Paleo, weight gain, bloodwork. Help!

Makoce

I mostly want to do a Paleo diet, so if anyone who's currently doing that can help thats awesome. Non Paleo eater advice is more than wanted too!

It's amusing. I've done so much research on primal/Paleo and that type of eating and such. I was SO successful at it. I am struggling so freakin bad with a unsatisfiable appetite and gaining weight. I am doing nothing different. When I was doing it before I was almost never hungry and even did 16:8 IF. I felt AMAZING but now I'm so miserable and hungry and tired I end up binging on non Paleo foods every night. The worst kinds, too. Haha. I want to be true to this lifestyle change, drop the weight (I work in a gym for gods sake it's embarrassing to be starting to be over weight), and have better blood work and just FEEL better.

I have blood work tomorrow, other than thyroid what should I get tested?? And does anyone have any advice? I am just so frustrated.

Another thing is my back story. I lost 75lbs in the course of a few years. But at the end I got obsessed and ended up with anorexia. My lowest weight was 97lbs. Once I started lifting (was still eating Paleo at the time, hflc) I started binging on carbs and eventually spun out of control and fell back into cookies and donuts and complete *kitten* and now I'm back at my original highest weight from gears ago and climbing. Did my body finally reach its breaking point and collapse? Two years later and I still can't regulate my appetite and stop binging. Neeeeed fixingggg

crackpotbaby

Usual blood work up is

Full blood count (called different things in different countries)

Urea and electrolytes.

..............

If you can get a full thyroid panel including autoantibodies it is more useful than just TSH but some doctors need convincing.

I personally would try and get a fasting lipids done for total and cholesterol, HDL and LDL ratios, triglycerides.

............

Have you considered getting a referral to someone who could help with your relationship with food in the context of eating disorder?

shaumom

one thing to look for: your calorie intake and your nutrient intake. Get a few days and see how you are doing on these. for one big reason: wheat is fortified with a few nutrients that were added in because people typically do NOT get enough of them. When a person goes paleo, or anything else that eliminates wheat, they lose that fortification. And unless they add in vitamins to compensate, or the right foods to do so (which is hard to do so you've usually got to plan it) it can eventually lead to low vitamin levels.

IF your vitamin and calories levels seem okay, or not TOO far off, I would consider, oddly enough, a celiac disease test, too. While the stereotype (which some doctors believe, unfortunately) is that people with this disease lose weight due to it, a good chunk of us actually GAIN weight, even when we're low in nutrients.

Going paleo tends to eliminate most of the gluten in the diet (but not all, unless you are REALLY making everything from scratch, even sauces, as 'natural flavoring' can be derived from gluten), so it can often at first cause a really great effect.

But if a celiac continues to get gluten, even just a little, their gut slowly gets more and more damaged, and they start losing the ability to absorb more and more nutrients (which the body will try to compensate for by making you feel starving, so you eat even more in an attempt to get enough nutrients. Even if, for some of us, we are absorbing CALORIES just fine. This is why the low vitamin levels from the first mentioned issue can cause a lot of hunger, too). Can also tend to cause fatigue or exhaustion as one of the more common symptoms.

Some people get gut pain, but at least a third or more have NO gut pain, and just other symptoms entirely. Hunger and/or fatigue are just as common as symptoms.

To get the test, which is a blood test, you need to be eating gluten regularly for a few weeks, though - it looks for biomarkers in your blood of reactions TO gluten, and it can only really properly test for accumulated markers, that have built up over a few weeks of eating gluten.

fruitydelicious

shaumom wrote: »

one thing to look for: your calorie intake and your nutrient intake. Get a few days and see how you are doing on these. for one big reason: wheat is fortified with a few nutrients that were added in because people typically do NOT get enough of them. When a person goes paleo, or anything else that eliminates wheat, they lose that fortification. And unless they add in vitamins to compensate, or the right foods to do so (which is hard to do so you've usually got to plan it) it can eventually lead to low vitamin levels.

IF your vitamin and calories levels seem okay, or not TOO far off, I would consider, oddly enough, a celiac disease test, too. While the stereotype (which some doctors believe, unfortunately) is that people with this disease lose weight due to it, a good chunk of us actually GAIN weight, even when we're low in nutrients.

Going paleo tends to eliminate most of the gluten in the diet (but not all, unless you are REALLY making everything from scratch, even sauces, as 'natural flavoring' can be derived from gluten), so it can often at first cause a really great effect.

But if a celiac continues to get gluten, even just a little, their gut slowly gets more and more damaged, and they start losing the ability to absorb more and more nutrients (which the body will try to compensate for by making you feel starving, so you eat even more in an attempt to get enough nutrients. Even if, for some of us, we are absorbing CALORIES just fine. This is why the low vitamin levels from the first mentioned issue can cause a lot of hunger, too). Can also tend to cause fatigue or exhaustion as one of the more common symptoms.

Some people get gut pain, but at least a third or more have NO gut pain, and just other symptoms entirely. Hunger and/or fatigue are just as common as symptoms.

To get the test, which is a blood test, you need to be eating gluten regularly for a few weeks, though - it looks for biomarkers in your blood of reactions TO gluten, and it can only really properly test for accumulated markers, that have built up over a few weeks of eating gluten.

WOW, very helpful !! I've been doing whole30 and never thought about possible vitamin issues.... My hunger is in check but fatigue is still a big issue. thanks for posting

trigden1991

Why would a well balanced, nutritional diet with a sensible calorie deficit not work? Restricting what you can eat is not really a long term solution.