Should I be losing weight on 'no/very low carbs'?

[Geronimo]

OK - so recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes.

Came on here - and somebody recommended the lowcarbfreshwell.com list of foods I should aim for, which I've completely adopted. I've completely cut out carbs such as potatoes, rice, bread, pasta, etc, and stuck to mainly foods in the 'green' list, and maybe just dipping into the amber list (carrots and apples). I've upped the full fat food stuffs rather than buying semi- or no fat (ie, milk and yoghurt mainly).

I have lost about 4lbs in two weeks but that was in the first 4/5 days, and now for the remaining 10 days, have not moved an ounce.

I've done Slimming World before where I've eaten carbs as part of that diet, and lost 10lbs in two weeks, so something doesn't seem right.

I'd have thought I would go into 'ketosis' with having no carbs, but not sure I have, although I've noticed I can seemingly go for hours without feeling hungry. Getting to about 3/4pm in the afternoon and realise I've missed 'lunch'.

Should I expect to lose weight by eating no carbs? I am eating loads of green leaf veg, salads, and berry fruit.

 

[AndBreathe]

OK - so recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes.

Came on here - and somebody recommended the lowcarbfreshwell.com list of foods I should aim for, which I've completely adopted. I've completely cut out carbs such as potatoes, rice, bread, pasta, etc, and stuck to mainly foods in the 'green' list, and maybe just dipping into the amber list (carrots and apples). I've upped the full fat food stuffs rather than buying semi- or no fat (ie, milk and yoghurt mainly).

I have lost about 4lbs in two weeks but that was in the first 4/5 days, and now for the remaining 10 days, have not moved an ounce.

I've done Slimming World before where I've eaten carbs as part of that diet, and lost 10lbs in two weeks, so something doesn't seem right.

I'd have thought I would go into 'ketosis' with having no carbs, but not sure I have, although I've noticed I can seemingly go for hours without feeling hungry. Getting to about 3/4pm in the afternoon and realise I've missed 'lunch'.

Should I expect to lose weight by eating no carbs? I am eating loads of green leaf veg, salads, and berry fruit.

Hi there Geronimo - Do you count your carbs, or just stick with the items on your list? The reason I ask is sometimes they can just plain add up to more than we'd expect.

It would be really helpful if you could list, say, what you ate yesterday, with rough quantities.

Some folks find they lose readily on low carb, and it's less easy for some. One thing I will stress though is weight loss is not always linear. You may find in a few days a couple of pounds (or whatever) disappear apparently overnight.

 

[Geronimo]

Breakfast I had piece of smoked mackerel with 3x eggs, slice of Edam cheese, and rocket, watercress and spinach salad.

Lunch I had late (because I wasn't hungry until about 3pm) and had a salad of more rocket, watercress and spinach salad, baby plum tomatoes, radishes, blueberries and strawberries, olives and with some cooked chicken.

For dinner was salmon (baked in oven) with purple sprouting broccoli, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, and small handful of julienne carrots (the pre-cut ones you buy from Sainsbury's). I added a bit of grated cheddar over the top of the cauliflower.

Through the day, I had maybe 4/5 mugs of coffee - two with caffeine and rest decaf. All with milk. Also drank a few large glasses of water.

The above has been fairly typical since I started on low/no carb. I tend to stick to a 'portion size', which is about 80g per serving.

In the evening if I'm feeling nibbly, I have a slice of Edam cheese which is enough to take the edge off. I used to have cheese, crackers and an apple in the evening, but have stopped the crackers and only having an apple about once every 3 days or so.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

Sounds like a very tasty menu @Geronimo

And it’s great to hear that you are feeling fuller, as that should help to control any snacking impulses.

Some of our members who low carb seem to find that their weight falls away without really worrying about how much they are eating in total, but others find it helpful to keep tabs on calories as well as carb intake in order to get their energy balance right. Adding their menu into an app like nutracheck or myfitnesspal seems to help with keeping tabs on calories, though I’ve never used either myself.

Have you been checking your BG levels at home to monitor any possible improvement in levels? Or will you wait for a follow-up HbA1c at your next appointment?

 

[harbottle]

Low carb diet causes rapid weight loss initially as water weight is lost from the body (Something to do with the way glucose is stored in the body with water attached to it.).

 

[Geronimo]

Sounds like a very tasty menu @Geronimo

And it’s great to hear that you are feeling fuller, as that should help to control any snacking impulses.

Some of our members who low carb seem to find that their weight falls away without really worrying about how much they are eating in total, but others find it helpful to keep tabs on calories as well as carb intake in order to get their energy balance right. Adding their menu into an app like nutracheck or myfitnesspal seems to help with keeping tabs on calories, though I’ve never used either myself.

Have you been checking your BG levels at home to monitor any possible improvement in levels? Or will you wait for a follow-up HbA1c at your next appointment?

Thanks for your comments.

I was planning to wait until my next blood test to see how it is going. I'm confused about all the different test kits and 'technology' available for test blood sugars, so I thought I'd leave it to the professionals.

 

[Leadinglights]

Thanks for your comments.

I was planning to wait until my next blood test to see how it is going. I'm confused about all the different test kits and 'technology' available for test blood sugars, so I thought I'd leave it to the professionals.

Many find home blood glucose testing helps them see which foods they can tolerate. These work from a small finger prick sample applied to a test strip and inserted into a hand held monitor.
Those monitors are relatively inexpensive and a couple with cheaper test strips are the GlucoNavii or TEE2 which can be bought on line. You can buy a kit which has a few strips, lancets and a monitor so you should buy extra strips at the same time. It really helps many people to keep track and not suddenly find themselves being over that diagnosis threshold as they can test without waiting for that 'annual' HbA1C.

 

[Geronimo]

Posted a few weeks ago about me not losing any weight after starting on a low carb diet and three weeks on, despite sticking rigidly to eliminating carbs from my diet, I've still not lost anymore weight. I'm still where I was 3/4 weeks ago. I really don't understand what I'm doing wrong.

I've avoided all the obvious high carb foods like potatoes, pasta, bread and rice, and only having other starchy veg or higher carb fruit (carrots, butternut squash, apples) very occasionally - no more than 2/3 times a week, and only of one of those things a week - not all of them. I've been eating salad like it's going out of fashion, even having green leaf salad with breakfast which always consists of 3 eggs and mackerel or slice of ham. Need that many eggs to keep me from going hungry mid morning. Lunches are always salad and chicken. Evening meals have been chicken, pork or beef and again, loads of veg that have been roasted in the oven - cabbage, broccoli stems, courgettes, peppers, even roasted Brussel Sprouts! I've used olive oil to roast things which I understand is acceptable on low carb. I have been eating full fat cheeses but haven't gone mad with it. I also have a rigid 30g of peanuts in the late afternoon as that just takes any hint of feeling hungry away and fills the long gap between lunch and dinner. Again, understand peanuts and nuts in general are fine, as long as not overdone. 30g is a tiny portion when looking at it. I've also changed my milk to full fat rather than semi-skimmed as understand on no carb full fat it better.

Really don't understand what I'm doing wrong. I'm several stone overweight so I'd have thought even if it slowed down later, my initial weight loss would be a lot more dramatic then just losing no more than 10lbs.

I've read quite a bit of literature on going in to ketosis on no carb diet and for some it seems like it happens like the flick of a switch but my switch seems to be turned permanently off. Maintaining low carb would be fine if I was seeing results through weight loss but its just not happening and it's now really started to bug me. One bonus though is that the need to go to the loo all the time has stopped which is what prompted me to go to the doctors which is how I found out I was pre-diabetic.

 

[everydayupsanddowns]

One bonus though is that the need to go to the loo all the time has stopped which is what prompted me to go to the doctors which is how I found out I was pre-diabetic.

Sorry to hear your weight has stalled @Geronimo

The lack of needing the loo so frequently could well be a sign that the lower carb approach is helping your glucose levels though?

Low carb for weight loss generally seems to perform in a very similar way to low calorie in trials - and you aren’t the first member to find that it doesn’t seem to work well for them. It must be frustrating for you

When are you due a follow-up HbA1c? Might that offer some encouragement if your glucose levels have improved?

Perhaps you’ll be able to find a low-ish carb / low-ish calorie compromise that works for you?

 

[Leadinglights]

I think different methods work for different people, I remember years ago doing Slimming World in the days when there were green days (veg and pulses and pasta) and red days which were more meat based, I preferred the green but didn't lose as much weight on those as the red. I was always told I was not eating enough.

 

[debinfrance]

Hi, I’m new on here but an old hand with weightloss. I’m rather ashamed to have gained about 1st and half in the last couple of years ( I won’t make excuses) but have previously had great success with low carb. Like you, geronimo, its not working for me, as it has in the past. I’m thinking of doing a few weeks of low carb but actually also weighing everything (laborious, I know) and tracking my calories because I’m wondering if controlling portions might help. I know moving from having 3 meals to 4 was helpful before too, I didn’t feel the need to eat until very full to avoid being hungry later if that makes sense. Obviously I don’t know what you’re exercise regime is but I also decided today to stop being grouchy about mine and embrace it -I do actually enjoy gym exercise and long dog walks but have become very grumpy about it.
Anyway, I didn’t mean to make this reply about me but wondered if you might consider doing some of the same just to see if you’re overdoing the calories. It might also give you the confidence to eat a greater variety of foods. Good luck with losing a few pounds whichever way you end up doing.

 

[PerSpinasAdAstra]

Posted a few weeks ago about me not losing any weight after starting on a low carb diet and three weeks on, despite sticking rigidly to eliminating carbs from my diet, I've still not lost anymore weight. I'm still where I was 3/4 weeks ago. I really don't understand what I'm doing wrong.

To the best of my limited understanding, the 'magic' weight loss that results from a low carb diet is due to the time it takes to digest protein and fat compared to carbohydrates, and the effect on hunger that having those foods in your gut has. Sugar gets into your bloodstream extremely quickly. Refined starchy foods like white rice and bread quite fast. Wholegrains a bit slower due to the surrounding fibre. Protein and fat slower again, and fibre not at all. All this has an effect on how quickly your intestines, and thus your stomach, empties. Low carb diets work when you eat less calories because you don't feel as hungry. When it comes to how quickly you lose weight though it all come back to calories in and calories out.

You could try reducing some foods a little such as eating a little less cheese every day or one less egg. Maybe you could add more salad or veg to add fibre, which will help a little with how long you can go without feeling hungry. You could increase your level of exercise, if that's an option, which will increase your energy expenditure. Alternatively you could add up the calories in each meal for a couple of weeks using an app or a smart food weighing scale (can be had for as little as £23 on Amazon) to see exactly where the calories are coming from, and experiment with meals to see if you can delay feelings of hunger with less calories eaten.

In my case I fairly astonished at how many calories are in cheese and butter for example. When I began my campaign to lose weight and started weighing and measuring everything I discovered that the amount of butter I was putting on my potatoes added up to more calories than the potatoes themselves. Weighing and measuring and recording everything was eye-opening.

Best of luck with your weigh loss endeavors 🙂

 

[childofthesea43]

The bottom line is that significant weight loss requires significant calorie reduction. Low carbing does not in itself cause weight loss, it just facilitates it by reducing hunger. Telling people with T2D just to go low carb runs the risk for a minority that they will not also eat less overall, then wonder why their weight is not going down. The path to weight loss is completely simple: go on daily 100-130g carbs AND 1400 cals for three months, and for the vast majority of people that’s all there is to it. And that cals reduction alone would be sufficient in itself, if not as easy.

 

[Martin.A]

I attended some sessions on 'Reversing T2' run by our local surgery and when they talked about shedding weight as a key element one of the GPs told us that they'd run a weight loss programme with two groups of people, one group on a traditional low calorie diet and the other on a low carb diet and they found that the low carb group lost the most weight. The same GP rubbished the Calories In vs Calories Out mantra for weight gain/weight loss.

 

[PerSpinasAdAstra]

I attended some sessions on 'Reversing T2' run by our local surgery and when they talked about shedding weight as a key element one of the GPs told us that they'd run a weight loss programme with two groups of people, one group on a traditional low calorie diet and the other on a low carb diet and they found that the low carb group lost the most weight. The same GP rubbished the Calories In vs Calories Out mantra for weight gain/weight loss.

I would have to argue that calories in and out business isn't rubbish, though it is complex.

Protein can be considered in terms of calories, but if a young person engages in a lot of weight training a significant portion of the protein they eat will be converted to muscle mass. In that case, and there are many similar examples, the protein calories seem to disappear. If a person is on a very low carb diet their body will go into a state of ketosis, where the liver converts fat into ketones to fuel the body. Excess ketones are however expelled via the urine, another way that calories can seem to go missing. In the context of diabetes there is also the effect of certain medications to consider. An SGLT2 inhibitor will cause a person to expel glucose via the urine, yet another way in which calories ingested can disappear. In all cases though, energy sources ingested must be used to build cells, burned up, stored as fat, or dumped by the body. A low carb diet isn't sorcery.

In my case I tried to account for it all using a spreadsheet. It is based on the fact that 1Kg of stored body fat equates to approximately 7700 calories when burned (7.7 Kcal per gram). 7700 is a very round number so there's no way it's exact, but it's good enough for my purposes. I've attached an early version of this spreadsheet to illustrate how it works. Using the spreadsheet as a guide I was able to target a weekly weight loss rate of around 1Kg per week, and hit it fairly quickly, by adjusting the amount of calories I was eating and exercise I was doing over the course of a week. Calculated in this way, where calories used, burned and dumped are all accounted for, the math works quite well.

*edited to include the words 'stored as fat'

 

[childofthesea43]

In reply to Martin: That observation has no relevance to the point that serious weight loss must entail calorie reduction, whether one is measuring that or not. If I were to consume 2500 calories and 50g carbs a day my weight would rise and if I instead consumed 1500 calories with 300g carbs a day then it would fall.

 

[Martin.A]

@childofthesea43 & @PerSpinasAdAstra

Thanks for the lectures but your comments should really be directed at the GP running the course, not at me for simply reporting what he said.

 

[childofthesea43]

@childofthesea43 & @PerSpinasAdAstra

Thanks for the lectures but your comments should really be directed at the GP running the course, not at me for simply reporting what he said.

Fair enough, you were just reporting what he said, not saying you went along with it.

 

[PerSpinasAdAstra]

@childofthesea43 & @PerSpinasAdAstra

Thanks for the lectures but your comments should really be directed at the GP running the course, not at me for simply reporting what he said.

Apologies, I meant no offense or disrespect. I do have an unfortunate tendency to write as if I'm giving a lecture though, it must be said 😉

 

[harbottle]

I attended some sessions on 'Reversing T2' run by our local surgery and when they talked about shedding weight as a key element one of the GPs told us that they'd run a weight loss programme with two groups of people, one group on a traditional low calorie diet and the other on a low carb diet and they found that the low carb group lost the most weight. The same GP rubbished the Calories In vs Calories Out mantra for weight gain/weight loss.

This is a look at some studies that have been done comparing diets:

23 Studies on Low Carb and Low Fat Diets — Time to Retire the Fad

Over 20 studies have compared low carb and low fat diets. Low carb diets consistently lead to better results, both for weight loss and common risk factors.

www.healthline.com

Interesting stuff.

Low carb diet sees better levels of insulin and glucose. Naturally.

It does seem in the long term, both see pretty much the same results, with low carb seeing fast weight loss earlier on.