Thursday, May 08, 2008

Weight loss when it's not hard 3. Oops

You just have to be careful. You know what it's like, you're up at 6am with your son, get a quick creamy cocoa as you spoon his breakfast in to him, then it's play play play, then he goes to nursery and you've got to tear down the higgledy piggledy fence, get a decent gate, buy the timber, get it all cut, fitted, creamy cocoa, realise the carport post is so far off of vertical you have some more post fitting to do, run out of time, get your son from nursery, sort out the blog while he naps, play play play, have a hyperlipid supper, sort out the blog while your wife goes to Pilates, do the same thing the next day pretty well identically, but get the verticals vertical, back pack your son to playground play play play, especially the slide, another high fat supper, do some gardening somewhere along the line, sort the blog.

Suddenly you realise you've skipped some calories by accident.

Calories in, calories out. You don't weigh 65kg. That was 48 hours ago. Now 63.8kg is more where it's at despite the gluten free almond based chocolate sponge cake (mmmm, bad carbs in the icing) we had after supper last night. Bodyfat's still at 11% but that's at 9am, it'll be down by this afternoon as it always drops through the day. Except today I'll eat.

YOU HAVE TO REMEMBER TO EAT!

Peter

8 comments:

.^ said...

And drink. And be merry.

Anonymous said...

Luv the blog and advice. Have lost a fair amount of weight recently and still going but I think Taubes showed why Cal. in, Cal. out is wrong.

Anonymous said...

I rarely get hungry, either. Why do you have to remember to eat? If you aren't hungry, don't eat. Wait 'til you are hungry. It will happen when you get below too thin, but why not wait to get there instead of simply eating out of habit basically?

paul said...

Peter, I'm with you. My BMI is 20.6 but it happily drops when I give it the chance. The time may have come for the invention of the 'Hyperlipid Bar'...

paul said...

Peter,

How do you actually measure your body fat? I have been looking at the Omron foot scales (using an electric charge through the body via the feet) but a small set of Amazon reviews say that the body fat measurement is unreliable,

Thanks,
Paul.

Peter said...

Paul,

I use a five year old set of Tanita bio impedance scales. I've no idea of the absolute accuracy, trend indication seems fine.

Peter

Unknown said...

Hello,

I'm currently a veterinary student at Ross on Saint Kitts.

I was diagnosed celiac about 2 years ago. I'm 150 lbs, 5'2", 23 y/o, and female. I was eating paleo last year, and now I'm really taking the label off of my diet. I was 100 lbs pre-celiac diagnosis (and on prescribed adderall, with adrenal issues unbeknownst to me at the time!).

Now, I'm in my first semester of veterinary school, eating 1500 calories a day with 70% fat. Is there anything hazardous about my diet of 50-70% fat? I'm eating at least 20% protein also... So carbs are 5-10% and all coming from veggies.

I'm relatively active. Crossfit 5-6 days a week for 25 minutes. Yoga 50 minutes/day. Also, I walk everywhere.

The stress of school is probably not helping get the weight to normalize.

Any advice for managing vet school stress and a healthy lifestyle?

Peter said...

Hi Kara,

There's a whole stack of variables there and it's hard to know where to start. I can't see anything amiss with macronutrients, it's hard to get over 70% of calories from fat when your total intake is as low as 1500kcal, so no issue there.

Stimulant withdrawal coupled with correction of coeliac disease does seem to be a recipe for weight gain. Those two factors mean that you have no idea where your weight might have been before correction. It also means you have no idea how good or bad your mitochondria, especially those in your adipocytes, might be.

A few days in ketosis might help you see if they can be improved.

I'm not really in to exercise so no comment here. I just walk walk walk. The job does do that for you.

I would agree vet school is not good for cortisol levels and, unfortunately, it won't get any easier through to finals... If I had to choose a coping diet it would undoubtedly be LC, but that's no surprise.

I'd also make sure that micronutrient in take is adequate with egg yolks and offal high on the list. Not so easy if you live in any sort of hall of residence. For post coeliac watch B12 especially.

Ultimate measure of success is probably HbA1c, but you can gain a lot of weight before it rises of your metabolism is so organised.

Hmm, that doesn't seem like a lot of help!

Enjoy the course. If I can say anything in addition to "eat fat" (and eggs) it has to be learn to talk to people. They folks with chaotic random thought processes and apparent gross ignorance are really trying to tell you what is wrong with their pet. Conversation and listening are 80% of the job. Technical skill helps but is far less important than communication, which isn't always easy!

Peter