TuitNutrition, Amy Berger, on The Truth about Weight Loss
 

Amy Berger has posted the first part of a short series on the Truth about Weight Loss, particularly with the pre/post-menopausal woman in mind.
Her blog is witty and smart ( though her writing has a tendency to go on and on). I'll post the next part when available. This section points out common patterns of weight loss, to be followed by several answers to the question, Why am I not losing weight on a low-carb diet? She'll also explore logical explanations for day-to-day multi-pound fluctuations in scale weight.


http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2015/1...-loss.html#more,

It starts...

Ha, I read this and thought "wow, that's ME!" but then I read the next part of the sentence where she said they had ALL been chronically undereating to the tune of 800-1200 calories a day for years or decades, and had to add, "wow, that is NOT me!". I've never chronically undereaten like that in this lifetime. Yeah I have low-cal days, especially rhe last few months doing IF and the potato hack, but certainly not chronic. Guess I will have to check out the rest of the article. I wonder if here is one of the places she lurks?

Boy is that the truth!

Funny, I was just reading that article last night - it's definitely worth a read. Amy has a very easy refreshing humorous delivery and she is excellent at assimilating a bunch of info from a number of different sites and her own knowledge base.

I will be anxious to see if she has any new solutions - I'm guessing lower expectations, stay the course, eat for health will be a main theme.

And, yes, Debbie, she does show up on this site from time to time - she posted once or twice to a thread I used to frequent.

Amy has over the past couple of months posted a series called ITIS (It's the Insulin, Stupid) . It's 8 long parts but a really thorough look at insulin and insulin resistance. It gets pretty technical at times (in a satisfying way), but is still readable and occasionally humorous. One of the things I found interesting (and not as widely spoken about) is that it is unclear WHY insulin resistance develops - what comes first? Is it too many carbs that lead to insulin resistance or something further upstream, such as faulty glucagon receptors/signaling/response/whatever? For the most part, her thoughts are very much in line with Dr Fung's.

From the comments section:



I see this a lot on the forum, and I think it needs to be highlighted. Often the ones obsessing about each and every foodstuff are the ones who go off plan over and over again, and maybe don't give their body much chance to heal long term.

Very true. I'm one of those who is a daily weigher and I *need* to be a daily weigher, but I use it has a tool and don't obsess about it. Hey, after six years of watching the scale bounce up/down/up/down over and over again in a 5-20 pound range I'd probably be in the looney bin by now if I got too obsessed. :lol:, But I know if I *don't* weigh daily I can be in big trouble. I get too much of the mindset of: 1)"Hey, I can eat _this_(insert naughty food of choice) because I don't have to weigh myself for a week, or two, or three, and I'll get back on plan and lose the weight before then". So I do, but then the next day or two I'll eat something naughty again as I know I *still* have plenty of time before I need to weigh in. Of course then weigh-in day comes and I say 2)"well I really did eat a lot of naughty stuff. I better push weigh-in day off another week or two or three so I don't get depressed with the scale." so I push it off, revert back to step one. :lol:

Then before you know it I haven't been on the scale in a month or two, so at some point I do gingerly step on, and find I'm up 40-50 pounds (and yes I find it very easy to gain 40-50 pounds in that sort of time frame), and then I say 3) "screw it, I'm going out to have a hot fudge sundae". That's how every diet I've failed on has gone, so daily weighing totally prevents that. I still gain at the drop of a hat. Gained almost 5 pounds this week from eating an ad lib LCHF diet, so went back on the Potato Hack and am back down 4. A five-pound gain can be dealt with. A 50-pound gain is too depressing to contemplate.

I think Amy's advice about the scale may be good for the generally healthy woman who feels she'd look better if she could just drop 20 pounds, but maybe not so much for people like me!

I took this personally. And don't misunderstand, I'm not saying you're wrong. I AM one of those people. It's just that when I came to this forum I had been eating mostly on plan for 6 years without weight loss. I'm also one of those post-menopausal women with insulin resistance, not T2, only on one prescription medication and in general good health who is looking for the secret n=1 which will break my ever-lasting plateau.

Then, I see JustJo's anniversary, and read her posts about how she just "Eats OP every day" and I feel like an absolute idiot, jumping to IF, then to a potato hack, getting sick from who-knows-what new supplement or adding resistant starch. Honestly, I don't know what gets into me sometimes!

My goal is to be healthy and mobile, stay clear of T2 and arthritis pain. Still, the vain woman I've always been wants the weight-loss payoff.

I agree with you Lee. I read this too and think...no no it's not that little shrimp or egg or whatever. Those are kneejerk reactions that have no immediate connections to what on plan food that was eaten.

If ever there was a time that I needed to read this, it's now! I've recently rededicated myself to weightloss after years of puttering around on maintenance level carbs...then my thyroid crashed and those maintence levels actually didn't save me from a 35 pound gain in the past 18 months. I've been logging onto MFP daily and am lucky if I reach 1300 calories most days, despite not trying to limit them. It just seems to have come naturally, as the weight piled on over the years, my carbs AND calories naturally decreased. Really need this! Thanks for posting!

I'm really glad she is addressing this, but I think she is on the wrong track. I've noticed for a while that almost all the people with this frustrating issue seem to be women "of a certain age". Her article just confirms that observation. The logical conclusion is that this is hormone related--what differentiates women of this age from (most) younger women? (and men?) They are going through a period of tremendous turmoil in regards to hormones.

Amy is only 37 so I don't think she quite "gets" that. I don't know if anyone that hasn't gone through menopause can really grasp what a hormonal h*** it can be for many women. I am struggling right now with how to deal with so many hormone-related issues and have done quite a bit of research regarding all the different types. Many women have to choose between gaining weight on HRT or suffering with unbearable symptoms of deficiency. I've been fortunate in that I'm pretty certain added bio-identical progesterone has helped me get and keep weight down, but I may be forced to add some type of estrogen soon (my first try has been a dismal failure). Then it may be a different ball game. So I am definitely not out of the woods in regards to figuring out my weight and dietary issues.

Perhaps if we had all eaten a super-healthy, LCHF, Paleo type diet from the get-go we would not have all these issues with hormones. So she may be right in that sense--a diet of "fake food" perhaps set us up for failure. I'd like to think that every day I eat real food, high-quality meat, good fats is a day that I am closer to having a body that will get me through this dreadful time with fewer issues. Weight loss then becomes just a bonus.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend!

It is just something I'd observed - actually usually in younger than menopausal women where they'll say 'I ate two florets of broccoli last night and I've put on two lbs today, it must be the broccoli, I can't eat that again' (substitute broccoli for any foodstuff).

I certainly understand those people who try different things to get over a stall. Being so desperate lose the last few lbs is a little harder for me to understand (being very willing to settle for many lbs over my ideal of 160).

I'm also a daily weigher, and like you, use it as a tool. I have a graph that shows the trend over time.

I recently gained a huge amount despite being on plan - I knew it must be fluid but couldn't find the cause. I tried to stay mellow about it, and once I found the cause 42lbs of fluid came off in two weeks.

I think some women fail to realise about fluid gain and blame a food stuff or fall off plan in frustration when just staying the course would see the fluid lbs come back off, often with friends.

as I've already given offence, I should also say this doesn't apply to all women, and that I know nothing yet of menopause (got that to look forward to).

Hey! I tried to make it clear that you did NOT offend me. Sorry. Words can be awkward, even at the best of times. I ain't mad or offended or hurt or anything except enlightened.

No Problem :) I was just trying to make clear, with the awkward words on a screen (so true, I'm really much nicer in person) that there are different types......and that the scary world of menopause is (so far) beyond me (though it's hunting me and will eventually catch me if I live long enough).

Debbie -- I do lurk here, but very rarely. (Usually only when I notice a good amount of traffic coming to my blog from this forum and want to see if someone posted a link.) :)

NiceKitty -- you are absolutely right! I'm 37, and I am not afraid to admit that I am dreading "the change." I already have to fight pretty hard just to *maintain* my current weight (let alone improve), so I can only imagine how much more difficult it's going to be as the hormonal wheels fall off the wagon. Looking at the older women in my family, it is a head-on collision with disaster. BUT, I eat and live very differently from how they do (and did), so hopefully I'll fare at least a smidgen better. I still expect it to be a struggle. A difficult, frustrating, and infuriating one. I am trying to build a good baseline of muscle mass now. It's not the answer to everything, but I think it's a very important piece of the picture, and will be addressing it at some point in the "why am I not losing weight" posts.

The older women definitely seem to have it rougher than anyone else. Of course I think hormones play a role. But I also think we, as a society, have misplaced expectations that a 60 or 70-something-year-old woman should have the body of a 25-year old. Especially if you've given birth, worked in or outside the home, done the vast majority of the cooking, cleaning, worrying, playing chauffeur, etc., for a few decades. That really takes a toll on a gal over the years. Plus, women with a little more meat on their bones -- not necessarily obese, but just not rail thin and frail/fragile/scrawny -- seem to fare better as they age. Maintaining strength and mobility is crucial for vitality later in life. You don't want to be one of these stooped-over little ladies who can't carry her own grocery bag to the house from the car. (Granted, we'll probably all end up there someday [if we're lucky!], but it should happen when we're 90, not when we're 65.)

I read somewhere once: "A low-carb diet will get you as lean as you can be, but that might not be as lean as you want to be." :tears: I do think there are other tweaks that can help things go a little further, but to really go all the way, I'm just not sure. All I know is, I'd love for Stephan Guyenet to spend ONE WEEK in the body of a post-menopausal woman and see how inclined he is to pontificate about eating less and moving more.

Aaaanyway, sorry for the ramble. The things I'm going to talk about for why people might not be losing weight on a LC diet won't be limited to women. I will probably mention more than once that older women have to work harder to get anywhere. And I was going to try to keep things brief...like JEY100 said, my posts are way too long. They take far too much time to write in relation to what I earn from them, which is a cold, hard zero. Just wanted to warn you, because I don't want to disappoint anyone. I was going to talk in generalities, to give people some ideas to think about, should anything happen to resonate for them. (B-vitamin deficiency? On a statin?) I mean, as always, I'll try to explain things with enough plain English so people understand why the things I'll mention could hinder fat loss, but I don't want to write a dissertation on each individual factor.

Thanks for reading, everyone! And yes, like I said in the comments, I'm not anti-scale...when it is used in an intelligent way.

Well I am a traditional Adkins DANDR person who eats three meals a day and it is my belief that this WOE has helped me keep my hormones in balance. I had a few hot flashes during "that time" but since starting Atkins, it all went away like magic and never came back.
You know, insulin is a hormone too.

I like her observations that women above a certain age have a harder time taking the weight off and I believe that age does play a role in that. I don't expect to ever be the same weight that I was when I was 22 years old and if I did reach that weight again, I probably would look emaciated now.

I think it's like an old car, you can tune it up and install a new transmission and maybe even paint it but most of the car still has old parts. :lol:

Amy, if you are still reading, your posts are NOT too long. They are thorough, in depth. (Most) women have a different speaking amd writing style than men. Personally, I prefer it.

Hi Amy,
Thank you for posting and responding to the discussion points here! Please focus on the "witty and smart" part of my comment, :) because I actually do like all your long articles but realize not everyone can spend the time they deserve. As a cancer survivor, I am awaiting the remaining parts of the cancer series ;) Thank you for covering it in-depth; it is on my list of resources for the use of Ketogenic Diets as adjuvant therapy.

Dr Westman has mentioned often that post-menopausal women find it difficult to lose weight (or even get to an OK lean state). So from his reality with patients to societal expectations...yesterday from library have Christie Brinkley's new book Timeless Beauty . Cover has note by her name imposed over photo of amazing legs *who happens to be 61 years old. :eek: Oh yeah, make all women in their 60s feel like a schlump.
Had to check her diet...mostly vegan, lacto-vegetarian since age 12, though she replaces eggs with applesauce and milk with almond milk. So maybe I should go back to being vegetarian and will have a Body like Brinkley's. :q: :p
But she doesn't use the scale either...only a pair of "honest jeans. Mine lie :lol:

:) Thanks, Liz and JEY.

I know my posts are very long compared to the rest of what's out there, but I figure there are about a hundred zillion other people out there writing similar things, so the people who like my style can stick around, and the ones who don't...well, they can go find someone else. :lol: Oddly enough, based on an uptick in page views and more people leaving comments, not too many people are turned off by the length. (And the ones who are? Well, maybe they're not my best audience anyway. If someone's looking for someone to sum up a complex medical condition in 100 words or less, I'm probably not their gal.) :D That being said, the biggest jumps in page views always come when Robb Wolf posts a link on Twitter or Facebook...imagine that. One little mention from RW is good for a couple thousand views.

I write what I want to write about, in the way I want to write about it, and it's icing on the (low-carb) cake that anyone out there has stumbled onto my blog -- and even more amazing that people come back for more, haha!

Seriously, though, the person who probably learns the most from my blog is ME. They say that the way to really learn something is to teach it to someone else. And that's kind of what my blog has become. A community college-type class in whatever topic strikes my fancy at that particular time.

I'm so glad you posted the link for TuitNutrit, JEY!! I've never heard of this blogger who really should be more famous. I've read books by Dr. Atkins, The Metabolic Typing Diet (fabulous resource), as well as Why We Get Fat. I skim through Mark's Daily Apple, but find that I don't know a lot of the jargon and I get so discouraged when I see dads dropping 40 pounds in a month after realizing their college football days are over, like Amy mentioned. I spent hours yesterday reading her 8 part series on insulin and cried. I'm probably hormonal and whatnot, but it just all made so much sense! I understand why I don't get those huge whooshes of weight loss the first month when I come back to Keto Land! I naturally consume 1100-1300 calories a day and very little protein. So when I rededicate myself to this WOE, my calories jump to 1600 or so, I usually start exercising (=soreness) AND I'm finally giving my body nourishment that it yearns to have...regularly. So, 3 pounds the first week, 1 pound the next, and up 2 pound the following week is NO reason to become discouraged! I wish more women out there knew this stuff. I'm 35 and I can't imagine how hard this journey would be for someone post menopausal. I hope I lose this weight, so that I don't have to find out! Serious respect goes out to women who are making progress during and after that hormonal nightmare.

Dear Amy, your posts are not too long.

Oh, sometimes I need to take a break (but that is invoked by some particularly ah-ha piece of information I need to think about and integrate into my world-view). I have never, ever finished reading something you wrote and thought, Wow that was long! I usually think, Wow, talk about valuable information-dense! Keep it up and thank you, thank you, thank you!

Now, I am off to finish ITIS. I was fascinated by the first documents. But life got in the way of my finishing the series (until now).

:) Thanks, everyone. Makes me very happy to know people appreciate the blog.

Brandy -- glad you found me! Please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions. I can't promise I'll have the answers, but I can try.

-Amy

Awwww! Thanks!! If I don't see those danged scales start dropping in a month or so, I'm sure I'll have plenty of questions! Lol! This body needs to repair and start losing some serious fat! 😁

Continuation of Amy's new series on Weight Loss, titled Why Am I Not Losing Weight on LCHF? (Pt.1)

http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2015/1...g-weight-1.html


And it continues.....

She is a crack-up. She must drink a pot of coffee before writing! I really appreciate that she points out that a low carb diet is (first and foremost!) a healthy diet. You're not wasting time, or treading water if you are not losing--your body is improving every day, though you may not see it.

I really want to get that book Natural Hormonal Enhancement, but the cost for a used version starts at $26. Dang.

Great post. Boy have I tried so many of those things over long years of stalling ~ more carbs, fewer carbs, more fat, less fat, more protein, less protein, more exercise, less exercise, more calories, fewer calories, no dairy, no seed oils. I'm sure we all know the drill. Yeah too bad the Natural Hormone Replacement book is so expensive. And does anyone know anything about that AltShift program? The link just goes to a site that looks like one of those classic cheesy infomercial sites. "Just send me $25 and all your prayers will be answered!" :)

You can likely get most of the program just by listening to their Podcast. The link to it is at the very bottom of the AltShift page Amy linked.
I use to listen to that podcast but it was more focused on exercise and lost interest. I may go through the subject listings and find the ones related to diet when it was introduced.

You can check out the AltShift results on their Facebook page. (It's a closed group; you have to request to join, but I see no reason why they would turn anyone away.) I haven't read the book yet, myself, but there are "real people" getting very nice results with that program -- including lots of peri- and post-menopausal women. Jason Seib is one of the few people out there who recognizes how difficult it is for some women to lose fat on the standard "out of the box" type low-carb or Paleo diets. (Including his own wife. She had struggled for years, and is now down quite a bit of weight.)

And yes, they do have a podcast, so you can hear a little bit of what the program is about. It could take some "re-programming," though -- it is a carb-cycling method, so there are days in which you follow LCHF, and days in which you consume more starch and lower fat. (Not a ton of starch, but some.)

As for Natural Hormonal Enhancement, I think it might be out of print now, which is why it's pricey. Honestly, I'd say it's worth it, but you have to do what you're comfortable with, financially.

Thanks for that info, Amy and your new post on weight loss. Interesting. I have thought about testing nutrient levels, but for the most part the tests are obscure, have to find a trust-worthy alternative doctor, or expensive, etc.

Part 2, Nutrient Deficiencies:

http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2015/1...g-weight-2.html

Part 3, on Thyroid now posted.

http://www.tuitnutrition.com/2015/1...-lchf-pt3b.html