Has anyone done a low fat and low carb diet at the same time?

concordancia wrote: »

Sounds like you had the same classes as my mom. Low fat and low carb pretty much leaves you with vegetables and lean proteins. If you want to give it a try, look into the introduction phase of the South Beach Diet for a healthy version, but it isn't really a long term solution for most of us.

Are you overweight? If so, then losing weight is the single best indicator for improving your pre- diabetes. That means eating whatever helps you feel satisfied with fewer calories.

One reason that diabetes classes focus on low fat is because diabetes and heart disease often coincide. For the same reason, low fat is not as important as healthy fats: the fats from certain fish, nuts and things like avocados and olives that actually protect our hearts.

If your diabetes class is ongoing, they should get around to counting carbs. It isn't necessary to eat low carb (or low fat) in any traditional sense, but rather to limit the carbs per meal. The America Diabetes Association still allows for a pretty traditional diet, but with carbs limited to ~60g at a time. Many who test their sugar levels regularly find that too much, but for a pre-diabetic it should be fine.

Focus on what you can eat and try new things. Lots of veggies, prepared in different ways. Beans (yes, they are higher carb, but much of those carbs are fiber) and other lean proteins. Learn what to add avocados to, if you can afford them (I make a tzatziki like substance out of avocados to have with falafel).

For sweets, I look to keto and paleo recipes. We keep a simple cocoa, sweetener, coconut oil and almond butter "fat bomb" in the freezer for when either of us wants chocolate. Since they melt at room temperature, you can't sit with the bag of them on the couch. We also recently started making chia pudding: what an excellent way to up the fiber in your diet! The aforementioned South Beach Diet also has some interesting options, mostly made with ricotta cheese. I remember liking the lemon flavored ricotta dessert.

PAV8888 wrote: »

Assuming you're (significantly) overweight, any loss of excess fat has a substantial likelihood of improving all of your blood-work--at least this has been the experience of a lot of people around here.

If you have metabolic damage, lowering carbs has the potential to make things easier on you in terms of elevated blood sugar levels. Fat has a lot of calories per gram and when intake is not controlled (particularly when it is consumed as a part of hyper-palatable food combinations) there is a high potential of eating a lot of calories while achieving a low degree of satiation.

That said, pre-diabetic doesn't mean diabetic. Thus the degree of metabolic damage you may already have, if any, is not quantified.

If either party is linking any particular diet to weight loss, the experience of many people around here has been that the "whichever personal way of eating" you can adopt long term, the one which allows you to control your caloric intake such that you can maintain a substantial enough deficit over a long enough period of time, will be much more likely to lead to success as compared to adopting a way of eating that is novel for a while; but, not sustainable for you long term.

If sedentary, adding even modest "exercise" such as moderate daily walking -- or in general increasing your activity level -- may also act as a catalyst in improving your blood markers.