Trying to keep my carbs low.

carmichealdeb

Found out I have a fatty liver, will be seeing my gastrologist in January after having many blood tests, a fibro-scan to find out those results. When I saw this specialist he wanted me to lose 10 lbs. So far I've lost 12lbs.

My family doctor wants me to lose much more. I'm on a low carb diet now and will be seeing a weight management specialist this Tuesday. I just got on this site on December 4th. My average calories are 1, 025, but on here it wants it to be 2,053 per day. All my "counts/levels" are way below what I should have. Is this normal, should I try to be eating more ??

Any ideas to help me ?? Not a fan of veggies like kale, spinach, or black beans, lentils.

Thank you, maybe I'll know more on Tuesday, too.

AnnPT77

Talk with your doctors, but in many cases losing weight super fast isn't the most health-promoting track. How fast have you lost the 12 pounds, and from what starting weight? That matters.

Dramatically cutting carbs tends to cause a big scale drop quickly, but most of it isn't fat loss. It's some fat loss, and a good lot of lost water weight. Each gram of carbs makes our body hold onto 3-4 grams of water in order to digest/metabolize those carbs. Routinely reduce daily carbs by around 100 grams, and weight will therefore drop by 300-400 grams, which is around 2/3 to nearly 1 pound. That will show up within a day or few on the scale.

By contrast, fat loss is slow. Two pounds a week of fat loss - fairly fast for anyone, very fast for anyone under maybe 250 or so pounds - is only around 4.6 ounces per day (roughly 130 grams).

An early scale drop on a low carb diet is partly, maybe mostly, water weight. That's not a bad thing, but it's worth understanding, because if the diet continues, the fat loss will continue, but the water weight will stabilize. Scale loss will slow down.

1025 calories is going to be too low, unhealthfully low, for most adults. I read your profile here. It says you're 64, implies that you're around 210 pounds. It doesn't say how tall you are, or what your daily life activities are like.

It's hard for me to say whether 2053 calories is too many for you, or not. It might be. Your weight management specialist should be able to help you.

I'm older than you (70), 5'5", around 131 pounds now, and I'd lose weight ultra-slowly on 2053 calories, but I'm athletically active and an unusually high calorie burner for our demographic on top of that. An average woman my height, your age/weight, would be expected to burn maybe 1800 or so calories daily with a mostly-sedentary lifestyle. That would imply eating around 1300 calories to lose a pound a week, which would be a pretty realistic rate unless under close medical supervision for nutritional deficiencies or health complications. Fast weight loss can be especially risky for people in our age group, vs. the more resilient 20-somethings.

See what your specialist says on that front.

You don't need to eat any particular veggies in order to lose weight or improve health and nutrition. If you like some of them, eat those. Maybe experiment with some others once in a while, cooking them in ways you haven't tried before, or mixing them in small amounts in things you do like. Many people find roasted veggies tastier than boiled/steamed ones, for example. Mixing some lentils into marinara or other tomato sauce used as a topping may make those more enjoyable, and add some filling fiber/protein. Blending white beans into creamy-type sauces or soups does the same, making them more nutrient dense, more filling, and often lower calorie per serving.

If you try something a reasonable number of times and still don't like it, drop it and try something else. Weight loss doesn't mean eating only superfoods, let alone eating things you don't like.

When I was 59, I weighed closer to what you do now. In my case 183 was my official starting weight, and that wasn't my heaviest weight ever, either. Within a bit less than a year, I got down to the weight range I am now, which was 131-point-something this morning. I'm not trying to tell you what your weight goal should be: I'm saying weight loss at our age is possible. In my case, I found it simpler than I anticipated, once I buckled down and committed to the process. It wasn't psychologically easy every second, of course - lots of habit changes are needed, and change can be hard.

I have different health challenges than you do. I didn't have fatty liver or high blood sugar, but did have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and severe hypothyroidism (the latter medicated). Now, the only one of those I still have is the hypothyroidism, which in my case is genetic. All of those other things are solidly and consistently in the normal range. It IS possible.

Another thing that was surprising: The MAJOR overall quality of life improvement that came from reaching a healthy weight. It was easier to move, to do daily life chores, I had less frequent/severe pain from arthritis and a torn meniscus (pretty trivial now), and just a generally better sense of well being and mood. It was powerful.

I'm cheering for you to succeed. The rewards are more than worth the effort. Listen to your medical team, do what they say, just keep chipping away in a positive direction. There may be some mis-steps along the way - we're all human - but learn from them and keep going. You'll succeed.

I think that people our age we may have a super power the young'uns don't necessarily have: We know ourselves pretty well. We've learned how to harness our strengths and game our limitations in order to reach really big goals in small, persistent steps. Maybe we developed those skills getting an education, making a home, building a career, raising a family, planning retirement finances, learning skills like playing a musical instrument or arts/crafts . . . we've done some of that, right? The skills and persistence needed here are those same, practiced things.

Best wishes!