Nutritional Facts for Low Carb Dieters?

Tony:

Thank you and I would not mind sharing and learning from you. I did take it as you thought I was not working on it or hard enough. :noway: .. I'v ebeen working on it like you can't believe. :huh:

I did take the last two week off to refocus, and re adjust my goals... so possibly this is a good time to learn from you and you can help me set up the right steps to take from here on out. I have not tracked my journal on MFP in awhile.. (before Christmas)..

My trainer did not keep records of my progress... which is why I switched gyms two weeks ago! ... I had nothing to show of what I worked on or how I could improve and this made me very upset... Also I went through 5 trainers at the gym because I was not happy with the results I was getting.

Here is what I can tell you about my program:

I eat about 1400 calories, 100-125 net carbs.. ( I did not worry about anything else)

I exercised Monday, Tuesday, Thursday running intervals - was up to running 1.5 minutes walking 2 minutes for 25 minutes, and then 30 minutes on the elliptical, crossramp or bike

Monday, Wednesday, Friday - I would work out with my training, dong a cardio.strength training routine (kind of like curves) - then 25 minutes on the treadmill doing about 2.5-3.0 walking

Saturday I would go in for 1 hour usually would do the elliptical or crossramp for that hour

Ruffly I would burn about 750 calories on a non-training day and around 1000 on a training day. I do wear a HRM to keep track of my calories burn.

Feel free to message me, and I do apologize about my tone in my last message. Thank You.

First of all, no problem on tone. I don't take anything personally on the boards. If I did, I'd be mad at everyone for calling me Tony because my screen name is cut off on the side of the message boards. LOL Besides, I know that we can't get our emotions to come across in print. I know a lot of people take me as a B**** on boards because I don't know how to give virtual hugs when needed. Oh, lets be honest, I speak my mind way too often and some people take me as a B**** in person too. LOL

As for the article I posted, I chose it because it specifically referred to the medical examiners report on Dr. Atkins death and questioned if his diet had anything to do with his health issues and also mentioned that he is the only person of record that had been on the diet long term, whereas the studies often quoted are usually only people who are on the plan 6-12 months. As much as I would love to have research on people who have been on the Atkins plan since he first came up with it in the 70's it just doesn't exist. So, my professors in teaching nutrition point us to articles like that one because it shows the only documented case of someone who could stick with the plan long term. Short term studies are great, and have shown promising results. But it's those long term effects that worry me and apparently the entire kinesiology and nutrition departments at Valdosta State University because they are the ones giving me this information. LOL I wasn't trying to say don't do low carb, but just trying to point out that there are risks involved with it that a lot of people don't know about.

If you remember, I was the one who said to start with the lowest end of the recommended carb range and even gave you numbers for the lowest recommended intake of carbs per day of 130 grams. I know that there are some people who respond better to a lower carb plan. That recommendation is total carbs, BTW, not net. When they figure net carbs, they subtract fiber because it is virtually indigestible so you aren't really getting any calories from it. At the level you are taking in now, you are probably at that recommendation already once you add the fiber back in.

How is your fat intake? I know you've not been tracking the past couple of weeks, but before that what % of fat were you getting? How much of it was saturated? Having the high end of the range of fat isn't necessarily bad as long as it is mostly poly and mono unsaturated fats instead of saturated fats. The unsaturated, specifically the Omegas, are actually heart healthy and help prevent some of the risks of having a higher fat diet.

As for your workouts, the one thing I'm seeing that is a big red flag for me is the lack of weight training. Circuit training is good, but heavy weight training is much better for improving insulin resistance and other hormonal issues. Yes, I said Heavy Weight Training. As heavy as you can go and only get like 6-8 reps before you feel like you are maxed out. This promotes muscle growth, which promotes more glucose uptake into the muscles, which helps prevent too high of blood glucose from insulin resistance. When you do heavy weight training, you may not see the scale weight change much at first because you will be storing more glycogen and water in the muscles and increasing muscle mass while you are losing fat, but the big change will come as the muscle burns more calories at rest and your shape changes.

Did the new trainer/gym do any kind of assessments? Like Body Fat %? Cardiovascular tests? Muscular strength or endurance tests? If so, that is what your program should be based on for setting your weights and training zones for your heart rate. If not, they are just giving you a basic routine that isn't personalized at all, so I'd quit wasting the money on a trainer. You've been doing these workouts for a while now, so you know how to do the exercises on your own.

Also, I'm wondering about your calorie goal. Don't get me wrong, MFP is great for the masses at figuring calorie needs. But it's not perfect, especially when figuring the deficit strictly on 500 calories per pound you want to lose a week. Too much of a deficit can be just as bad as too little of a deficit for some people. With my nutrition certification and again with my nutrition classes at university, I've been taught a more specific formula to determine calorie needs. I'd like to put your information through it and see just how close MFP has you. You may want to change you calorie intake too depending on what we find.

I'm going to go over to your profile and send you a friend request and then send you a PM with a bunch of questions. Sorry if I duplicate them here.

Hi

Hope you don't mind me replying as I may seem a bit out of my league.

I have just started reading a book called "Sweet Poison - why sugar makes us fat". Yes the title is a bit OTT! But, I regress, the start of the book and most of the way through it acually explains how our body works when we eat food. The glucose it makes from the food, the insulin also the diets from 100 years ago and why they thought they worked right through to the Atkins Diet and beyond. This is what I have learnt so far (actually last night!)....

Our bodies are equipt to deal with starvation or a lack of glucose and it will use our fat and muscles as energy by converting it into Ketones (an energy source). This is all very well for the odd time we are not able to find food for a little while BUT it is not a long term solution. People on low/no carb diets become ketonic and they eventually die from complications. As the ketones in the blood build up in time, the acidity of the blood increases significantly, since uric acid produciton is a by product of the process that produces ketones. This eventually leads to widespread tissue damage (especially eyesight and kidney damage).

I am not all the way through the book (chapter 5 from 14) but the chapters I have read are amazing and enlightening.

Get it and read it if you can. It will open your eyes and maybe make up your mind to which way you want to go with your diet. I know refined sugar is my poison - I am addicted to it. I am hoping that this book plus his "The Sweet Poison Quit Plan" will get me on track and totally get me off the poison.

In the last chapter I read last night it said "A raft of recent studies have clearly shown that high levels of fatty acids in the arteries block the action of Leptin* in much the same way that they inhibit insulin. Insulin Resistance means that your immediate appetite control is impaired and will eventually lead to type II diabetes. Leptin Resistance means that your body loses the ability to tell when it has had enough to eat ove the medium to long term."

* Leptin is produced by the fat cells to help tell us we are full. The release of insulin into the blood stream after we eat is swiftly eliminated by the various digestive processes, so the hormone Leptin performs a longer term appetite control.

The author is going to go into more depth on type II diabetes further in the book.

I hope this has helped just a little.

P.S. If any of this is incorrect, please let me know as I am only going by what I am reading and only like the truth, not some made up BS!!

cheers
Monika

Yep, seems pretty accurate to me from what I've been taught. I have one nutrition professor who will especially like knowing that the leptin information is finally being let out. There have actually been studies on rats about how leptin levels effect weight gain and loss. So far they haven't come up with anything we can specifically do to use leptin to help us yet, but it is pretty interesting stuff, at least for nerds like me.

Also, I am just curious towards the nutritionist. The OP said that she has insulin resistance. Therefore, her body overproduces insulin and the result is storing too much glucose that has been floating around in the bloodstream. If she should exercise to get rid of the excess, wouldn't it make sense to not add any if there is already excess?

Good question. Insulin resistance means that the receptor sites for insulin that allow glucose to move from the blood into the muscles to be stored as glycogen or utilized as fuel to produce ATP aren't working properly to get the glucose out of the blood. So, the excess glucose is floating around in the blood stream, which is dangerous and over time will build up to be classified as diabetes. Exercise can act kind of like insulin in that it causes the glucose in the blood to be moved into the muscles via a different channel, going around those insulin receptors that aren't working properly. So, exercise will lower blood sugar and provide the glucose/glycogen to the muscles. When this happens, there have been issues with rebound hypoglycemia, where the blood sugar drops too much from the sudden ability to transport glucose out of the blood. So, you want to make sure you have some carbs in the diet to prevent the rebound hypoglycemia. The key is to make sure you are consuming low glycemic carbs so that they don't spike blood sugar and elevate insulin levels too because that isn't beneficial. High glycemic simple sugars should be avoided in insulin resistance, but low glycemic complex carbs provide the necessary glucose/glycogen without the same issues.

SHBoss & Training with Tony


I exercise 4-6 times week now... and see a trainer 3x's a week... My doctor actually recommeneded since I was TTC that I cut my sessions down to 30 minutes to prevent over stress on my body. I was doing about 60-90 minute sessions. Even though I was doing all this work, it was not paying off for me... I was working out like a mad man, counting calories, watching carbs and I was not losing... I lost 30lbs, of which 21 of that was in the first 6 weeks... since April I lost only 9lbs... that's working out 3xs a week with a trainer and 60-90 minute sessions on my own, in July I joined MFP and started watching my calories... and followed their recommendation of carbs and gained 9lbs!!!... then September I went back to low carb and lost that 9lbs... As I said it's not that the effort is not there... My husband is also doing this with me he has lost 110lbs .. and he does the same amount of exercise I do, and eats the same way as I do... So please don't think it's not the effort or the lack of exercise!

As for my doctor, the first doctor told me to lose weight, she said to go home and come back ina year... and when I asked her what she recommends she said that only thing for girls like me is "lapband sugery" and so I went home, lost 30lbs doing the above and went back in October... saw a different doctor in the same office and he also told me to lose 10% more (I already lost 10%) .. and when I asked him how, he told me one of two options "Surgery" or "Cutting out Carbs" ...

Are you on metformin? It would help with your insulin resistance and your weight loss usually. I would definitely avoid grain carbs but not vegetables. You need the vitamins and minerals and occasional fruit, one a day again very healthy. I would also get a second opinion because, as a physician and personal trainer who has studied nutrition extensively I do not agree with cutting all carbs as low as you are saying.