Starting week 4 of Newcastle Diet

[mhtyler]

Day 23
Morning sugar: 5.8 mmol/L
Weight loss: 15.2 Lbs. about... 6.8 kilos?
Status: hanging in there
Pros: Not much in the way of hunger, but diet boredom is evident. Shakes and salad after all... Weight loss is now irregular, which is to say that weight plateaus are occurring. However, the weekly loss is still about 3.5 Lbs. per week. I expect it will slow to a bit less than 3 Lbs. per week towards the end of the 8-week program. Maintaining normal glucose numbers is a strong sign of significant pancreas activity, but that can't be confirmed until after a return to isocaloric eating (that's normal food to you and me) and an HbA1c test.
Cons: A slower run rate means that reaching my goal of 16 kilos or about 35 lbs will probably require a 9th week. It has also been noted on another thread of mine that remission even when achieved is often not maintained. The evidence is that this is only the effect of weight gain, and that those who can maintain their weight remain in remission. That said, it is well understood that losing and maintaining weight loss is only the hardest thing in the world to do, so...there's that.

As a side note, I drink tea sweetened with Stevia in between meals. I usually have 3-4 cups a day. Otherwise, I drink water. I find both really helps tame hunger, especially since I'm a sugar addict, and have two appetites to deal with.

 

[Drummer]

Day 23
Morning sugar: 5.8 mmol/L
Weight loss: 15.2 Lbs. about... 6.8 kilos?
Status: hanging in there
Pros: Not much in the way of hunger, but diet boredom is evident. Shakes and salad after all... Weight loss is now irregular, which is to say that weight plateaus are occurring. However, the weekly loss is still about 3.5 Lbs. per week. I expect it will slow to a bit less than 3 Lbs. per week towards the end of the 8-week program. Maintaining normal glucose numbers is a strong sign of significant pancreas activity, but that can't be confirmed until after a return to isocaloric eating (that's normal food to you and me) and an HbA1c test.
Cons: A slower run rate means that reaching my goal of 16 kilos or about 35 lbs will probably require a 9th week. It has also been noted on another thread of mine that remission even when achieved is often not maintained. The evidence is that this is only the effect of weight gain, and that those who can maintain their weight remain in remission. That said, it is well understood that losing and maintaining weight loss is only the hardest thing in the world to do, so...there's that.

As a side note, I drink tea sweetened with Stevia in between meals. I usually have 3-4 cups a day. Otherwise, I drink water. I find both really helps tame hunger, especially since I'm a sugar addict, and have two appetites to deal with.

I'd really recommend going to a low carb regime after the Newcastle diet.
It wasn't necessary to restrict anything other than carbs in order to return to normal numbers, and I have lost loads of weight - not that I am back to normal weight, but it took decades of pushing carbs to get me into the state I was when diagnosed, almost spherical, and 7 years later my shape and weight are changing, I keep having to go through my clothes and alter those no longer a good fit.
I'd suggest using that 9th week to begin to change to a 'normal' low carb diet and see if you can continue to lose weight and be in remission. My own experience is normal numbers for the last 7 years and feeling so much better as an added bonus, just by avoiding high carb foods and low fat options.

 

[mhtyler]

I'd really recommend going to a low carb regime after the Newcastle diet.
It wasn't necessary to restrict anything other than carbs in order to return to normal numbers, and I have lost loads of weight - not that I am back to normal weight, but it took decades of pushing carbs to get me into the state I was when diagnosed, almost spherical, and 7 years later my shape and weight are changing, I keep having to go through my clothes and alter those no longer a good fit.
I'd suggest using that 9th week to begin to change to a 'normal' low carb diet and see if you can continue to lose weight and be in remission. My own experience is normal numbers for the last 7 years and feeling so much better as an added bonus, just by avoiding high carb foods and low fat options.

That's very good advice, Drummer. I'm actually pretty good at low carb, and Youtube has been invaluable at finding good recipes. Just recently I found two amazing super low carb pasta replacements that I'm excited to try. I'm hoping that in remission I'll be able to handle up to 100 grams of carbs per day. That is about the limit of what a healthy liver can handle I believe. I might be able to raise that even higher over the course of a year if my pancreas recovers fully. I will be emphasizing protein however after 12 weeks because I'll be restarting my resistance training, and because protein has an even higher satiety than fat.

 

[Deb_l]

I truly admire your commitment to the plan. I was offered the Newcastle diet when I was first diagnosed but declined because I knew (this time around) I had to find something I could maintain for life and not just for a few weeks.

I'm the same as @Drummer and the low carb approach has worked REALLY well for me and I have lost weight easily, without the need to calorie count. It's also an approach I find easy to stick to, which is my biggest hurdle to falling off the wagon.

It's good you have a plan for after the diet stops as this is when so many people falter and go straight back to their old eating habits. It's so very easy to do..........I speak from experience 😉

Good luck, it's so worth it.

 

[mhtyler]

I truly admire your commitment to the plan. I was offered the Newcastle diet when I was first diagnosed but declined because I knew (this time around) I had to find something I could maintain for life and not just for a few weeks.

I'm the same as @Drummer and the low carb approach has worked REALLY well for me and I have lost weight easily, without the need to calorie count. It's also an approach I find easy to stick to, which is my biggest hurdle to falling off the wagon.

It's good you have a plan for after the diet stops as this is when so many people falter and go straight back to their old eating habits. It's so very easy to do..........I speak from experience 😉

Good luck, it's so worth it.

Thanks Deb, Yes I've been doing low carb and keto for some time now, but I wasn't getting anywhere weight-wise, and I knew if I didn't drop significant weight I wouldn't clear my liver, and I'd lose my last chance at recovering pancreas function. That's why I'm full-metal-jacket committed to this. My Wife is amazed at how I'm sticking to it, and I explained to her that if she had a gun pointed at her head she could do it too. That's how I see myself; gun pointed and cocked. I think I've an advantage once I lose weight in that I already have adjusted to low carb. I am concerned that this fast weight loss is like squeezing one end of a balloon: it just comes out the other end, but I'm desperate to put this behind me and have good health in my older years. I'm 69 after all, so how many chances to fix my health do I have?

 

[Drummer]

I found that weightloss was impossible on the advice I was given, but every time I want on that dreadful low carb diet I lost weight, ridiculous amounts of it, but there was the ceaseless hammering home of the message that only carbs were a healthy option, so stick to the plan and follow the diet sheet, it has to work.
Yeah, right.
Thankfully there seems to be no danger of putting weight on again, though I get odd looks when I have steak and mushrooms for breakfast. Not so much if I have bacon eggs and mushrooms - that seems acceptable but only as a 'naughty' choice.
I will be 73 soon - not sure how that happened - and I manage very well on less than 40gm of carbs a day. My after meal numbers fell to under 8 all the time, probably close to 7 now as my HbA1c is very close to normal and I suspect is only that high due to the slower replacement of cells as we age. When I tried to lower it by reducing carbs from a maximum of 50 down to 40 my HbA1c remained exactly the same, so it is obviously not a direct reflection of blood glucose levels.

 

[mhtyler]

I found that weightloss was impossible on the advice I was given, but every time I want on that dreadful low carb diet I lost weight, ridiculous amounts of it, but there was the ceaseless hammering home of the message that only carbs were a healthy option, so stick to the plan and follow the diet sheet, it has to work.
Yeah, right.
Thankfully there seems to be no danger of putting weight on again, though I get odd looks when I have steak and mushrooms for breakfast. Not so much if I have bacon eggs and mushrooms - that seems acceptable but only as a 'naughty' choice.
I will be 73 soon - not sure how that happened - and I manage very well on less than 40gm of carbs a day. My after meal numbers fell to under 8 all the time, probably close to 7 now as my HbA1c is very close to normal and I suspect is only that high due to the slower replacement of cells as we age. When I tried to lower it by reducing carbs from a maximum of 50 down to 40 my HbA1c remained exactly the same, so it is obviously not a direct reflection of blood glucose levels.

BTW Drummer, I'm 69 years old, so...not quite as young as springtime myself. Eating low carb I've found I can't tolerate much more than 40 carbs a day, maybe 50 if I'm lucky. I was walking quite a bit and that helped, but I'm just not comfortable...maybe happy is the right word with that low a carb intake. What is more, I was on it for some time and just wasn't losing weight. The Newcastle diet is a last ditch effort for me. That's why I'm throwing everything I've got into it.