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

I have regular checkups and blood tests - at least once per year. Waiting on the results of my most recent one now.

I'm fortunate in that my cholesterol has always been fine - even at my worst weight-wise, and even since I started eating LCHF. Both my parents have had serious illnesses throughout their lives, but neither have ever had any issues with cholesterol - it is very much an inherited thing, family history is important there, so I'm lucky.

My wife's family does have a history of high cholesterol - and my wife has been working to lower hers in recent years with a reasonable amount of success - she's now at the top end of the "acceptable" range, but she's not eating LCHF, more closer to a Mediterranean diet.

There are some people who get very high cholesterol when they increase the amount of saturated fat they eat - more than average. The term "hyper-responder" has been coined to describe this group of people.

However, although traditional thinking has this as being a very bad thing - more recent research and studies are starting to question the conventional approach to cholesterol and there is a strong line of thinking (yet to be conclusively proven) that high levels of cholesterol in the blood is actually not a problem - indeed it could be seen as a good thing!

You should read some of the presentations by Dave Feldman who has been using himself (a hyper-responder) as a test subject to try and drive some new research into exactly what it means to have high cholesterol.

Cholesterol Code » Reverse Engineering the Mystery

Hyper-Responder FAQ » Cholesterol Code

A Simple Guide to Cholesterol on Low Carb – Part I » Cholesterol Code
A Simple Guide to Cholesterol on Low Carb – Part II » Cholesterol Code

The current thinking is that it is not cholesterol which is causing plaque build up in the arteries - but rather, inflammation caused by other factors - possibly carbohydrate sensitivity, or even coeliac / gluten sensitivity (which there is also a history of in my wife's family!).

Once you fully understand the role of cholesterol in the body (Dave's website is great for that!), you'll start to see that LDL cholesterol has an important role to play and may actually be there to help alleviate the issues caused by the inflammation rather than the cause of the problems. It's actually incredibly complicated - and many of the outcomes vary significantly based on the type of diet you eat.

Essentially, if you are eating a low carb diet, you'll get a very different cholesterol response than if you eat a regular (higher carb) diet. Dave's research has conclusively shown that already. So any research done which comes to the simple conclusion that cholesterol = bad when diet isn't controlled for, becomes a bit meaningless and isn't telling the whole story.

Dave's most recent presentation contains a brief overview of the role of Cholesterol in the body and then goes into some of his more recent research.

 

I'm still waiting on my last set of results (blood test taken Friday last week), so I'll update when I get that.

I'm not sure if I got hard copies of my results previously (I will ask my doctor to print them all out next time I see her), but I did find some results from 2013 which also included my historical information, so I'll share that here for comparison.

Glucose (mmol/L - Ref Range: 3.6 - 6.0)
Feb 2006: 5.1
Sep 2007: 5.0
Sep 2008: 5.7
Mar 2010: 5.8
May 2013: 5.6

Note that I was at my worst weight-wise in 2014 and started LCHF in Sep 2015, so none of these results are for that period.

I would expect my glucose levels to be much lower now.

Cholesterol - Total - fasting (mmol/L - Ref Range 3.9 - 5.5)
Feb 2006: 4.0
Sep 2007: 4.4
Sep 2008: 4.3
Mar 2010: 3.6
May 2013: 3.5

I'd be surprised if my Cholesterol has changed much recently - my doctors have never expressed concern over it.

 

Dave Feldman did some tests on endurance running and the effect on cholesterol - but again, he was eating LCHF, so his results may differ from people who don't eat that way - since his primary source of fuel is triglycerides (compared to other people who will be getting their primary source of energy from carbohydrates)!

Impact of Endurance Running on Cholesterol » Cholesterol Code

 

Got my test results from last week today. Includes recent historical tests too, so I'll update my data (all tests are fasting):



I was at my worst in 2014 and then in late 2015 I started eating LCHF.

All my tests were fine this time - except for vitamin D levels which I've had an ongoing "mild" deficiency for in my last 4 tests (haven't been good with consistently taking my supplements).

 

Yes, definitely showing signs of metabolic syndrome at that point - enough that the doctor had commented on the high levels a number of times. Interestingly my numbers actually improved somewhat in following years - although that may have been more a matter of the circumstances around the time the blood test was taken than an indication of a longer term trend.

Interestingly, Feb 2015 was about 12 months after I started using a height adjustable desk - and I had lost about 10kg from my worst by that time (got down to 140kg at one point before heading back up again). I did put on another 5-6kg during the following 6 months leading up to the point where I started eating LCHF though, so I suspect my numbers would have deteriorated during the first half of 2015.

So other than my blood pressure being a bit high still - which I'm hoping will resolve once I can lose more fat around the waist and hence drop more weight - my only other issue right now is my vitamin D levels, which have dropped from my last reading (which was almost in the "acceptable" range). Low vitamin D may explain my lack of energy right now. Will get back on the supplements and Little Athletics season starts tomorrow, so I'll be out in the sun a lot more over the next 6 months at least one morning a week!

 

Now we're starting to make some progress!

After last week's loss of 1.8kg, I was feeling pretty good about finally making some progress - especially after my big 5 hour bike ride of nearly 70km.

However, on Monday I took my son out all day to his Regional School Sports championships (8 hours waiting around for 30 seconds of running across 2 races!!), and so I took my usual packed lunch of chunks of salami and cheese.

Normally that's enough for me, but after my huge ride on Sunday, I was starving hungry and finished all my food by 11am. I was very disciplined and avoided the canteen all day - but by the time we finished, my son was starving (canteen was closed), I was starving and the car was starving too, so I stopped at a petrol station on the way home to fill up and then we grabbed some food.

I had a sausage roll and a Maxibon icecream. Then Monday night I had a large roast pork dinner takeaway (which isn't bad carb-wise), but on Monday for lunch (still hungry!) I had a serve of sauteed potatoes with the fried chicken I bought.

When I weighed myself on Wednesday morning, I was 114kg! After weighing in at 110.7kg on Monday morning, this was a bit of a shock. I hadn't eaten 3.3kg of food in that time!?

It comes down to that whole "glycogen stores take 3-4x as much water when storing the excess carbohydrate", so I didn't need to be eating 3.3kg of food to put on 3.3kg of weight!! It's all water.

So I've been really strict since then (family had takeaway pizza last night while I had sauteed cabbage!) and making good progress each day - today I'm back down to 110.8kg, which I'm happy about. Hopefully now I can continue this momentum and soon break through my previous low of 109.7kg from August last year.

This whole situation has highlighted for me once again the whole "exercise" issue I've faced before. The more I exercise, the hungrier I get - and that hunger can last several days. I'm going to have to address that if I want to continue to make progress. I'm sure it's because I burned so much energy on such a long ride, my body was simply trying to restore itself back to where it was before - so I need to be working on how I fuel my rides (not get into such a massive energy deficit all at once), and then have a plan for what I'm going to eat afterwards so I can refuel without loading up on carbs and putting all that weight back on.

 

Weighed myself this morning - 109.5kg (lost 1.3kg since I weighed myself 24 hours ago!) ... now we're really getting somewhere - finally broken through the plateau!

This is now my lowest weight in probably 25 years - I previously got down to 109.7kg in August last year.

Biggest problem is that I'm going out for dinner tonight (finger food + cheese platter ... looks like I'll be hitting the cheese / strawberries hard!) and then we've got Wenty's on Wednesday night - and I'm not going to be able to cheat if I want to maintain this progress. Looks like no dessert for me this week

Dammit I should have waited until next week to break through my plateau

So I had my butter hot cocoa yesterday morning, which made me feel very full all morning (perhaps a little too full - might ease back on the fat content a little) - then I had a little cheese and salami early afternoon and then for dinner my wife cooked one of her pork roasts, which I had with steamed broccoli / cauli and smothered in gravy made with the pan juices. The crackling was very good - nice tasty layer of fat on it too.

So let's see ... in the past 24 hours I've eaten:

• 50g butter (41g fat)
• 20g MCT oil (20g fat)
• 10g cocoa (3g fat)
• approx 50g cheese (18g fat)
• approx 50g salami (16g fat)
• roast pork with gravy made from pan juices (difficult to tell, but a fair bit of fat there too)

So I've eaten fat all day, and still lost 1.3kg in body weight!

 

Since I've cut out all dairy (other than butter and cheese) in the past few weeks, my digestive system has really settled down nicely.

I stopped taking psyllium husk a couple of weeks ago (I won't miss it) and I think things have actually improved - because of cutting dairy, not because of cutting psyllium husk!

The main thing I need to do now is make sure I'm drinking enough. I used to be always thirsty (metabolic syndrome!), but now that my blood sugar levels are down, I no longer crave water so much - so need to put a little effort into getting enough water. I'd easily do 3x 700ml water bottles a day for around 2L, but possibly could do a bit more.

 

Unfortunately, I don't think going on/off "diets" ever works. It has to be a permanent lifestyle change to be truly effective.

You can still play around with the amount of carbs you allow yourself to have once you've reached your target weight - but if you are at all carb sensitive like I am, I know that I'm never going to be able to go back to the way I used to eat.

 

Despite going out for dinner on Tuesday and Wednesday nights (and having some dessert at Wenty's!), I managed to close out the week with some solid weight loss. Final reading 109.0kg, down 1.8kg for the week and waist 115cm, down 1cm.

If I consider the added weight after going out for dinner those two days, I've actually lost well over 2kg between Thursday and Monday!

I'm calling my plateau broken now that I'm at new lows - much lower than my previous best from August last year. Next goal 100kg and 100cm!!

This new approach seems to be working well for me - I'm essentially fasting all day having a butter drink in the morning to sustain me, but also having small snacks in the afternoon if I need to. My only meal most days is dinner.

So typical day right now:

- Some time between 9am and 12pm I'll make myself a "butter cocoa" (I wait until I'm feeling hungry before I make one) and about half an hour or so after drinking it, I will feel quite full/satisfied for quite a few hours and won't even feel like snacking.

- if I do feel like eating before dinner time, I'll snack on some cheese or salami

- dinner is usually around 6pm and I'll typically have a small bit of meat along with some vegetables, or instead just some stir-fried vegetables. I'm looking at no more than a side-plate full - not a large meal at all. Preferably lots of added fat when cooking (gravy added to the meat, or vegetables cooked in oil).

I'm using salt to try and reduce cravings for sugar (hence the cheese / salami being my main go-to snack), but I'm actually drinking salted water as a kind of tonic too. 1 teaspoon of Murray River Gourmet Salt Flakes in a glass (you could substitute Himalayan Rock Salt instead), fill with water and stir until salt dissolves, then drink.

The Murray River salt flakes come from aquifers in the Murray / Darling Basin where the water is very pure but naturally salty. Unlike refined table salt, which is pretty much just pure sodium chloride, the Murray River salt and Himalayan Rock salt both contain a broad range of minerals which are essential to the human body, including potassium, magnesium, iron and so on.

The taste is a lot more subtle than table salt - much less "salty" and although it's not exactly pleasant to drink, it's not horrible either. Certainly less unpleasant than drinking a glass with regular table salt in it!

A very low carb diet is known to cause sodium and potassium deficiencies - and so supplementing can help with brain fogs/dizziness and for improved performance before exercise (helps avoid your blood pressure dropping too low).

I'm taking a glass of Magnesium powder around mid-morning to help with muscle cramping - as recommended to me by my physio and various pharmacists, as well as a glass of salted water at the same time. I also take a vitamin D supplement to deal with the deficiency there which showed up in my last set of blood tests.

Little Athletics has started again, we're temporarily doing this on a Saturday afternoon (during the heat of the day!) while we're waiting for the drainage at our oval to be upgraded, so it was interesting to see how I coped on my new eating plan. I had no difficulty at all this Saturday, despite only having my butter cocoa that morning - although I did come home feeling a craving for carbs, so I snacked on a few grapes before dinner.

Sunday I skipped the butter cocoa and had a few rashers of bacon mid-morning, then went for a fairly intense 90 minute bike ride mid-afternoon but then at dinner still wasn't feeling hugely hungry, so just cooked a burger patty with some cheese melted on top for dinner - that more than satisfied me. I also snacked on some cheese after my ride.

So I'm pretty pleased with my new approach - it's getting me the results I want and more importantly, I'm not feeling hungry during the day.