BootynBeauty's Journal, 08 May 18

Have you ever considered a ketogenic diet, where you lower your carbohydrates to 40g per day or even 20g per day, and you eat enough protein and fat to reach satiety? After the initial adaptation (2 to 6 weeks usually), you lose your hunger and you lower your intake without hunger of any kind. 

You mention homeopathy. Do you know about Bach flower remedies; it is not homeopathic, but it is in the same family of approach. You can buy Rescue Remedy, which helps to alleviate distress and discouragement. I buy mine in a health food store. It is either in the form of drops or in the form of spray -- you spray your tongue. Your homeopath will probably not want you to combine Rescue Remedy with the homeopathic treatment, but in the meantime, it might provide some support for your feelings. 

In previous journal entries you mentioned combating hunger; it is not good to restrict your food intake to the point of hunger. The changes should be mostly qualitative, not quantitative. You should eat better, not less unless you become less hungry. Listening to your bodies' cues is the best way to achieve your goal, not fighting your body. 

@fleur_de_lune .. thank you for the support. It’s been so rough lately. I have done a ketogenic diet before (in the form of the Atkins diet), and I had good results. The hard part was long term success, as I found it was very restrictive to maintain over a year +. I’m currently just trying to eat smart .. fruits and vegetables, proteins and fats, but low in refined carbohydrates.. I have a very touchy system, which doesn’t handle most breads (except sprouted grain), potatoes are a HUGE flair up, and rice and pasta are not good for my system either. I try to eat according to what I can stomach, but it’s still causing me to gain, without even going over my caloric intake. I suffer from fibromyalgia, which is constantly giving me new and strange symptoms... but I’ve never had weight gain like this before. I’m truly hoping I can find some relief soon... 

Hello, BootynBeauty, I have asked to follow you. I also have fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and have been disabled by it since 1985 (had to stop working in 1990). And I had started a course to become a homeopath in the 90s; I have forgotten pretty much everything I had learned about homeopathy by now, but if I could improve my health significantly with this low-carb diet, I would like to start reading and studying (at least on my own) about homeopathy again. It seems we have some common interests, that is why I want to follow you. If you started recently to suffer from fibromyalgia, don't let my case discourage you because a high percentage of people recover partially or completely within the first 2 years (I am in the estimated 15% of cases that do not recover). 

Hey! Just a quick reply as I have similar struggles and after some research these are some things that worked for me that may work for you!!! But before I start, just remember that muscle adds weight, so don't beat yourself up too much if strength training has been new to you within the last year! It's normal to see these results. 1. Sometimes your body will cling to carbs and fats being ate after a cleanse or if you've been eating too little. 2. The keto diet works for a lot of people, but not everyone. Be sure to account for the fact that the diet is high in fats, and if you're trying to lose fat, you have to be extra conscious about what fats your put in your body. Sometimes, even healthy fats don't promote weight loss depending on the food and the body type. 3. Everyone's metabolism is different, but a great way to speed yours up is by increasing your NEAT just by doing more and more exercise during the day!! This just means walking, folding laundry, etc. As long as you're not sitting on the couch! 4. Your sleeping schedule is a large contribution! You should see more results with a consistent 7-9 hour schedule. (No less or more) 5. The more water you drink, generally the more water weight you lose, which never hurts! 6. Remember that if a treat fits into your calorie count for the day, that it still may not be the best of ideas, as your body doesn't see food as a number. Your body will cling to the fats and sugars you give it. 

Also, as hard as it is, cutting out dairy does wonder for some!! 

I find doing Keto has helped my Fibro the most out of everything.  

Now with the Keto diet... are you heavily restricting your natural carbs such as fruits and vegetables, or only the refined carbohydrates?  

By definition, a ketogenic diet is usually 50g of daily carbohydrate or less. Athletes and very young active people might be able to get away with up to 100g and still be in nutritional ketosis. For a lot of people, 20g is a better level. Testing can be done (urine, blood or breath) to determine whether you are indeed reaching nutritional ketosis. But unless you are a high-level athlete or you are suffering from an illness that you want to treat, it is not necessary to determine whether you are indeed in ketosis. Your scale, tape measure or the fit of your garments can tell you whether you are successful. We do indeed eliminate refined carbohydrates, and at such low carbohydrate levels, you cannot have much fruit (berries and melons are the choices with the lowest carb levels). That is how I transitioned to the low-carb diet; I stopped buying fruit and since I have none left in the apartment, except for about 7 or 8 lbs of frozen blueberries, I don't have any fruit on a regular basis now. I was already following a modified (adding dairy) Paleo diet for years (started because of intestinal problems), I had already eliminated unhealthy carbohydrates; so for me, it was a matter of eliminating fruit (of which I used to eat a great deal, thinking they were extremely good for me). So, ironically, I have started feeling much better health-wise from eliminating fruit from my WOE. Before eliminating fruit, I was having a big flare up of my chronic illness and had been housebound/bedridden for over 8 months, but going keto has made me a great deal better & I have been able to be a lot more active. So my primary objective with keto is improving my health, not losing weight. But I am for sure quietly, slowly losing some of the weight. About fruit, the Drs. Michael Eades and Mary Dan Eades have always included small amounts of fruit in their version of keto. I currently have their "30-day low-carb diet solution" book on loan from my library, but their most famous book is "Protein Power". After all this talk about fruit, I must add that vegetables, quite a lot, are indeed eaten by most keto dieters -- the Atkins version recommends that 12g to 15g of net carbohydrate a day come from what they call "foundation vegetables" -- those would be greens and the non-starchy vegetables. Some dieters choose to eliminate even vegetables and to go for zero carbohydrates, consuming mostly meat and water. It would not be advisable to eliminate vegetables in order to consume more junk carbohydrates (I believe some people actually do this and achieve weight loss anyway, but long-term health is doubtful).