Please help me help my husband lose weight page 3

[Drumroll]

One thing that will help him is to get him to move to full fat cream in his coffee, not half and half. And also, ditch the honey. Or dare I say it, he can drink it black? :P

And just what does he consider to be a "drizzle" of honey anyway? That might be a good thing to find out. He may be overdoing it on the highly sugary honey. You can make the case that it does have health benefits and all, but it is still a potent source of sugars in the end. He may also want to lower his fruit intake. Some people find no effect on their weightloss from eating fruits, but others find that it stalls their weightloss. It is something to consider at least.

He is definitely getting over 100 grams a day of carbs from that menu. One way you can cut carbs for him that he might not even know about is to use a "grainless" meatloaf recepie. Most meatloaf has bread or other grains as filler in it as you probably well know. Ditch the grains in it and keep it to meat and veggie filler.

He may want to experiment with dropping dairy too. Whole milk is great for healthy fats and protein, but it is LOADED with sugar. After all, that's precicely what lactose is - a sugar. These are all ways to drop the carbohydrate content in his diet relatively easily and with minimal trouble.

Convincing him to do it? That's the hard part. I am no scientist, nutrtionist, or doctor who could explain why this is good for him however. Instead, let's hear it straight from Mark Sisson himself: Low Carb Paleo with Mark Sisson - YouTube.

Oh, and also this: Mark Sisson: Life without carbs is fun with fat - YouTube

[Urban Forager]

My husband said I should add that he never could have given up snacking had he not increased his fat intake. Since he's stopped snacking and started eating more fat he's back to loosing weight, he's confident that he will get to his goal weight. He also said that it takes time and every now and then you may have to reexamine your diet and change things if you stall.
BTW my husband is a beekeeper, at one time we had about 75 hives, over the years we've decreased our hives; we are no longer doing it as a business but we still have about 10 hives.

[SarahW]

Thanks for the info everyone!

I'll think about the Whole30. Might work, since he's willing to drink nothing but kale juice right now, maybe I can sell it as a vegetable+ plan. Still have to convince him that eating more fat won't destroy his heart or give him cancer...

He's Dutch, btw. And yes, margarine is very prevalent there, and they put it on everything. But there they don't bother trying to make it yellow and its unsalted (maybe a good thing?). I think butter is sold in the supermarket, but most people only think of it as something for baking. And very few do any baking.

They don't really eat whole food, but funny thing is that my FIL refers to corn as "chicken food" and refuses to eat it. Maybe my FIL is pretty wise. My husband also thinks of potato skins as "pig food," but as a 1/4 Irish girl I'm kinda fond of them.

I would like to do specific replies, but I went for a walk in the park a few days ago, and now I'm absolutely covered in red bumps. Maybe I walked through no-see-ums or fire ants or something. Frikkin' tropical Florida. Ugh. I'll be back in a few days... hopefully.

[Quies]

I would like to do specific replies, but I went for a walk in the park a few days ago, and now I'm absolutely covered in red bumps. Maybe I walked through no-see-ums or fire ants or something. Frikkin' tropical Florida. Ugh. I'll be back in a few days... hopefully.

I kind of doubt you walked through fire ants. When you get stung by fire ants they make sure you know they are there.

[FlyingPig]

He's Dutch, btw. And yes, margarine is very prevalent there, and they put it on everything. But there they don't bother trying to make it yellow and its unsalted (maybe a good thing?). I think butter is sold in the supermarket, but most people only think of it as something for baking. And very few do any baking.

I speak Dutch myself, and while margarine and other low fat rubbish is indeed a given over there (I'm from a bit more south, Flanders, so not technically Dutch, but no matter), it is important to realise that historically this was not the case at all as butter was used a lot until the low fat craze from the USA was introduced. There are plenty of local farmers so you can definitely live a pretty good Primal lifestyle if you know where to look (easier than in the USA I think).

I suggest you point your husband in the direction of these two excellent articles in Dutch, from a guy who knows his paleo stuff and writes about it from a Dutch perspective: De honingzoete opmars van de diabesitas | Het Paleo Perspectief and Insulineresistentie: moderne gesel | Het Paleo Perspectief . These pretty much got my own mum on board and may be useful.

[paleodutch]

I am dutch. The real butter is called roomboter in dutch and is used a lot in baking and on bread but most people use it as a luxury in the weekends. Grassfed butter is called grasboter.

[Walkerdog]

Your hubby is going to need to figure this out himself with your guidance. He needs to read this site thoroughly and "The 21 day transformation." my wife got it out of the library and I ended up reading it too. I'm glad I did. I'm 40, type 2 diabetic, on stains and blood pressure meds....at least I use to be. Eating primally, I lost 25 pounds (probably more I'm not a scale guy and stopped weighing in Aug 4), off diabetes drug (normal blood glucose levels), off statins ( cholesterol dropped 40 points...good cholesterol in normal range), off lisinopril for blood pressure last checked 120/80. I've also seen quite an improvement at the gym lifting heavy thins. I'm in better shape now then I was in college.
Until he is ready to take the plunge it's going to be a difficult switch. You need to keep at it because when you start to turn eyes with your transformation he'll follow. That also happened to me. My wife started first and she had great results.
Sounds to me he needs more meat..steaks...are you eating enough protein? For me it was hard to get full eating just dairy. I now eat all sorts of steaks, baon, pork, chicken etc. the protein and fat really satiate me for long periods. I'm also careful with fruit because of the diabetes and Sugar spikes. Berries are best....but I was careful with all fruit during my first 21 days. I also eat salad with tons of different ingredients....keeps it from being the same thing over and over. Heck, I'll even dump a cheesesteak on a salad.
Hope this helps...you need to keep trying, keep cooking....he'll figure it out. CW is hard to get rid of....

[Daisynyc]

Jack Lalanne - Sugarholics - YouTube

Here is the video that got my Dad to start eating right. It's from the 50's. My Dad is 67 and probably more primal than most on this forum, but has never heard the term "Primal Blueprint". I told him how I eat, let him see my transformation over the last couple years, help him with choices in foods, and showed him this video. After watching it he said something like, 'If we've known this since the 50's why are we just doing it now?"

For me, primal eating is about eating whole foods and getting labwork done on a regular basis. I watched my triglycerides go from 400+ untreated to 35. HDL cholesterol went from 20 to 50. Blood pressure from 150/90 (with meds) to 110/60 without meds. I eat bananas all summer long. I eat potatoes in the fall. I had watermelon, fish, and asparagus just now for lunch.

Good luck! And good job for lookin' after your man...

I love this video!!

[SarahW]

I'm still alive, sorta.

Turns out that I was not attacked by wild Florida, but modern Pharma. I now know that I am allergic to sulfa-antibiotics. Huh. Good to know. The last time I had to use the pharmacy for myself was when the little booger was born, and he's nearly 6. Now I've been on four meds in the past month. Stupid bronchitis, stupid pharms, stupid side affects of drowsiness and dizziness, ugh.

Apparently, I had the worst case of non-you-have-to-go-to-the-ER-right-now!!! hives the doctor had seen in a long time, and she kept on asking me "doesn't that itch a lot?" because apparently I should have scratched my skin raw by that point. I didn't think that "well, I eat at least a dozen eggs a week, do you think that's why?" was the right answer, so I just shrugged.

In good news, I did manage to snag PB on ILL and read it through. Also The Paleo Solution (when it comes to reading my philosophy is more is more). I also put everything my husband ate yesterday into fitday.com. The table of the food log is attached Food Log.doc, but to summarize:

Calories: 3141 // Fat: 167.4 // Carbs: 199 // Protein: 196.7

Clearly, the carbs are quite a bit over the limit. I sat down with him to explain that the honey, the milk, the salad dressing (not quite his fault, we ate out for lunch yesterday, and the choices were slim), the slice of bread, and the yogurt were doing him in.

FitDay gives a calories-per-day for my husband of 3436, giving him a -294 on the calorie scale yesterday. However, my husband tells me that he felt "starving" all day yesterday. He stood for about an hour yesterday morning doing moderate activity, after consuming the morning coffee, the yogurt/honey/walnuts breakfast and 3 slices of bacon, and he by the end of the hour he felt dizzy and light-headed, leading him to consume the slice of bread with the peanut butter. He felt better after the chicken&salad lunch, but by dinner time he was "starving."

The "starving" and the sudden attacks of dizziness and light-headedness could be:
1) A simple calorie-deficit,
2) Caused by insulin,
3) A nutrition deficiency.

1) He seems to be consuming enough calories.
2) He may have metabolic syndrome to some extent (I'm still trying to figure out what exactly this means).
3) Fitday indicates he hit at least 100% RDA of every micronutrient (except Vit. E), but it does not indicate levels of Omega-3. The lamb in the shepherd's pie was grass-fed, but we eat very little fish or other seafood (and absolutely no shellfish, my husband agrees with God about shrimp-eating). I read recently (maybe in 4-Hour Body, oddest book I've read in a long time), that actual good weight loss and satiety is related to O3 intake.

He was told by his doctor to drink 6 glasses of water a day, both to solve his hemorrhoids and his recurring problem with salivary stones. He also sweats a lot here in Florida, like buckets of sweat every time he goes outside. He has increased his water intake and the hemorrhoids and stones have largely gone away. But the problem is that he hates drinking water. He has, he tells me, an extreme aversion to drinking plain water - which is why, in the current absence of soda and juice in our kitchen, he drinks milk when he is thirsty. Despite being European, he doesn't much like seltzer water either. He has learned to like coconut water - I buy the Grace brand which is plain and pretty empty of stuff, but it does still have carbs, though it does have potassium, which his doctor told him to increase his intake of for his pre-hypertension, and I suppose it does have less carbs than a banana. He decided he likes kombucha, but we'll go broke buying those little cans at Whole Foods, and making some will take time. He drinks rooiboos tea plain, but he doesn't really like it, so he only has it once a day or so. He does like beets a lot, so I'm reading up on beet kvass. Fermenting is so much easier if you actually see someone do it. It's PITA stuff like this that's why I never really went WAP. I suggested this morning that if he really wants flavored water I would use the juicer to make him a cucumber-cabbage-celery juice. He may actually prefer that over water. tl;dr: this seems like it will be an ongoing struggle, which will involve much pouting and cajoling.

So running some calculations:
Carbs: should be between 50-100 grams, equaling 200-400 calories.
Protein: A body fat calculator put his bodyfat percentage at 34%, giving him a lean body weight of 165, which means, according to Mark, that he should aim for between 80-165 grams, equaling 320-660 calories.
Fat: Now, according to FitDay, in order for my husband to drop to 187 pounds by July 31, 2013 he should eat 2750 calories a day. If you figure 75 grams of carbs and 150 grams of protein, that's 900 calories. That means he needs to eat 1850 calories from fat, or 206 grams. Is this right???
Obviously, the calculations are just raw numbers, but it gives me a guideline for building the meal plan.

What foods are good to eat for hitting 206 grams of fat a day?

Fatty meats, obviously, but my husband dislikes eating the fat on roasts and such (unlike me, we're like Jack Sprat and his wife). The grass-fed ground meat I get through a co-op doesn't come with much of a label, but it's plenty fatty and I don't drain it (I think FitDay miscalculates the fat in my ground lamb in the shepherd's pie, that stuff was really fatty). I've got him in the habit of cooking with bacon grease or butter or coconut oil, but he's still wary of doing anything "weird" like putting coconut oil in hot tea.

Obviously, switching to higher fat dairy would help. I do get straight up raw cream through the co-op, which my husband likes to use (we're out right now as we only get the co-op biweekly, which is why he's using half&half, cause it's the only thing at Whole Foods which wasn't U-P), and no, he refuses to drink coffee black. I did suggest cutting out dairy completely, but he's not completely sold on it. Maybe for 30 days, maybe. But for right now, I'm leaning towards putting a "5-yo only" label on the milk and sticking to the whole fermented dairy for him.

Nuts he likes, but obviously need to be limited. I know Mark likes Macadamia nuts, and so do I, but I think Mark and I are at dramatically different income levels. DH likes avocados, and I informed him this morning that they have nearly as much potassium as a banana, and his doctor told him to increase potassium, so I think I can convince him to eat at least one a day. DH doesn't much care for olives, but he does like coconut okay, but he still sees it as a "dessert" type of food I think.

I'm a bit worried about the O3 intake. I've thought about the BlueIce CLO, but the price and the fact that my husband refuses to swallow anything other than what a doctor prescribed is holding me back.

Am I missing any other good sources of fat? I think I'm going to play around with FitDay some and throw in some sample menus and see what the results are, but I'd appreciate any advice.

Lesson learned: Math can be informative, and it may even be helpful. And I'm allergic to antibiotics beginning in Sulfa.

Success so far: DH put stevia instead of honey in his second cup of coffee. And my skin is back to clear, for now...

[SarahW]

I speak Dutch myself, and while margarine and other low fat rubbish is indeed a given over there (I'm from a bit more south, Flanders, so not technically Dutch, but no matter), it is important to realise that historically this was not the case at all as butter was used a lot until the low fat craze from the USA was introduced. There are plenty of local farmers so you can definitely live a pretty good Primal lifestyle if you know where to look (easier than in the USA I think).

I suggest you point your husband in the direction of these two excellent articles in Dutch, from a guy who knows his paleo stuff and writes about it from a Dutch perspective: De honingzoete opmars van de diabesitas | Het Paleo Perspectief and Insulineresistentie: moderne gesel | Het Paleo Perspectief . These pretty much got my own mum on board and may be useful.

Thanks for the links. I keep forgetting that, while my husband is fluent in English, technical terms of nutrition may still be Chinese to him. It may also help him explain what we're doing to his family.

If we go back to The Netherlands for any length of time we're definitely going to have to think about our food. DH's aunt and uncle visited us recently, and they're vegetarians and have the opinion that biologische (sp?) means nothing but charging twice the price. They are from northern farm country, and while silage is common (oh, the smell! it's worse than the manure), pasture seems to be a given.

The low-fat craze, ugh, yes it's everywhere. My in-laws were all shocked that when we were there a few years ago that I bought full-fat biologische yogurt to feed the then-2-yo. "But there are these little kinder yogurts!" MIL did that popular diet by that lady a few years ago, lost weight, and has gained it all back. I think all it changed is that she now cooks with olive oil instead of the bottled ghee stuff. And it seems like every time I'm there they've managed to introduce a new spread for bread that has twice the sugar than the last. The age of the tall & skinny Dutch is, I'm afraid, quickly coming to a close.

ETA: There's a herd of the cows pictured in the header of that site in my DH's county. They're really intelligent, and the calves are frikkin' adorable.

EATA: I will say nothing about being from Flanders, except point you at this site: http://www.hoehel.be/