How to maintain weight without increasing carbs

[Gwynn]

As many of you know I have managed to control my diabetes with a huge weight loss and a very carefully controlled diet.

However, the time came when I needed to stop losing weight and to just simply maintain my weight.

Reducing my carbs really helped me to lose weight as the calories were automatically reduced too. Cholesterol was well managed. It was a really good way of losing weight and remaining healthy.

But my initial look into weight maintenance and increasing the calories resulted in either the carbs going unacceptably high or the cholesterol going unacceptably high, neither being a good situation.

It seemed like it was impossible to resolve.

However, I have recently discovered a zero carb, flavoured protein powder drink that body builders use. This particular one is different from most of them because it has zero carbs and the other do have carbs.

Having looked into using this, I can get the calories up whilst keeping the carbs and cholesterol down. Also my normal good nutrient diet remains too. Seems win-win.

It seems like a real solution. I will find out as, from today, as a trial, I will add the protein drink into my daily meal plans.

Has anyone else tried this on this forum and if so did it help ?

If anyone wants to know the brand of the protein powder then just let me know.

 

[rebrascora]

Personally I would not want to eat/drink imbibe anything quite so highly processed.

There is no conclusive evidence that eating more fat will increase your cholesterol and even if it does, the ratio is more important than the actual figure. Fat is very calorie dense so you only need to increase your intake a relatively small amount to increase your calories. It is also a natural part of our diet and comes with many different foods. Have a seconds of lamb moussaka like @adrian1der last night. That will help your weight maintenance in a much more enjoyable way than an industrially manufactured powder.

 

[Deleted member 21371]

As many of you know I have managed to control my diabetes with a huge weight loss and a very carefully controlled diet.

However, the time came when I needed to stop losing weight and to just simply maintain my weight.

Reducing my carbs really helped me to lose weight as the calories were automatically reduced too. Cholesterol was well managed. It was a really good way of losing weight and remaining healthy.

But my initial look into weight maintenance and increasing the calories resulted in either the carbs going unacceptably high or the cholesterol going unacceptably high, neither being a good situation.

It seemed like it was impossible to resolve.

However, I have recently discovered a zero carb, flavoured protein powder drink that body builders use. This particular one is different from most of them because it has zero carbs and the other do have carbs.

Having looked into using this, I can get the calories up whilst keeping the carbs and cholesterol down. Also my normal good nutrient diet remains too. Seems win-win.

It seems like a real solution. I will find out as, from today, as a trial, I will add the protein drink into my daily meal plans.

Has anyone else tried this on this forum and if so did it help ?

If anyone wants to know the brand of the protein powder then just let me know.

There is a shift from low carb high fat, to a low carb/protein diet now, it seems to be in it's initial days, let us know how you get on.

 

[Gwynn]

I certainly will let you know whether it works, fails, gives problems or is a success. I should know in very short order as I monitor things every day.

Day 1 and nothing has blown up so far.

And yes, I am increasing the fats too, so thanks for that. I just wanted to emphasise the protein bit here and ask if anyone else has tried this..

 

[Gwynn]

The ingredients are whey protein isolate, sunflower lecithin, natural flavouring, natural colouring, sucralose.

The EFSA has concluded that suclalose is safe. 20 years of safety studies (over 200 studies) have concluded that it is safe.

Just thought you might like to know. Yes, it is highly processed but it looks like the ingredients are good.

 

[rebrascora]

Your comprehension of "good" may be different to mine!

 

[Vonny]

Hi @Gwynn and good luck with the protein drinks. I'm also now on maintenance rather than loss but I've basically just increased my cheese/egg/nut/meat ratios so I'm eating more calories but roughly the same carbs. So far I've held the same weight for the past few weeks, fingers crossed it will continue!

 

[AndBreathe]

As many of you know I have managed to control my diabetes with a huge weight loss and a very carefully controlled diet.

However, the time came when I needed to stop losing weight and to just simply maintain my weight.

Reducing my carbs really helped me to lose weight as the calories were automatically reduced too. Cholesterol was well managed. It was a really good way of losing weight and remaining healthy.

But my initial look into weight maintenance and increasing the calories resulted in either the carbs going unacceptably high or the cholesterol going unacceptably high, neither being a good situation.

It seemed like it was impossible to resolve.

However, I have recently discovered a zero carb, flavoured protein powder drink that body builders use. This particular one is different from most of them because it has zero carbs and the other do have carbs.

Having looked into using this, I can get the calories up whilst keeping the carbs and cholesterol down. Also my normal good nutrient diet remains too. Seems win-win.

It seems like a real solution. I will find out as, from today, as a trial, I will add the protein drink into my daily meal plans.

Has anyone else tried this on this forum and if so did it help ?

If anyone wants to know the brand of the protein powder then just let me know.

I have a pact with myself and my partner that we'll eat real food. I also prefer to eat my meals and not dabble around the edges. I guess I'm fairly fortunate never to have cared for snacking.

When I needed to slow and stop my weightloss, I firstly just ate a bit more of all the components of my meal. That wasn't quite enough to do the job, so then concentrated on a bit more protein, then a bit more fat - making one change at a time.

Just as weight loss tends not to be linear, nor is maintaining. Weight naturally varies on a day-to-day basis, so just take it steady and do please only make one change at a time - else you won't know what has worked for you.

That doesn't mean to say your eating should be regimented, but you will want to know how to make the winning formula replicable.

A food diary could really help you here.

 

[Gwynn]

My carb target is anything less than 150g in a day. Preferably less than 125g which it normally is.

I could easily hit my calorie goal (1450 at the moment as I settle towards weight maintnance (1750 cals)) if I ignored the cholesterol consumption but I am trying to keep to below NHS guidelines which state (if I got it right) less than 300mg daily.

Today I am consuming

1350 Cals
138g carbohydrates
126g protein
30g fibre
12g saturated fats
3.9g salt
228mg cholesterol

Breakfast cerial and a banana
Morning snack nectarine, pear and one protein drink
Lunch prawn salad (lots of cucumber and lettuce) and one protein drink
Afternoon snack protein drink (I will use this as an isolated test to see any effect on BG)
Tea baked potato and cheese, salted peanuts
Evening snack raspberries, lindt really dark chocolate
Night meal (sort of) strawberries

All portion sizes are carefully worked out to give me a fairly even spread of carbohydrates across the day, except for todays afternoon snack which I am using as a special test of the protein drink on its own.

In all honesty if anything I did with my experimenting made me feel ill or strange or affected my BG levels I would either modify the testing or stop that particular testing. So far nothing I have done has has any adverse effect (I shouldn't say "so far"). The tests that I do are aimed at learning about me and how I react to different things.

 

[Gwynn]

Oh and I do keep a detailed health and food diary. Good tip.

I only change one thing at once (I think) and you are absolutely right, weight varies from day to day.

I did do an attempt at including a 'poo' and exercise factor into my app at one point but that natural variability you mention made it pretty much impossible to get it right. Still, it was fun trying.

 

[Vonny]

Baked potato..??

Ooh, I think I could kill for a baked potato. Haven't had one for over a year. I'm drooling now

 

[Deleted member 21371]

That's my dinner sorted, with a green salad

 

[Gwynn]

Yup, a really small baked potato with butter and cheese.

As I mentioned, everything is weighed so that each individual meal fits the day plan and doesn't break the carb bank.

It takes a bit of working out, hence the App.

 

[AndBreathe]

Personally, I would find 7 eating episodes in a day just too much. If all portions are small, it wouldn't be that, but to be honest, whilst I don't deliberately fast, unless I have a good reason, I do like my system to have a bit of a break from digestion between eating.

In an ideal world, would you eat 7 times a day, or is this to "spread the load"?

Obviously, we all have to work out what works best for us and what works for me could be purgatory for someone else..

 

[Inka]

I think your plan looks great @Gwynn 🙂 Ignore the baked potato police. If snacking works for you, then do it. Just because some people don’t like snacking or it doesn’t work for them, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t snack.

Could you try adding a few healthy fats maybe eg avocado?

 

[Deleted member 21371]

I think your plan looks great @Gwynn 🙂 Ignore the baked potato police. If snacking works for you, then do it. Just because some people don’t like snacking or it doesn’t work for them, doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t snack.

Could you try adding a few healthy fats maybe eg avocado?

Planned snacks work well for me, exactly the same routine.
Breakfast, snack, lunch, snack, tea, snack.

 

[Gwynn]

Yup snacking works for me. If it didn't then I would change the strategy.

I find that I get very hungry if I reduce the number of meals but increase each meals volume - and each meal would have more carbs too.

There is a school of thought that spreading the load, like I do, causes more strain on the pancreas as it may be working more most of the time. My view is that it is working most of the time anyway so reducing peaks of activity may be a good thing.

However, no one seems to know definitively and everyone is different.

The good news is that the protein drink had no ill effects at all yesterday (as I expected). So I feel that it is good to use if needed. Oddly I do not need to use it today as I was going to have fish and chips, I still may if I can navigate around the icebergs out there.

I am still tweaking how many carbs I need to maintain my weight. I thought that I had it but I suspect not quite.

Anyway I may try to make my own tomato sauce and salad cream as I can only just bear salads if I use the Heinz stuff. But I think home made might be better and much less carbs. So it may be an experimental cooking day today.

hmm, its just started raining now. No matter, I will be determined and get out there.

Its nice to see the interest you are tak8ng in this and also the alternate views too.

To increase the saturated fats I eat home made peanut butter spread on ritz biscuity things. They make a great snack and are not too carby.

 

[Deleted member 21371]

Yup snacking works for me. If it didn't then I would change the strategy.

I find that I get very hungry if I reduce the number of meals but increase each meals volume - and each meal would have more carbs too.

There is a school of thought that spreading the load, like I do, causes more strain on the pancreas as it may be working more most of the time. My view is that it is working most of the time anyway so reducing peaks of activity may be a good thing.

However, no one seems to know definitively and everyone is different.

The good news is that the protein drink had no ill effects at all yesterday (as I expected). So I feel that it is good to use if needed. Oddly I do not need to use it today as I was going to have fish and chips, I still may if I can navigate around the icebergs out there.

I am still tweaking how many carbs I need to maintain my weight. I thought that I had it but I suspect not quite.

Anyway I may try to make my own tomato sauce and salad cream as I can only just bear salads if I use the Heinz stuff. But I think home made might be better and much less carbs. So it may be an experimental cooking day today.

hmm, its just started raining now. No matter, I will be determined and get out there.

Its nice to see the interest you are tak8ng in this and also the alternate views too.

To increase the saturated fats I eat home made peanut butter spread on ritz biscuity things. They make a great snack and are not too carby.

It's always good to read other people's experiences.
My view on diabetes is it's always evolving.
I always want to find ways to improve my handling of it.

 

[Inka]

Perhaps both are right in that we’re all individuals and one-size might not suit us all?

 

[Gwynn]

Someone asked what product I am using but I cannot now find the message. Anyway here goes.

I went to Holland a Barrett initially so I could talk to someone. They didn't have what I wanted in store instead a product called PE whey protein (I think it may be their own brand but not sure about that) , chocolate flavour. I bought a small packet of it, went home and tried it.

It didn't really mix well and was way too sweet for me. It also had some carbohydrates. A bit of a thumbs down and a bit disappointed.

Undeterred, I upped my game went all over the internet and read a zillion user reviews and inspected ingredients and nutrition data.

I finally came across a product called ISO XP protein powder. It comes in a large tub which is quite expensive. Available from Amazon and Holland and Barrett.

I got a tub and tried the chocolate flavour one.

It mixed really easily and smoothly. Nice texture, subtle taste, not too sweet, and zero carbs.

I have given it the thumbs up. Definitely worth paying that bit more.

I actually liked it !!