P4- lots of fat or little fat?
 

I got this very interesting email from a friend of mine who has always struggled with her weight- and has been low-carb for years.


I have lost 19 pounds. I was getting frantic-nothing worked. My Atkins was supposed to last at 20 carbs a day for 2 weeks. I was on 20 carbs a day for 8 years!!
Last year it quit working and I gained!


Never changed my exercise-still walk or bike most days.

I read about pre-diabetics being able to control their sugars by alleviating fat. Tried it. Now I take 20 carbs a day and 20 grams of fat a day and have lost 19 pounds. Ever so grateful to find something that worked...

Fasting sugars went from 100 to between 60 and 81! maybe some of us could benefit from less fat, not more??

How many grams of fat was she consuming previously?

i'll ask her- i don't think it was a large amount.

she told me she was eating lots of fat- nuts, cheese, no-sugar caesar dressing.

i just think it's interesting how much her fasting blood sugar dropped!

I'm hiding my eyes! no! nooooooo!

lol. i'm really surprised about the blood sugar thing- i'm going to have to research that. her husband is diabetic and also eats a healthy diet, although more carbs than she does. she says he's also giving this a try, and has lost 9#.

in terms of the weight loss, it could be that she was sensitive to nuts and/or dairy and didn't know it, but she says she never had trouble with them in the past (she only started gaining about a year ago). so i doubt it's from giving them up. so i'm guessing it's from the decrease in calories, because if you're not eating carbs and then give up most fats you're going to drop your calories significantly.

my bigger question is why her blood sugars have dropped so much. i know my doc said they can increase from eating stuff you're sensitive to, but i'm guessing that's not it with her. and she didn't have that much to lose, so i don't think it's because of her overall weight. so it has to do with either decreasing calories, or decreasing fats specifically.

i know for myself, that my blood sugar goes up a lot when i eat a lot of calories- even if they are not carbs. and it doesn't go up a lot if i eat a smaller meal, even if that meal has carbs. so maybe it's just from her eating less food. ??

interesting, though. any of you with high blood sugars that want to test out this idea?

I don't have high blood sugar but I know mine takes a terrible dip if I don't eat. Say I am doing a steak day and I don't have that steak by 7pm I may start vomiting and can't really get off of the couch. Maybe the calorie restriction over time caused a slow drop in blood sugar?

of course with 20g of fat and 20 grams of carbs she is eating only

(20*9+)+(20*4)+(15*4) = 320 calories a day

Follow the logic.

carbs are straingforward
fats are included in protien


unless she is eating some synthetic protien source she can only be eating 15g of protien ( or she doest know how to measure her food )

so she is eating less than we do on P2

can anyone say starvation diet?

i'm guessing that she's only eating 20 gm of fat in addition to her protein, but i'll ask her. i don't think she's eating that little.

i asked her- 20 included in her meat and you're correct, her calories were very low- lower than P2. what's interesting is that she says she has NO hunger as long as she doesn't eat carbs or fat. sound like a certain program we're all on??

now that i have my meter back out, it will be interesting to see what happens to my blood sugars when i'm not eating much.

my question continue to be, why do some people have hunger on P2 and others don't? obviously she wouldn't because she doesn't have hunger even without the hcg! and we've also had people taking amino acid drops who were not hungry.

dose adjustments seem to work for some, but not for others. i'm rather curious to see if i would be hungry if i cut out the fruit entirely- or at least the apples. i generally ate an apple every day, and tomatoes every day- both high in sugar.

Last Thursday, I went for a 7 mile bike ride, felt so good, I just kept peddling & peddling. Afterwards, I came home and ate a large P2 style lunch, extra protein, then a fruit, then some stale melba's, ... I just got hungrier and hungrier. Today I did a 3 mile bike ride after dinner, hardly any hunger outside of meal time, and still not hungry. I'm thinking at least in P2, I will have to exercise a bit less, and later in the day. Plus, last night I got the best sleep I've had in a long time, slept like a rock for 11 hours.

I did VLCD for years to try to lose weight. I had times when I'd go days with hardly any hunger. I'd lose weight, albeit very slowly because of my metabolism at the time. I stayed away from fruit and most starches because the calories were so high and because the moment I had one or the other I'd want more.

I never watched my blood sugars back then, but I sure have now. I've done all sorts of testing before and after all types of foods. As a type 2 diabetic (recovered I guess or at least controlled by diet and weight loss), I've been really interesting in seeing what might spike my blood sugars and if/when that happens what it does to my satiety.

My fasting blood sugars in P2 would run almost too low. I did tank a few times with them being below 60. Once I moved to P3, my fastings seem to run about 78 steady. They also seem to return to there fairly quickly no matter what I'm eating, and of course it was high fat. This P4 I'm just now testing the carb waters. I've done a few days of over 100 grams of carbs without really cutting back on the fats much at all. I do notice that often on days I'm adding starches I'm consuming a lower number of calories without trying to do it purposely.