ssl060's Journal, 25 Aug 14

Carrots equal starch, starch converts to glucose, glucose elicits a insulin response, insulin converts glucose to fat. If you want to succeed in a very big way, eliminate sugar & all starch, which in turn converts to sugar. Green leafy veg in place of anything that resembles a seed of grain or a root vegetable. Want to learn how, read a book called "the art & science of low carbohydrate living." Eating 500 cals is not going to help you lose weight & keep it off. Starvation diets are unsustainable where carb restriction is. 

Or Good Calories Bad Calories, or Why We Get Fat and What to do About it, or The Big Fat Surprise. Nice to see that someone understands why this site serves such a big need. 

Need to eat to burn more cals. 

Lost 0.7 kilos since yesterday - 5.3 kilos overall since August 1...must be doing something right :) 

700 grams is great, the test will be how long you can stay on a 500 cal protocol when your body needs 2000 cals a day to function. You can eat 2000 cals of the right food & lose weight permanently, the catch is that it requires a change of lifestyle. I have been on a carb restricted diet for 6 months & will stay on it for good as I see no reason to go backwards. I went from 96 Kg to my current 84 kg. Body fat is around 12%. I have now ramped my calorie intake up to 4000 cals per day in order to put some weight back on (muscle) Drinking stuff like skimmed milk is a complete waste of time, we consume full fat milk, around 100 grams of cheese each day, cocnut oil, extra virgin olive oil by the table spoons, lamb cutlets with the fat, roast pork with the fat, chicken with the skin on, all the stuff we're told is bad for you, yet the results of my blood tests have come back with normal lipid & triglyceride levels, normal cholesterol levels & most importantly to me lowered uric acid levels. I attribute all of the above to a lifestyle change that embraces a diet high in dietary fats & very low in carbohydrates. The real challenge is, can you cut sugar & refined carbs out you your diet for ever? It is one of the greatest challenges facing western society, our entire food supply chain has evolved from our bronze age agricultural fore bearers. Where many of the foods that were grown sustained them, that is all it had done, it did not offer the promise of good health or longevity, nor does our current mainstream diet or processed carbohydrate rich cuisine. Hence the current epidemic of metabolic disorders & over weight persons. You can be led by those who are out to profit from your dilemma, IE weight watchers, Jenny Craig & the likes. O r you can educate yourself, & in doing so gain control of your future health & well being. The book I recommended as to the books recommended by Biggergus are essential reading. I also recommend a book called the real meal revolution by prof . Tim Noakes. Another absolute gem. Good luck & I really hope you achieve your goal.  

Dear Marco22242, It is so good of you to provide feedback to my posts and I really appreciate all that you have said. I have just commenced the 5:2 challenge which is 2 days of 500cal and the balance at normal (I am currently maxing at 1200cal). The biggest issue that I have had, which has contributed greatly to my weight gain, has been years of alcohol abuse - it is this single factor, not so much the food that I eat, that I need to be able to control more appropriately once I have reached my goal weight. In recent years I too have had extremely high uric acid levels although these, along with my cholesterol, liver and other bloods, have all reduced dramatically since cutting out red wine and limiting my white wine intake. It has just been a great motivator to see a kick start to my metabolism which, up until now, has been very sluggish. Thank you so much for your information and for taking the time to offer support.  

I didn't mention Tim Noakes, only because I didn't want to bang on too much. ssl060, my wife and I were on the 5:2 for a while, not to lose weight (strange as that may seem) but for the other possible benefits. Read the book by Michael Moseley if you have not already done so. We both had to stop because we lost too much weight. I now do the 6:1 and today is the '1', so you won't see my normal huge number of saturated fat calories. Since you know about the 5:2, you know about Michael Mosely, but I wonder if you realise that he very recently flipped, and now is firmly in the 'eat more fat' camp? Google 'michael mosley saturated fat' and you will find the article from last month in the UK newpapers. As Marcosss42 says, the absolute best thing you and anyone struggling with weight can do, is read the books we mention. The one by Nina Tiecholz is probably the most 'readable', the later one by Gary Taubes (Why We Get Fat) would be the next most 'readable', but if you really want the science and the whole story, go for Good Calories Bad Calories. The Tim Noakes book has some great recipes too, though I think he should forget the xylitol, though that is another thing altogether. Interestingly enough, the Australian Cricket team adopted this high fat, low carb diet in 2013, because the team doctor is South African (as is Tim Noakes) and he took Noakes' ideas on board. This turned out to be a successful move as it happens. One of our football teams is now on it too. What may be confusing here is the two different positions, which may seem to be at odds with each other, yet aren't. 5:2 works, there is no doubt there, and it is a good idea regardless of the weight loss or stabilising results. What both Marco and I are saying is that there is no need to calorie restrict to lose weight, you can eat all the calories you want and you will lose weight, PROVIDED THEY COME FROM THE RIGHT SOURCE. Chicken skin is good for weight loss, it just isn't too good on the 2 day in the 5:2 thing, because on those days you are limiting calories. You eat carrots yet throw away chicken skin, because you have been told one will make you fat, and the other won't. The problem is that they told you the opposite of the facts. You can eat a diet high in saturated fat AND lose weight, AND be on the 5:2 (or 6:1 in my case) at the same time. On 6 days of the week, I eat a high fat lowish carb diet. On the one day remaining, I eat a calorie restricted diet, lots of eggs and salmon and leafy green veg and such. Understand though that I do the 6:1 not for weight loss, but for other benefits. Google a recent documentary called Cereal Killers and watch it. It will make what we are saying all suddenly make sense. Look for another doco about to be released called Carb Loaded. Don't stop with 5:2, you will lose weight AND gain other benefits, but read these books, or at least summaries of them, and you will understand that the common conceptions of how to lose weight are all backwards, and are actually CAUSING us to GAIN weight, not lose it. The things that Marco lists as his diet mirror my diet, and I have bloods to die for. Low triglycerides, low VLDL, low trig/hdl and high HDL. This is the exact opposite of what they used to say when I ate the diet they claimed to be best. Stick with the 5:2 (or 6:1), do some reading, do some googling, watch some docos, and enjoy what you eat and the benefits you WILL see. :)  

Wow! That is some great information, thanks so much! I will certainly look up the links that you have suggested. Years ago I successfully completed Jenny Craig's weight loss programme but, as you and Marco have said, found that the "diet" (or what I had considered to be healthy eating habits) had caused my cholesterol levels to become really high. I couldn't understand it as I was as fit and healthy as I had ever been. Obviously this was not the case. I have done a bit of reading on the subject but will now do some more research thanks to your pointers. If I mention the Aussie Cricketers my hubby might come on board too! Thanks again, Sonja. 

Hi Sonja, I realise that taking medical advice from a stranger probably isn't the smartest thing to do, which is why we both pointed you at the places where it would be wise to listen: Taubes, Noakes, Teicholz, Lustig and Phinney & Volek (Marco's one). Those last two authors are well discussed by Teicholz in her book. :-) Since you know the cricketers, you might also know Easts, aka the Roosters, they are on it too. Chase up Cereal Killers, it will open your eyes. Watching Tom Naughton's Fat Head wouldn't hurt either, it is more light hearted than most, but we are all singing from the same song book. Make sure you read Michael Mosley's 180 degree flip re fat, that will really surprise you. Stick with the 5:2 though, it is a good thing, but for other reasons :) A 'healthy' diet in Jenny Craig's eyes is full of carbs. Carbs raise triglycerides and do bad things with cholesterol, though once you introduce cholesterol into this it gets complex, because simply saying 'your cholesterol is too high' is totally meaningless. The only parts about cholesterol that matter are HDL (which should be high) and VLDL (which should be low). The other two important factors are the ratio of total cholesterol to HDL, and the ratio of HDL to triglycerides. A friend told me the other day how she was proud of her 'low cholesterol' and I told her that it was not only bad, but bad twice. Post menopausal woman with low cholesterol are WORSE off than ones with higher totals, is the first part of bad, and I then gave her a real world example of how the other part is bad (real world being my own bloods). 10 years ago, my total cholesterol was 4.25, last time I had it checked, it was 4.4. Current thinking says I am worse off now, than I was a decade ago. BUT... the markers that count are now all WAY better than they were. My trigs are WAY down (good) very low and well within the safe range. My HDL is almost double (amazingly good), though still not quite as high as it needs to be, though far closer to ideal than it was a decade ago. My cholesterol to HDL ratio is way better, now well within the ideal range, instead of being waaaaaaaay outside it. My LDL is now slightly higher than it is supposed to be, though this one particular ‘marker’ is not relevant, because it is a remnant of the olden days before we knew that there were two types of LDL (LDL, and VLDL) and it turns out that LDL numbers mean nothing, it is only VLDL that matters. My trig to HDL ratio is a MASSIVE improvement, gone from 50% HIGHER than it should be, to 80% UNDER the upper limit. My VLDL is also a quarter of what it was. I realise that a study of one proves nothing, but I can say that every person I know who has swapped from the low fat high carb idea to high fat low carb has had the same results. Anyway, I will shut up now and let you make your own decisions based on your own research. Thank you for not dismissing out of hand, what does admittedly seem a little 'out there'. mmm, BBQ chicken skin.... :)  

Just been reading about Michael Mosley and Tim Noakes...wonder if we should pass this onto the Wallabies camp :D 

Well, you can pass it on, but the thing is, will they believe it? :) It seems so totally counter intuitive, BUT, once you understand the 'how', it becomes so self evident that you wonder how we ever ended up where we are! Noakes is a good one, because he is/was a marathon runner of note, and a doctor, who once promoted carbs as the way to go, until he realised (like Mosely) that they aren't. Now go and find Donal (Cereal Killers) His actual blood tests before and after are online for all to see. You are getting thinner already I think! It's almost dinner time, thankfully, after a week of eating like a pig, my '1' is not so much fun :) Life wasn't meant to be easy. 

oh, I forgot to mention, Tim Noakes is in Australia now, and in fact is doing a speaking tour. One of the co-speakers is Steve Phinney, who is the co-author of the book that Marco mentioned. 

Will have a look at Cereal Killers now. Thanks for all your suggestions and good luck with the rest of the day! (I try and go to bed early on fast days lol) 

Yeah, get up late, early to bed, that's the trick :) You will enjoy Donal, he seems like a nice bloke, and you will get to meet Tim Noakes and watch him tearing his old book up :) 

@Biggergus We're actually going to the low cards down under seminar at StKilda town hall on Saturday, should be an informative day. I just had to get my fats up after over doing it on protein today, so a little recipe I just made up. 50g. virgin cold pressed coconut oil, 13g. Van Houten pure cocoa powder, 15g desiccated coconut 3 teaspoons of the finest quality stevia. warm the coconut oil in a double boiler until liquid , add the cocoa powder & mix through, add the stevia & mix through, add the coconut flakes. I ate it as a liquid, but you could easily pop it into a tray, let it solidify & eat it like chocolate crackle minus the carbs. & with the benefits of both the cocoa & the coconut oil. 

hmmm, interesting recipe. It will come as no shock that I have all of those things in my cupboard. I am so trying it tomorrow :) St Kilda is a little far from NSW South Coast, but if I was within striking distance, I would be there to say g'day. It is a sellout as you probably know, so that can only be a good thing.