Low Fat/Low Carb?

MizMizukii

First, let me introduce myself a little bit (meaning a huge essay since the information may be needed... sorry in advance)

I am a female turning 30 in 3 months and after struggling with wanting/attempting to lose weight after each of my three pregnancies with low energy and motivation to do so, I've been steadily working on reaching my goal of losing 62 lbs since end of June of 2015. What caused the low energy and motivation was how busy I was with each child since my oldest is 7 and youngest is now 3... so not really much time to focus on myself.

Now that two of my children are in school, I am (on good days since I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and Fibromyalgia) walking to my kids' school and back 2-3 times a day. doing roughly 3-4 miles of walking (at 22mph) 5 days a week. Between end of June 2015-June 2016, I lost 37 lbs of my 62 lbs goal.

What I think helped me out a lot was not just the consistent walking, but that I really took a look at not only the amount of calories I was eating, but what those calories were coming from. I cut out a lot of boxed dinners (Pasta/Rice-a-Roni, hamburger/chicken/tuna helpers...), broke my sugar addiction, set a goal water intake per day (and mainly ONLY drank water, rarely juice or milk), switched my protein to mainly boneless/skinless chicken breast, salmon, and if I wanted to have a burger, I'd make it at home using a turkey patty. I've also been watching the sodium intake since if I, lets say, give in to the kids and order Panda Express, eating half a platter with chow mein, teriyaki and orange chicken... I'd end up "gaining" a minimum of 5 lbs over night due to the sodium involved...

Since June 2016, I have been staying basically around the same and after doing many different trial and errors with trying out jogging a couple times a day in the evenings (if I was unable to walk), adding more calories per day (to see if my stall was due to eating too few calories since I did the 1200 a day that MFP set me at and was rarely able to eat back the calories burned due to not being hungry...) and now I'm just slowly continuing to add calories every week or so to reach my "maintenance level" and will try to lose the last 24 lbs again after I have a few health issues cleared up... Which finally leads me to the reason for my post...

I've always noticed an intolerance for eating at restaurants and fast food so I am very thankful that I can cook for myself and my family... but even at home, I'll occasionally suffer. If I eat anything that has too much fat or grease or sodium or who really knows what else, I always ended up having problems. If I was lucky, it would just be indigestion... most of the time I was not. I'd end up bloating to look like I was 7 months pregnant with twins with severe cramps and food would fly right through me after maybe 30 minutes leaving me miserable for the rest of the day... OR I'd bloat and get horrible back pain and pain under my ribs making it hard to breathe and no position would ease my misery. After dealing with this for the last 6 years, I finally found out why. It took a kidney/bladder infection and kidney stones for my PCP to discover I've been dealing with gallstones! I was told that since I've been suffering from them (some people can have them with no symptoms) that I'd have to have my gallbladder removed after my kidney stones are dealt with...

So... I need advice on how I should handle changing my diet. I get issues with my gallstones at minimum, once a month... but... I had a flare-up last night on top of a flare-up a week ago! I was expecting the flare-up last week since I ate 2 ribs at Ikea (I grew up LOVING ribs so seeing ribs and knowing what they'll do to me I try to NOT eat them, but I gave in and regretted it lol) but last night I ate all things I've made at home before with absolutely no issues in the past and still had the flare-up happen... usually my daily fat intake is roughly between 20g-70g going off the last 90 days report but I do not see the higher fat days lining up with my gallstone flares... I also try to stay below a daily intake of 200g carbs and average 175g daily but would prefer to be closer to 165g...

Is it possible to eat a healthy 1450 calorie diet with my carbs at about 163g (45%) and my fat about 32g (20%)? With those %'s, my protein should be 127g (35%) but I've never been able to eat anywhere near my daily goal... the highest I've been able to obtain in the last 90 days is 91g... Any ideas as to if this ratio is even healthy or possible to achieve?

P.S. I am allergic to peanuts and am lactose intolerant if that makes any difference...

briannethomas2309

I too had severe gallstones and like you at one point everything I ate gave me severe attacks. I ended up almost a vegetarian because amount of fat caused me problems. I ate 99% lean ground turkey and shrimp mostly for my protein. I ate a lot of salads with chopped veggies and made dressing out of fat free Greek yogurt (idk if there is a soy equivalent?) apple cider vinegar, garlic clove, and salt & pepper. I also avoided avacado because even though it's healthy fat, it's still fat.. I also cooked with absolutely no added oils. It was tough to eat so strictly but it was the only way I survived until I got my gallbladder removed. I hope this helps!

Michael190lbs

That sounds like a great diet to me with excellent numbers - My protein is 150 plus, carbs under 150 and fat around 100