Insulin Resistance Diet

[ElbowPrincess]

Is there anyone else doing this? I didnt know where to put this thread, as even though its lower carb, its not ketogenic. Hope it's ok to have here! Ive tried really low carb (less than 30g a day) and I just couldnt sustain it :( even though I love all the science behind it. So I am giving this a go instead.

Here's the book

Basically, its a diet for those who have insulin resistance. If you can answer yes to 3 or more of the following, you probably have it ....

If you are in the obese BMI catagory or above
If you store weigth mainly around the tummy area
You have PCOS
Your tummy measures 35 inches or more (40 inches for men)
Depression
Hypoglycemia
Brain fog
Skin tags in the neck area, underarms & chest
Dark skin patches in the arm pits, between thighs, neck etc
Carb, especially sugar, cravings
Sleepiness after a meal
Poor sleep at night

So, how the diet works - you balance your carbs with protein. No more than 30g of carbs per meal (15g for snacks) paired with at LEAST 15g of protein. You can eat as much protein as you like though, thats just the minimum to balance the carbs. 3 meals a day, 2 snacks (plus extra veg/proetin snacks whenever, if you are hungry). Carbs must be 2 hours apart. A typical day would probably look like this ...

Breakfast - 30g Carbs, 15g (or more) protein, as much veg as you like.

Snack - 15g carbs, 7g protein, as much veg as you like.

Lunch - 30 g C, 15g P, veg

Snack - 15g C, 7g P, veg

Dinner - 30g C, 15g P, unlimited veg.

So a max of 120g of carbs in any day, spaced 2 hours apart.

Now, this is where it differs from the usual low carb diet .... dairy, pulses, legumes and nuts count as protein not carbs. So a glass of milk will balance out a slice of wholegrain toast. Beans (no added sugar) would balance out a small baked potato. Fruit are carbs (apart from apples, pears, cherries, grapefruit, those ase classed as already balanced), potato & corn are carbs plus all your pasta, rice, bread etc.

Still with me? Ive no idea if this diet will work, this thread is just to document my progress and see what happens. Would love others to join in too!

I wonder what it is counted as on this woe then? Will go through the foodlists in the book again & see if I can find it.

Ok, so a 2lb possibly 3lb loss (hard to tell on my scales). very minimal, but I am actually surprised I didnt gain weight while eating carbs!I am definitely going to continue because I love how feel doing this and it is so, so easy to stick to. I may add in some intermittent fasting in a month or two if things get stuck.

That's brilliant. Well done, you.

Elbow that is not minimal, 2lb is brilliant considering your eating good.

well done - !

Thanks :) Is anyone else trying it?

I've just got the book but haven't had a chance to read it yet.

Looking forward to seeing what you think of it.

Hi Elbow, I followed this plan for a short time a few years ago.
Barley is definitely counted as a carb on IRD, 1/3 cup serving size is15g carb. So you do need to balance it with a protein.
It should be listed in the 'Grain Products' section of your book, my version is the 2nd edition published in 2007.
Thanks for starting the thread, it's renewed my interest and my give it a go again myself. I felt great while I was on it and a lot of my cravings disappeared.
Well done on the 2lb.

Hi Herdy :) did you lose much weight when you did it before? Thank you for confirming the barley issue! There was some in my Scotch broth the other day, but I didnt count it - oops.

I am having this for dinner tonight, yummy & no "countable" carbs!yum

Herdy I would be interested to know how you did on it a few years ago and why you stopped doing it and if you gained the weight back. I myself don't do diets at all as they always end up with me overeating so I just eat whatever I want as long as im hungry and stop when im satisfied.....totally mindful eating. Been doing it for ages now.

elbow don't beat yourself up over the barley. I bet there wasn't a huge amount in you soup anyway.

milly and elbow, It was my doctor who recommended this way of eating to me. There's a plan that's quite similar, but much stricter, called The Schwarzbein Principle. I'd had some blood tests that indicated pre - diabetes, so the doctor suggested this or Schwarzbein to get my levels under control. I followed the plan for about two months, lost 15 pounds in that time. I went on holiday for two weeks and followed it as well as I could, and didn't feel deprived.only gained 1 pound during the holiday which was amazing for me as I often used to gain 7 pounds or more on a fortnight holiday !

Why did I stop? Because I wanted faster weight loss and went on a stupid crash diet. I have a long history of food issues, and for me, strict diets trigger the eating disorder. I managed to keep the weight off for about 6 months when I changed to the crash diet, but during that time I was in a cycle of bingeing and starving.

I believe that for me this plan is sane and healthy, I felt great on it and not deprived or hungry, and wish I'd gone back to it instead of trying lots of other diets. I'm seeing a therapist now to help with my disordered eating, and am definitely going to discuss the IR diet with her and possibly incorporate it into my treatment plan.

Sorry for the essay !

Thankyou for your diet story Hardy. I would think though that your therapist will not recommend any diet or "woe" where you are eating in a disordered fashion ie......using food restriction for the sole purpose of losing weight. All diets and woe just restrict calories one way or another. Have you tried just eating when your hungry (true hunger that makes you really needing to eat) and then stopping when you feel satisfied (sometimes only a very small portion) and eating whatever you want but always mindfully. This is how naturally slim people eat. They don't have disordered eating so they wouldn't eat if they were not hungry. Once you make all food equal( and I mean all food) and you get over the joy of being able to buy all your favourite things, then you start to see food as just food and you do start to eat normally. This is the way that Overcoming Overeating by Jane Hirschman recommends to sort out disordered eating. Maybe you have already tried it? What do you think?

Herdy, please join me on this woe :)

My therapist did recommend this woe to me because its eating for health & not for weight. This makes it so much easier for me, and now that I am seeing health benefits so quickly, I feel great. Oh, and another skin tag fell off

I have tried mindfull eating in the past, I still had hypos and was still IR :(

I think there is def something to be said for mindfully eating, however given the choice I would want to eat food like toast and chocolate! Even if I have eaten these foods in moderation/mindfully it sets me up for cravings and sugar highs and lows and gradually the mindfulness goes out the window.

Ate out last night, it was Chinese. Avoided the noodles & rice, but ate freely of everything else & had pudding so I think I was way, way over my 30g carbs! I weighed this morning & it hasnt affected my weight. Off now to eat a balanced breakfast!

Elbow you are doing really well.

Not sure if anyone else is doing this, but I thought id share a tasty bar that I found in tesco, they are high protein, so balance the carbs. A box of 5 is about £1.90. See here, but they seems very expensive on that site.

Hi elbow, how's it going for you?
I'm going to be starting IR again in the next couple of days, I probably won't be posting much but will read regularly.
Those bars look good and are well balanced.

I quite like 9 bars too, they are often on offer in my tesco, much nicer than naked bars which just seem like dry fruit.

Can I ask do you just refer to food labels or work everything out on mfp?I quite fancy trying this to see what its like but just have a pc at the mo so can't use mfp very easily. How are you finding working out the ratios of carbs and protein etc?

Another 1lb down, so very slow but very steady. Health benefits far outweigh that though.

I look mostly at food labels, but to be honest, after the first week, I can get a good estimate of carb amounts just by eye. I know that a handful of pasta wont take me over my limit, that a small jacket potato or 3 new potatoes are roughly 30g carbs. I do use MFP for stuff im not sure about.

The pumpkin 9 bar is delicious, really gets me through the afternoon at work.

Well done on the 1lb, Elbow. As you say the health benefits are the main thing, and I'm sure you'll see a difference next time you get your bloods results. I will get some of those pumpkin 9 bars.

giraffes when I followed this, I don't think MFP existed, so I used labels although I didn't allow myself to get too hung up on weighing and measuring as then it gets too much like a 'diet-y diet' and likely to cause me problems. I also got very good at 'eye balling' the amounts within a week or two. If you can read the book, I do recommend it as it helps you to understand IR better and it gives quite a bit of help about emotional eating in the last couple of chapters. Also the authors do stress about not getting too hung up on the numbers, although it is important to link and balance as often as possible. There's no deprivation in this plan as long as you link and balance. And you never need to go hungry either.

I'm just back from my GP for blood test results and I do need to take some action. My therapist has read the book now -it's available as an e-book apparently. I'm seeing her tomorrow and she said she's happy for me to start the plan after our appointment tomorrow, she just has a few pointers for me before I begin.

Will be nice to have some company Herdy, to comapre notes :)