3/27/2018 0 Comments Going against the old rulesSo, we're entering week five of low-carb, (mostly) whole food eating. I've been avoiding the scale, in part because even though the calories are in range for me to lose and I'm definitely shedding ketones, I'm still in that stage of disbelief that I can eat fat and not blow up like a blimp. In the mirror, though, and by measuring my wrist width, I know there's something happening.
So I weighed. I'm down three pounds from when I last weighed in two weeks ago. That's pretty amazing to me, as my calorie deficits have been on the modest side, but I also know that FitBit over-estimates my calorie burn and Cronometer underestimates, so I guess I've hit that sweet spot in the middle. Years ago, I tried Sugar Busters. I didn't really lose any on that plan back then, quite possibly because I wasn't doing it right. This time around, I have Cronometer and I'm tracking food intake, watching my macros, and I'm adding a magnesium/potassium supplement and a spirulina supplement to my daily intake. I'm also following a couple of FB groups and I'm learning a lot about how there are just as many junk-food keto folks as there are junk food vegans. And that keto vegans are eating a lot of processed stuff. If the macros are the same--in other words if the goal is to have low carbs, hit a minimum and moderate protein goal, and to eat healthy fats (including a proportion of saturated fat)--it seems to me the only real reason to be a vegan is ideological. While I still worry about farming practices and the impact on the environment associated with dietary intake of animals, I also am aware of how the agricultural processes and harvesting processes of some of the vegan staples and of the meat analogues also have negative impacts--sometimes directly on animal populations. So, there really isn't a perfect answer here. What I do know is that for possibly the first time, I don't really feel like my eating is disordered. I don't have highs and lows during the day where I want to eat everything I can get my hands on. I feel pretty steady all the way around, which is nice. And, I'm eating plenty of leafy greens and enjoying fresh berries as dessert. I thought that I'd really miss the large amount of fruit I ate before, but it's not really been an issue. I keep hearing that this way of eating is "not sustainable." While I do fully plan on sharing a Lost Spudnut at dinner on Friday at the Griffin (they take a spudnut, plop a scoop of ice cream on it, and then add chocolate sauce), that's a splurge. I'm not fantasizing about eating the way I used to, and I adjusted to eating meat again fairly easily. Last weekend, we did a 16:8 intermittent fast cycle (really Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday). Dani was on call, so not having anything other than coffee made sense and we just made sure to reach our macros and calorie threshold in the other two meals. To me, this is sustainable. I have a bag of potatoes if anyone wants it. We also have Girl Scout cookies that are unopened. I'm sure they'll get eaten at some point, but for now, I'll take raspberries or blackberries with coconut whipped cream (Gay Lea brand is awesome). Also, if you want to learn more about how sugar has been given a free pass, check out The Case Against Sugar by Taubes.
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Angel here: I know it has been a minute.
Since we last posted, lots of things have changed, including a good 10-15 pound weight gain for me. Our lovely mother dropped 22+ pounds simply by going back to the training she and dad got from the diabetes educator back when he was diagnosed. She looks great and even though I shoveled carbs at her over Christmas, she has kept it off. Between her success and reading Jason Fung's The Obesity Code I started to look at the way we were eating at Casa Codgers. For the last eight years or so, since the first year of medical school, our eating at home has largely been vegetarian-vegan. But that means more of the same--low fat, high carb eating. When I read Fung, it was clear to me why even if I focused on calories I was hungry and also not losing any weight, even if I tracked calories and tried to keep the fat low. I went back and looked at the last time I really cracked down on calories and found that on an average day I was eating 150 carbs or so. Many days, I ate over 200. And even when I looked at net carbs, it was out of control. I, like most of the US, had become a carb addict. So, we're taking a different route this time and using Dietdoctor.com to help retrain us as to what to eat. Because Ancel Keys' Lipid Hypothesis has basically been shown to be false we're not doing a vegan low-fat approach. Eventually I plan to start cooking more plant-based and working some tofu, soy curls (I have bags of those hiding in the freezer), and seitan back in the diet, but for now nothing--including reasonable portions of meat--is off the table. Doing vegan low carb often leads to people having to use a lot of protein powders and eat things like "noatmeal" which I cannot do (to be fair, I can't eat oatmeal porridge either--slimy). As Fung notes, any diet works in the short term. And we know that if someone loses weight, whether they lose it from calorie restriction, carb restriction, going vegan and raw, etc, their numbers improve for LDL, HDL, and blood pressure. Dr. D and I have been eating this new way for just over two weeks now. We feel great and despite us lovingly storing away our box of carbs at the start, not once have we been tempted to open the cabinet over the fridge and dive in. We have boxes of GS cookies sitting untouched right now. I'm sure we'll eat them at some future point, but for right now, they are just sitting sealed. I leave this post with an answer to a question or two: Isn't what you're describing Atkins? Nope. There are some differences from the old-school Atkins. For instance, protein is not king here. I'm working on lowering the protein to a more moderate level. The idea promoted by Fung, Hyman, and other docs is that protein should be no more than 30% of your daily intake. This has to do with the ways in which our body's insulin response works with protein. Also, Atkins focuses a lot on "legal" sugar alcohols. The way we're eating is far more focused on whole foods, no sweeteners (not even stevia, which I actually seem to have lost my taste for), and no "franken-foods". This is far more Whole 30 similar. I prefer to simply say we're eating grain free and sugar free. What about The China Study? Well, it turns out that the message isn't that different. Campbell argues to moderate protein intake as a way to control cancer genes. Fung, Hyman, and others also indicate that protein should be lower than fat intake (at least a 1:1 ratio gram wise up to a 1:2 ratio in favor of fat). So, this way of eating is not that far afield of Campbell's conclusions. |
The Two Fat SistersRenee and Angel welcome you to their blog. Hopefully we can change our name some time. In the meantime, watch as we try to get there. Archives
March 2018
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