TuitNutrition, Amy Berger, on The Truth about Weight Loss
Amy Berger has posted the first part of a short series on the Truth about Weight Loss, particularly with the pre/post-menopausal woman in mind.
Her blog is witty and smart ( though her writing has a tendency to go on and on). I'll post the next part when available. This section points out common patterns of weight loss, to be followed by several answers to the question, Why am I not losing weight on a low-carb diet? She'll also explore logical explanations for day-to-day multi-pound fluctuations in scale weight. http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2015/1...-loss.html#more, It starts... Quote:
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Funny, I was just reading that article last night - it's definitely worth a read. Amy has a very easy refreshing humorous delivery and she is excellent at assimilating a bunch of info from a number of different sites and her own knowledge base.
I will be anxious to see if she has any new solutions - I'm guessing lower expectations, stay the course, eat for health will be a main theme. And, yes, Debbie, she does show up on this site from time to time - she posted once or twice to a thread I used to frequent. Amy has over the past couple of months posted a series called ITIS (It's the Insulin, Stupid) . It's 8 long parts but a really thorough look at insulin and insulin resistance. It gets pretty technical at times (in a satisfying way), but is still readable and occasionally humorous. One of the things I found interesting (and not as widely spoken about) is that it is unclear WHY insulin resistance develops - what comes first? Is it too many carbs that lead to insulin resistance or something further upstream, such as faulty glucagon receptors/signaling/response/whatever? For the most part, her thoughts are very much in line with Dr Fung's. |
From the comments section:
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I see this a lot on the forum, and I think it needs to be highlighted. Often the ones obsessing about each and every foodstuff are the ones who go off plan over and over again, and maybe don't give their body much chance to heal long term. |
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Then before you know it I haven't been on the scale in a month or two, so at some point I do gingerly step on, and find I'm up 40-50 pounds (and yes I find it very easy to gain 40-50 pounds in that sort of time frame), and then I say 3) "screw it, I'm going out to have a hot fudge sundae". That's how every diet I've failed on has gone, so daily weighing totally prevents that. I still gain at the drop of a hat. Gained almost 5 pounds this week from eating an ad lib LCHF diet, so went back on the Potato Hack and am back down 4. A five-pound gain can be dealt with. A 50-pound gain is too depressing to contemplate. I think Amy's advice about the scale may be good for the generally healthy woman who feels she'd look better if she could just drop 20 pounds, but maybe not so much for people like me! |
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I agree with you Lee. I read this too and think...no no it's not that little shrimp or egg or whatever. Those are kneejerk reactions that have no immediate connections to what on plan food that was eaten. |
If ever there was a time that I needed to read this, it's now! I've recently rededicated myself to weightloss after years of puttering around on maintenance level carbs...then my thyroid crashed and those maintence levels actually didn't save me from a 35 pound gain in the past 18 months. I've been logging onto MFP daily and am lucky if I reach 1300 calories most days, despite not trying to limit them. It just seems to have come naturally, as the weight piled on over the years, my carbs AND calories naturally decreased. Really need this! Thanks for posting!
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I'm really glad she is addressing this, but I think she is on the wrong track. I've noticed for a while that almost all the people with this frustrating issue seem to be women "of a certain age". Her article just confirms that observation. The logical conclusion is that this is hormone related--what differentiates women of this age from (most) younger women? (and men?) They are going through a period of tremendous turmoil in regards to hormones.
Amy is only 37 so I don't think she quite "gets" that. I don't know if anyone that hasn't gone through menopause can really grasp what a hormonal h*** it can be for many women. I am struggling right now with how to deal with so many hormone-related issues and have done quite a bit of research regarding all the different types. Many women have to choose between gaining weight on HRT or suffering with unbearable symptoms of deficiency. I've been fortunate in that I'm pretty certain added bio-identical progesterone has helped me get and keep weight down, but I may be forced to add some type of estrogen soon (my first try has been a dismal failure). Then it may be a different ball game. So I am definitely not out of the woods in regards to figuring out my weight and dietary issues. Perhaps if we had all eaten a super-healthy, LCHF, Paleo type diet from the get-go we would not have all these issues with hormones. So she may be right in that sense--a diet of "fake food" perhaps set us up for failure. I'd like to think that every day I eat real food, high-quality meat, good fats is a day that I am closer to having a body that will get me through this dreadful time with fewer issues. Weight loss then becomes just a bonus. |
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I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend! It is just something I'd observed - actually usually in younger than menopausal women where they'll say 'I ate two florets of broccoli last night and I've put on two lbs today, it must be the broccoli, I can't eat that again' (substitute broccoli for any foodstuff). I certainly understand those people who try different things to get over a stall. Being so desperate lose the last few lbs is a little harder for me to understand (being very willing to settle for many lbs over my ideal of 160). |
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I'm also a daily weigher, and like you, use it as a tool. I have a graph that shows the trend over time. I recently gained a huge amount despite being on plan - I knew it must be fluid but couldn't find the cause. I tried to stay mellow about it, and once I found the cause 42lbs of fluid came off in two weeks. I think some women fail to realise about fluid gain and blame a food stuff or fall off plan in frustration when just staying the course would see the fluid lbs come back off, often with friends. as I've already given offence, I should also say this doesn't apply to all women, and that I know nothing yet of menopause (got that to look forward to). |
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No Problem :) I was just trying to make clear, with the awkward words on a screen (so true, I'm really much nicer in person) that there are different types......and that the scary world of menopause is (so far) beyond me (though it's hunting me and will eventually catch me if I live long enough). |
Debbie -- I do lurk here, but very rarely. (Usually only when I notice a good amount of traffic coming to my blog from this forum and want to see if someone posted a link.) :)
NiceKitty -- you are absolutely right! I'm 37, and I am not afraid to admit that I am dreading "the change." I already have to fight pretty hard just to *maintain* my current weight (let alone improve), so I can only imagine how much more difficult it's going to be as the hormonal wheels fall off the wagon. Looking at the older women in my family, it is a head-on collision with disaster. BUT, I eat and live very differently from how they do (and did), so hopefully I'll fare at least a smidgen better. I still expect it to be a struggle. A difficult, frustrating, and infuriating one. I am trying to build a good baseline of muscle mass now. It's not the answer to everything, but I think it's a very important piece of the picture, and will be addressing it at some point in the "why am I not losing weight" posts. The older women definitely seem to have it rougher than anyone else. Of course I think hormones play a role. But I also think we, as a society, have misplaced expectations that a 60 or 70-something-year-old woman should have the body of a 25-year old. Especially if you've given birth, worked in or outside the home, done the vast majority of the cooking, cleaning, worrying, playing chauffeur, etc., for a few decades. That really takes a toll on a gal over the years. Plus, women with a little more meat on their bones -- not necessarily obese, but just not rail thin and frail/fragile/scrawny -- seem to fare better as they age. Maintaining strength and mobility is crucial for vitality later in life. You don't want to be one of these stooped-over little ladies who can't carry her own grocery bag to the house from the car. (Granted, we'll probably all end up there someday [if we're lucky!], but it should happen when we're 90, not when we're 65.) I read somewhere once: "A low-carb diet will get you as lean as you can be, but that might not be as lean as you want to be." :tears: I do think there are other tweaks that can help things go a little further, but to really go all the way, I'm just not sure. All I know is, I'd love for Stephan Guyenet to spend ONE WEEK in the body of a post-menopausal woman and see how inclined he is to pontificate about eating less and moving more. Aaaanyway, sorry for the ramble. The things I'm going to talk about for why people might not be losing weight on a LC diet won't be limited to women. I will probably mention more than once that older women have to work harder to get anywhere. And I was going to try to keep things brief...like JEY100 said, my posts are way too long. They take far too much time to write in relation to what I earn from them, which is a cold, hard zero. Just wanted to warn you, because I don't want to disappoint anyone. I was going to talk in generalities, to give people some ideas to think about, should anything happen to resonate for them. (B-vitamin deficiency? On a statin?) I mean, as always, I'll try to explain things with enough plain English so people understand why the things I'll mention could hinder fat loss, but I don't want to write a dissertation on each individual factor. Thanks for reading, everyone! And yes, like I said in the comments, I'm not anti-scale...when it is used in an intelligent way. |
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