2 Questions

by | Jan 16, 2013 | Low carb diet | 0 comments

Here is the copy of the post at forum.lowcarber.org where I have commented on regarding nuts and water retention

 

minalc asked:

I have a couple of questions:

1. Why is it considered bad to eat so many nuts/why can nuts stall you? I have macadamia nuts and they seem pretty safe. They have a lot of fat (23g) and only 2 net carbs. This seems pretty good imo, especially since I’m struggling to consume fat (I tend to get more protein than fat)

2. Is it possible to retain A LOT (AND I MEAN A LOT) of water? I’ve been on Atkins for almost three weeks now and I’ve only lost 3 lbs according to the scale. But everyone around me (and including myself) have noticed that I lost weight. I’ve also noticed that although I drink a lot, I tend to pee less than pre-atkins (sorry, had to go there xD)

Thanks for the help!

 

My answer:

Hi minalc,

The thing about nuts is that so many people tend to clump them all together not realizing how much difference there is between various types of nuts. Macadamia nuts are relatively safe. They are amongst those in the lower range of carb content but they have  3 times as many carbs as say, walnuts or pecans; both of which I adore by the way.

The nuts to stay away from are chestnuts as they have one of the highest carb content of all nuts and seeds. The other thing to watch with nuts as JEY100 says, is they are just way to easy to overeat. So with all nuts or any of those picky-type foods, it’s best to measure out a sensible amount at the beginning of the day and then put the rest of the packet away out of sight and hopefully out of mind.

If you’re struggling to consume fat, then really you shouldn’t look to nuts to increase your fat intake.  It’s far better to go to animal fat which you can get obviously in the form of cheese, and it’s worth mentioning, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of varieties of cheese which incidentally will also  help with your water retention. That’s simply because in general, animal fats being water soluble, will carry water out of your body as part of your digestive process.

As for water retention, my first question would be, are you drinking enough? The body naturally holds on to water if it senses what could be termed as a water shortage. I also noticed that you said you decided to quit caffeine and drink less cola. Quite frankly, the caffeine is not so much of a problem as the cola is. If it’s a diet cola then you’re drinking all the problems that come with artificial sweeteners and if it’s not diet cola, then the amount of sugar you will be consuming will be more than enough to sabotage any of the good work you’re doing through having changed your diet. JEY100 makes a good point about asking if you feel bloated, with puffy ankles, etc.  As she quite rightly says, a low carb diet will often produce a diuretic effect for most people.

The last point I’ll leave you with is that you seem to be only measuring your weight which when you consider how a low carb diet works on our bodies, then this is probably one of the  poorest indicators of fat loss. In fact your friends, as you have said, have noticed that you’ve lost weight, so there is obviously something going on. The only way that you will be able to monitor that is through actually measuring your body typically; and as a minimum, you want to measure around your neck, around your bust, around your stomach, around your butt and around each of your thighs. Do the same a week later and see how much you’ve lost both in each area and when you add up those measurements per each week then compare the total number of inches you have lost. This will be particularly more noticeable if you have in any way increased the amount of activity that you do because while you may be losing fat, you may at the same time be increasing muscle. But of course that fat loss will be hidden unless you’ve got the measurements to prove it’s happening.

On the whole, the fact that you’ve had a 3-lbs fat loss and your friends have noticed that you are looking thinner, for me, is extremely positive and I am pleased that you’ve got both the weight loss and other people can see the visual improvement.

Simply by taking notice of the few pointers that we’ve given you, I’m sure that you will continue to lose that unwanted fat and gain that longed-for fitness and health.

Hope that helps,

Mark

gaining weight on low carb

by | Jan 16, 2013 | Low carb diet, Weight gain | 0 comments

Another copy of a post I have commented to at forums.about.com about low carb

 

From Brooke63:

Hi there – I’ve been following fairly strict low carb routine for about 2 weeks, and I’ve gained 3 pounds.  I didn’t have this issue when I low carbed about 6 months ago.  The weigh came off like normal.  I’ve been exercising about 3 times a week also.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

Brooke

 

My advice:

Hi Brooke63,

Well, if you have been following a fairly strict low carb routine for two weeks yet still gained weight, ‘nette’s comments are obviously very valid and some of the reasons she gives are to be taken notice of quite seriously.

However, I’m not a great advocate of measuring the change that a low carb diet does to our bodies just by looking at weight alone. Particularly, as like you, a reasonable amount of exercise is also included in the fitness scheme,

One thing that you really must do is take your body measurements which would typically be, starting from the top: your neck, your chest or bust, your waist and your thighs. Mark those down on a sheet of paper and then a week later do the same. That’s simply because while you might be losing fat, any increase in exercise will also mean that you’re building up muscle which of course, is slightly heavier than fat. So yes, you may have gained 3 lbs but without having your physical measurements to reference against, you don’t know if that’s really a net gain or a net loss in fat.

Quite simply, you might be putting on more muscle weight than you are losing in fat weight. So take those measurements and let us know how you get on in about a week’s time.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Does extra hunger mean something?

by | Jan 15, 2013 | Food Choices, How Your Body Works, Low carb diet, Metabolism, Sensible Eating | 0 comments

Here is another copy of the post at forum.lowcarber.org where I have responded to about eating and low carb

 

KristyRusi asked:

So i just got out of induction yesterday. I plan on keeping the 20nc induction rule of thumb for at least a few more weeks to keep that fat buring quicker, however today i was sooooo hungry (in the past 3-4 days i’ve not been hungry at all), i grazed like a dairy cow lol. Every few minutes i was wanting to nibble. I think it was because i was craving something sweet (which is rare) and nothing was sating the sweet taste i wanted.

I’ve limited myself to using artificial sweetner only in coffee and the occasional glass of tea. I fear using it in a “dessert” type meal will only make me binge for that flavor and make me want sweets even more. 

My real question is though, does this extra hunger mean i’m out of ketosis? I have not ate anything i didn’t eat in induction today and like i said don’t plan to, but i want to try and stay in ketosis as long as i can. I never used the ketostix but when i was in ketosis before my urine was darker (even with drinking 90% water) and my breath was awful to even taste in my own mouth, my urine was clear today and my mouth is extremely dry but doesn’t taste bad. If i am out of ketosis, what might have caused it and what can i do to kick it back in?

Thanks in advance for the insite!

 

I replied:

Hi KristyRusi,

Does extra hunger mean anything? Well, simply, yes it does. It means you need to eat something.

My food of choice when I’m facing something like that is to nibble on a lump of cheese, maybe dressing it up with some sort of mayonnaise, homemade of course. If cheese isn’t your thing, as DaddioM said, make sure you fill that hunger with protein and fat.

Obviously the warnings from others about being careful what you eat have great merit and should be taken note of. The thing to remember here is that when we start on a low carb diet, we’re not only retraining our bodies, we’re also retraining our minds and frankly, our bodies will retrain a lot quicker than our minds will.

One of the things I liked about the low carb diet was the fact that you could get excellent nutrition to eating smaller portions. This in turn, does mean of course, that our stomachs shrink, meaning we become satisfied with a lower quantity of food. However, if we pig out like we’re inclined to if we go out for a meal,  that can temporarily expand the stomach giving rise to those naughty little hunger signals being sent up to our brain.

Thus far as eating out is concerned, my advice is very simple, if you don’t know what’s in it, don’t eat it.

Hope that helps,

Mark

high blood pressure

by | Jan 15, 2013 | How Your Body Works, Low carb diet | 0 comments

This is a copy of the post at forums.about.com where I have commented on regarding high blood pressure

 

Post from Pennyhalfpenny:

I am on a low carb high fat diet to try and get my high blood pressure down.

Does anyone have a similar experience?  So far my blood pressure came down the first few weeks and went back up a little.?  I would appreciate any discussion on this subject.  Thanks.

 

My reply:

Hi Pennyhalfpenny,

Yes, in general, a low carb diet will help bring your blood pressure down, particularly, if you add into that some form of exercise, whether that’s a formal exercise or  social exercise like dancing or that sort of thing, even walking and as you got a lovely dog, I’m sure it must be a joy to take her for a walk. I noticed too that you have discovered that there seem to be a link between going on a low carb diet and your arthritis improving, now that’s due not so much because you’ve gone on a low carb diet more of the side effects that being on a low carb diet your cutting out carbohydrates including red potatoes and refined sugar obviously.

Various studies throughout the world have seen a link between people who suffer from arthritis and other inflammatory type disorders and high consumption of carbohydrates. Of following that chain through they have discovered that many of those carbohydrates are commonly contaminated with fungal toxins. They can read more about that in a brilliant book by Dr. Dave Holland and Doug Kaufmann called the Fungus Link. They also got another one out called the Fungus Link Volume 2 and I think it’s in chapter 8 of that book that they go through the direct link between a fungal infection of the digestive system and arthritis.

Now, of course, we can’t forget that high blood pressure can be due to the fact that we are suffering stress in one form or another. Then the fact that our bodies aren’t working 100% some of the time is one of those clear causes of stress. So maybe, there is a link even between a fungal infection and high blood pressure.

Hope that helps,

Mark

 

 

 

ME and low carb, high fat

by | Jan 15, 2013 | Carbs, Fat Loss, How Your Body Works, Low carb diet | 0 comments

Here is a copy of the  post I have commented on over at forums.about.com about chronic fatigue syndrome

 

Olive24 Posted:

Hello, I have been on the low carb high fat diet for two months now. I have ME and was hoping the diet would help the condition. I read that you are supposed to have more energy . My symptoms have improved alot but i still have the fatigue.

Does anyone have any experience with having ME and going low carb? I would be grateful to hear your experiences, if you recovered or about any improvements in health, thankyou.

 

My Comment:

Hi Olive24,

ME can also be called CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) but it’s also known as CFIDS or Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome that showed quite a wide spread problem.  There are upwards of about a million people in North America who suffer from it, but probably more that that one now. There is quite a lot of research gone on for this which may be of interest to you. One of the conclusions that many of these researches have come to is that there is quite a connection to diet as a cause, or a certainly an aggravator of CFS. One of those is a yeast sensitivity that can also be a linked to wheat sensitivity as well as sensitivity to milk. There are a number of things you can do to help with CFS. You’ve already discovered one of the biggest things and that’s “start eating a proper diet” but it doesn’t actually end there as far as diet goes. There were some excellent studies done back in 2007 and again in 2010 which you can get the abstract for on PubMed. Basically they showed there is definitely a link between acute infection of the gastrointestinal tract that can lead to a manifestation at the time or even years later of chronic fatigue syndrome.

From my own experience  of having a number of, I used the term digestive problems, I found that one of the things that totally alleviated a lot of the problems I had and as a side effect gave me more energy, was sorting out, firstly, my stomach bacteria, which I did through the use of probiotics. Then also sorting out my intestinal enzymes which I did very simply by using enzyme supplements. The advantage of doing that, of course, is that it more or less resets your digestive tract and helps it to work at full efficiency, firstly by building up the level of good bacteria in your stomach and the level of enzymes in the rest of your digestive tract. At the same time, because of the good bacteria will then outnumber the bad bacteria; the bad bacterial will get pushed out.

Going back to the reports I mentioned earlier, as I have said, they are quite worthy and technical; fortunately, Dr. Mercola has produced a much more readable article.

So if you are looking for ways to improve not just your energy levels but your health in general, firstly, do consider, neatly taking probiotics and again I would encourage you to use good quality ones not just the generic types you can find in the drugstore and enzymes, again, quality is the name of the game there. They are a little bit expensive but think of the benefits you’re going to get from them and do please, take time to read those articles from Dr. Mercola and the reports on PubMed.

Hope that helps,

Mark

Exercise is NON-NEGOTIABLE

by | Jan 14, 2013 | Exercise, How Your Body Works, Low carb diet, Weight Loss | 0 comments

Yet another copy of a post I just commented to at forum.lowcarber.org about exercise

KristyRusi Said:

So.. i’ve been reading my Atkins New Diet revolution book. (i’d slacked on that focusing only on getting induction down but as i’m done with my 2 weeks tomorrow i figured i should get crackin’) And i came to chapter 22 titled “Exercise: its Non-negotiable”

The very first line is ” Calling all couch potatoes: if you’re not getting regular exercise you aren’t following the Atkins Natural Approach. It’s that simple.”

(the chapter goes on to give reasons why and how much and what exercises to do, but non the less, it is non-negotiable)

The reason i bring this up is because i’m new, i want to do this right, and i’ve all but said that no diet works without the same key ingredients. reduction (in food types or quantities), staying on path (if you stop you gain, in all diet types) and exercise was my big question mark. I’ve assumed at some point exercise would be required even calorie reduction (which he also says YES you eventually if you stall may have to count calories too), no one can expect to eat a list of ingredients limitlessly and lose weight by laying on the couch. Maybe at first but not for a real long term goal. At least i know the book clears it up. (i know i know everyone said read the book >.<)

My biggest reason for posting, is that so many people make a big deal about how they did no exercise and lost all their weight.

Well, good for you. But it’s not realistic, and you aren’t following the plan per Dr. A. No matter what i wouldn’t have exercised during induction anyway i felt horrible, i still dont’ feel back up to my old energy level either, but for the future i want to give it the gung ho try, so i guess exercise it is. For me this only adds a bit of self doubt. Can i not eat carbs? sure. that’s easy… will i keep an exercise plan?… i dunno, it never worked in the past. It sounds like old times again (old long failed but never forgotten diets).

No one should promote this diet to work without exercise (or gloat giving a new person false hope). At least it makes sense to me now. At least the fog (not just induction fog) has lifted and i see it clearly. This isn’t about being Low Carb or Low Calorie, this is just a mind trick to get me to realize i can not be thin without sacrafice, and hard work. I can’t be a couch potato and reach my goals.

I guess i just needed reassurance that its okay to work this into your lifestyle slowly, and mold it to work for you food wise as best you can stand as far as eating, but as he said.. exercise.. it’s non-negotiable. *gag*.. I will say that i hope that this won’t be another failed diet. I hope this will be the one that worked for me. I hope that my attitude (though pretty grumpy and depressing verbally as of late) stays positive towards sticking with it and with that said…. here we go phase 2 bring it on.

 

My Response:

I used to do loads of exercise, mainly weightlifting and circuit training. The reason behind that was at the time, I needed to be strong for the job I was doing. Yet, the problem I found with the conventionally suggested diet was that while it indeed gave you the nutrients your body needed in order to make up the muscles that you are building up, along with it came a lot of extras that you didn’t need and this led to not just muscle gain but also fat gain at the same time. The picture however changed drastically when I switched to low carb, as I think I have mentioned elsewhere.

That was many decades ago and things have changed now, whereas once upon a time I was happy to spend an hour and a half, two hours in the gym building up my lovely muscles. Age, wisdom and the consciousness of time have made me realize that perhaps, those two hours could be better spent. Now, instead, I do 10 minutes of simple body weight exercises everyday. Things like push ups, pull ups, Hindu squats and that sort of things and I find it gives me more than enough strength to go through my day to day activities and I can still surprise some of the youngsters around me, able to lift things that they would only just look at; all that, without ever finding me in the gym.

For the last 10 years, my exercise of choice has been salsa and jive dancing. So you can imagine, I’m fully behind cnmLisa where she says exercise is movement and that can be as mild as a walk or something that challenges your muscles.

The thing about the gym is while, yes, it may challenge your muscles, it doesn’t really challenge the rest of you. Whereas, something like dancing means that you have to challenge your brain for remembering patterns of movements and so forth, stamina, (yes, I can dance from 7 pm right away through to 2 am), your sense of timing, your sense of balance and a whole host of other things.

But the really great thing about an exercise form like that is that it is social, you’re not just looking at the machines screen or something like that. You’re interacting with other real people and enjoying yourself. So if anybody’s got their mind to, why not take the challenge, why not go out dancing or find yourself another physically active yet social activity to join in with?

Hope that helps,

Mark