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Body only responds to low carbing?
royalq
Posts: 16 Member
Im so frustrated. Last year i low carbed and lost alot of weight. I was eating at or below 20grams of carb a day. i went from 145 to 129 in a few months. But it was the most miserable diet ive ever been on. I was tired, too weak to exercise, and ended up a flabby 129 from the lack of exercise. After a failed bulk i went up to 155. Then i got really sick and went down to 147. I decided to do a milder low card and was at 50g per day, dropped to 142 but was miserable and tired again. So i decided to do it the traditional way- healthy eating, no processed food , 500 caloric deficit along with a mixed cardio and weightlift program. 107 protein, 128 carbs, and about 56 fats. After a month of this i should have dropped 0.5-1 pound a week so about 2-4 lbs but im still 142. It seems like my body only responds to a low carb diet, but low carbing is not a sustainable eating style for me. Im frustrated, what should i do?
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Replies
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A 500 calorie deficit works out to 1lbs a week so it sounds like are losing just the way you are supposed to.3
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Don't know your height, but it doesn't sound like you have much weight to lose, so the key is going to be consistency and patience. You need to give a plan 6-8 weeks to really know if it's working. A couple of pounds loss can easily be hidden in water weight fluctuations.
If you don't have one, get a food scale and use it for all solid food (including packaged food you are scanning) as often as possible. Just because the package says 1 slice of bread, or 15 nuts, or 1 protein bar weighs a certain amount, doesn't mean it does.
Be very careful of the database entries you are using. Many are incorrectly entered by users (especially ones that say homemade or generic).
Log everything - condiments, cooking oil, beverages, random bites while cooking, etc.
Be patient. I only had 15 lbs to lose and I had to keep going through times when the scale wasn't moving. But your body weight fluctuates all the time due to water weight, exercise, digestion issues and that can hide small increments of weight loss.
It technically doesn't matter for weight loss what kind of food you eat, so find the way that keeps you feeling healthy and satisfied, stay at your calorie goal, and give it time. Good luck!3 -
Whoops! Read that wrong, my bad.
I second do you weight your food question. With such a small deficit, you need to be really accurate.0 -
I used to think the same thing (that I could only lose weight with low carb), but a food scale and accurately weighing/logging food was a game changer for me. If you don't currently weigh your food I would definitely start there.1
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Low carb diets tend to flush a lot of water, so you will gain that back when you go back to a typical diet of primarily carbs. LCHF doesn't work for everyone. Energy will drop rapidly without lots of healthy fats.
Just keep eating at a deficit and adjust your carbs down a bit from what they are now for a few weeks and see if that helps.2 -
@dmariet116
Didn't hear OP mention eating High fat, only read LC from the OP.
Was it low carb/high fat @royalq?
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So true. Carbs cause water retention. When you cut carbs you lose water. When you lose water weight you lose electrolytes. When electrolytes are low it causes fatigue, brain fog, muscle aches and spasms, and even nausea. That could have been a large portion of your problem: low electrolytes.
People eating at ketogenic diet levels (below 50g of carbs per day) need 3000-5000mg of sodium per day tp replace lost electrolytes. Many will need to add extra potassium and magnesium (citrate) too to replace what the body used to try to balance electrolytes.
People switching to a LCHF diet will often experience a mild decline in athletic performance in the first couple of weeks up to (about) three months. It's very mild though. If you had extreme weakness, it was probably low electrolytes. If you choose LCHF again, add a teaspoon of salt to your water, drink salty broth, or use salt tablets. It will help.
... But you said it was miserable. Did you not enjoy the food, or was it just the weakness (probably from low electrolytes) that bothered you?3 -
It sounds like LCHF really wasn't the right thing for you... Why do you want to feel that way? (And I'm LCHF, so I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just not a good fit for you.). Or, maybe there are reasons you felt so awful, and talking to other LCHFers could give you some tips.
A good rule of thumb-- don't do anything to lose weight that you're not willing to do every day for the rest of your life. Habits need to be sustainable to make a sustainable change in weight/ fitness. It's ok to tweak and adjust the means by which your working toward your goals.3 -
@dmariet116
Didn't hear OP mention eating High fat, only read LC from the OP.
Was it low carb/high fat @royalq?
Yes, that is why I mentioned that not eating enough fat when cutting carbs can cause fatigue, sometimes extreme.0 -
@dmariet116
Didn't hear OP mention eating High fat, only read LC from the OP.
Was it low carb/high fat @royalq?So true. Carbs cause water retention. When you cut carbs you lose water. When you lose water weight you lose electrolytes. When electrolytes are low it causes fatigue, brain fog, muscle aches and spasms, and even nausea. That could have been a large portion of your problem: low electrolytes.
People eating at ketogenic diet levels (below 50g of carbs per day) need 3000-5000mg of sodium per day tp replace lost electrolytes. Many will need to add extra potassium and magnesium (citrate) too to replace what the body used to try to balance electrolytes.
People switching to a LCHF diet will often experience a mild decline in athletic performance in the first couple of weeks up to (about) three months. It's very mild though. If you had extreme weakness, it was probably low electrolytes. If you choose LCHF again, add a teaspoon of salt to your water, drink salty broth, or use salt tablets. It will help.
... But you said it was miserable. Did you not enjoy the food, or was it just the weakness (probably from low electrolytes) that bothered you?It sounds like LCHF really wasn't the right thing for you... Why do you want to feel that way? (And I'm LCHF, so I'm not saying it's a bad thing, just not a good fit for you.). Or, maybe there are reasons you felt so awful, and talking to other LCHFers could give you some tips.
A good rule of thumb-- don't do anything to lose weight that you're not willing to do every day for the rest of your life. Habits need to be sustainable to make a sustainable change in weight/ fitness. It's ok to tweak and adjust the means by which your working toward your goals.
Sorry for responding late. I am neglectful about weighing my food, i more so measure it out by cups and teaspoons. I create a meal plan on the weekened according to weights, the next day i weight it all to see what it looks likebthen i eye it for the rest of the week.
As for high fats, i was more moderate fat. Hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes are very prevelant in my family. So i was a bit scared of eating too much fats. My awful feeling was more because of constant fatigue and being too weak to exercise and weightlift. Is it okay for someone who seems predisposed to high cholesterol to ingest alot of fat, even if its healthy fats?0 -
dmariet116 wrote: »@dmariet116
Didn't hear OP mention eating High fat, only read LC from the OP.
Was it low carb/high fat @royalq?
Yes, that is why I mentioned that not eating enough fat when cutting carbs can cause fatigue, sometimes extreme.
Very extreme. I was living off of Monster energy drinks. I napped for hours everday.0 -
I used to be able to lose weight the traditional CICO method, but in the last few years it stopped working for me because my body changed.
Weighing and measuring is important no matter what WOE you go with, just make sure you find something sustainable.2 -
Well, that whole "fats are bad" has been thoroughly debunked years ago. There is a lot of research on that.
If you are cutting carbs, you can't cut fat, too. No wonder you felt awful.
You're going to need to tighten up your food logging/weighing.2 -
cmriverside wrote: »Well, that whole "fats are bad" has been thoroughly debunked years ago. There is a lot of research on that.
If you are cutting carbs, you can't cut fat, too. No wonder you felt awful.
You're going to need to tighten up your food logging/weighing.
Yes!!! This^^^1 -
Maybe i should give low carbing another go but this time weight my food more often, higher carbs, and more fats. But why does this seem to be the only diet that my body responds to? I honestly dont like low carbing, i miss alot of foods. I would prefer a more complete diet....1
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Another thing to try out is carb cycling: eat more carbs on the days you train, if it's heavy weights or high intensity cardio, and cut some carbs out on your off days, when you do mostly slow paced cardio, things like walking or slow jogging. You can adjust how many carbs you're cutting so that it gives you an average deficit of 500 kcal /day in the course of a week, say.1
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I've been at the same weight for 2.5 years even though I've been trying to lose 10 pounds. I'm ~127, 46yo. I know I'm sloppy in my logging. If I switch to eating real foods, that are easier to calorie guess, or weigh foods honestly. I can lose weight. Guessing calories, is just impossible to be accurate - and I'm too bias. One whole bacon wrapped pizza couldn't possibly have more than 500 calories total, right?
Good luck.0 -
amyrebeccah wrote: »Maybe i should give low carbing another go but this time weight my food more often, higher carbs, and more fats. But why does this seem to be the only diet that my body responds to? I honestly dont like low carbing, i miss alot of foods. I would prefer a more complete diet....
Then try weighing your food every day and see how that works.
This! Eat what you like, weigh and log accurately and consistently to make sure you are hitting your calorie goal, and see what happens.
The reason you lost weight when you went low carb is because the way you were eating got you down to the right number of calories. You can get there without going low carb by logging everything.3
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