Health & Family My low carb weight loss journal (LCHF)

What you are talking about is carbohydrate tolerance which is a real genetically based thing.

Carbohydrate tolerance: Is your ability to eat carbs determined by your genes? | Precision Nutrition

I am fairly carb tolerant. I haven't measured how much but if I steer clear of wheat flour and refined sugar, I can eat as much as I feel comfortable eating and still lose weight. If I eat some flour and refined sugar, I can still maintain weight and appetite is under control. However, if I start eating too much sugar and wheat flour, I get really, really hungry and also feel tired all the time. I know exactly how this feels "I know that for myself, the more carbs I have, the more hungry I get". Eating actually makes me feel hungry and it is a never-ending spiral of eat/hunger/eat/hunger.

My go to for additional fibre is sweet potato. The key is to cook them and cool them before eating though. When some starches have been cooked, cooling them (fridge or freezer) changes the structure and makes it more resistant to digestion; found in cooked and cooled potatoes, grains, and beans. This actually lowers the calorie content of the food.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-definitive-guide-to-resistant-starch/

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/resistant-starch-your-questions-answered/

When I eat cooked/cooled sweet potato with coconut oil, I don't have any of the symptoms of low fibre.

With regard to carb intake, have seen this from Mark's Daily Apple? I think it's a good diagrammatic representation of different levels of carb intake:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/how-to-succeed-with-the-primal-blueprint/

 

First up - congratulations @Simon Hampel, that was not a small feat!
Second, I found that doing a short but intense session every day will give you lots of benefits - energy, mental focus, digestive health, metabolism boost etc.
'Intense' is, of course, subjective and dependent on your fitness level.
I find these guys' videos a great place to start: FitnessBlender

 

I need to start doing that again. I quit when I was renovating nearly every day but that is coming to an end. I miss exercise.

 

I've been meaning to comment on this for a few days, but I've been travelling a bit in the last week...

The first thing that I'd suggest is getting more anal with tracking food intake. People tend to underreport what they consume, in some cases by 30% or so. Try spending a week weighing and logging everything, and also track the calories / kilojoules.

Weight loss is governed by total calories in versus total energy expenditure. Low carb, fasting, and many other approaches, are simply dietary hacks to achieve this with minimal discomfort to the individual. It's possible that you're eating around maintenance, and that's why you're not losing anything.

Assuming that all is good, it's possibly a stall. These happen.

There's a theory I've heard, which is that as fat cells empty, they fill with water to maintain volume. At some point they let this go, and you see a sudden drop on the scale. I had one of these last week, where I was suddenly a kilo lighter than I had been.

If things are on point, consider reducing how much you eat, or increase the exercise you're doing.

That said, you're down nearly 40 kg from your heaviest. That's impressive going.

 

So, past few weeks I've been weight training and have approximately doubled my daily intake of food (~20,000 kilojoules). Still getting approx 70% of energy from fats.

I did the same many years ago when I was eating carbs. Have to say, it's a lot tougher this time around — thought it would be easier as high fat = less volume of food but it's quite the opposite.

 

interesting read:

Why “Calories in, Calories Out” Doesn't Tell The Whole Story

Different foods go through different metabolic pathways. Some foods can cause hormone changes that encourage weight gain, while other foods can increase satiety and boost the metabolic rate.

Why “Calories in, Calories Out” Doesn't Tell The Whole Story

 

And calorie counts are probably wrong anyway:

Science Reveals Why Calorie Counts Are All Wrong

[Infographic] The Surprising Problem With Calorie Counting -- The "Calories In" Edition.

Make no mistake, the principles of energy balance work:

Take in more calories/energy than you expend, you gain weight.
Take in fewer calories/energy than you expend, you lose weight.

However, counting calories as a way to try to know, and control, your energy intake is fundamentally — sometimes hopelessly — flawed.

For starters, you can’t really trust that the calorie (and macronutrient) numbers you see on food packages are accurate. You see, the way they’re calculated — if they’re calculated at all — is surprisingly imprecise.
​

Something really interesting with calories is that preparing food certain ways can lower it's calorie count. Cook sweet potatoes or rice, cool (refrigerate), then serve (even if you heat it again) and these foods have less calories then cooked and served.

Simple rice-cooking hack could reduce calories by 60 per cent
Cooking rice with a teaspoon of coconut oil then refrigerating it for 12 hours more than halves the number of calories absorbed by the body, scientists have shown​

Simple rice-cooking hack could reduce calories by 60 per cent

 

@Perthguy counting calories might be flawed, but I still think that it's a useful tool. Even Kris Grunnars agrees.

If @Simon Hampel turned out to be eating (say) 3500 kcal per day, it might explain why his weight is static. If he's consuming 2500 kcal, there might be something else going on. Sure, the measurement might be flawed, but it gives a rough order of magnitude of what someone is consuming.

The idea was to throw it in as another check, rather than to get anal about tracking things everyday.

@Steven Ryan do you need to be eating that much? I'm pretty big (about 190 cm, 100 kg), and would probably bulk on no more than 16,000 kJ. Unless you are The Mountain's bigger brother, you're running the risk of adding a lot of fat along with the muscle.

 

Small adaptations over time is often best for quality long term results.

 

Calorie counting can be somewhat useful if people are well aware of the limitations. I have found that people are very happy to push CICO but not happy to explain the limitations of calorie counting, which is why I posted the links.

 

Calorie counting is an approximation based on a variety of estimates. It's not particularly accurate, but it can work.

The trouble I find is that some people say, "Don't count calories!" So you ask them what you should do instead, and they get rather vague at that point.

 

Apparently the liver will give priority to processing the alcohol first

 

Another thing to keep in mind with CICO is the TEF(Thermic effect of food) which is the amount of energy that the body expends digesting, absorbing, and distributing the nutrients from the foods we eat.

Protein has a TEF of 25-35%, Carbs 5-10% and fat 0-5% which means eating a high protein meal will get your body to burn a lot more calories then when eating Carbs or Fat.
So if you eat 100 calories of fat, the body would use only use 0-5 calories to digest that fat, but if you had 100 calories of protein, the body will be using 20-30 calories to digest that Protein.

So your net calories gain consuming Protein is a lot lower. Might not sound like much at the start but compounding will make up a massive difference at the end of the week->month->year

 

I think it's important that everybody has a reasonable understanding of calorie content in the foods and drinks they consume.
The majority of the population would have no idea.
If one does go though a calorie counting process for just a week or two, they will learn a great deal about the macro nutrient breakdown and calorie content of all the foods they eat.
Once you have a good understanding of this, you will no longer have to count calories if you grasp the principles and understand what does and doesn't work for you.

 

You didn't ask me. I lost between 35kg and 40kg without counting a single calorie ever. It's pretty easy. At the start I pretty much only ate junk food, so I was hungry all the time. Later I wised up and started eating high nutrient density food. To get enough energy I had to stuff my face all day to the point where I was tired of eating by the end of the day.

Easy. Don't count calories:

1. eat when you are hungry, stop when you are full, never overeat
2. mostly eat a lot of nutrient dense foods
3. add some fat to every meal
4. don't drink calories

If you are doing this an don't lose weight then reduce your serving sizes. It becomes intuitive once you train yourself.

 

Back when I was overweight and decided I wanted to lose that weight I counted calories - limited myself to 1200 per day and was eating the stuff that's advertised as 'healthy' (read: full of sugar). I kept a journal and was anal about recording every single calorie. I did lose ~10kg by doing that but I was hungry all the time and it wouldn't have been sustainable for the long term as I found it really difficult.

I then researched and expanded on the basic knowledge I had around the LCHF way of eating and decided to give that a go. Haven't looked back since (been over 3 yrs) and down another ~30kg from doing that. I haven't counted a single calorie since then and I only look at the nutrition panel to see carb and sugar content of what I eat.

Some days I'm happy with just one meal a day, other days I might have 2 or 3. I also inadvertently do the intermittent fasting by eating only when I'm hungry.

 

For you guys that have done the low carb, high fat or high protein (or variants thereof) for a while now, did you get blood panels done before & after, or have you had recent blood panels done? What do your cholesterol numbers look like now after a period of time on a high fat diet? Not a leading question, I'm genuinely curious.

 

No, I wish I had though. I've been meaning to get an overall health check done but it's not been very high on my priority list. I am getting a skin check next week so maybe I should ask to get some bloods done too.

My husband recently had a health scare and as a result had a whole heap of tests done. His cholesterol came 0.10 under the maximum 'safe' level. If he's eating something I've cooked then it will generally be high fat but he'll add carbs to it as well so not really getting the benefits. He consumes more sugar than he should too but he has gotten a lot better of late.

Even though he has a labour intensive job he doesn't really exercise but has been making an effort of late. Be interesting to see if it's making a difference.