Same Problem, Different Nutritional Solutions? page

[Leida]

Okay, my mom started Perfect Health Diet, and she's got the same problems I did on the VLC: she only sleeps 5 hours a night and wakes up wired, and she is hungry. For me the problem was resolved by adding carbohydrates (I eat over 200 g a day) and having a tbsp of honey before bed. And eating more that caused ~15 lbs weight gain but get rid of the food obsession and let me live my life.

She has about 100-150 g carbs a day from squash & sweet potato, fruit, braises everything in lard and coconut oil, and has one slice of bread a week. She is going for coffee with a minuscule piece of cheese breakfasts, not counting that cheese she goes for 18 hours without food (why and how she does it if she is ravenous at 3 am, don't know). To me it appears she is under-eating protein. She is not lifting, but she bikes like 10-20 K a day and swims slowly for 20-30 min, and is generally on her feet out and about, so plenty of MS. She is about 3 weeks into it. She wants to address the fat on the stomach problem, not to lose weight (she is an extreme apple-shape).

I told her to count up her protein and fats to see her ratios. Also told her that if she is breaking fast anyway with cheese, to eat a couple of eggs with it. She said tried to eat as much meat at a sitting as recommended (~ 200 g) and felt horribly full and bloated after. But refuses to eat pure fat for small volume/high cals. I suggested she increases the # of meals if she only can eat small meals (see breakfast).

Am I BS'ing her or giving right ideas? Thoughts?

[noodletoy]

how old and tall is she? spot-reducing is an exercise in futility. belly-fat on women is a function of hormones and can be the devil to get of.

why is she fasting if she's starving? she needs to try getting her glucose and insulin leveled off before herself makes herself crazy and sick.

i agree she should try for a few eggs instead of cheese for breakfast. 2 eggs and a T of butter is only 350 kcals.

unless it's been many hours since i've eaten, i'd have trouble with 200 gms of meat at a meal too. add a serving of starch along-side and i'd NEVER get through it. (i'm small, only 5'2").

[noodletoy]

also, when carbs have crept up and i then dial back, i too get FULL of energy but it doesn't bother me. i'm up earlier and am simply more productive during the day. i actually like that feeling.

[Leida]

No, we are not energetic for 19 hours after we have slept 5. We can't sleep, but do not perform well for 19 hours straight after that. I hate being up at 2 am, 2 hrs before I need to get up and knowing that the rest of the day is going to be a zombie day. It's ike sleeping the first half of the bi-phasal sleep, but unable to sleep the second half of it. I now still wake up after 5 hours, but fall back asleep. With the VLC I could not fall back asleep and could not stay in bed. Hunger and discomfort and brain nor shutting down.

Mom is 165 cm, so it's 5'4", probably; she is 62. I told her not to fast. She is not spot-reducing, the fat around the organs is the risk for a bunch of diseases, and Primal/PHD specifically say that it helps to eliminate grains etc to address the problem.

[noodletoy]

sorry, you said she woke up "wired" (like i have the last few days), so i didn't realize that meant zombie-wired.

i'm sorry, but she needs to eat. fasting, but feeling starved, is a recipe for disaster here. she's also older, so may need fewer calories. i can't eat as much as i could in my 30s, for sure.

i know that apple-shape presents health challenges and understand the significance of visceral fat too, however, i don't know of a good way to simply get rid of "that." instead of all that cardio, will she do any lifting?

[sbhikes]

Sometimes I can be very hungry in the middle of the night or the night before but then wake up not hungry.

I think to change your shape from an extreme apple shape will take a very very very long amount of time and be almost imperceptible as it's happening. The best thing she can do is just eat healthy, exercise, avoid too much alcohol (seems that a lot of heavy drinkers have apple-shapes, not that I'm saying your mom is because I don't know her) get enough sleep and hope for the best.

Also, any time in my life that I've ever lost weight, no matter how light I got, I was always the same shape. I can hardly tell the difference. I still have the belly rolls, the big thighs, the lack of a waist.

[Leida]

Nope. She lifts pots and digs soil in her garden, which is plenty heavy, and all her cardio is lifestyle related (no car, she bikes everywhere + loves walking along the shore). The facilities in her community include pool and pool (both type, lol), but no weight room - the rest of the seniors voted it down in favor of something else. She was a competitive hurdler when she was a teen, and her only attempt at the weights was with my old tapes of the Buns of Steel.

i don't know of a good way to simply get rid of "that."

All the no-grain books say that no-grain diet addresses that, Wheat Belly, Why Women Need Fat, Hyman's latest book on Diabesity, PHD, so I think she is on the right track.

And, we did not enjoy SAD, we enjoyed SEED for most of our lives. Standard Eastern Europenian Diet = everything home-cooked, little variety of vegetables, predominantly tubers for carbs, lots of dairy, lots of fermented and preserved stuff.

EDIT: Neither my mom, nor I touch alcohol (I tried drinking wine every Saturday/Sunday night but i could not make it past 1/3 glass, and gave up after 3 weeks). Save for Kefir and Kvass back home, but they are not considered alcoholic, and I dunno if mom drinks kefir still, but no Kvass that's for sure.

[noodletoy]

grain-free will certainly help, but she is battling hormones at this point which are a far more ferocious foe than is bread.

[Zach]

More carbs, saturated fat, salt and less fasting.

[Silvergirl]

When I started low carb I also did the terrible sleeps for quite a while waking very early, then of course feeling awful and frustrated. I just stuck with it, trying different sleep aids initially, but I think it was just more time for my body to adjust that I needed. For hunger I had to remove all starches/sugar. Candida puts up quite a fight when you start to remove all the good stuff.