Controversial? You sound right on to me.

Chip

Sounds like you are still doing good! What you said about doctors not being so on it with their patients, my doctor is on it! He is telling me everytime I go in that I need to start taking care of myself, so I have been because those diseases that you were talking about run in my family. Also, about the calories, my doctor does tell me for my height and frame that I should be eating around 800 cals a day. Just to add in snacks of fresh fruit and veggies. This is my gyno, no my family doctor...go figure! I have a meter, I had to test myself 4 times a day when I was pregnant and still do occasionally if I start feeling funny. But, so far still healthy!
Sounds like you had a really great workout as well, I only wish I had the time and patience to do a long workout like that. My longest is probably 45 mins. Keep up the great work!

I also wanted to talk about the way docs dont seem to give much advice...tis true for me until now.

Im uninsured, but for me, its WHY I have to get healthy! I DO give a darn! I cant afford what possible diabetes and high bp can do to me! I have the high bp, and had the gestational diabetes, and KNOW I can get the diabetes later. I dont WANT it! I had a good friend lose two legs and even DIE from it! My father fights it now. Nooooo I have to do most of my studying online. I HAVE to keep fighting my weight. I have NO choice about exercise. Im at the age now where screwin off is going to literally KILL me! soo, I finally have a doctor who understands, and even charges me a little less for my visits. To me, she is an angel. She encourages me the whole way. She really does care!

This is a first for me. Ive NEVER had a doc who cared. Now that i do, Im not gonna let her go! I also recently found out my pap came out great! after a bad one a few years ago, THAT made me really happy!

Keep posting about stuff like this, because I for one like hearing it!

Well, I say its controversial because I read a lot of posts on here that go against what I know about physiology. My biggest grip is when people talk about your body going into “starvation mode” if you are under 1500 cals, and blaming that on why a person cannot lose weight. Then saying eat more and you will lose weight. While starvation mode is a true phenomenon, it works differently. For one, its to combat losing weight too fast. If you are not losing weight (if you have extra to lose) and you are eating 1500 cals, your body is not in starvation mode, its in maintenance mode. Drop your calories and your weight will drop. It’s a matter of physics really. We are not perpetual motion machines. We cannot run on nothing. Our bodies, to oversimplify it, are calculators. We have input (food), and output (metabolism, activity). If we are low on food our bodies will slow down our metabolism some, and you will feel tired. But if you eat normal, your metabolism will almost instantly return to normal. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, if you lost weight your can gain it back faster because of your unhappy shrunken fat cells.
As for how doctors view their patients. I see new doctors making a true effort, but a lot of old ones have just given up on their patients. How many times can you tell patient that they need to quit smoking and never see your advice taken. I don’t want to paint an untrue picture, but the reality is when a patient comes in with an obvious problem, most doctors will say stop drinking, stop smoking, lose weight etc etc… but they don’t put much effort into it because it really is the patients responsibility to take control, not the physicians. All we can do is bring it to light every time they come in. What’s funny is when someone comes in reeking of smoke and you ask them how much they smoke and they flat out deny it. There teeth, beards and fingers are yellow and they will still deny it. Its rare, but it happens.
I am glad to hear that some doctors will actually say you can go under 1000 Cals/day. I couldn’t imagine the patience someone would have to have to weigh something like 500 lbs and to lose only 1-2 lbs/week. It would take 3-4 years to get to 200 lbs. Im not saying that’s a bad way to do it, but nobody has that kind of patience. Most of us would give up long before then.
Because this is a journal, I guess I better say something about my day too. Today I went to the gym and worked out for an hour. I did the elliptical for 45 min and the treadmill for 15. I got blisters from running yesterday so I thought I should take it a bit easier and only ran for about 6 min. today. I want to wait till 220 to run exclusively, but I have the feeling I will be doing it earlier. I love running.

I really enjoy reading your diary Moabnut. It is so informative! There are so many theories on how to lose weight, sometimes I find it so confusing. One person will swear by one type of diet, and someone else another. How can people on these very low calorie diets keep from being hungry and bingeing?

Sounds like you're dong great with the exercise. Keep up the great work!

I like what you say about the calories a LOT. I think sometimes we forget that our bodies really 'talk' to us if we just listen! For a short woman like myself to eat 800-1000 calories isnt going to put me into starvation, unless Im eating five dingdongs for my food that day! But some days I dont WANT to eat more than that! Hey, I watch my kids...and how they eat. My 7 yr old is a prime example. Some days she wants heaps of chili, and sandwiches and bananas..Youd think shed bust! then a week later all she wants are a few raisins and some juice or something...half the calories she wanted last week! She is in tune with her body, and because of my own eating problems, Ive never told any of my kids to clean their plates or eat more or eat less.,I just let them eat what they need. Not too conventional, but then neither am I. Sometimes I cook sometimes we fend for ourselves. But seriously, you really hit the nail on the head about input and output. Ive never had ill effects from sometimes eating 800 calories for a couple days a week. never. And learning to listen to what my body wants is hard, but do-able.

Ive had a rough couple days. Ive eaten too much, I haven’t worked out in a 2 days and Ill Ive done is sit around all day. Its been great! I didn’t go overboard and order pizza and ice cream. I just went out to eat a couple times and ate light. I did pretty good actually. I ate off the WW menu at Applebee’s. I ate in the upper limits of my Cal/day allowance, but I feel like crap because I haven’t gotten to the gym.
I read somewhere that there’s like 3 lbs of water for every lb of glycogen stored. I eat very few carbohydrates and my glycogen stores are pretty depleted, but when I eat bread or anything high in carbs, I gain like 3-5 lbs of water weight. Its amazing how fast it happens. I don’t have to eat 3 lbs of food to gain 3 lbs of weight, its just water. I could see how this would discourage a lot of people. If you are on a low cal or low carb diet, its like you have to consider your true weight a few more lbs that what the scale says. That’s how it is for me anyway. I cant really say for everybody.
Anyway, tomorrow I will go to the gym. Today I really couldn’t because I was waiting for a very important phone call. The call came too late and I wouldn’t have gotten in much of a workout anyway.

Finally got off my fat butt and went to the gym yesterday and today. I didn’t do too great on my diet yesterday but today I did much better. I went to the gym and ran for 15 min and did the elliptical for 35 min. Burned like 900 Cal. My back is really hurting after running though. I don’t think Im ready to run a marathon quite yet. Im not used to having problems after a mere 1.5 miles running.
Im trying to eat more veggies. Im stuck on those off the vine tomatoes. They are so good. Ive also introduced more fruit in my diet too. Strawberries are pretty low in cals. Ive had oranges and grapefruit too but only half at a time. I don’t want too many carbs at one time. Half of the oranges I have are about 50 cals. I weigh them to figure calories. I know that’s a bit extreme but I like to keep pretty good record of my intake. My weight is finally starting to move again. I hate plateaus!

Went to the gym today for about 1 ¼ hours. I just stayed on the elliptical and burned 1310 Cals. We had some drug reps come into the GME dept. today. They of course brought some really good food that I couldn’t turn down. I did good though, I had a chicken salad with salsa and no dressing. It did have a bit of a dressing in it already but I don’t think it was really bad stuff. It came in a taco shell which I threw away of course. I think at most it was about 350 Cals. I put over 15000 steps on the pedometer. I thought that was pretty good.
This is day #48 and to date I have been to the gym a grand total of 21 times. That is 21 time I burned more calories working out than I ate in a day. Just by a crude estimate of my metabolism figuring eating an ave of 750cal/day (bad days included) and burning an average of 850 Cals every time I work out, and losing 26 lbs in 44 days, which is not counting the first 4 days I lost tons of weight (water).
Workout 17850 Cals
Intake 33000 Cals
Lost fat Cals 91000 Cals
Net Loss 106150 Cals (lbs lost in Cals + intake Cals – workout Cals)
Metabolism 2412 Cal/day
This is about 800 Cals/day off of my original estimate the 2nd week of the diet. The original one was a much better study. This could be due to my metabolism slowing down a bit, which is to be expected on a VLCD. But I dont think so because Im losing at about the same rate. I will have to calculate it more accurately another time when I have time. Ive lost about 5 lbs by exercise alone, according to the machines anyway. So many variables, its hard to know for sure. But it is interesting to find that my metabolism is around 2500 Cals (the recomended Caloric intake for an adult male)

This last weekend I had to work and I didn’t get to the gym at all. Yesterday I worked out at the gym for about 2 hours. I did 1 hour on the elliptical and almost an hour lifting weights. I was pretty beat. Ive done well calorie wise. Last week I ran for a half hour or so. My back was hurting after, and it’s still hurting if I run. I guess Ill have to keep putting running off until Im a little less….top heavy. Im fitting into most of my old clothes that I grew out of. 8 more pounds and I will beat my record on weight loss. When I was 21 I lost 50 lbs. Of course, I put it all back on plus some shortly after. But I did spend 6 months or so at a healthy weight. Im still heavier now than where I started that time. I did it all running, no dieting at all, though I found that I wasn’t eating as much anyway. This time I am exercising and dieting.

Early yesterday, my roommate told me that he wanted to have steak and shrimp before he left. I of course looked at him like a deer in the headlights, stumbling over my words as I said “…I caaan….t … eeat th..thaaat!” He said, “why not, they have no carbs” I of course replied that I wasn’t doing the Atkins diet, I only did it for a week. Then the lightbulb went on over my head. You normally take 3 days to go into ketosis on Atkins. I am on a VLCD and I can kick into Ketosis in one day tops. Also, they were having the monthly pizza party for the students the next day (today). I wasn’t planning on going. But I thought…if I go into ketosis, I can eat just the toppings off the pizza and be able to eat the shrimp and steak the next day. So that’s what I did. I started eating the same low calories, but all proteins. By about 4 PM today, I knew I was in ketosis. (Its amazing how fast it happens when you eat very little and work out a lot) I went to the pizza party, and too my luck, it was at a restaurant that also had steak and shrimp, so to avoid the temptation of eating crust, I ordered steak and shrimp….I get steak and shrimp two days in a row!....hehehe, I love my diet sometimes. I did have one piece of pizza with just the toppings though, and I had a few carbs here or there. I didn’t feel like I was in ketosis afterwards whatsoever. I got stuffed, ate way too many calories. But I know at least they wont count quite as bad as if I ate the pizza, crust and all. I went home and weighed my self for fun and torture, I had gained 4 lbs in one meal. I wasn’t surprised though because I had 3 diet cokes. Water weight, intestinal weight…blah blah blah. Anyway, so me and my friend coaxed each other into going to the gym. We only had an hour but I had an awesome workout…tons of energy, though still feeling a bit bloated. Lost a lot of water weight and weighed in again at only 1 lb heavier than before eating out. (I weigh myself a lot, I find it very interesting for some reason) I burned about 830 calories. Not as much as normal, but I didn’t have near the time. I still don’t feel like Im in ketosis again though. I did have too many random carbs, but Im sure Ill be back in it by morning. Just in time for steak and shrimp again tomorrow evening. So I had WAY to many calories today, but I don’t think it will effect me much. I was at 235, now at 236. It will be interesting to see if I plateau for a while because of this. I didn’t last time I did Atkins and I pretty much did the same thing. Ill stay on it for a few days to “run” this extra fat and protein out of my system before switching back to just low cal. Ill keep posting…just incase there are any inquiring minds that just must know.

hi moabnut

so, im curious, what does it feel like to go into ketosis? hey, i might have gone into it and not even known it!

Good question SkinnyKate. I love questions!
One of the things we check for in diabetic acidosis patients is a acetone level. Acetone is a breakdown product of fat metabolism. We always burn some fat, but at a much higher level in ketosis. BTW, diabetic ketoacidosis is not really the same thing, but its similar. They have a lot of other things going on too. Ok, so anyway, acetone difuses out of your lungs and you breath it off. You get a slightly funny taiste in your mouth, and nasty breath. As a med student, one of my attending physicians actually had me bend over and smell a pateints breath that we had on NPO (not eating) because he had pancreatitis, just to smell acetone. It wasnt a pleasent experience and I wanted to tell him that I already knew what it smelled like, but somewhere along the way I learned to keep my mouth shut and do as Im told. Anyway, also, you can check for ketones in your urine. (as I understand it, you are actually peeing and breathing out some of your fat... nice hu?) You get a wierd kind of thirst. Always slightly thirsty but unquenchable. And I dont know if other people feel this too, but I do....My liver feels just a little bit funny, like hunger pains in my stomach, but on the right side where my liver is. Your liver is what produces ketones. I might just be off my rocker I suppose, but Ive gone in and out of ketosis enough to know when Im in it. Sometimes not even doing Atkins. I will if Im on a low calorie diet and eating mostly protiens. One other thing and its less specific for ketosis of course, but you are a bit weaker in general, and if your a bit hypoglycemic, you can get a little shaky. I dont like that, its a sign of your body not being able to keep up. Ill pop in a few carbs if I feel like that.

Sounds like you are back on track! Keep up the great work. Your exercisinf amazes me, I don't have the time or energy to go that long with it. Maybe I am just out of shape Keep up the great work!

Thanks Meshellibel. Ive always been good at working out...when Im doing it anyway. I can get pretty intense. Being on track is probably not going to happen this weekend though. I wanted to slowly come off Atkins, but Im taking a road trip this weekend and things may go astray. I give working out a slim to none chance this weekend, but Ill try. Im going to my school which is about 11 hrs drive away. We have an awesome brand new gym but I dont know that Ill be so inclined to visit the gym when there are so many people I want to see while Im there. But its a possibility. Wish me luck!