Diet talk

[lnr]

Gah, I don't know quite what to say here, because I am a muddle of contradictions. I'm around 100kg, give or take a couple either way. I'm type 2 diabetic. I'm very very strongly encouraged to lose weight to try and bring that into remission, but I've been resisting that and trying to concentrate on eating sensibly to manage the diabetes. I don't believe in dieting for weight loss, because it's usually counterproductive in the long term, but I live in an environment where the pressure for me to lose weight is enormous, including from myself. So, gah. Anyway, skip the rest if you don't want to read about diet talk.

Anyway, for some reason one of the weight loss company ads got me, and I've signed up for a two-week trial of Habitual.

It's a total diet replacement scheme - three months of meal replacements: 4 soups, shakes or porridges a day, for a total of 800 calories. Which could be great or could be awful but VLC diets are supposedly good for "reversing diabetes" and I figured I could give it a go for the cost of postage, and here I am 1.5 days in and doubting myself. So far nothing tastes *horrible* but it's not inspiring. I'm tired and hungry and grumpy but to be fair that's probably not lack of calories - just lack of enjoyment and the weight of expectation of the next 12.5 days! I feel like I *could* carry on a bit longer, but that I'm almost certainly *not* going to sign on for the first full month after the free trial. Which to be fair I thought was a likely outcome anyway. I guess the only question now is do I stick it out for two weeks, or do I go make a sandwich and chuck the meal replacements away?

Anyone want a bunch of 200 cal shakes?

Comments

[bugshaw]

Anecdotally I lost 20 pounds last spring on average 1200 kcal/day, by the end of March I'd put it all back on. But that's how humans work, eh? Diabetes number dropped fantastically to 38 but has snuck up again to 48. I suspect I don't want meal replacements and also that they're not gluten/dairy free.

Might be worth carrying on for the two weeks to see if it resets your eating habits, or can you not cope with being hangry? I can only manage when I don't have any other commitments.

[lnr]

Thanks B, I totally agree that's totally how humans work. And I'm mildly curious how protective it is that I'm still c 12kg below my 2009 peak, even if significantly up (and down and up and down and up) since 2010.

Sadly you're right that the meal replacements do all contain dairy - "milk protein powder" appears to be a key ingredient. I'm impressed that only the porridges fail to be gluten free.

I still dunno if I'm up for the full 2 weeks, but seem to have managed the rest of yesterday and breakfast today, so perhaps just keep it one-day-at-a-time for now.

[aldabra]

What happens if you have one meal a day of this stuff instead of three? Or if you eat this stuff plus all the fruit and veg you want, and accept that it'll be more than 800 calories but less than if you were eating normal meals?

Tired and hungry and grumpy sounds like a carb crash. I get those and they lift after 48 hours; something to do with your metabolism recognising that it's not getting carbs and switching to another pathway. Might be worth sticking with it until tomorrow evening and see if you feel better.

[lnr]

Interestingly it's 4 meals a day (which is weird to me, because I'd work better with three!) - but it turns out they do suggest you could replace one of them with a 200 cal non-starchy-veg based meal and continue to get similar results (or a bigger meal with meat and/or a small treat) if you accept slower results. They've also suggested that since I don't plan to cut out all the existing exercise I do I could also experiment with adding a 5th 200 cal meal as well.

I think if I do quit the full TDR before 2 weeks then there'll be no harm in using these up for breakfast for the next few months. Though maybe not soup for breakfast :)

Interesting on the carb crash front. I'll see how I do tomorrow!

[barakta]

I really don't know you well enough re advice, but I liked the other commenters ideas about using the partial meal replacements as part of an ongoing plan. I hope you find a way to manage diabetes and not go insane/annoyed in the process.

[lnr]

Thank you! I'm touched that you wanted to comment too, and it does sound like a possible plan.

[jack]

*hugs* Best of luck. Unsurprisingly I've gone back and forth on how much I should actively try to lose weight. I've been exercising regularly and low key trying to *gently* reduce my appetite for several years.

4 soups, shakes or porridges a day, for a total of 800 calories

Wait, 800 calories total? My first reactions is that sounds dangerously little, can you try aiming for 90% of of your maintenance intake, not under 30% (but that's just a guess, if you know more than me then don't listen to me). But I guess if you're not continuing then it doesn't matter.

I'm tired and hungry and grumpy

FWIW my experience was that every time my weight actually dipped, I went through several days of being ARGH about everything (but that did go away, even if my weight kept trending down for a long time). I think that is really common for any day or more of semi fasting.

or do I go make a sandwich and chuck the meal replacements away?

Would it be worth substituting some meals with them? Either to aim for a regime which seems more suited to you or just to use them up? I have in the past yearned for a simple system of just deciding what to eat and then sticking to it, but I've never actually had the nerve to try it, but you might find some regular meals are more easily countable than others if you fancy trying something like this plan.

[lnr]

Going very low calorie (some plans are as low as 500 a day!) is sometimes considered more effective for significant weight loss, rather than just reducing to just-under-maintenance. I think partly because you don't have to stick to it for as long to get results! To be honest keeping weight *off* long-term without constant vigilance is the nightmare, and I don't think anyone has an answer for that one.

I think I might be able to cope with keeping them for one-a-day if I don't manage to stick to the total-replacement scheme for 2 weeks anyway. I'm definitely not going back to calorie counting everything I eat though - I guess that's the other advantage of a total diet replacement plan - no having to plan/count/measure everything you eat.

I did consider Jane Plan at one point, because it's a we-provide-your-food plan with more normal calorie counts, but they still needed you to add your own veg to meals as well, which kind of ruined the point of you-do-all-the-thinking-for-me that I was looking for :)

[sphyg]

That sounds fun. We're back in the office on Tuesdays now, so I was about to invite you along to the cafe ;) My GP surgery keep sending me texts about the local weight loss programme, but I envisage getting stressed at finding the time to fit it in. I'm trying to make the effort to eat nice-but-healthy things.

[lnr]

I'd love to come and have a cuppa on Tuesday next week! I can still do black coffee even if I'm sticking to the plan by then. :)

[shermarama]

Tired and hungry and grumpy sounds very much like the short-term result I'd expect from any drastic change of diet :D

If you don't mind me asking, what sort of changes have you made to deal with the type 2 within your normal eating? I was told last year I might have this and spent a while looking up what I should avoid, based on glycaemic index and overall carb content and stuff, but that seemed to point to not being able to eat much, with even things like carrots or pumpkin down as borderline. (On glycaemic load that was down as okay 'because who eats 800g of pumpkin in one meal' and I'm like... um, I guess I can't make that roast butternut squash pasta any more, then?) And apart from that everything was totally weight-loss-focused, but I'm under 80 kg and over six foot so it just seemed like, okay, where do I get information that isn't about that?

[lnr]

They sent me on a whole preventing-diabetes course when I was pre-diabetic - spoiler: it didn't work.

Turns out the advice when you *are* diabetic is pretty much the same. There are several factors not just your weight to take into account (and like you - not everyone type 2 is overweight!):

As you say *what* you eat, and when. Basically keeping bulk carb sources to mealtimes and spreading them out nicely across the day can help a lot here. You can get guidelines of exact numbers of recommended carbs per meal/snack if it helps, which it doesn't much for me :) I certainly haven't been worrying at all about squash or carrots, but limiting spuds and rice/pasta/bread - or going more wholegrain.

But also exercise, stress and sleep were also key factors to try and improve if you can (though I've not found a way to improve much on any of those myself).

I don't know if you can get metformin for pre-diabetes in NZ - here they like to wait until you've gone over the magic you-are-now-diabetic line before they're allow to prescribe it, which seems silly to me, when in my case it's keeping my blood sugar much better even when I'm not being terribly careful. And when your blood sugar is better controlled, and your tissues are actually *getting* the energy they need, then you're less likely to crave the carb-rich foods which make it worse.

I genuinely think for a lot of type 2 diabetics the weight gain over time is part symptom, not just all cause!

[lnr]

My main thought is I'm not sure if my tired/hungry/grumpy symptoms are because of the huge calorie deficit, or because of the stress of dieting and not enjoying the process, if you see what I mean.

[evilsusan]

Have you read Mastering Diabetes? It has some interesting ideas.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Diabetes-Revolutionary-Permanently-Prediabetes/dp/059318999X/

[lnr]

Looks interesting enough to buy a copy and see. Though I'm a bit sceptical about the claims to permanently reverse insulin resistance for everyone.

[supermouse]

I sympathise. Good luck!

(Also, at least with Pol, there was a definite grief process about losing 'normal living' when he got his diagnosis, that would resurface now and then. He did a lot of weightlifting to try to get his sugars down and said it helped.)