Female weight loss question

Dustin07

Dustin07

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OP

No matter what is going metabolically, inflammation, glucose, ect. None of these matter in the presence of a caloric deficit. Testing and addressing things may impact one's metabolic rate, so by all means explore those factors. But the simple answer to the fat loss issue ATM is your wife is eating too many calories for her current metabolic needs (before addressing anything). If she wants to lose fat right now, she has to eat less. People with inflammation, diabetes, menopause, etc. have lost weight when put into a caloric deficit in countless research studies without any special testing or diets ect. Even metabolic adaptation can be overcome with a caloric deficit. I do get the concern regarding lowering her cals more because then micronutrient intake can become a concern simply due to so little food being provided. The law of thermodynamics is a law after all.
No doubt. As I always say... I've never seen a fat person die of anorexia.
That said, I can't for the life of me truly believe an active individual who is lifting/HIIT 3 x per week + additional cardio 4-6x per week could or should require a 700 calorie per day deficit to drop a measly lb per week. that metabolism has got to be picked up...
 
sns8778

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Dude that's crazy! But I totally know what you're talking about and now you really have my brain wondering. We have had those days where suddenly the hands are miserably puffy for seemingly no reason. The only gluten intolerant people I knew described vastly different outcomes from yours, but now you really have me thinking... and curious!
Hand puffiness can definitely be an allergic inflammatory response in itself and/or can cause fluid retention related to one.

A lot of people think about gluten allergies, sensitivities, and intolerance as all one thing when they are really very different and can cause different responses in different people.

For example, someone with a gluten intolerance may have digestive problems from it and as recently as 10 years ago that could have been missed because a lot of doctors would just order blood testing for Celiac disease and a person can test negative for Celiac but still be gluten intolerant. No a person can be tested for Celiac and also non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

I have a lot of health issues myself and they are very detrimental to my health and quality of life and I feel like crap pretty much all the time. But one positive I try to take from them is that I try to use what I've learned to help other people.

There is so much misunderstanding on food allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances. A lot of the information online in contradictory and some is just outright misleading and untrue. I love to read the actual research on it, and my misfortune of being allergic to so much (nasal allergens) and then to soy protein and gluten has led to at least one good thing, and that's getting to spend a lot of time with two of the leading food allergy researchers in the country.

In my case, I'm explaining my responses as an effect of gluten sensitivity; to be very specific I have the non-celiac autoimmune gluten allergy (technically its a sensitivity, but referred to commonly as allergy). It causes a massive amount of inflammation - and most people, especially in the bodybuilding community normally think of inflammation as joint pain and inflammation, but the inflammation that a lot of us with food sensitivities experience is systemic inflammation that can affect the tendons, ligaments, connective tissues, digestive tract, and other internal organs.

In my case its gluten that causes this response, but there are many people that can have food sensitivity related inflammation related to various foods and it can really make a lot of things in the body go haywire.


I don't have the hours in the day to work with people on basic diet and nutrition anymore, but those that know me personally know that people/patients I hardly ever turn down helping are people that can't get answers or results thru conventional channels and I'm always honest with people in that if someone has a truly unique issue or problem, I can't promise them that I can help, but I can promise them that I can relate to them and that I truly care and will truly try. I have never charged anyone a single penny for that type of thing and I mentioned something casually in an earlier post above that's actually one of my mottos for that and that's that 'unique situations require unique approaches'.
 
sns8778

sns8778

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My wife is struggling also. Same type of thing but mine is 40. Her weight doesn't equal the input/output. I think I'm more frustrated about it than she is 😆
The things that I've written about in this thread can be useful tools for both men and women. If you have any questions or if there is anything that I can do to help, you're welcome to pm me or you can even put a thread in the SNS sub-forum to discuss it if you'd like - the reason I say that is because I'm not going to post in this section anymore after today but would be glad to discuss it there and help in any way that I can.
 
sns8778

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No doubt. As I always say... I've never seen a fat person die of anorexia.
That said, I can't for the life of me truly believe an active individual who is lifting/HIIT 3 x per week + additional cardio 4-6x per week could or should require a 700 calorie per day deficit to drop a measly lb per week. that metabolism has got to be picked up...
I've never seen a fat person die of anorexia, but I have seen plenty of overweight people that bust their asses to lose weight much harder than others and never be able to achieve the results that they logically should be able to - and that's where targeting weight loss beyond the norm of cutting calories and macros comes into the equation.

For some it may be hormonal, for others it may be food allergies/sensitivities, for others it may be autoimmune &/or inflammation related, and for most it's a combination of factors.

But regardless, after a certain point, cutting calories is no longer the answer. Yes, calories of course need to be cut for weight loss, but overdoing it can be detrimental to ones overall health and physical and emotional well-being.

I've seen it stated by a number of coaches and nutritionists, and I agree, that once calories go below 1200 calories per day (unless they are all just terrible calories like from 300 grams of sugar or something crazy like that), that its time to look for other factors and variables and focus on optimizing metabolism rather than continuing to cut calories more.
 

sammpedd88

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@Dustin07 my wife is having similar issues as yours is. We have a Peloton tread and bike. She’s wears both of them out several times a week, lifts weights and tracks her food. She’s used several diet plans she’s used in the past to cut fat and they’re not working. Like Steve was saying about food sensitivity and hormones, I think her issues lie somewhere with those two. I go to an integrative doctor for my TRT and my wife is going back there in a few weeks. I’ll keep you posted on what they say about blood work and such. Maybe it will help your wife out in some way or point her in the right direction. Just FYI my wife is 48.
 
Dustin07

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@Dustin07 my wife is having similar issues as yours is. We have a Peloton tread and bike. She’s wears both of them out several times a week, lifts weights and tracks her food. She’s used several diet plans she’s used in the past to cut fat and they’re not working. Like Steve was saying about food sensitivity and hormones, I think her issues lie somewhere with those two. I go to an integrative doctor for my TRT and my wife is going back there in a few weeks. I’ll keep you posted on what they say about blood work and such. Maybe it will help your wife out in some way or point her in the right direction. Just FYI my wife is 48.
Right on man, please keep me in the loop. My wife's first appt/consult with the doc was today so I should hear back from her shortly. I don't believe they were planning to draw blood just yet but hopefully we'll have something. Personally, I don't care and don't need her to lose a lb. as far as i'm concerned it all went to the right places 😅😅

But there's a big difference in her happiness and if I can help her find that sweet spot where she feels more comfortable in her clothes that would be great.
 

sammpedd88

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Right on man, please keep me in the loop. My wife's first appt/consult with the doc was today so I should hear back from her shortly. I don't believe they were planning to draw blood just yet but hopefully we'll have something. Personally, I don't care and don't need her to lose a lb. as far as i'm concerned it all went to the right places

But there's a big difference in her happiness and if I can help her find that sweet spot where she feels more comfortable in her clothes that would be great.
My wife is the same way. I like her build/figure and she’s not “fat” but I know she wants to lose a little weight. I know it’s frustrating for her and your wife to put in all the work and eat right and basically lose next to nothing.

I’ll definitely keep you posted bro!
 
Dustin07

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My wife is the same way. I like her build/figure and she’s not “fat” but I know she wants to lose a little weight. I know it’s frustrating for her and your wife to put in all the work and eat right and basically lose next to nothing.

I’ll definitely keep you posted bro!
So doc is gonna do some blood testing but right now he's talking reverse dieting, fasting, and possibly low carb. Which sucks because that's everything I already told her to do and I pissed her off so I told you so if off the table
 

sammpedd88

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So doc is gonna do some blood testing but right now he's talking reverse dieting, fasting, and possibly low carb. Which sucks because that's everything I already told her to do and I pissed her off so I told you so if off the table
I’m smart enough to never say out loud to my wife “I told you so” but I scream it at the top of my lungs in my head!

My wife has tried the carb cycling / low carb and it hasn’t worked like it did in the past for her. There’s a diet plan called Metabolic Effect that she did about 12 years ago or so and she lost a ton of weight. She had been divorced from her first husband for about a year and wanted to focus on her. She started running and eating the ME diet and lost about 25 pounds. She tried ME again about two years ago and didn’t have the same results. Only lost a pound every two or three weeks. She’s basically done it all but no results. I really think it’s hormonal.
 
sns8778

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Right on man, please keep me in the loop. My wife's first appt/consult with the doc was today so I should hear back from her shortly. I don't believe they were planning to draw blood just yet but hopefully we'll have something. Personally, I don't care and don't need her to lose a lb. as far as i'm concerned it all went to the right places 😅😅

But there's a big difference in her happiness and if I can help her find that sweet spot where she feels more comfortable in her clothes that would be great.
That's very nice and commendable and respectable of you.
 
sns8778

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So doc is gonna do some blood testing but right now he's talking reverse dieting, fasting, and possibly low carb. Which sucks because that's everything I already told her to do and I pissed her off so I told you so if off the table
Everything works different for different people and there's nothing wrong with trying different approaches. I'm glad that he does plan to do some bloodwork too.

I have successfully used reverse dieting or a version of it with some people and myself when I was younger for years, long before it ever even had a name for the strategy. It works great for some and some it doesn't, but I think its much healthier than continuing to just cut out more and more calories.

Keto and low carb doesn't work well for me personally, but it does work for a lot of people.

If she winds up doing low carb &/or a combination of low carb and fasting, I hope he doesn't mind me tagging him here, but @DieselNY is super knowledgeable and helpful with that. He's been doing both since before they were ever popular.
 
sns8778

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I’m smart enough to never say out loud to my wife “I told you so” but I scream it at the top of my lungs in my head!
What? You never say I told you so to your wife? I .......

Oh wait, that may be one of the reasons that I'm not married lol :ROFLMAO:😂
 

SweetLou321

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No doubt. As I always say... I've never seen a fat person die of anorexia.
That said, I can't for the life of me truly believe an active individual who is lifting/HIIT 3 x per week + additional cardio 4-6x per week could or should require a 700 calorie per day deficit to drop a measly lb per week. that metabolism has got to be picked up...
I do not disagree here.

I think ensuring her total activity levels are higher with a step count can help. I start here bc its usually one of the bigger factors. Dedicated exercise really is a much smaller portion of our overall caloric output compared to BMR and NEAT. Especially in someone genetically prone to compensate for exercise induced energy expenditure.

I saw you mentioned that you guys will splurge sometimes on the weekend is that right? Just know that one could wash away a deficit created M-F on the weekend pretty easily, esp for smaller people with a lower overall metabolic rate with less room for error. Its a numbers game in this regard, so this may be an area behaviorally that can be addressed in the short term, regardless of metabolic rate.

Beyond this some things can impact metabolic rate on the whole such as:

Hormonal testing may help, but if her hormonal BC is estrogen and progestin based, expect these levels to be low on the test, they are being replaced by synthetic alternatives in this case.

Total T, free T, DHEA-S, Cortisol AM/PM, as well as free T3/T4 and TSH could be good too. I am still on the fence about reverse T3 as mentioned before but maybe testing it to see if her body is trying to slow down metabolically can help point towards more testing in general being needed.
 

SweetLou321

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Not at all in the last couple months aside from NYE. At this point a solid month of theoretical deficit + zero alcohol + lifting/HIIT/LISS on the daily should have yielded some effect...
I do wonder though, is she less active outside of the exercise? Just food for thought, but some peoples NEAT can really decline after exercise resulting in a 500 cal workout only resulting in 100-200 cals net caloric loss bc NEAT was decreased by 300-400 outside of the workout. I have seen some studies show that in some unfortunate people, NEAT can decrease to wash away all of the caloric expenditure for a dedicated workout, which just stinks for them.
 
sns8778

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I’m on my second marriage, so I had a practice wife and now know what to say and not say. Basically you can’t go wrong with yes dear or no dear!
Heck, in my past experiences even when I went with yes's and no's they were the wrong ones or people just still wanted to argue, so I don't even try anymore haha. 😂:ROFLMAO:
 
Dustin07

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I do wonder though, is she less active outside of the exercise? Just food for thought, but some peoples NEAT can really decline after exercise resulting in a 500 cal workout only resulting in 100-200 cals net caloric loss bc NEAT was decreased by 300-400 outside of the workout. I have seen some studies show that in some unfortunate people, NEAT can decrease to wash away all of the caloric expenditure for a dedicated workout, which just stinks for them.
yes but it doesn't get down to the root issue. if an otherwise healthy adult lifting heavy, HIIT, additional cardio is still gaining weight at 1200-1300 calories then applying an age old 500 calorie deficit just no longer makes sense. 700 calories for anyone is just... crazy.
 
MrKleen73

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The things that I've written about in this thread can be useful tools for both men and women. If you have any questions or if there is anything that I can do to help, you're welcome to pm me or you can even put a thread in the SNS sub-forum to discuss it if you'd like - the reason I say that is because I'm not going to post in this section anymore after today but would be glad to discuss it there and help in any way that I can.
@sns8778 I am very happy to see that you are willing to help in the company thread. I really enjoyed your layout of the information you provided and can see it being very beneficial in helping people. I love the sciency stuff!
yes but it doesn't get down to the root issue. if an otherwise healthy adult lifting heavy, HIIT, additional cardio is still gaining weight at 1200-1300 calories then applying an age old 500 calorie deficit just no longer makes sense. 700 calories for anyone is just... crazy.
Well for certain a 500 would be entirely too much. The Mountain Dog himself John Meadows suggested only reducing calories in 5% increments. So if you wanted to start somewhere I would think along those lines. Hopefully the metabolic Dr. will find something that elucidates the problem, and be able to propose a true solution but in the meantime don't even entertain a 500 calorie deficit.

As far as what @SweetLou321 mentioned, it is very common when people start a program they are tired, and possibly already underfed their body lowers hormones that tend to stimulate movement in an effort to be more efficient during the training. This causes people to unintentionally move around less throughout the day in an effort to conserve calories for recovery and training. Although I doubt that is THE factor, it could definitely be a factor.

Wishing your Queen gets her answers and the resulting progress sooner rather than later!
 
Dustin07

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@sns8778 I am very happy to see that you are willing to help in the company thread. I really enjoyed your layout of the information you provided and can see it being very beneficial in helping people. I love the sciency stuff!

Well for certain a 500 would be entirely too much. The Mountain Dog himself John Meadows suggested only reducing calories in 5% increments. So if you wanted to start somewhere I would think along those lines. Hopefully the metabolic Dr. will find something that elucidates the problem, and be able to propose a true solution but in the meantime don't even entertain a 500 calorie deficit.

As far as what @SweetLou321 mentioned, it is very common when people start a program they are tired, and possibly already underfed their body lowers hormones that tend to stimulate movement in an effort to be more efficient during the training. This causes people to unintentionally move around less throughout the day in an effort to conserve calories for recovery and training. Although I doubt that is THE factor, it could definitely be a factor.

Wishing your Queen gets her answers and the resulting progress sooner rather than later!
hopefully with the blood testing she will get more meaningful feedback. Last night she gave me the full rundown of everything he said. half of it was what I already told her and the other half was sorta quacky, but nothing that we haven't already heard, seen, tried, etc. I mean he basically wants her to eat more meat, eliminate carbs, move to IF and possibly reverse diet. Blood work will include cortisol, t and some others.

it's much easier to tell one of us to reverse diet. Me jumping from 183lbs to 190 or so over the course of 4 months while improving strength and setting a deadlift PR was cake. I got to eat more food, lift more weight, and set a PR while gaining only modestly. Now, telling a petite woman to eat more food and intentionally risk gaining weight (short term), who is drastically trying to cut weight, is going to be a tall order. To be honest I'm scared to death to tell her that LOL!

BUT i'm walking proof of how well this **** works. I bumped my calories up almost 1,000 a day by the end of my project. Didn't start cutting back until January when I also introduced fasting and now I'm finding I'm still loosing weight eating 300-500 calories a day more than I did last Sept. and they're REAL calories since I haven't been drinking. actual useable nutrients.
 
MrKleen73

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Yeah reverse dieting is hard, honestly hard for anyone who is not already very lean. It is exciting coming off of a cut but scary and counter-intuitive for someone who already feels like they are too soft. Typically alongside that it is a good idea to increase overall activity too. It helps to give it somewhere to go. Perhaps once it starts she can add a 30-60 minute leisurely walk on non-training days. It will be good for the soul and probably help her feel more comfortable with the process while not really eating to much into the additional calories.
 
Dustin07

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Yeah reverse dieting is hard, honestly hard for anyone who is not already very lean. It is exciting coming off of a cut but scary and counter-intuitive for someone who already feels like they are too soft. Typically alongside that it is a good idea to increase overall activity too. It helps to give it somewhere to go. Perhaps once it starts she can add a 30-60 minute leisurely walk on non-training days. It will be good for the soul and probably help her feel more comfortable with the process while not really eating to much into the additional calories.
problem there is that she already has that additional 30-60min on her new fancy treadmill I got her last summer lol. Has a screen and everything 😅

I'm looking forward to another reverse diet here in 2.5-3 weeks. I'm guessing my weight will be about 183lbs when I start and I'll be testing some new stuff like Dermacrine etc; chase those gainz.

Deadlifting 500lbs, having monster shoulders and biceps, and a raging libido are less important to her though so adding calories is a tough pitch! lol
 
MrKleen73

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Ah I didn't realize that. I saw you saying she was lifting and doing HIIT 3-4 times a week. Yeah it's a hard sell, but she talked to the Doc so you don't have to be the one to tell her to reverse diet. :)
 
Dustin07

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Ah I didn't realize that. I saw you saying she was lifting and doing HIIT 3-4 times a week. Yeah it's a hard sell, but she talked to the Doc so you don't have to be the one to tell her to reverse diet. :)
I wish I could have found her like a 5lb cut this month prior to our trip in Feb so that when we got back she'd feel better about just hitting the weights hard and bringing the 5lbs back for the sake of metabolism. Its hard to embrace more calories when you're at all time high bodyweight. but no matter how many times she says "I'm just going to give up and embrace it" she doesn't, she measures her food and exercises and keeps on truckin'. I think that's a pretty good character trait. The girl just doesn't give up even if the results aren't there yet.
 

SweetLou321

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yes but it doesn't get down to the root issue. if an otherwise healthy adult lifting heavy, HIIT, additional cardio is still gaining weight at 1200-1300 calories then applying an age old 500 calorie deficit just no longer makes sense. 700 calories for anyone is just... crazy.
I will preface and say this may not apply to her but:

Is she weighing herself 5-7 days a week first thing in the morning, in the same clothes, after using the restroom? Are you then using a trend line to determine she is in fact gaining weight over this time period based on the trend line? I ask this because for smaller people who are less metabolically active, the old school method of weekly changes may not be as reliable. A lot of coaches I know use bi-weekly comparisons for weight loss for smaller people.

This is because for a smaller person, they are rarely using a 500 cal deficit. As you pointed out, its just too much in proportion to their caloric needs. In a relative sense, its kind of like crash dieting. Most coaches now advocate for a rate of loss 0.5-1% BW per week. If she weighs 140 lets say, that is 0.7-1.4 lbs of weight loss per week as a goal. On the lower side, 0.7 lbs can be tough to see over a single weeks trend, but over two weeks, it should be easier to see 1-1.5lbs lost. To lose 1-1.5lbs bi-weekly, that is a 250-350 cals deficit. So 500 cal deficit can be a quite extreme approach for smaller people. However, when we work with smaller numbers, the room for error is less as well.

People are usually not good at tracking their intakes. Even in registered dieticians, there can be a 20% error rate on average. For more common folk, it can be around 40% even. This would mean that a tracked 1200 could really be 1440 cals due to error in well educated people in food tracking. For a bigger person, like a 200lb male, this is much less of an issue, but it is more of real world problem for a smaller person less metabolically active person. As this simple variance can wash away a smaller deficit.

Next, food labels can be legally up to 20% off in the USA. Meaning a food labeled at 100 cals a serving, can really be 120 cals a serving. Some of this can contribute to the tracking error above, so its not all just people stink at tracking food. This is also a larger issue for sure for smaller people.

Add in someone being genetically prone to metabolic adaptation, and you have a scenario where one appears to be doing everything right, but nothing is happening. I personally do not look at caloric intakes on a food tracker as accurate, they are generally precise though baring in mind the errors we just have to accept in this case. So instead of viewing 1200 tracked cals as her "maintenance" I would rather just aim for that number daily to be precise, as it may not be accurate. So if she is tracking 1000 cals, is that the accurate number she is eating each day? Very likely no, but if we hit that daily, it will generally be precise. I would try to create more of an error buffer in her tracked cal goals to help account for the very likely unavoidable errors present. So I would aim for less tracked cals, but the number really is not accurate anyways. I hope this makes sense.

The last thing to consider is that she can be gaining muscle right? One pound of muscle is only made up of about 700-800 cals where a pound of body fat is estimated to be around 3,500 cals. This means that when one is in the early stages of their muscle building journey, the scale can move up at a rate that may be unexpected due to muscle gain. This also means that recomp, the loss of fat but gaining of muscle is mathematically best done in a slight deficit. This could explain some aspects of the lack of scale changes. It is best to remember the scale is just a proxy for her goal of fat loss and body recomp. To help round out her object proxies for her goals, why not add in a waist measurement done right after she weighs herself? If the waist number is staying the same while her weight is going up, that usually indicates muscle gain. If it is going down while her weight stays the same or goes us, that means she is likely recomping.

My GF tracks both her weight and waist over time, she is a general fitness person. Whenever she is sad about weight gain and when dieting things are not going the way she expected on the scale, checking her waist trend and performance metrics on her key lifts that she trains near failure in the 5-30 rep range have multiple occasions shown objectively she has gained muscle and improved her body composition, regardless of her scale weight. That does spark the idea that is would be good to have her log key performance lifts/cardio metrics, another proxy for results.

Also, the research at least suggests that low carb and IF really dont do anything special metabolically. When cals and protein are equated in studies, they see the same effects compared to other diet models. What this means is that I would not be surprised if a low carb 1,200 tracked diet and an IF 1,200 tracked diet do not result in any different results from pretty much any other 1,200 cal track diet over time. Low carb can be a way for some people to control their hunger better due to food choices and ketones. IF can help some people control their hunger due to limiting the window in the day they can eat. Outside of diet adherence, there is no reliable human clinical end point data suggesting they do anything metabolically compared to other diet models when cals and protein are equated. This has matched my experience and those of I have coached and helped.

Not everything is as it seems sometimes. I could be off, again I am happy to admit, but I dont think it hurts to account for likely errors and expanding our tool box of objective proxy markers for results.

If we are worried about her metabolism being slow, then I would personally, IMO, suggest the need to investigate things that impact the calories out side of the equation that are more related to BMR. Like sex hormones, thyroid, cortisol, and the combination of CRP+leptin.
 
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SweetLou321

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I will expand on is that HIIT and lifting do not really burn much in the ways of calories. If you look up the values, an hr long lifting session will burn a similar amount of cals to walking on an incline treadmill for an hr. HIIT does not burn much due to the short duration, the after burn effect is much overstated, the research shows its there, but only like 20-50 more cals on average. Dedicated exercise like lifting and HIIT really should not be a consideration when it comes to trying to drive up one's caloric expenditure for weight loss. Long steady state cardio can be more reliable due to its length, such as walking 10000 steps.

The largest factor for ones energy expenditure is BMR, what our body needs to keep the lights on at rest. Next is usually NEAT, followed by dedicated exercise, and last is the thermic effect of food (TEF).

BMR is usually pretty static, but can decrease a little due to metabolic adaption driven by hormone changes for example while dieting.

NEAT is something that usually goes down a lot when people diet. It also can go down a lot in people as a compensation mechanism for hard exercise, esp when dieting, which sucks for sure.

Dedicated exercise based energy expenditure will decline as we get better at it, the body just gets more efficient. This efficiency is increase while dieting, results in even less cals burned from the same session.

TEF will decline while dieting simply because we are eating less food. Also the digestive seems can slow down while dieting to help increase nutrient absorption, which means we can absorb more cals from the same foods while dieting.

This understanding is why I think dedicated hard exercise should be done mainly for its desired adaptions, not burning calories. Lift to get strong and bigger. Do HIIT to get faster or improve aerobic health. Adjust diet and add in more walking and stuff to increase caloric expenditure to create a bigger deficit.
 
gphagan1

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So, now to the main part of your question and where all of this ties in together.

As detailed above, Colitis, Crohn’s, and IBS are very different from food allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances; and even though weight loss is common in some people with these conditions, weight gain is also common in some people with them as well (so let’s rule those out of the discussion).

Food allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances are also all different things, but when a doctor requests testing for them, the tests are commonly done together (hence my suggestion that started all of this - to get tested for them all at once).

It’s not that food allergies, sensitivities, or intolerances directly cause you to gain weight, it’s that they can contribute to a variety of issues that may make you gain weight or more commonly, make it harder for you to lose weight (which is the problem his wife is having – hence my suggestion).

Chronic Inflammation:
Chronic inflammation is a common allergic reaction that can contribute to weight gain or cause people to have a much harder time losing weight. It’s important to realize that we’re not necessarily talking about inflammation on a level that you can feel, it may be so subtle that someone just chalks it up to the natural aches and pains that come along with aging; some may not even feel it at all – but that doesn’t mean that low level systemic inflammation may not be happening. Chronic inflammation can lead to increased cortisol levels, increased blood sugar, and may contribute to insulin resistance.

A great example of this that is more commonly known is that people with Rheumatoid Arthritis are more commonly susceptible to insulin resistance and metabolic disorder. Rheumatoid Arthritis is an autoimmune disorder that involves systemic inflammation – so this is a great example of a common link between inflammation and metabolic disorders.

Chronic Inflammation – Bullet Points:
  • Chronic Inflammation can lead to:
    • Increased cortisol levels
    • Increased blood sugar levels
    • Increased insulin resistance
    • Increased risks of metabolic disorders
    • Inflammation is commonly associated with weight gain and making it harder to lose weight.
    • Therefore, any food that may cause inflammation may lead to weight gain in some individuals.
    • Food intolerances caused by IgG antibodies can lead to a state of low-grade inflammation which can interfere with weight loss.
    • It has been noted that one of the big reasons why mast cell patients gain weight is because mast cells release molecules that cause inflammation. Some of these molecules are known to be linked to obesity when there is too high a level of them in the body.
Here is a list of just some of the other ways that they can contribute to weight gain or making it harder for some people to lose weight:
  • Autoimmune responses by the body may not only trigger inflammation but may also cause fluid retention in many individuals which may make it harder to lose weight, harder to see the results of their weight loss, and lead to depression and anxiety in many individuals trying to lose weight because they often see the scale fluctuate a lot due to this and it can be very discouraging.
  • Lack of proper digestion can lead to nutritional deficiencies, some of which can lead to weight gain, decreased metabolism, and make it harder to lose weight.
    • For example, a lack of Vitamin D and Calcium have been linked with weight gain and difficulty losing weight.
I’ve realized that after typing this out in a word document and it being 5 typed pages, that I could keep going on and on about this subject and I've taken way too much time out of my work day already typing all this up.

I’m going to end with one last thing specific to gluten sensitivity because I can speak on it personally.

Gluten Sensitivity – My Personal Experience:
  • I was able to eat gluten all of my life up until I was diagnosed with a gluten sensitivity in 2011 and I had noticed that in the year prior I had stayed sick a lot and that my metabolism had slowed down dramatically.
  • Remember: Any food that may cause inflammation in the body may also lead to weight gain; and when gluten sensitivity or intolerance occurs, so does inflammation.
  • I have an autoimmune condition and even the smallest amount of cross contamination with gluten can cause severe inflammatory effects for me in my tendons and ligaments (usually not my joints) – and I’ve gained so much fluid weight from cross contamination that you could hardly tell where my forearm stopped, and upper arm started.
  • Scale weight wise – I’ve gained up to 13 lbs. in 2 days of fluid retention related to this.
  • One leading researcher on gluten sensitivity stated – “When you have a gluten sensitivity, it’s really getting your hormones out of whack and that leads to inflammation and swelling which makes you hold on to fat that should be burned off, so even if you go on a diet, if there’s gluten in there, you don’t lose weight.”
  • My metabolism has slowed down significantly since becoming sensitive to gluten. I used to could eat crappy, do little cardio, and stay pretty lean. Now, I can watch my diet and do cardio, and I’ve never achieved the level of leanness that I did previously.
I’ve typed so much here that I’ll likely clean it up some and turn it into an article at some point in an effort to help people that are affected by these types of issues.

I really hope that all of this information does help someone in the future with not only losing weight but also with helping improve their health and overall quality of life.
Great post and explanation….. my wife has MS and Sarcoidosis and you’ve given me more ideas to research for her.
Thanks for such a detailed and informative post, much appreciated.👍👍👍

Dustin my wife is 57, I’m 58, and has gone through menopause, and that was my first thought because her metabolism seemed to slow down when she was going through it, not as low a maintenance as your wife, but still low for her and her activity level. She made dietary adjustments and increased cardio and that actually did help her, but there is a possibility some of her hormonal changes could be a part of it, according to her Endo. Didn’t want to say much, because you’ve already gotten a lot of good information, and are on the right track with your doctors, but just wanted to share a little personal experiences.
Good luck brother.
 
Dustin07

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I will preface and say this may not apply to her but:

Is she weighing herself 5-7 days a week first thing in the morning, in the same clothes, after using the restroom? Are you then using a trend line to determine she is in fact gaining weight over this time period based on the trend line? I ask this because for smaller people who are less metabolically active, the old school method of weekly changes may not be as reliable. A lot of coaches I know use bi-weekly comparisons for weight loss for smaller people.

This is because for a smaller person, they are rarely using a 500 cal deficit. As you pointed out, its just too much in proportion to their caloric needs. In a relative sense, its kind of like crash dieting. Most coaches now advocate for a rate of loss 0.5-1% BW per week. If she weighs 140 lets say, that is 0.7-1.4 lbs of weight loss per week as a goal. On the lower side, 0.7 lbs can be tough to see over a single weeks trend, but over two weeks, it should be easier to see 1-1.5lbs lost. To lose 1-1.5lbs bi-weekly, that is a 250-350 cals deficit. So 500 cal deficit can be a quite extreme approach for smaller people. However, when we work with smaller numbers, the room for error is less as well.

People are usually not good at tracking their intakes. Even in registered dieticians, there can be a 20% error rate on average. For more common folk, it can be around 40% even. This would mean that a tracked 1200 could really be 1440 cals due to error in well educated people in food tracking. For a bigger person, like a 200lb male, this is much less of an issue, but it is more of real world problem for a smaller person less metabolically active person. As this simple variance can wash away a smaller deficit.

Next, food labels can be legally up to 20% off in the USA. Meaning a food labeled at 100 cals a serving, can really be 120 cals a serving. Some of this can contribute to the tracking error above, so its not all just people stink at tracking food. This is also a larger issue for sure for smaller people.

Add in someone being genetically prone to metabolic adaptation, and you have a scenario where one appears to be doing everything right, but nothing is happening. I personally do not look at caloric intakes on a food tracker as accurate, they are generally precise though baring in mind the errors we just have to accept in this case. So instead of viewing 1200 tracked cals as her "maintenance" I would rather just aim for that number daily to be precise, as it may not be accurate. So if she is tracking 1000 cals, is that the accurate number she is eating each day? Very likely no, but if we hit that daily, it will generally be precise. I would try to create more of an error buffer in her tracked cal goals to help account for the very likely unavoidable errors present. So I would aim for less tracked cals, but the number really is not accurate anyways. I hope this makes sense.

The last thing to consider is that she can be gaining muscle right? One pound of muscle is only made up of about 700-800 cals where a pound of body fat is estimated to be around 3,500 cals. This means that when one is in the early stages of their muscle building journey, the scale can move up at a rate that may be unexpected due to muscle gain. This also means that recomp, the loss of fat but gaining of muscle is mathematically best done in a slight deficit. This could explain some aspects of the lack of scale changes. It is best to remember the scale is just a proxy for her goal of fat loss and body recomp. To help round out her object proxies for her goals, why not add in a waist measurement done right after she weighs herself? If the waist number is staying the same while her weight is going up, that usually indicates muscle gain. If it is going down while her weight stays the same or goes us, that means she is likely recomping.

My GF tracks both her weight and waist over time, she is a general fitness person. Whenever she is sad about weight gain and when dieting things are not going the way she expected on the scale, checking her waist trend and performance metrics on her key lifts that she trains near failure in the 5-30 rep range have multiple occasions shown objectively she has gained muscle and improved her body composition, regardless of her scale weight. That does spark the idea that is would be good to have her log key performance lifts/cardio metrics, another proxy for results.

Also, the research at least suggests that low carb and IF really dont do anything special metabolically. When cals and protein are equated in studies, they see the same effects compared to other diet models. What this means is that I would not be surprised if a low carb 1,200 tracked diet and an IF 1,200 tracked diet do not result in any different results from pretty much any other 1,200 cal track diet over time. Low carb can be a way for some people to control their hunger better due to food choices and ketones. IF can help some people control their hunger due to limiting the window in the day they can eat. Outside of diet adherence, there is no reliable human clinical end point data suggesting they do anything metabolically compared to other diet models when cals and protein are equated. This has matched my experience and those of I have coached and helped.

Not everything is as it seems sometimes. I could be off, again I am happy to admit, but I dont think it hurts to account for likely errors and expanding our tool box of objective proxy markers for results.

If we are worried about her metabolism being slow, then I would personally, IMO, suggest the need to investigate things that impact the calories out side of the equation that are more related to BMR. Like sex hormones, thyroid, cortisol, and the combination of CRP+leptin.
I will expand on is that HIIT and lifting do not really burn much in the ways of calories. If you look up the values, an hr long lifting session will burn a similar amount of cals to walking on an incline treadmill for an hr. HIIT does not burn much due to the short duration, the after burn effect is much overstated, the research shows its there, but only like 20-50 more cals on average. Dedicated exercise like lifting and HIIT really should not be a consideration when it comes to trying to drive up one's caloric expenditure for weight loss. Long steady state cardio can be more reliable due to its length, such as walking 10000 steps.

The largest factor for ones energy expenditure is BMR, what our body needs to keep the lights on at rest. Next is usually NEAT, followed by dedicated exercise, and last is the thermic effect of food (TEF).

BMR is usually pretty static, but can decrease a little due to metabolic adaption driven by hormone changes for example while dieting.

NEAT is something that usually goes down a lot when people diet. It also can go down a lot in people as a compensation mechanism for hard exercise, esp when dieting, which sucks for sure.

Dedicated exercise based energy expenditure will decline as we get better at it, the body just gets more efficient. This efficiency is increase while dieting, results in even less cals burned from the same session.

TEF will decline while dieting simply because we are eating less food. Also the digestive seems can slow down while dieting to help increase nutrient absorption, which means we can absorb more cals from the same foods while dieting.

This understanding is why I think dedicated hard exercise should be done mainly for its desired adaptions, not burning calories. Lift to get strong and bigger. Do HIIT to get faster or improve aerobic health. Adjust diet and add in more walking and stuff to increase caloric expenditure to create a bigger deficit.
These things are accurate and I don't mean to come off testy, but rudimentary. I've played all these games for so many years that while I wholeheartedly accept and love to learn new nutritional and training life hacks, I've never had an issue cutting down to sub 10% myself or getting a few lbs off her when she wants to.

She's doing all the right things. I need to get her metabolism up. I don't disagree with you on any of it, but I've already checked all of those boxes.

Great post and explanation….. my wife has MS and Sarcoidosis and you’ve given me more ideas to research for her.
Thanks for such a detailed and informative post, much appreciated.👍👍👍

Dustin my wife is 57, I’m 58, and has gone through menopause, and that was my first thought because her metabolism seemed to slow down when she was going through it, not as low a maintenance as your wife, but still low for her and her activity level. She made dietary adjustments and increased cardio and that actually did help her, but there is a possibility some of her hormonal changes could be a part of it, according to her Endo. Didn’t want to say much, because you’ve already gotten a lot of good information, and are on the right track with your doctors, but just wanted to share a little personal experiences.
Good luck brother.
The timing is right, that's for sure.
I'd love to get some constructive information back from the blood work when that gets done, and then push harder on the reverse diet I think.... we'll see. I'll likely schedule an appt to get snipped in Feb when we get back from our trip which will get her off the BC and would also likely have a positive effect on her hormones. When she first got on it she did gain a few lbs, I want to say 5-10. But she held there for a couple years and now it's up further so... could be multiple things at play there hormonally...
 
sns8778

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These things are accurate and I don't mean to come off testy, but rudimentary. I've played all these games for so many years that while I wholeheartedly accept and love to learn new nutritional and training life hacks, I've never had an issue cutting down to sub 10% myself or getting a few lbs off her when she wants to.

She's doing all the right things. I need to get her metabolism up. I don't disagree with you on any of it, but I've already checked all of those boxes.
I think that is one of the things that led to some disagreement with the person you quoted and replied this to and myself earlier in your thread (no disrespect to him meant and for context, he and I have carried our conversation privately and much more amicably) - but I knew you were super strict and super knowledgeable on all the basics and a lot of the advanced stuff when it comes to diet and training and that's why I wasn't suggesting any basic stuff and was trying to throw 'outside the box' type ideas your way, because I knew you already knew and had likely exhausted all the normal ones.

I love helping people, but admittedly don't have the hours in the day to discuss the basics of diet, exercise, training, etc. so I generally just bypass those threads altogether - not that I don't know the stuff, but a lot of other people do too - but its the threads and situations where people have exhausted the normal options is where I try to help.

And I don't much here on AM because I post stuff trying to help and so often if its an idea that is out of the norm, I have people be negative towards me or try to be disagreeable with me about it - but its usually cases where I'm posting a unique idea because its a unique situation - and I'm not here to debate, I'm here to help. But at the same time, I'm behind at work and in my own life because of my accident last year that almost ended me and I'm working 70+ hours a week trying to get caught up at work and at life, while being a single dad on top of it.

I've thought about and may do a series of articles in the coming months on some of the things with the food allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances and also some other outside the norm things that can cause metabolic issues because I plan on getting back to write a lot more articles like I used to anyway - and I think that some of those may can really help people.
 
sns8778

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Great post and explanation….. my wife has MS and Sarcoidosis and you’ve given me more ideas to research for her.
Thanks for such a detailed and informative post, much appreciated.👍👍👍

Dustin my wife is 57, I’m 58, and has gone through menopause, and that was my first thought because her metabolism seemed to slow down when she was going through it, not as low a maintenance as your wife, but still low for her and her activity level. She made dietary adjustments and increased cardio and that actually did help her, but there is a possibility some of her hormonal changes could be a part of it, according to her Endo. Didn’t want to say much, because you’ve already gotten a lot of good information, and are on the right track with your doctors, but just wanted to share a little personal experiences.
Good luck brother.
Thank you. I really appreciate the kind words and I'm glad that its given you some ideas.

I have a very good friend with MS and I have an autoimmune condition myself, so if there is anything I can ever do to help, please let me know. You're welcome to pm me and I can give you my direct contact information.
 
Dustin07

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I think that is one of the things that led to some disagreement with the person you quoted and replied this to and myself earlier in your thread (no disrespect to him meant and for context, he and I have carried our conversation privately and much more amicably) - but I knew you were super strict and super knowledgeable on all the basics and a lot of the advanced stuff when it comes to diet and training and that's why I wasn't suggesting any basic stuff and was trying to throw 'outside the box' type ideas your way, because I knew you already knew and had likely exhausted all the normal ones.

I love helping people, but admittedly don't have the hours in the day to discuss the basics of diet, exercise, training, etc. so I generally just bypass those threads altogether - not that I don't know the stuff, but a lot of other people do too - but its the threads and situations where people have exhausted the normal options is where I try to help.

And I don't much here on AM because I post stuff trying to help and so often if its an idea that is out of the norm, I have people be negative towards me or try to be disagreeable with me about it - but its usually cases where I'm posting a unique idea because its a unique situation - and I'm not here to debate, I'm here to help. But at the same time, I'm behind at work and in my own life because of my accident last year that almost ended me and I'm working 70+ hours a week trying to get caught up at work and at life, while being a single dad on top of it.

I've thought about and may do a series of articles in the coming months on some of the things with the food allergies, sensitivities, and intolerances and also some other outside the norm things that can cause metabolic issues because I plan on getting back to write a lot more articles like I used to anyway - and I think that some of those may can really help people.

I get that! I'm in another group that is constantly filled with newb questions.
"how do I lose 15lbs this month" etc etc.

I just say get a nutrition app, weigh and measure your food and find out what your baseline is. Then cut 500 calories.

If they actually do ANY of that. Then I dig into macros, nutrient timing, lifting, cardio etc. But I always start at the very basics and then dig in further from there.

Even though I've been to the rodeo many times myself, the whole reason I frequent a place like AM is because once a year or two I have to go back and relearn everything. I look over my logs, especially dated back to eras where I know I was "in the sweet spot" I look at what I was doing, I ask people why they're making their choices, etc. It gives me reality checks and accountability. I may "know" what to do, but sometimes you're not doing it even if you think you are (which I think is what the other post was suggesting as a possibility). on top of all that, there's constantly all this new science coming out and I'm really fascinated by the studies on fasting lately.

My wife and I opted to cut alcohol after NYE until our next vacation for health purposes (apparently the rest of the world created a thing called dry january? we had no idea until we were two weeks in lol) so reading more about fasting and it's health benefits at a time that I'm cutting booze is really encouraging to think about the long term health benefits i'm creating but can't see.


anyways, I rabbit trailed... I do that.
 

SweetLou321

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These things are accurate and I don't mean to come off testy, but rudimentary. I've played all these games for so many years that while I wholeheartedly accept and love to learn new nutritional and training life hacks, I've never had an issue cutting down to sub 10% myself or getting a few lbs off her when she wants to.

She's doing all the right things. I need to get her metabolism up. I don't disagree with you on any of it, but I've already checked all of those boxes.



The timing is right, that's for sure.
I'd love to get some constructive information back from the blood work when that gets done, and then push harder on the reverse diet I think.... we'll see. I'll likely schedule an appt to get snipped in Feb when we get back from our trip which will get her off the BC and would also likely have a positive effect on her hormones. When she first got on it she did gain a few lbs, I want to say 5-10. But she held there for a couple years and now it's up further so... could be multiple things at play there hormonally...
Thats great to hear, sounds like she is lucky to have you helping her in this case then.

I know a low has been mentioned but I will repeat this more niche suggestion of testing the combination of Hs-CRP and leptin. Leptin is a main hormone that regulates our metabolism and it is released from fat cells, however, CRP can prevent it from reaching the brain. This can result in a lower cascade of hormones, thyroid, and overall metabolism. In fact, in some studies where metabolic adaption like effects are seen, leptin injections can reverse almost all of the processes. If her Hs-CRP is high, this could impact the leptin has reaching the brain, and thus impacting her metabolic rate on the whole.

This is the last post I have to "help". Best of luck to your wife and everyone else helping the women in their lives in this thread.
 
Dustin07

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Thats great to hear, sounds like she is lucky to have you helping her in this case then.

I know a low has been mentioned but I will repeat this more niche suggestion of testing the combination of Hs-CRP and leptin. Leptin is a main hormone that regulates our metabolism and it is released from fat cells, however, CRP can prevent it from reaching the brain. This can result in a lower cascade of hormones, thyroid, and overall metabolism. In fact, in some studies where metabolic adaption like effects are seen, leptin injections can reverse almost all of the processes. If her Hs-CRP is high, this could impact the leptin has reaching the brain, and thus impacting her metabolic rate on the whole.

This is the last post I have to "help". Best of luck to your wife and everyone else helping the women in their lives in this thread.
With any luck we'll know sometime next week, looks like blood is drawing Monday I believe and I know we're looking at Leptin!
 

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Thats great to hear, sounds like she is lucky to have you helping her in this case then.

I know a low has been mentioned but I will repeat this more niche suggestion of testing the combination of Hs-CRP and leptin. Leptin is a main hormone that regulates our metabolism and it is released from fat cells, however, CRP can prevent it from reaching the brain. This can result in a lower cascade of hormones, thyroid, and overall metabolism. In fact, in some studies where metabolic adaption like effects are seen, leptin injections can reverse almost all of the processes. If her Hs-CRP is high, this could impact the leptin has reaching the brain, and thus impacting her metabolic rate on the whole.

This is the last post I have to "help". Best of luck to your wife and everyone else helping the women in their lives in this thread.
any way to do it without leptin injections?
 

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@Dustin07 there’s a book my wife has picked up called Next Level by Stacy Sims. It focuses on women that are pre/menopausal. She could possibly pick up some things in it. Also, if you said this in a previous post I apologize but is your wife measuring her body? My wife showed me some pics of women that have lost a ton of inches but their weight is the same in both pics. I hope she hears something soon on her labs.
 
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I am not a nutritionist or scientist I apologize.

Eating foods high in soluble fiber like avocados, brussels sprouts, flax seeds, blackberries, or legumes because they help you feel full by going down your digestive tract slowly

Artichokes are one of the best foods low in calories, high in fiber, good amount of protein, and many nutrients and minerals like vitamin K, folate, potassium, iron, magnesium, and vitamin c

Multiple studies revealed lack of sleep leads to weight gain, with one of the studies highlighting just two weeks of 4 hrs or less of sleep led to the participants increasing 9% of subcutaneous belly fat and 11% of abdominal visceral fat. Consistently having good sleep will help keep the weight down in your abdominal area along with other health benefits such as improved memory, regulating your hormones, repairs muscles, and burns fat.

It might not be her thyroid or calorie intake. It could be her lack of sleep or something similar. Foods high in fiber and low in calories could help as well.
 
Dustin07

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@Dustin07 there’s a book my wife has picked up called Next Level by Stacy Sims. It focuses on women that are pre/menopausal. She could possibly pick up some things in it. Also, if you said this in a previous post I apologize but is your wife measuring her body? My wife showed me some pics of women that have lost a ton of inches but their weight is the same in both pics. I hope she hears something soon on her labs.
yeah she measures everything, I'll check out the book!
 
Dustin07

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I am not a nutritionist or scientist I apologize.

Eating foods high in soluble fiber like avocados, brussels sprouts, flax seeds, blackberries, or legumes because they help you feel full by going down your digestive tract slowly

Artichokes are one of the best foods low in calories, high in fiber, good amount of protein, and many nutrients and minerals like vitamin K, folate, potassium, iron, magnesium, and vitamin c

Multiple studies revealed lack of sleep leads to weight gain, with one of the studies highlighting just two weeks of 4 hrs or less of sleep led to the participants increasing 9% of subcutaneous belly fat and 11% of abdominal visceral fat. Consistently having good sleep will help keep the weight down in your abdominal area along with other health benefits such as improved memory, regulating your hormones, repairs muscles, and burns fat.

It might not be her thyroid or calorie intake. It could be her lack of sleep or something similar. Foods high in fiber and low in calories could help as well.
We sleep from 9pm to 5am every day. She's usually out by 8:30pm.
 

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yeah she measures everything, I'll check out the book!
I figured she was measuring but my wife wanted me to ask to be sure. I couldn’t find it in your previous posts if you had mentioned measuring.
 
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blood test were yesterday so we should have results this week.
She says If it doesn't come back with some sort of info then it is what it is lol. I think she's just frustrated.
I said if it doesn't come back we go to reverse dieting in very small increments and get a new doc for further exploration. No reason to just throw in the towel, keep on truckin'
 
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blood test were yesterday so we should have results this week.
She says If it doesn't come back with some sort of info then it is what it is lol. I think she's just frustrated.
I said if it doesn't come back we go to reverse dieting in very small increments and get a new doc for further exploration. No reason to just throw in the towel, keep on truckin'
I can understand her being frustrated; it has to be.

I've worked with so many people that are doing everything right, or at least what would be right for most people and not getting results - its frustrating on them to see other people not trying nearly as hard but getting better results.

I've expressed just a few of the things in this thread that I've seen over the years of doing this and it seems like each leads to a debate that I just don't have the time or mental energy to have - nor do I honestly feel the need to justify 20 years worth of experience and results with helping people in unique situations like this - but I wanted to let you know that if she needs any help, I'll be glad to help her and speak with her and you off the forums and help any way that I can (free), and that I'm friends with one of the top metabolic coaches in the country and would be glad to see if he would be willing to review her situation and give his insight as well.
 
Dustin07

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I can understand her being frustrated; it has to be.

I've worked with so many people that are doing everything right, or at least what would be right for most people and not getting results - its frustrating on them to see other people not trying nearly as hard but getting better results.

I've expressed just a few of the things in this thread that I've seen over the years of doing this and it seems like each leads to a debate that I just don't have the time or mental energy to have - nor do I honestly feel the need to justify 20 years worth of experience and results with helping people in unique situations like this - but I wanted to let you know that if she needs any help, I'll be glad to help her and speak with her and you off the forums and help any way that I can (free), and that I'm friends with one of the top metabolic coaches in the country and would be glad to see if he would be willing to review her situation and give his insight as well.
Dude that would be awesome. Got test results back today:
T4, Free = 1.23
Glucose = 87
creatinine = .9
sodium = 140
potassium = 4.7
CO2 = 19 (low?)
calcium, protein, really everything is in the middle of reference intervals.

Cholesterol is a little high at 202
triglycerides though 39
HDL 82
VLDL 7

A1C 5.2
although I don't know how much a1c changes day to day. this blood test was after 14+hrs fasted so

Testosterone 22
Vitamin D at 32.8 was flagged at low with reference interval being 30-100.

Insulin 7.1
T3 2.7
Cortisol 12.4

so all I really see here is cholesterol being a tinsy bit high and D being maybe a tinsy bit low.
 

sammpedd88

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Dude that would be awesome. Got test results back today:
T4, Free = 1.23
Glucose = 87
creatinine = .9
sodium = 140
potassium = 4.7
CO2 = 19 (low?)
calcium, protein, really everything is in the middle of reference intervals.

Cholesterol is a little high at 202
triglycerides though 39
HDL 82
VLDL 7

A1C 5.2
although I don't know how much a1c changes day to day. this blood test was after 14+hrs fasted so

Testosterone 22
Vitamin D at 32.8 was flagged at low with reference interval being 30-100.

Insulin 7.1
T3 2.7
Cortisol 12.4

so all I really see here is cholesterol being a tinsy bit high and D being maybe a tinsy bit low.
I’m curious as to why they didn’t test her estrogen levels?
 

sammpedd88

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I'd like to know that too. she's going to follow up today to ask
Makes me wonder if her ratio of E and test are off. And come to think of it, was progesterone on her results?
 
MrKleen73

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I'd like to know that too. she's going to follow up today to ask
Sometimes I think they leave off things that they should be testing just to get you back into the office again for another paid visit. Unfortunately they run it like a business more often than trying to find the solution as quickly as possible. Then again, I may just be slightly jaded through some of my experiences with some doctors.
 
Dustin07

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Makes me wonder if her ratio of E and test are off. And come to think of it, was progesterone on her results?
Sometimes I think they leave off things that they should be testing just to get you back into the office again for another paid visit. Unfortunately they run it like a business more often than trying to find the solution as quickly as possible. Then again, I may just be slightly jaded through some of my experiences with some doctors.
My wife has always been a fairly petite woman with an athletic build. at 5'3 I believe she said she averaged like sub 120lbs until she found xfit, then was about 126lbs with abs when I met her. (although all she ever said was "I just want abs"... she had them lol). She went on bc after we got together and was extremely frustrated by the immediate 5, then 10lbs she gained which seemed to relate directly to the bc. that was years ago and that has become 20lbs. she held firm at the 10 for a while but during covid for all we know it was really 15lbs and 5lbs of muscle loss with the gym closed and us lifting at home occasionally with borrowed equipment.

I truly think at the end of the day it's a combination of lower

NEAT at 50 with a desk job
the BC fucking up her hormones
her metabolism sluggish after years of eating exactly the same way.


I think the most obvious answer is for me to get snipped. I have no reason not to, but I have serious apprehension about it. I hate to admit it but the entire process makes me very nervous.
 

sammpedd88

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Sometimes I think they leave off things that they should be testing just to get you back into the office again for another paid visit. Unfortunately they run it like a business more often than trying to find the solution as quickly as possible. Then again, I may just be slightly jaded through some of my experiences with some doctors.
Yeah you’ve got a good point there. Luckily I go to an integrative dr and they test everything under the sun. Regular dr’s mainly suck these days.
 

sammpedd88

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My wife has always been a fairly petite woman with an athletic build. at 5'3 I believe she said she averaged like sub 120lbs until she found xfit, then was about 126lbs with abs when I met her. (although all she ever said was "I just want abs"... she had them lol). She went on bc after we got together and was extremely frustrated by the immediate 5, then 10lbs she gained which seemed to relate directly to the bc. that was years ago and that has become 20lbs. she held firm at the 10 for a while but during covid for all we know it was really 15lbs and 5lbs of muscle loss with the gym closed and us lifting at home occasionally with borrowed equipment.

I truly think at the end of the day it's a combination of lower

NEAT at 50 with a desk job
the BC fucking up her hormones
her metabolism sluggish after years of eating exactly the same way.


I think the most obvious answer is for me to get snipped. I have no reason not to, but I have serious apprehension about it. I hate to admit it but the entire process makes me very nervous.
I got snipped 23 years ago next month. I didn’t have any side effects.
 

sammpedd88

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My wife has always been a fairly petite woman with an athletic build. at 5'3 I believe she said she averaged like sub 120lbs until she found xfit, then was about 126lbs with abs when I met her. (although all she ever said was "I just want abs"... she had them lol). She went on bc after we got together and was extremely frustrated by the immediate 5, then 10lbs she gained which seemed to relate directly to the bc. that was years ago and that has become 20lbs. she held firm at the 10 for a while but during covid for all we know it was really 15lbs and 5lbs of muscle loss with the gym closed and us lifting at home occasionally with borrowed equipment.

I truly think at the end of the day it's a combination of lower

NEAT at 50 with a desk job
the BC fucking up her hormones
her metabolism sluggish after years of eating exactly the same way.


I think the most obvious answer is for me to get snipped. I have no reason not to, but I have serious apprehension about it. I hate to admit it but the entire process makes me very nervous.
A close second could be a food allergy like Steve SNS was saying. Dairy can be brutal on the body.
 

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