437 lbs to 250 - low carb

Good thread, very impressive weight loss guy, keep the updates coming even if it's not the best news.
 
rorydaboss said:
How did RFL work out for you?
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It was extremely effective. The details are on the previous pages.

Continuing on:

It's been a challenge for me to maintain my weight since I began dating my girlfriend. I basically can't have cheat meals more than once a week/two weeks (followed by a fast) without bloating up. I gained my customary 30 lbs from christmas/new years and it hasn't come off for whatever reason. I'm hovering around 260 and I can feel the water bloat. I'm just not peeing it out, and i'm not sweating much. I know how I could cut all of this bloat off (such as just eating protein and vegetables), but i've been enjoying actually eating what I want and spending time with my woman. I had another girlfriend (my first real one) while I was losing weight previously, but she lived 8.5 hours away, so we only saw eachother every other weekend and we tried to eat low carb when together, some cheats excepted. My current woman (who is amazing.. and is wifey material) lives about 2 hours away, so we spend way more time together.

That being said, I have never been as physically active. For one, I am now doing 45 minutes of sprints a day. I am lifting 2 times a week (used to be 3, but now my weekends are always with the woman and my third lift day was saturday). I have been involved in a lot of heavy construction work, involving breaking up concrete with sledgehammers, moving heavy boulders and all sorts of extended periods of squatting and deadlifting. Lots of hiking and walking. I should be able to easily eat 3000 calories a day and break even - but again, that's not how shitty bodies work.

The stupid thing is is I convinced myself I could have cheat meals and not be fat, but this is clearly not possible given my genetics. I also am not sure why this bloat isn't coming off and i'm fairly terrified of getting super fat again. I know that going super hardcore diet mode again (which I personally can handle fine when single) will negatively impact things with her.

My diet when i'm not with her is essentially chicken breast, some fat and vegetables at about 1500 calories. Doing intermittent fasting. When i'm with her... things are up in the air and I have less control over what i'm eating, especially since I often visit her so don't have access to a proper kitchen stocked with my shit.

I will maintain this new current standard of physical activity and reduce grazing/snacking on the weekends, focusing on only cheating during meals - but I still want to enjoy myself. I just might not be able to. maybe ill start sweating/peeing when it gets got here in Florida again.
 
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What do you mean by "45 minutes of sprints?"

4 minutes of Tabata interval sprints leaves me near death. lol
 
Hey Nemesis48, have you spoke to your gf about your diet situation,? If not maybe you both could try and eat more low carb when together?
 
FierceRedBelt said:
What do you mean by "45 minutes of sprints?"

4 minutes of Tabata interval sprints leaves me near death. lol
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Sprint. Wait a few minutes. Sprint. Wait a few minutes. I basically do this until I can't walk anymore. Usually the whole thing is 45 minutes. Do it on my lunch break at work.
 
Nemesis48 said:
Sprint. Wait a few minutes. Sprint. Wait a few minutes. I basically do this until I can't walk anymore. Usually the whole thing is 45 minutes. Do it on my lunch break at work.
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It's pretty amazing that you can do that daily.

Keep up the good work.
 
FierceRedBelt said:
It's pretty amazing that you can do that daily.

Keep up the good work.
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One nice thing I noticed is that it greatly reduces DOMS from lifting. Of course that's a topic for another log. Also a nice stress reducer!
 
Have you sat your current girl down and straightened out some facts about you and your diet? Judging from your posts in here and displayed dedication, eventually you will have to, unless you want your work to be undone continuously. If push comes to shove, you've gotta be prepare to drop her if she's not displaying any understanding for, or even sabotaging of your ambitions. Fuck - I could've opten out of moving to another city to start studying psychology because I had an at the time great girlfriend, but that would've landed me in an otherwise miserable existence. Six months later, now single, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Company is nice, but if it interferes with your goals, you gotta make the sound choice, which always is to put yourself first.
 
golvmopp said:
Have you sat your current girl down and straightened out some facts about you and your diet? Judging from your posts in here and displayed dedication, eventually you will have to, unless you want your work to be undone continuously. If push comes to shove, you've gotta be prepare to drop her if she's not displaying any understanding for, or even sabotaging of your ambitions. Fuck - I could've opten out of moving to another city to start studying psychology because I had an at the time great girlfriend, but that would've landed me in an otherwise miserable existence. Six months later, now single, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Company is nice, but if it interferes with your goals, you gotta make the sound choice, which always is to put yourself first.
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One thing to be clear is that she is not responsible for undermining anything - it's 100% my fault. She knows my past. She knows how I eat when she's not around (low carb). She would be supportive. Ultimately i've just been enjoying eating like normal people who train - eating out a few times a week. I like to find classy places and bring her out to dinner - it's my initiative often.

There's guys here in this sub-forum who "cut" on 3000 calories and eat 4000-5000 normally - that is hilarious/unfathomable to me. But this is not in my cards. I eat 1500 calories max on weekdays (while lifting/running/circuits) and eat about 2500-4000 on the weekends and bloat up. Here's an idea of what i'm eating recently:

Mon-Friday: 600-700 g of costco chicken cutlets (frozen weight) cooked in 2-3 tbsp of bacon grease, 3-4 cups of fibrous greens (spinach, collard, romaine, green, asparagus etc), small handful of almond slices, small handful of bleu cheese crumbles, 3-4 tbsp of Parmesan cheese, 2-3 tbsp of blue cheese dressing in a big salad, once a day (23/1 IF).
Sat/Sunday: Usually restaurants for two meals a day, occasionally we'll have food at her mom's house which is homemade but not particularly healthy. Grazing/snacking occurs. Don't have access to a really good kitchen so I can't make food.

Every other wednesday either she comes to my place or I drive to hers. If she comes to mine I make food for us (i'm an amazing cook, not to brag) - but we also occasionally go out.


And it's still baffling to me why i'm just not peeing/sweating out the water. It's always a mystery to me how much fat I actually have because I know I can gain 5-8 lbs of water from one significant cheat meal, or 30+ lbs of water from a weeklong christmas-style vacation. I could have only gained a couple pounds of fat during this time, but i'll never know until i cut all this water. Maybe I need to do a salt binge or something - I never really figured out a comprehensive way to cut water other than going super low carb. Even then, any carb refeeds will stall the water comign off, and it usually takes a week of keto before it starts coming off. The process keeps getting interrupted with her (again: not her fault). I wish there was a safe, reliable medical way of inducing pee. I got "over the counter" water pills once but they were not effective. I did a sauna once, that cut like a pound of water.
 
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To shed some light on the mystery of water retention, it just so happens to coincide with people who are hypothyroid.

http://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/17/7/1820.short
Advanced primary hypothyroidism can lead to hyponatremia, most frequently associated with myxedema. Milder forms of hypothyroidism can lead to a decrease in renal blood flow, glomerular filtration, and a decrease in maximal solute-free water excretion. However, these defects generally are not of sufficient magnitude to lead to hyponatremia in association with a normal fluid intake. With normal fluid intake, hyponatremia generally results from the inability to decrease urine osmolality below plasma rather than a defect in maximal solute-free water excretion. The failure to dilute the urine below plasma generally is due to a failure to suppress maximally the antidiuretic hormone AVP (27). The failure of some hypothyroid patients to suppress plasma AVP during an acute water load was reported initially by Skowsky et al. (28).

Recently, experimental studies in rats with advanced hypothyroidism (serum total T4 0.6
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SD that's possible (although I take exception to animals studies being extrapolated to humans), and for the longest time I thought I had a problem with my thyroid. I got a test once, years ago, and they said it was fine, but maybe i'll get another one to see if the first test was fucked up.
 
Nemesis48 said:
SD that's possible (although I take exception to animals studies being extrapolated to humans), and for the longest time I thought I had a problem with my thyroid. I got a test once, years ago, and they said it was fine, but maybe i'll get another one to see if the first test was fucked up.
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You have to get the full panel done (tsh, t3 (bound and free), t4, rt3). Lots of docs will only test TSH, which is a huge mistake. Then there is also a differentiation between subclinical and clinical hypothyroidism, and many clinicians ignore subclinical.

Another ultra-low tech solution is to take your body temperature upon waking. If it's consistently under 98.6F it can indicate subclinical hypothyroidism. This was the gold standard test before it was replaced by serum tests, and has more reliability than a once off serum test because it's repeatable.
 
Seriously-Dead said:
You have to get the full panel done (tsh, t3 (bound and free), t4, rt3). Lots of docs will only test TSH, which is a huge mistake. Then there is also a differentiation between subclinical and clinical hypothyroidism, and many clinicians ignore subclinical.

Another ultra-low tech solution is to take your body temperature upon waking. If it's consistently under 98.6F it can indicate subclinical hypothyroidism. This was the gold standard test before it was replaced by serum tests, and has more reliability than a once off serum test because it's repeatable.
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How exactly do I request such a test? i can't just walk into a lab and ask for them to do various things and then expect my insurance to cover it, unless i'm missing something.
 
Nemesis48 said:
How exactly do I request such a test? i can't just walk into a lab and ask for them to do various things and then expect my insurance to cover it, unless i'm missing something.
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I have no idea how insurance coverage works in the states for you... we have socialized health care up here, so it's simply just a matter of asking your doctor nicely for those tests and hoping they agree, and if not, heading to another doctor. My advice would be to engage your doctor and tell him what you want and ask him if it's covered by insurance... tell him your story (lots of weight loss, ultra low calorie intake and stalling despite exercise and activity levels), tell him about the literature to support metabolic downregulation after prolonged dieting and weight loss (check out the links I posted in the metabolism reset thread in the main diet forum) - hopefully he will go along with it... if he's a good doctor he should be checking this regardless given your history with weight.

You can always try out the thermometer route first (oral temperature after waking up), and if you find your readings are consistently under 98.6F, go get the thyroid workup to confirm it, then maybe get treatment for it.
 
Seriously-Dead said:
I have no idea how insurance coverage works in the states for you... we have socialized health care up here, so it's simply just a matter of asking your doctor nicely for those tests and hoping they agree, and if not, heading to another doctor. My advice would be to engage your doctor and tell him what you want and ask him if it's covered by insurance... tell him your story (lots of weight loss, ultra low calorie intake and stalling despite exercise and activity levels), tell him about the literature to support metabolic downregulation after prolonged dieting and weight loss (check out the links I posted in the metabolism reset thread in the main diet forum) - hopefully he will go along with it... if he's a good doctor he should be checking this regardless given your history with weight.

You can always try out the thermometer route first (oral temperature after waking up), and if you find your readings are consistently under 98.6F, go get the thyroid workup to confirm it, then maybe get treatment for it.
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Yes I forgot you were canadian. Thanks for the advice, I will see about getting some bloodwork done. I feel quite good, but am just bloated right now. In the past STOPPING exercise and over-hydrating has often led to a "whoosh" where I shed 8-10 lbs in a week's time, and then consistently the rest would come off as long as I remained low carb. But this also effects my gains obviously - and I love to lift iron and generally go animal mode in the gym.

I'm sure I would make a fascinating lab subject.
 
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Nemesis48 said:
Yes I forgot you were canadian. Thanks for the advice, I will see about getting some bloodwork done. I feel quite good, but am just bloated right now. In the past STOPPING exercise and over-hydrating has often led to a "whoosh" where I shed 8-10 lbs in a week's time, and then consistently the rest would come off as long as I remained low carb. But this also effects my gains obviously - and I love to lift iron and generally go animal mode in the gym.

I'm sure I would make a fascinating lab subject.
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Yeah, that makes sense. Exercise will make a person retain water like that.

You would definitely make a good lab subject! To be honest, there needs to be a crap load more research on people like you who have successfully gone through massive weight loss. Not only so we can understand the physiological changes after massive weight loss, but also so we can understand the cognitive changes that were needed for successful weight loss. Both of those things are sorely lacking in the medical community.
 
Pretty awesome progession you've made man. Have been on lowcarb for 1 and 1/2 weeks now and already starting to feel grumpy. Gotta push through.

Congrats and keep up the discipline and good work.
 
I gained about 50-60 lbs since being at my lowest (i'm at 289 now after a week of vacation/eating crap in NY). It's amazing how fast I can gain weight. I have no idea how much of that is water since I slacked off on weighing myself. It's a new experience for me to try to eat socially and maintain/lose weight. Prior to this when I didn't have a girlfriend I could just be antisocial essentially and eat a carefully programmed diet. I have been strict on a weekdays but going overboard on the weekends when i'm with my girlfriend. I also have been very inconsistent with lifting and cardio - it's super hard to find a gym which isn't insanely crowded in orlando. Prior to having a life I wouldn't care about spending 3 hours in the gym waiting for equipment etc, but now it's become an issue. I want to buy a rack and barbell but i've also been trying to leave this hellish city for some time and am hesitant from buying that sorta heavy stuff i will have to move.

Now i'm back to weighing myself every day and following some new rules:
- one legit cheat meal a week - previously i was doing 3-4 on the weekends
- no more soda or sweat tea. on the weekends I would sometimes only have this available, now i'm just going to refuse to drink if there's no water - and when given an option (while eating out etC) i'll opt for water or diet soda only.
- I will probably have to eat out 3-4 times on the weekends, if so I will try to buy the healthiest thing possible, even if its unpalatable. For instance, if we go to a fried fish place instead of getting it fried i'll get it blackened, and instead of getting hush puppies, i'll get veges.
- 3 eggs and 140 calories of cheese a day for lunch (380 calories), half a chicken (or equivalent) and lots of vegetables with some nuts/seeds/cheese for dinner (1100ish calories?) - but less fat on the dinner vegetables (just to cut calories, not because i care about fat)

I am highly motivated to get back on track because i'm unable to fit into my clothes I got when I was at my smallest and went up a few sizes. I also saw how bloated I looked in some recent family pics.

i have no idea how much of my weight gain was water, I definitely feel puffy and it takes me at least a week of continuous carb restriction to BEGIN to lose water weight. One carb heavy meal can make me gain 2-8 lbs and stall any other water loss. I really need some way of making myself sweat or pee - and I haven't had much success with OTC water pills before, seems like they mainly have caffeine as the primary ingredient.

My lowest was a water depleted, no lifting and fasted 229. I think I would be happy staying at 220 as a permanent goal.
 
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