Belly Fat and can't lose weight

Qcrazy

Who has lost Weight and their belly fat and how did you do it?????? I have done very low carb/ paleo on and off for months and I just can't seem to lose any weight. I'm on metformin 1000mg I also have hypothyroid and ty2 diabetes.

Dragonwolf

According to your ticker, you've lost 56lbs, that's not nothing!

What were you doing for low-carb/paleo? Doing it on and off isn't really going to help you much, as the key to both of those is sustaining it for the long haul (in part because there's a healing element to it -- your body needs to heal before it can really drop weight). As such, you have to approach them both in ways that are sustainable.

Generally, though, the biggest issue I see people running into with low-carb is that they start off with the usual recommendation of low fat, then drop their carbs and try to make up for it with protein. This approach is doomed to fail, because protein is not fuel to the body, it's building blocks. Instead, you should be getting enough protein to maintain your lean mass (about 100g is generally a good amount if you're eating 1500-2000 calories), and increase your fats as you drop your carbs. This maintains the fuel for your body and not only allows it to allocate the protein to building and repairing tissue, but also ensures you get enough fat for proper nutrient usage and hormone balancing.

From there, make sure your doctor is keeping tabs on your fasting insulin (not just glucose, they're two different measurements). This is extremely important, because it's what makes or breaks the use of Metformin. Metformin does one thing and one thing only -- increases your liver's insulin sensitivity. Anything else that changes is due to the subsequent drop in fasting insulin. So, if your fasting insulin has been measured, it may be that the Metformin, either in and of itself, or just the dosage, isn't working for you. Usually, it's the dose, but some women don't respond to Metformin, but in either case, you can only know if you're getting your insulin tested.

If your insulin is high, you need to do more than just watch your glucose and foods that spike glucose. This is especially important if your fasting glucose is in the normal range. Proteins will also increase insulin, even when it doesn't touch glucose. This is where increasing protein instead of fat is bad. When your body doesn't have the fuel it needs, it creates it from something else. If it has a surplus of protein, it uses that to make glucose, in a process called gluconeogenesis. More glucose = more insulin. So, protein's a double-whammy on that front.

Even more, not all protein is created equal. The proteins in dairy are especially insulinogenic (raise insulin more than other proteins). So much so, in fact, that when it comes to insulin, you're better off eating white bread. So that 0% Greek Yogurt or cottage cheese you might be eating, because it's low carb, low fat, and high protein? Yeah, it's completely defeating the purpose of being low carb.

Another thing you can do is supplement Inositol. Inositol is a nutrient that used to be considered a B vitamin. The body usually makes it, but there's some evidence that women with PCOS are deficient or need more of it than others. A few studies have shown great results with supplementing with 4g a day of it, though there are anecdotal reports of as little as 500mg a day providing drastic improvements. There are different kinds of Inositol. The two pertinent ones are D-Chiro Inositol and Myo Inositol. Women with PCOS seem to be deficient in the D-Chiro variety, but most supplements are Myo and D-Chiro is more expensive. That's okay, though, because the body can make one with the other. There's a certain amount of loss, so you have to supplement more Myo Inositol to get the amount of D-Chiro you need, but that's it.

Also, make sure you're getting sufficient Magnesium and Vitamin D, because women with PCOS are generally deficient in those, too (as are most women in general, really).

As for the belly fat, there are generally two causes of it -- elevated insulin (solved with the above measures) and food intolerances. There is some evidence of crossover between PCOS and gluten intolerance, so it's worth cutting out gluten for at least a month and see if it makes any difference. Personally, I've found that a low-carb/high-fat, Primal-esque diet to be best for the abdominal bloating and "PCOS belly" feeling.

Also, I highly recommend heavy weight lifting or some other high intensity exercise (preferably muscle-building routines). This not only helps retain/build lean tissue, which keeps the metabolism up, but the high intensity exercise is known to release certain hormones that can help with weight loss. For women with PCOS, it seems, from my experience, that it helps with the cycles, too (though I have no idea why, and don't know of any studies on it).

sharimedina

Not sure how to top Dragonwolf's post because it was very thorough. I also have PCOS with IR and Type 2. My nutritionist put me on 1500 calories and not really low carb because she said we need it for fuel. I have to eat a carb with a protein though to balance my blood sugars. I am also 'avoiding' but not eliminating gluten. Also, I am exercising regularly. You didn't mention exercise? You have lost a lot, don't get discouraged. It just seems like it is time to change things up.

Dragonwolf

Not sure how to top Dragonwolf's post because it was very thorough. I also have PCOS with IR and Type 2. My nutritionist put me on 1500 calories and not really low carb because she said we need it for fuel. I have to eat a carb with a protein though to balance my blood sugars. I am also 'avoiding' but not eliminating gluten. Also, I am exercising regularly. You didn't mention exercise? You have lost a lot, don't get discouraged. It just seems like it is time to change things up.

The idea that we need carbs at all, let alone for fuel, is a myth, born out of, in no small part, the low-fat fad. Carbs and fat are both viable fuel sources, so when you decrease your fats, you have to increase your carbs, and vice-versa.

Additionally, it comes from the fact that glucose is a "top priority" fuel. In other words, when you eat a meal that contains sugar, higher level carbs, protein, and fat, the sugar gets dealt with first, then the higher level carbs, then the fat, then the protein. Most people mistake this for a preference for sugar, but that's not really the case. Too much sugar is toxic to the body. A blood sugar concentration over just 140mg/dL (7.7mmol/L) will start to cause damage to the body. That means that it needs to get rid of all that sugar right now. Store it in glycogen, use it for energy right now, store it as fat ASAP, anything to get it out of the bloodstream.

So...yeah...

See also -- the Inuit (on their traditional diet).