb weight-loss diets are not high in dietary fats? Of course, low-carb weight-loss diets are high in dietary fats! Dr. Atkins was all about not fearing fat, wasn't he?
In fact, low-carb diets themselves are often referred to as being low-carb high-fat (LCHF) instead of being ketogenic, even though keto is fast becoming the more popular term.
But here's the truth:
Within the low-carb community, dietary fat and it's proper place in a low-carb diet, is the most misunderstood of all the macronutrients. Fat is misunderstood even more than protein is, and protein misconceptions are huge.
The only macronutrient that low carbers partially get is the carbs.
Why do I say that?
Ever since Jimmy Moore introduced his version of Nutritional Ketosis, I've seen huge numbers of people literally striving to reach a super-high dietary fat percentage each and every day, something like 75 to 85 percent of their calories coming in from dietary fats.
They believe that's how a LCHF diet is done.
To reach that high of a percentage, they're snacking on fat bombs, drinking bullet-proof coffee for breakfast and dessert, and eating cream cheese or coconut oil off a spoon in the evening.
Their goal in life is to get their fat percentage up as high as possible.
Dr. Atkins never sanctioned nor recommended such behavior.
Dietary fat in 1972 and even in 2002 was very low compared to what low carbers are doing today.
At the end of the week, when dieters haven't lost anything on the scale, they feel confused and frustrated.
I can't tell you how many people have written to me over the years and told me that they are gaining weight on what they believe is Nutritional Ketosis -- LCHF.
They've bought into several false ideas about low-carb high-fat diets and are quite shocked when I tell them that isn't how low carb works.
Appropriate low-carb weight-loss diets are NOT high in dietary fats.
If 80 percent of your calories are fat calories, rather than protein or carbs, there's no need for your liver to dip into your fat stores. You're supplying more than enough fat to fuel the body.
Period.
It doesn't.
For most people, a high-fat low-carb weight-loss diet doesn't work.
LCHF does work for a select few, which I'll talk about in a moment. These people tend to have particular metabolic defects that a high-fat diet corrects or they've reached a point in their healing journey that their diet needs to be adjusted to fit their new carb sensitivity.
Their testimonies of how LCHF turned their lives around are the stories that seem to catch fire within the low-carb community and get spread around out of context because once those metabolic defects are adjusted for, they seem to lose body fat easily without a lot of effort.
These are the EXCEPTIONS to the rule.
They are not the norm.
They stumbled onto a low-carb formula that works for THEM. And ONLY them.
The trick is looking at the order in which the body utilizes the energy coming in:
Alcohol is used first, because the body sees it as a poison. Fats and glucose are stored and ketosis is put on hold until every drop of alcohol is oxidized and disposed of.
Carbs are used next, since they are broken down into glucose. This includes the vegetables and other low-carb foods you eat. All carbs are turned into glucose, even low-carb foods because they are used to refill your glycogen stores.
These stores can hold about 80 to 100 carbs if completely empty, but this is a bit deceiving. Throughout the day, the brain uses 120 to 130 carbs, a little at a time, so you don't get fat by eating more than 50 carbs a day.
Carb stores are used to keep your blood glucose level steady. Slight increases in glucose work to feed the brain. Carbs are rarely converted into body fat unless you're consistently overeating them at each meal.
When glucose is scarce, amino acids are oxidized directly for fuel. They do not have to be turned into glucose. The body does use them to make glucose, but only if there are no other glucose substrates readily available for the purpose of gluconeogenesis.
Gluconeogenesis is demand driven. Glucose is only made as needed.
Glucose can be taken more easily from the glycerol backbone attached to stored triglycerides, pyruvate, and other substances than it can from proteins.
When amino acids are used to make glucose, non-essential amino acids like glutamine are used FIRST, then worn-out protein structures that need to be replaced, and if you're not eating enough protein on a daily basis, the body will mine your muscle tissue.
To prevent excessive muscle loss, fat will be used for fuel.
Fat is used LAST. It's last on the list. And body fat is a last resort. The body doesn't like using it's fat stores and will exhaust every other avenue for fuel before turning to body fat!
Mobilizing and oxidizing body fat is an adaption to calorie restriction that the body uses to save your life during a famine. Sacrifice too much lean tissue and you'll die, so the body does give in to burning body fat, but not if there's enough fat coming in from your diet.
The body will slow down your metabolism and use other compensatory means like shutting down non-essential systems and functions to adapt to the lack of calories before it begins to easily burn body fat.
This is why you can feel exhausted when you first go low carb. The body is conserving energy, rather than burning body fat.
It thinks the famine is only temporary.
Once it believes you're in this for the long haul, the body will begin to adapt to burning fats, but you still have to deprive it of the amount of fat it needs to keep the body primed to burn body fat.
The only way you can get away with eating 75 to 80 percent of your calories in fat is if:
1) You're resistant to insulin in your liver cells
2) You are protein sensitive
3) And you're eating at a calorie deficit
The path of insulin resistance is:
It's taken me awhile to wrap my brain around what's going on here, due to the amount of misinformation, misconceptions, and theory circulating through low-carb groups. It's common to hear that the more resistant to insulin you are, the harder it is for a low-carb diet to work.
But that's WRONG.
The opposite is actually true.
The more resistant to insulin you are, the easier it is for a low-carb diet to work because your liver will respond to your insulin level as if it wasn't there.
This lack of response seen in those who are insulin resistant at the level of the fat cells keeps the doors to your fat cells OPEN, and not closed.
Newbies to low carb can lose a ton of body fat fairly quickly because when you're severely insulin resistant, the liver believes your insulin level is always low.
If you're partially insulin resistant, or if you have partially healed your severe insulin resistance, then the liver DOES see your insulin level, at least part of the time, and will respond according to how low it is.
If your insulin is too high, you'll have to work hard or adjust your diet to bring that insulin level down low enough to get keto to work properly. This can require a very low carb intake coupled with a higher fat intake, but not always.
When you're only mildly insulin resistant, or you heal enough that the insulin resistance is only going on with your liver cells, then gluconeogenesis doesn't shut off, so eating less protein and upping your fats will be beneficial -- even during the weight loss phase.
However, whether you can lose weight at 80 percent fat always depends on your calorie deficit. Your calorie deficit must be large enough that your liver has no choice but to access body fat to fuel your day.
And that's next to impossible to do.
What most people are doing today is NOT ATKINS. It's not even low carb. Yes, it's low-carb high-fat, but according to Dr. Phinney:
Eating 75 to 80 percent of your calories in fat is MAINTENANCE!
It's not a low-carb weight-loss diet.
Low-carb weight loss requires you to reduce your fat and calorie intake low enough that the body has to use your fat reserves to make up the difference.
You need to eat a certain amount of protein every day to provide the amino acids the body needs to repair damaged and worn out protein structures and guard against muscle losses. And that amount of protein is dependent on your goal weight, and not how much you weigh right now.
The number of carbohydrates you eat on low carb programs is dialed in to fit your individual carbohydrate tolerance or personal preferences. That, too, is a finite number.
Protein and carbohydrate needs don't change all that much.
While some people do up their carbohydrate level as the body heals, the only macronutrient you really have to significantly adjust your calorie intake is dietary fats.
Fat is how you control the number of calories you're eating.
How low in fat you have to go will be unique.
At post menopause and five-feet tall, the degree to which I'll have to slash my fat calories to see results won't be the same degree you have to slash yours to get the same results.
What I've been currently doing isn't mindful. I've just been eating Induction-friendly foods. I haven't been watching my fat intake or calories because I honestly don't want to have to count my macros.
I don't want to weigh out my food or count calories, so I've just been eating when hungry, just enough to be satisfied, and not eating at all when I'm not.
This has allowed me to easily maintain the 40 pound loss I experienced a couple of years ago. I'm not struggling to maintain 200 pounds, but it isn't enough to take me the rest of the way to my preferred weight of 160 to 165 pounds.
So where do I go from here?
I'm thinking that since I already have certain low-carb routines set in place, I might start by looking at and evaluating the amount of fat that I'm eating at each meal.
I can't even begin to know where to cut back on fat until I understand where I am, and why I'm here.
When I was in Utah, I noticed that I was giving into urges to make higher fat dinners right after I gave up the sugary sodas, so catching me doing that forced me to be more mindful regarding what I fixed for dinner.
Being mindful allowed the weight to come off slowly, but painlessly.
Maybe, I just need to do the same thing again.
At my age, height, and activity level, I have to severely reduce my portion sizes to see any decent loss on the scale. Up until now, I've been more concerned with getting my glucose numbers back in line, but I've reached the point where:
- It's time to make an adjustment.
- It's time to make another permanent lifestyle change.
- It's time to go back to what worked for me before.
This time, I want to take the time to do it RIGHT.
I want to design a unique low-fat low-carb lifestyle that's practical and doable. Similar to what I did to lose over 100 pounds a few years ago. One that will bring increased health and well-being into my life.
But I have to do this without hubby noticing what I'm doing.
I don't want to give him nightmares of eating chicken or turkey breast and soggy cabbage three times a day like we did when I was doing HCG. I also can't expect him to eat a lettuce salad every night and like it.
It was enough to see the look on his face when I put a head of cabbage in the shopping cart last Saturday morning. I could hear his thoughts whirling around in his mind.
"It's for egg rolls," I said.
 |
| Making simple adjustments to your low-carb diet can bring about the results you're looking for. |
The relief on his face was self evident.
And at that moment, I realized that any low-fat low-carb food plan I come up with has got to taste good. Can't sacrifice flavor. There's no other way to pull this off.
So, I'll be easing into my brand new lower fat lifestyle. No radical changes. Just some slight adjustments here and there to help move me toward my target weight.
Low-Carb Weight-Loss Diets are Not High in Dietary Fats
I know what you're thinking.
I've totally jumped off the deep end of the pool. Low-carb weight-loss diets are not high in dietary fats? Of course, low-carb weight-loss diets are high in dietary fats! Dr. Atkins was all about not fearing fat, wasn't he?
In fact, low-carb diets themselves are often referred to as being low-carb high-fat (LCHF) instead of being ketogenic, even though keto is fast becoming the more popular term.
But here's the truth:
Within the low-carb community, dietary fat and it's proper place in a low-carb diet, is the most misunderstood of all the macronutrients. Fat is misunderstood even more than protein is, and protein misconceptions are huge.
The only macronutrient that low carbers partially get is the carbs.
Why do I say that?
Ever since Jimmy Moore introduced his version of Nutritional Ketosis, I've seen huge numbers of people literally striving to reach a super-high dietary fat percentage each and every day, something like 75 to 85 percent of their calories coming in from dietary fats.
They believe that's how a LCHF diet is done.
To reach that high of a percentage, they're snacking on fat bombs, drinking bullet-proof coffee for breakfast and dessert, and eating cream cheese or coconut oil off a spoon in the evening.
Their goal in life is to get their fat percentage up as high as possible.
Dr. Atkins never sanctioned nor recommended such behavior.
Dietary fat in 1972 and even in 2002 was very low compared to what low carbers are doing today.
At the end of the week, when dieters haven't lost anything on the scale, they feel confused and frustrated.
I can't tell you how many people have written to me over the years and told me that they are gaining weight on what they believe is Nutritional Ketosis -- LCHF.
They've bought into several false ideas about low-carb high-fat diets and are quite shocked when I tell them that isn't how low carb works.
Appropriate low-carb weight-loss diets are NOT high in dietary fats.
If 80 percent of your calories are fat calories, rather than protein or carbs, there's no need for your liver to dip into your fat stores. You're supplying more than enough fat to fuel the body.
Period.
Why Does High-Fat Work Then?
It doesn't.
For most people, a high-fat low-carb weight-loss diet doesn't work.
LCHF does work for a select few, which I'll talk about in a moment. These people tend to have particular metabolic defects that a high-fat diet corrects or they've reached a point in their healing journey that their diet needs to be adjusted to fit their new carb sensitivity.
Their testimonies of how LCHF turned their lives around are the stories that seem to catch fire within the low-carb community and get spread around out of context because once those metabolic defects are adjusted for, they seem to lose body fat easily without a lot of effort.
These are the EXCEPTIONS to the rule.
They are not the norm.
They stumbled onto a low-carb formula that works for THEM. And ONLY them.
How Does the Body Use Incoming Fuel?
 |
| Knowing the order of fuel use by the body helps you understand why a low-carb diet needs to be low in fat |
The trick is looking at the order in which the body utilizes the energy coming in:
Alcohol is used first, because the body sees it as a poison. Fats and glucose are stored and ketosis is put on hold until every drop of alcohol is oxidized and disposed of.
Carbs are used next, since they are broken down into glucose. This includes the vegetables and other low-carb foods you eat. All carbs are turned into glucose, even low-carb foods because they are used to refill your glycogen stores.
These stores can hold about 80 to 100 carbs if completely empty, but this is a bit deceiving. Throughout the day, the brain uses 120 to 130 carbs, a little at a time, so you don't get fat by eating more than 50 carbs a day.
Carb stores are used to keep your blood glucose level steady. Slight increases in glucose work to feed the brain. Carbs are rarely converted into body fat unless you're consistently overeating them at each meal.
When glucose is scarce, amino acids are oxidized directly for fuel. They do not have to be turned into glucose. The body does use them to make glucose, but only if there are no other glucose substrates readily available for the purpose of gluconeogenesis.
Gluconeogenesis is demand driven. Glucose is only made as needed.
Glucose can be taken more easily from the glycerol backbone attached to stored triglycerides, pyruvate, and other substances than it can from proteins.
When amino acids are used to make glucose, non-essential amino acids like glutamine are used FIRST, then worn-out protein structures that need to be replaced, and if you're not eating enough protein on a daily basis, the body will mine your muscle tissue.
To prevent excessive muscle loss, fat will be used for fuel.
Fat is used LAST. It's last on the list. And body fat is a last resort. The body doesn't like using it's fat stores and will exhaust every other avenue for fuel before turning to body fat!
Mobilizing and oxidizing body fat is an adaption to calorie restriction that the body uses to save your life during a famine. Sacrifice too much lean tissue and you'll die, so the body does give in to burning body fat, but not if there's enough fat coming in from your diet.
The body will slow down your metabolism and use other compensatory means like shutting down non-essential systems and functions to adapt to the lack of calories before it begins to easily burn body fat.
This is why you can feel exhausted when you first go low carb. The body is conserving energy, rather than burning body fat.
It thinks the famine is only temporary.
Once it believes you're in this for the long haul, the body will begin to adapt to burning fats, but you still have to deprive it of the amount of fat it needs to keep the body primed to burn body fat.
What are the Exceptions? Who Benefits from a LCHF Diet?
The only way you can get away with eating 75 to 80 percent of your calories in fat is if:
1) You're resistant to insulin in your liver cells
2) You are protein sensitive
3) And you're eating at a calorie deficit
The path of insulin resistance is:
- liver
- muscles
- fat cells
- fat cells
- muscles
- liver
It's taken me awhile to wrap my brain around what's going on here, due to the amount of misinformation, misconceptions, and theory circulating through low-carb groups. It's common to hear that the more resistant to insulin you are, the harder it is for a low-carb diet to work.
But that's WRONG.
The opposite is actually true.
The more resistant to insulin you are, the easier it is for a low-carb diet to work because your liver will respond to your insulin level as if it wasn't there.
This lack of response seen in those who are insulin resistant at the level of the fat cells keeps the doors to your fat cells OPEN, and not closed.
Newbies to low carb can lose a ton of body fat fairly quickly because when you're severely insulin resistant, the liver believes your insulin level is always low.
If you're partially insulin resistant, or if you have partially healed your severe insulin resistance, then the liver DOES see your insulin level, at least part of the time, and will respond according to how low it is.
If your insulin is too high, you'll have to work hard or adjust your diet to bring that insulin level down low enough to get keto to work properly. This can require a very low carb intake coupled with a higher fat intake, but not always.
When you're only mildly insulin resistant, or you heal enough that the insulin resistance is only going on with your liver cells, then gluconeogenesis doesn't shut off, so eating less protein and upping your fats will be beneficial -- even during the weight loss phase.
However, whether you can lose weight at 80 percent fat always depends on your calorie deficit. Your calorie deficit must be large enough that your liver has no choice but to access body fat to fuel your day.
And that's next to impossible to do.
Why Go Low Fat?
What most people are doing today is NOT ATKINS. It's not even low carb. Yes, it's low-carb high-fat, but according to Dr. Phinney:
Eating 75 to 80 percent of your calories in fat is MAINTENANCE!
It's not a low-carb weight-loss diet.
Low-carb weight loss requires you to reduce your fat and calorie intake low enough that the body has to use your fat reserves to make up the difference.
You need to eat a certain amount of protein every day to provide the amino acids the body needs to repair damaged and worn out protein structures and guard against muscle losses. And that amount of protein is dependent on your goal weight, and not how much you weigh right now.
The number of carbohydrates you eat on low carb programs is dialed in to fit your individual carbohydrate tolerance or personal preferences. That, too, is a finite number.
Protein and carbohydrate needs don't change all that much.
While some people do up their carbohydrate level as the body heals, the only macronutrient you really have to significantly adjust your calorie intake is dietary fats.
Fat is how you control the number of calories you're eating.
- Eat more fat, and your daily calories will go up.
- Eat less fat, and your daily calories will go down.
How low in fat you have to go will be unique.
At post menopause and five-feet tall, the degree to which I'll have to slash my fat calories to see results won't be the same degree you have to slash yours to get the same results.
Where to Start?
What I've been currently doing isn't mindful. I've just been eating Induction-friendly foods. I haven't been watching my fat intake or calories because I honestly don't want to have to count my macros.
I don't want to weigh out my food or count calories, so I've just been eating when hungry, just enough to be satisfied, and not eating at all when I'm not.
This has allowed me to easily maintain the 40 pound loss I experienced a couple of years ago. I'm not struggling to maintain 200 pounds, but it isn't enough to take me the rest of the way to my preferred weight of 160 to 165 pounds.
So where do I go from here?
I'm thinking that since I already have certain low-carb routines set in place, I might start by looking at and evaluating the amount of fat that I'm eating at each meal.
I can't even begin to know where to cut back on fat until I understand where I am, and why I'm here.
When I was in Utah, I noticed that I was giving into urges to make higher fat dinners right after I gave up the sugary sodas, so catching me doing that forced me to be more mindful regarding what I fixed for dinner.
Being mindful allowed the weight to come off slowly, but painlessly.
Maybe, I just need to do the same thing again.
Interesting article.
ReplyDeleteHello, I think I've been doing everything wrong with regards to diet my entire life. Even right now I've been attempting the LCHF 'keto' diet and those strips have not gotten into the darker colors! I'm very overweight... obese... a few years ago I did lose about 50 pounds going off gluten. But I remained stuck at 250 and eventually went back to eating gluten and back up 10 pounds. So... recently, I received a high A1C test result indicating that I am pre-diabetic. That set me on a research plan to figure out how to overcome that diagnosis and reverse it! So after about 3 weeks with very low carbs to practically zero carbs (because I didn't want to be counting carbs and calories), I'm only down 10 pounds.... perhaps all water?.... and I haven't gotten into ketosis according to the test strips.
ReplyDeleteAny help or ideas, I would be so grateful. It sounds like we might be about the same age with some of the same childhood experiences. I'll look here for response or in my email! Thank you in advance
I'm not sure why message about says unknown... but it is from me! Aromatherapyruth@gmail.com
DeleteI think most of the people advocating for fat bombs and the like are lying about how they achieved their success. Atkins was always about reducing carbs and "moderately" increasing fat. I eat about 2/3 of my calories from fat, 1/4 from protein and the remainder from 40-50g net carb. This works out to about 1500 cal per day of normal eating. But yes, I track all my foods. I eat precisely 4 oz of meat or other protein at meals and 2oz in 2 snacks, as recommended by Atkins. I have a couple of tablespoons of Ceasar dressing on my salad and veggies. Not a 20 oz t bone with a pat of butter on top like I see some folks advocating. It only works if you're also reducing calories. The advantage of Atkins is that it takes out the carb cravings and makes low calorie doable.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteGood article. Thanks for sharing
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