I really need to lose weight for my health

[RejectedAgain]

Just that really. 5'4 and 15 stone currently. Am being sent to hospital ASAP for checks to see if I have cancer and this is a massive wake up call. I'm 34 and have an 12 and 6 year old who need their mummy fit and healthy. Weight loss will help this a lot. Please help with ideas as I'm panicking and stressed right now

@LeGrandBleu - really interesting, thank you for your informative posts. I have never heard of that condition (I'm an old nurse, so feel like I should have!)

@RejectedAgain I found that I had prediabetes over a year ago, and have since been following a low carb diet, and try to eat as healthy as possible. I have gone from 12 stone to 9 stone 5 lbs - and have been at that lower weight for at least 6 months. Sometimes I find it hard to maintain the weight.ie I lose more weight unintentionally. For me personally, I would find it so hard to be meat-free and/or dairy free to maintain this low carb diet. I don't have milk, but do eat cheese and take double cream in my coffee..

Respect to all those who can do without! Ethically I would prefer not to eat meat, but any type of beans/pulses etc seem to raise my blood sugar too much. I eat a lot of nuts and have found almond flour to be very useful as a flour substitute. There is so much information and knowledge out there OP, and support. If you want to do this, you can.

I'm in a facebook group for diabetes who follow a very strict low carb way of life, and have had loads of ideas for meals and recipes etc, as well as encouragement - so helpful.

@LeGrandBleu - is there any evidence that intermittent fasting and autophagy helps with this condition? (I know autophagy has only been studied in mice). I ask, because I tried it and saw a noticeable reduction in inflammation. Plantar fascitis disappeared, aches in knees, puffiness in face and hands all disappeared.

@RejectedAgain

Picking mostly. Lots of small meals plus lots of snacks, plus lots of sugary drinks. I walk at least 20000-25000 steps a day so exercise isn't an issue

do you sweaty and out of breath when walking? if not then it's not exercise. it is still good for you though to move a lot.

as pp say, have a look at everything you eat and drink for a week.
then make small sustainable changes. like no snacks outside mealtimes.

good luck!

@DianaT1969 autophagy is tricky, because it is a double edge sword. It is good at preventing cancer, but if you have cancer, you might actually boost cancer growth depending on which cancer. In many cancers, one of the drug given will actually be an autophagy-inhibitor.

The way a functioning Nf1 gene works is by down-regulating the RAS pathway. Problem is , RAS tumours belong to those tumours that feed from autopahagy.
" In cancer the role of autophagy is complex and context-dependent179–181; however, growing evidence has shown that in certain tumour types such as those driven by oncogenic Ras, autophagy is required for tumour maintenance in large part to fuel the metabolism of these aggressive cancers182–185. Indeed, inhibition of autophagy in this context either genetically or pharmacologically causes metabolic dysfunction and a decrease in tumour growth." www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4355017/
"

Does the same rule apply to the benign NF1 tumours, no idea, nobody looked at it . But given our high predisposition to cancer and the fact that we might have early stage cancer and be totally unaware of it, I would be cautious, and stick to high - both quantity and variety - vegetables more than long fasts. A high vegetables, low protein diet will be anti-inflammatory .

I follow a low calorie, low protein diet which even without causing autophagy lowers the growth signals enough so keep tumours under control. Especially when I add HIIT and weight training to the mix.

@isitsnowingyet so many medical professional have never heard of it, despite NF1 being the most common genetic disorder. I educate my doctors, not the other way round because they still rely on data from the 1980s. So don't feel bad about it. We are an uninteresting disease, because nothing works for us, so researchers are not going to waste funds on trials destined to fail.
I experiment on myself.

What is your current diet?
What is your current exercise?

@Hellotheresweet who are you asking this to?

@LeGrandBleu

I don't think there is conflicting facts, on the opposite there is quite a wide consensus on two points.

1. a healthy diet, be it a healthy low carb with no more than 20gr of carb or a healthy low fat, no more than 20 gr of fat /day have equal value and healthy is the key word ; healthy being no added sugars, no refined grains and plenty of vegetables , then to this core you either opt for 20 gr of carb or 20 gr of fat, the results are equals. Some will lose on low carb, other will gain and the same applies to low fat, some will lose other will gain.
   It is the healthy part that counts. Because a crappy diet , be it crappy low fat with processed food or a crappy low carb with the processed food are both equally bad. Christopher Gardner has proven it to death both on clinical intervention and clinical observation.
   Of course if you compare a junky diet with either a healthy low carb or a healthy low fat, the healthy one will always win.

2. No diet is right for everyone. Some , and there is no way to determine who just by lab or gene test, will do better on a low carb, other on a low fat. Independently from blood sugar or other markers. Your ancestry plays a role, your gut microbiome and other metabolic processes. One size doesn't fit all.

What is right for everyone is getting rid of processed, ultra-processed and other manipulated food items, with sweeteners and other other artificial additives. Because now we know that the gut bacteria are at the origin of the yo-yo effect, and if you alter your gut microbiome while dieting with high volume of vegetables, you will change the species and avoid the regain.

IF one counts obsessively the carbs or the fats, to be safe , one will opt for low-carb / low fat industrial products because they come with a label. One might respect the carb/fat target but completely damage the microbiome .

Any weightloss diet that is healthy - no added sugar, no refined grains, and I might add, no industrial oils, with plenty of vegetables - can be successful, no matter if low carb or low fat.

When it comes to looking at the science, anyone who sells a program, book, memberships, podcast, .... will present the science that echoes its business plan, and you have so many on every single camp, but each will always oppose their plan vs a crappy opposite plan.

So it is important to step away from " sellers" and look at uni professor who don't take one side.
"Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this study, Gardner said, is that the fundamental strategy for losing weight with either a low-fat or a low-carb approach is similar. Eat less sugar, less refined flour and as many vegetables as possible. Go for whole foods, whether that is a wheatberry salad or grass-fed beef. "

Each should follow the program that suits better their taste and instinct, but not something manufactured in a factory

Well yes, I agree with all of this. However, there is still conflicting advice depending on which study you choose to believe - and that's before we come to which diet is the latest being pedalled by which author/celebrity etc.

The overall premise, though, of eating healthy and unprocessed foods is one that so many people just don't understand. We have become, as a Western society, so used to buying pre-packed, pre-made, processed foods that moving away from that is a real shock for many. I know whenever someone new joins one of the Low Carb Bootcamps, they're often also coming to cooking from scratch for the first time.

I agree except that I think it's more helpful to look at fat as a percentage of what you eat than it is to just say "less than 20g for everyone". I aim to eat around 20-30% of my calories as fat because I know that if I eat less than that I won't find my food satisfying. I don't worry too much about saturated fat versus non but I don't eat much sat fat by choice so it tends to be low. But if you think about the difference between someone weighing 111kg (me) and someone weighing 60kg, they're obviously not going to need the same amounts of fat in grams.

My reference to the 20gr of either fat or carb was to cite the studies that looked into the value of low carb vs low fat. Personally I look more at the quality of the food than specific macros

Oh OK fair enough. I do look at macros a bit but not at the cost of eating something I really want

@RejectedAgain Sorry to read about your plight; I hope you get the treatment and support you need.

I’ve found this thread very interesting, especially @LeGrandBleu’s posts. So knowledgeable!

My circumstances and health are somewhat different to the OPs. Nonetheless I totally advocate for healthy eating to promote wellness. I have life limiting diseases and a spinal cord injury. I totally advocate eating freshly prepared foods, mainly veggies, some protein, fibre from complex carbs. Keeping blood sugars balanced and stable insulin responses. I go for variety to help create a healthy gut biome. I’m currently working on reducing my dairy consumption as I’m aware I eat far too much.

Wishing you well @RejectedAgain!