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!

Key is make it fit with your life too. Im going to have home-made baked beans, ommlete & fried mushrooms for lunch :) The only carbs is the spoon of sugar in the beans, which will be split between 4.

Made home made doner kebabs for dinner, carbs only in the pitta, with loads of salad & lamb doner meat inside. Delicious! Love eating this way :)

Well, I have lost 4lbs since I started 10 days ago so quite pleased with that.

Well done Jinty :)

Ate some Haribo today :( but thats the last of my Christmas sweets gone now, so no temptations!

That's brilliant, Jinty! I've lost 5lbs in three months.

Had too much sugar at the weekend, I can still feel myself feeling weird after it. Lesson learnt.

Since Christmas I have more or less stopped eating wheat - possibly a wholemeal pitta once a week? I've lost 8lbs since then. Wow.

That's great Sid. I'm a bit off course at the moment. I have a broken elbow and injured knee which, like everything else, affects my eating! Will be back on track soon. I had been doing so well, swimming most days ect. Still, could have been worse

Elbow - out of interest, what is your total weight loss so far?

Well I'm here with my monthly update.

Yesterday was my weigh day and I've now lost 20lbs. Some may think that's slow going over 3 months but I am very happy with it. I'm trying not to get too hung up on what the scales say and am watching how my clothes fit. I do need to lose about another 40lbs but I'm eating food I really enjoy, I'm not hungry and know that I can continue eating like this.

My binge eating is under control too - I'm just not getting those cravings or feeling deprived eating like this.
Still feeling really good, less mood swings, definitely less of the perimenopausal stuff I was dealing with.

i am inspired!

I have the book and have started today.

So far:

Breakfast:
2 x low carb toast (7g carb in total) + 2 eggs (12g protein)

Snack:
Apple & small handful of nuts

Lunch:
Spelt cracker (8.6g carb) + homemade smoked salmon pate (smoked salmon, cream cheese, lemon)

So far I am making much more of an effort to drink more water…

This is way more than I would normally eat in a day so far so I will be intrigued!

Good luck, chocolate!

And way to go, Herdy. I'm green with envy at your fantastic weightloss.

Thank you sid.
Can't take much credit because its actually been easy this time. .
I'll post another update after I've done my monthly weigh in on 1st March.

Is anyone else still doing this?

I got the book last weekend and put off reading it, so glad I found this thread!! I recognise so many of the symptoms of IR, and I am fed up of them. I don't want to get used to feeling this way. If I have a very high carb meal I feel so depressed after and its not guilt, its definitely something chemical going on inside. So got my big shop to do later today, will look through the book and back through the meals you have all so helpfully posted and make a meal plan.

Just another thought, I noticed that some other posters have mentioned intuitive eating. I too read up on this and thought it sounded great but I think that with my PCOS and possible IR that my intuition isn't enough to decide what I should be eating. I think I need to think of my food more as medicine, I need a little prescription. I wouldn't intuitively medicate myself for anything else, I would follow the advice of the medical professionals. Just thinking aloud there really.

Anyway will definitely be posting here as a way to track progress!

I am planning to get back on track tomorrow. Herdy I would be more than happy with 20lbs in 3 months.

So today was my weigh day - I only weigh once a month because of my food issues.
I've lost another 4lbs in February.
I don't even care that much about the weight loss, I've seen such an improvement in how I feel, my energy level etc.

so pleased that elbowprincess started this thread and reminded me about the IR diet!

Has everyone stopped or just doing sooooo well!!

Time I got back into this, my health is terrible just now :(

Day 3, dropped a couple of pounds already and feeling great, mood lifting, energy levels rising.

Hi ladies. I have been reading this thread on and off for some time now and have finally got round to buying the book. Not sure if I am getting thick in my old age but i can understand the principle of linking, but am struggling to put it into practice in as much as meals and what to eat.

I really want to get into this way of eating as i recognise so many symptoms, but just cannot get my head around it. Any advice or meal ideas would be very greatly appreciated.

I can share what I have eaten today, if that is any help?

Breakfast - toast x 2 slices (hovis seeded, 13g carb per slice) with 2 eggs scrambled

Snack - babybel cheese, 9Bar (balanced seed bars, delicious!)

Lunch - small jacket potato, tuna mayo, salad

Snack - ham slices

Dinner - Breaded fish (19g carbs) veg, 2 small new potatoes (13g carbs)

Snack will be 3 crispbreads (9g carbs) & pate

Thanks EvertthingIsAwesome. I will give your list a try.

Can I join you all?

I bought a blood glucose monitor a couple of months back as I was having blood sugar issues (cravings, very low hypo type symptoms). My level upon waking was around 5.4, which was a lot higher than when I had monitored about 5 years previously (recurrent thrush) - my level had been about 3.4!

I stopped monitoring it for a while. Started again a week ago and my morning fasting level is now between 6.2 and 6.7. I need to nip this in the bud! I'm 30, a few pounds overweight, about 11st 1 at 5'5". I'd love to be back under 10 stone, and stop worrying about getting diabetes. I've also got high cholesterol (about 7.3) which runs in the family, so I'm wary of eating too much fat.

Off to buy the book (apologies for the essay!)

I thought I'd pop back in and update, for anyone who may be interested.

It's now been 7.5 months since I started this. I'm still following it, feel fantastic and hardly recognise myself from a year ago. I've got tons of energy, sleeping really well, no real peri menopause symptoms to speak of, no mood swings, no cravings. I had my bloods done again at the beginning of June and my GP is very pleased, all was absolutely normal including cholesterol and no pre-diabetes evident now. I've lost 50 pounds.

I have a history of disordered eating, and when I started this I was having therapy to help with it, but I also needed to lose a lot of weight as my weight was negatively impacting on my health.
so how I had to approach this was not by framing it as a diet,but by focusing on the other health benefits it would bring, pretty much ignoring weight loss. So I focused on how much more energetic I feel, how much better I feel emotionally etc, rather than the number on the scale This wouldn't have worked for me if I'd thought of it as a diet.

I eat whatever I want, I just make sure to eat protein with carbs and balance the carbs. So, clearly there is some restriction in that I can't eat as many carbs as I used to want to - but I feel tons better for reducing the amounts I'm consuming. I eat normal food, nothing is forbidden, and a biggie for me personally is that eating out is easy on this plan too. I've travelled on holiday and business and been able to follow it without any problems, so for me it really does work.

You've done really well!

I keep coming back to this thread as I downloaded a sample of this book but it sounded fiddly to manage with all the balancing. You seem to be achieving it. I'd be interested to hear if theres any of the others doing it and how they are coping.