Newcastle Diet -

[Feathers]

Well done for resisting!

What app are you using by the way?

 

[Weekender]

Well done for resisting!

What app are you using by the way?

Thanks Feathers 🙂
How is your's going?

The app that comes with my etekcity scales https://www.vesync.com/app

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Etekcity-Bluetooth-Wireless-Bathroom-Composition/dp/B07D7ND4YH

Getting the biometric data to work is a song and dance.
My thoughts on smart scales are on this thread

 

[trophywench]

Have you seen the doc to get alpha blockers yet, only your BP is getting a bit low now ....

 

[Weekender]

Thanks @trophywench , I wasn't aware this was an issue. I've had no interaction with GP other than 'see the practice diabetes nurse' and her first available slot isn't till 19th July (8 weeks from the request).
I have prostate issues and was offered alpha blockers, but didn't want to take meds.
Would you mind pointing me at information so I can better understand the low blood pressure issue an how it relates to weight loss please? I have been feeling a bit light headed

 

[Feathers]

Thanks Feathers 🙂
How is your's going?

Am trying to only weight & test once a week (constant monitoring was adding to the pressure/not doing me any good) So no new numbers. But am sticking to the 1100-1200. Still enjoying the shakes. Finding it easier than I expected not to eat in the evenings. I am slightly hungrier than I was on the 800, probably predictably - but I also have a TON more energy.

 

[Weekender]

More energy is fantastic 🙂
How you feel and function is a much more important indicator than all these bloomn' metrics I keep twiddling with.
Your diet is working !

 

[Weekender]

Have you seen the doc to get alpha blockers yet, only your BP is getting a bit low now ....

I had a bit more Soy sauce than usual with a stir fry last night - might be coincidence that my BP ticked up this morning.
I've ordered some electrolytes, and had a miso soup this morning.
Now you've mentioned it I've noticed I started 'wobbly leg' muscle twitches this morning - which I always did as teenager. I also felt giddy and had to sit down when I got out of the pool after a 1km swim this morning.

Low blood pressure (hypotension)

Find out about low blood pressure (hypotension), including what the symptoms are, when to get your blood pressure checked and treatments for low blood pressure.

www.nhs.uk

However I just put my lowest ever Diastolic and my lowest ever Systolic readings in the NHS calculator and still came out with 'ideal' so no drugs for me 😎

 

[trophywench]

I looked up alpha blockers on the NHS site, cos I couldn't remember where I'd heard of them from - but anyway was saying that you had to watch out for orthostatic hypotension, and I was aware from looking at your graphs how lovely your BP was!

My husband's was similar all his life - and when I first visited their house was astonished to discover the seat was never left up, even if he'd only just been before I needed to. After we got together I asked him about this and apparently a couple of times in the past when he'd been in bed and woke up and had to shoot the loo pdq, he'd literally fallen over with a crash and woke the hole house up as he hit everything between him and the floor. So although he could and would stand up, he usually sits down to wee as well as big jobs! After his prostatectomy - they wouldn't let him come home cos his BP was only 118 over 60 - and I was saying to the ward sister - What the hell have you been doing to him in here? - you're clearly stressing him out, according to his BP on your machine! And he was saying OK I'll stay in and be bed blocking until I pop me clogs then ..... or you could try ringing my consultant and asking him if I usually have a lowish BP, and see what he says.

 

[Weekender]

Dehydration - Warning
Link VLCDs require medical supervision because of the increased risk for medical complications, including electrolyte imbalance, dehydration, gallstones, and other abnormalities.
My Blood Pressure this morning was very low 80/55 which was alarming. I hadn't drunk my usual pint or two of water upon waking. I drank 2 pints of water, waited an hour and BP was 112/75 (see chart). I bought some electrolytes, and now add these to my exercise water bottle. So a word of warning if you are DIY (there is no support available from my GP practice), make sure you stick to the recommended 3 litres a day - The process of lipolysis (breaking down fat) requires water

 

[Leadinglights]

I looked up alpha blockers on the NHS site, cos I couldn't remember where I'd heard of them from - but anyway was saying that you had to watch out for orthostatic hypotension, and I was aware from looking at your graphs how lovely your BP was!

My husband's was similar all his life - and when I first visited their house was astonished to discover the seat was never left up, even if he'd only just been before I needed to. After we got together I asked him about this and apparently a couple of times in the past when he'd been in bed and woke up and had to shoot the loo pdq, he'd literally fallen over with a crash and woke the hole house up as he hit everything between him and the floor. So although he could and would stand up, he usually sits down to wee as well as big jobs! After his prostatectomy - they wouldn't let him come home cos his BP was only 118 over 60 - and I was saying to the ward sister - What the hell have you been doing to him in here? - you're clearly stressing him out, according to his BP on your machine! And he was saying OK I'll stay in and be bed blocking until I pop me clogs then ..... or you could try ringing my consultant and asking him if I usually have a lowish BP, and see what he says.

Alpha blockers are often taken for BPH (prostate issues) so Tamsulosin is a common one. That may be why you have heard of it.

 

[trophywench]

What I was actually thinking to tell the truth was asking myself 'are those summat to do with blood pressure' and the answer to that is no you silly moo, that's Beta blockers.....

Changing to the original drug and what it's for, and yes I know 'benign' only means 'well it ain't cancerous' but when applied to prostate hyperplasia, not usually entirely unnoticeable.

In view of the way the word is used in day to day language, the bloke might quite easily think Oh well, that's doing me good then, isn't it! and I couldn't blame him for that. Rather like the word 'chronic' ........

 

[Weekender]

Week 4 Update
Blood pressure is still very low in the morning. An hour after a couple of pints of water it reverts to normal.
3 days holiday in Pembroke / Saundersfoot etc to visit my daughter - very beautiful county. Being out and about I had food over and above the 800 calories - fish fingers, chicken curry, and cawl (lamb stem) with crusty white roll and cheese.
So I shouldn't be surprised I only lost 0.3Kg over the three days. A bit disappointing as we walked 15Km up and down on Sunday.
Fasting blood sugars at 5.6 this morning - which is an unwelcome increase
Weight loss so far 12.2Kg, but the trend is decreasing.
Off for jog and a swim today which should stimulate some fat burn

 

[Feathers]

Progress is still progress, and sounds like you managed a nice break without completely blowing it, which is awesome.

 

[Weekender]

Metabolism - Heart Rate
Week 5 of the Newcastle 800 calorie a day diet and the change in my resting heart rate is quite marked.
Prior to the diet my resting heart rate averaged 64bpm, and this week 54bpm.



You would expect the heart to have an easier time of now I'm 12Kg lighter, but it is a significant drop.
Reading around the subject I learned:
Caloric restriction is known to produce a short-term reduction in resting metabolic rate. Adaptive thermogenesis (AT) has been proposed to be a compensatory response that may resist weight loss and promote weight regain
Well this seems bad news, the body slows down in response to fewer calories.
I felt I was maintaining / increasing the activity I was doing. But the data shows that whilst I felt I was doing more I wasn't.

Ideally the diet would burn fat, but leave the fat free mass unaffected by protein oxidation (burning muscle)
The research is fairly inconsistent. Some state AT is temporary, others that is the reason diets fail in the long term.
This article describes a few things to do to off set the problem.
I'm going to increase weight training and started adding whey protein to the dietary mix (increase calories)
I started yesterday and have added 0.4kg this morning :-(
Early days.

Blood Pressure update - Still low in the morning, but perks up to normal after some water and coffee

 

[Eddy Edson]

Metabolism - Heart Rate
Week 5 of the Newcastle 800 calorie a day diet and the change in my resting heart rate is quite marked.
Prior to the diet my resting heart rate averaged 64bpm, and this week 54bpm.

View attachment 17554
View attachment 17555
You would expect the heart to have easier time of now I'm 12Kg lighter, but it is a significant drop.
Reading around the subject I learned:
Caloric restriction is known to produce a short-term reduction in resting metabolic rate. Adaptive thermogenesis (AT) has been proposed to be a compensatory response that may resist weight loss and promote weight regain
Well this seems bad news, the body slows down in response to fewer calories.
I felt I was maintaining / increasing the activity I was doing. But the data shows that whilst I felt I was doing more I wasn't.

Ideally the diet would burn fat, but leave the fat free mass unaffected by protein oxidation (burning muscle)
The research is fairly inconsistent. Some state AT is temporary, others that is the reason diets fail in the long term.
This article describes a few things to do to off set the problem.
I'm going to increase weight training and started adding whey protein to the dietary mix (increase calories)
I started yesterday and have added 0.4kg this morning :-(
Early days.

Blood Pressure update - Still low in the morning, but perks up to normal after some water and coffee






View attachment 17552

Recent book on metabolism by leading researcher Herman Pontzer (witht that name, he better be a leading researcher!): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/603894/burn-by-herman-pontzer-phd/

Pontzer’s groundbreaking studies with hunter-gatherer tribes show how exercise doesn’t increase our metabolism. Instead, we burn calories within a very narrow range: nearly 3,000 calories per day, no matter our activity level. This was a brilliant evolutionary strategy to survive in times of famine. Now it seems to doom us to obesity. The good news is we can lose weight, but we need to cut calories. Refuting such weight-loss hype as paleo, keto, anti-gluten, anti-grain, and even vegan, Pontzer discusses how all diets succeed or fail: For shedding pounds, a calorie is a calorie.

It's better than the blurb and the hype on the cover. Basically: No matter how active you are, you'll burn about the same amount of energy. So eg despite being way more active, Hadza hunter gatherers burn about the same as Western office workers. Most of the energy you burn is your cells doing their various things, not related to exercise. When you exercise more, what yr cells do changes to keep total expenditure about the same.

FWIW, I wouldn't combine a very low calorie diet with lots of exercise. Note that Roy Taylor recommends against it. Focus on calorie reduction to lose the weight, and when you're at target, increase calories to a "normal" level and stack on exercise to maintain the weight loss.

For other really interesting good science on weight stuff, check out Kevin Hall's work. Lead obesity etc researcher at the US National Institutes for Health, a number of groundbreaking experiments and studies in recent years.

Publications - Kevin D. Hall, Ph.D. - NIDDK

A highlight of the most recent influential research publications from Kevin D. Hall, Ph.D.

www.niddk.nih.gov

https://twitter.com/KevinH_PhD

 

[Weekender]

Recent book on metabolism by leading researcher Herman Pontzer (witht that name, he better be a leading researcher!): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/603894/burn-by-herman-pontzer-phd/

Pontzer’s groundbreaking studies with hunter-gatherer tribes show how exercise doesn’t increase our metabolism. Instead, we burn calories within a very narrow range: nearly 3,000 calories per day, no matter our activity level. This was a brilliant evolutionary strategy to survive in times of famine. Now it seems to doom us to obesity. The good news is we can lose weight, but we need to cut calories. Refuting such weight-loss hype as paleo, keto, anti-gluten, anti-grain, and even vegan, Pontzer discusses how all diets succeed or fail: For shedding pounds, a calorie is a calorie.

It's better than the blurb and the hype on the cover. Basically: No matter how active you are, you'll burn about the same amount of energy. So eg despite being way more active, Hadza hunter gatherers burn about the same as Western office workers. Most of the energy you burn is your cells doing their various things, not related to exercise. When you exercise more, what yr cells do changes to keep total expenditure about the same.

FWIW, I wouldn't combine a very low calorie diet with lots of exercise. Note that Roy Taylor recommends against it. Focus on calorie reduction to lose the weight, and when you're at target, increase calories to a "normal" level and stack on exercise to maintain the weight loss.

For other really interesting good science on weight stuff, check out Kevin Hall's work. Lead obesity etc researcher at the US National Institutes for Health, a number of groundbreaking experiments and studies in recent years.

Publications - Kevin D. Hall, Ph.D. - NIDDK

A highlight of the most recent influential research publications from Kevin D. Hall, Ph.D.

www.niddk.nih.gov

https://twitter.com/KevinH_PhD

Thanks Eddy,
I appreciate your reply, I will search out Herman Pontzer and Kevin Hall. I'm a bit lazy so I tend to look for the book launch videos of any book I'm interested in rather than read the book. I will watch this: Dr Herman Pontzer - the author of Burn
Your description of Pontzer's work reminded Daniel E. Lieberman's new book, “Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding” Here's a nice 10 minute video from him:
5 Common Exercise Myths Debunked | Daniel Lieberman

I saw that Prof Taylor advises against exercise + diet, his rationale is that exercise tends to make people hungry and that post exercise people feel they have 'earned' extra calorie credits to eat more (We always overestimate how many we burn).
I'm comfy that I won't fall into that trap.

There is a fair bit of research (one example paper attached) illustrating that exercise + VLCD results in the same weight loss as VLCD only, but you retain more muscle mass and lose more adipose fat as a %.

But to be honest, week 5 and I'm getting fed up with constipation, slower weight loss and a bit concerned about blood pressure and resting heart rate. My fasting blood sugars are fine now. In week 4 my motivation switched from T2 remission to:
~Complete the 8 weeks to prove I can
~Get from a 43" to a 37" waist and / or healthy body fat %

I'm tempted to move off the 800 calories and carry on with just no more beer (alcohol in general) or bread

 

[Eddy Edson]

Thanks Eddy,
I appreciate your reply, I will search out Herman Pontzer and Kevin Hall. I'm a bit lazy so I tend to look for the book launch videos of any book I'm interested in rather than read the book. I will watch this: Dr Herman Pontzer - the author of Burn
Your description of Pontzer's work reminded Daniel E. Lieberman's new book, “Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding” Here's a nice 10 minute video from him:
5 Common Exercise Myths Debunked | Daniel Lieberman

I saw that Prof Taylor advises against exercise + diet, his rationale is that exercise tends to make people hungry and that post exercise people feel they have 'earned' extra calorie credits to eat more (We always overestimate how many we burn).
I'm comfy that I won't fall into that trap.

There is a fair bit of research (one example paper attached) illustrating that exercise + VLCD results in the same weight loss as VLCD only, but you retain more muscle mass and lose more adipose fat as a %.

But to be honest, week 5 and I'm getting fed up with constipation, slower weight loss and a bit concerned about blood pressure and resting heart rate. My fasting blood sugars are fine now. In week 4 my motivation switched from T2 remission to:
~Complete the 8 weeks to prove I can
~Get from a 43" to a 37" waist and / or healthy body fat %

I'm tempted to move off the 800 calories and carry on with just no more beer (alcohol in general) or bread

Good luck!

The Kevin Hall guy I mentioned is really a bit of a rockstar amongst serious metabolism etc researchers & he speaks quite well. Presenting a fascinating overview of his reserach and experiments from the last few years:

 

[Weekender]

Thanks, I'll watch this tonight

 

[Weekender]

Wow. That was really informative and interesting. I'll have to watch it a few more times for it all to sink in.
Low carb diet results in faster weight loss but an increased % reduction in fat free body mass ~ more fat loss on a low fat diet.
Fascinating to see the dramatic impact of the switch to ketosis on energy expenditure is the short term, but at the cost breaking down protein / gluconeogenesis reduced fat free body mass. I wonder if increasing dietary protein might offset this?
It's really cool to see the correlation between my data and the study

Weight loss rate


Energy Expenditure


I think I'll stop the VLCD and just cut some calories and exercise more.

 

[Weekender]

Plateau.
"before you get too discouraged, you should know that it’s normal for weight loss to slow and even stall for a while. That is because your body has adapted to your current programme, and has learned to cope with the same energy demands while burning fewer calories".

Well I am mightily discouraged as it happens. No weight loss in 6 days.
3.4 Kg away from my target 15kg / 15% weight loss and feel like walking away.
Calories are constant (Easy to measure on a meal replacement diet). I'm still also only eating between 12:00 and 19:00. I'm jogging and swimming etc. However I am a bit more sedentary in between bouts of exercise. This is to be expected as my metabolism adjusts to fewer calories and slows down.
I will try and do more weights, but I really dislike weight training.
I am also very constipated despite drinking several extra pints of water. I've ordered some senna tea.