Tag Archives: weight loss

HCG, Intermittent Fasting and Ketosis: the Unholy Trinity of Metabolic Downregulation

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Today, for a change, I’m not going to hit you with a bunch of studies. I’m just going to tell you what I’ve learned through experience with my clients and readers. Then I give you a couple links to check out if you want to read some more sciency stuff.

My client base is made up largely of women who’ve already run the diet gauntlet. By the time they get to me, most of these women have essentially been on one diet or another for years, or even decades. They’ve done it all. They’re experts at losing weight. Trouble is, the weight always comes back. With each successive diet, they ultimately find themselves fatter and sicker. I don’t put my clients on diets: they’ve already been, to a one, on all the diets. I get my clients off diets. Get them eating a humane, sustainable amount of food, with a focus on supporting their activity and honoring their personal tastes and cultural traditions. The vast majority of my clients stabilize fairly quickly and begin making forward progress, once they wrap their minds around eating to support their metabolic health.

There are a few clients, though, who have a much harder time stabilizing. Their weight won’t budge, or it fluctuates wildly. They don’t seem to be able to build muscle mass as effectively. They begin to store more fat around their belly than they have in the past. They experience edema. They deal with anxiety and insomnia and other symptoms of starvation, even when their calorie intake is adequate. It is as if their bodies refuse to emerge from the starvation response (see my Adrenal Fatigue post for more info on the starvation response). This goes on for months, even when calories and macronutrients are all adequate and consistent. I’ve had several clients who’ve experienced this, and every single one of them had a history of one or more of the three diet philosophies that I’ve taken to calling the ‘Metabolic Downregulators’. Those three diet philosophies are: HCG, Intermittent Fasting, and Ketosis.

All three of the Metabolic Downregulators appear to provoke the starvation response by design. The first symptom of the starvation response is rapid weight loss. Subsequent symptoms are endocrine adaptations that slow the body’s metabolic processes and insure against famine by shoring up fat reserves, stopping reproductive function and reducing metabolically expensive lean mass. IF and ketosis seem to be able to do this even in the absence of a caloric deficit. HCG, of course, simply relies on extreme calorie deprivation. That initial rapid weight loss is what the dieter fixates on, and when the weight loss stalls out they wonder what they are ‘doing wrong’, and double down on the diet in an effort to get the weight dropping again. This only compounds the metabolic downregulation, and the dieter ends up exhibiting all the symptoms of starvation AND excess fat stores.

Like I said, I’m not going to throw studies at you today (I’ll let Alan Aragon, Anthony Colpo, Stephanie Ruper and others do that). I’m simply sharing the observations I’ve made amongst my clients and readers.

My clients who’ve succeeded in downregulating their metabolic function need much more time to repair and stabilize than others who’ve followed less extreme diet philosophies. 6 months is not uncommon. Some women need a year or more. The longer a person’s body has been in the starvation response, the longer it’s going to take to recover. This is a frustrating reality. The temptation to return to extreme dieting can be great. I encourage those of you who are experiencing this to remember that the diets ultimately failed, and it is exactly those diets that brought you to where you are today. There is a better way. Consistently and dependably giving your body the nutrition and energy it needs to be healthy and active will allow it to emerge from the starvation response and heal from the damage the diets have done. But it takes time. Be patient! The long-term benefits are worth it.

If you’ve gone through this, please share your experiences in the comments so that people just beginning the healing process know they are not alone. There is a vast support network out there for those ready to start on the path out of the restriction maze. Please reach out, from wherever you are, to support each other and to find the help you need.

I will add to this list as I find additional resources.

http://www.alanaragon.com/an-objective-look-at-intermittent-fasting.html

http://www.paleoforwomen.com/shattering-the-myth-of-fasting-for-women-a-review-of-female-specific-responses-to-fasting-in-the-literature/

http://anthonycolpo.com/why-intermittent-fasting-isnt-all-its-cracked-up-to-be/

Inactivity and Metabolic Health V

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It’s time for another installment in my Inactivity and Metabolic Health Series! For your consideration today is the small but interesting study from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri:

Improvement in Glucose Tolerance After 1 Wk of Exercise in Patients With Mild NIDDM

There were only 10 middle aged men in this study. While it’s true that studies this small can’t automatically be extrapolated to apply to everyone, what I’m trying to show people through this series is that each small study serves as a data point in a broader constellation of evidence. There is quite a vast body of evidence that inactivity is a primary driver of metabolic dysfunction, and even though no single study can ever be taken of irrefutable evidence of anything, when dozens, hundreds or even thousands of studies all show similar results across population groups, one must sit up and take notice. You can prove pretty much anything if a single study is your litmus test (broccoli will kill you! I saw a study!). What does the weight of evidence say, though?

On to the study. 7 of the men in this study had mild NIDDM (non-insulin dependant diabetes mellitus) and 3 had impaired glucose tolerance (ie, they hadn’t been diagnosed with NIDDM yet but had the precursors). They were instructed not to change their diets over the course of the study, and kept food logs that were analyzed by a dietician to ensure that study results weren’t confounded by diet changes. They were given an initial Oral Glucose Tolerance Test, a physical exam (including blood lipid panel), and a maximal treadmill exercise test before study onset to establish baseline values.

The subjects engaged in a 7 day exercise program consisting of 50-60 minutes on a treadmill or ergometer, working at 60-70% of their maximum heart rate. On the 8th day they were given a second OGTT and exam. On the 9th day they were given a second treadmill test.

Results

VO2 max, body fat percentage and weight all remained unchanged after the 7-day exercise program, so those factors did not confound the results. There was a 36% decrease in plasma glucose, a 32% decrease in plasma insulin concentrations, and a 32% decrease in triglycerides.

What is notable here is that the subjects’ insulin response to a glucose load (from the OGTT) was significantly lower than it had been before the study. What this means: their bodies released less insulin in response to the same amount of sugar after exercising for 7 days. This is significant to the Great Sugar Narrative that holds that sugar is the driver of insulin production and release. Clearly exercise is a pertinent factor here that is ignored by the sugar-causes-diabetes contingent. Exercise can mitigate the insulin response to sugar.

Plasma glucose also decreased, even with a decreased insulin response, which indicates that the cells ability to respond to insulin also improved. From the study:

“The results of this study show that regularly performed vigorous exercise can result in a significant improvement in glucose tolerance in some patients with mild NIDDM. This improvement occurred despite a significantly smaller increase in plasma insulin levels. it appears that the improvement in glucose tolerance was due to a decrease in resistance to insulin.”

Also of note: triglycerides decreased 32% with no change in diet.

Bottom line: exercise reduces insulin response AND makes the body more sensitive to the action of insulin. Exercise does lots of other groovy things too.

Keep moving.

My Weight Loss Progression Pictures

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Most people understand why I post my weight loss progression pictures here and on my facebook page, but every now and then someone will express a concern that those pictures conflict with my general message of body acceptance. I’d like to take a moment to explain why I keep those pictures front and center.

By far, the main reason is to convey the TRUTH that there is no magic to weight loss and fitness. I did this without gimmicks, without fad diets, without restricting foods or macronutrients, without spending hours in the gym, without starving myself, without pills and potions, without dicipling myself to any fitness or diet gurus. My results have been dramatic, but the steps I took to achieve them were not. The key to my success, and to yours, is consistency. Good habits, practiced consistently, over time. Its not low carb, or low fat, or crossfit, or clean eating, or raw vegan, or paleo, or zumba, or gluten free or any other fad-du-jour with promises of easy weight loss and ‘ripped abs in 30 days’. It’s consistency. If I could put consistency in a pill and sell it to you, I’d be a millionaire. Because consistency WORKS. The evidence is right there in my progression pics.

I think it throws some people for a loop that I’m showing you these pictures, but not using them as a marketing ploy to sell you a magic pill. People don’t quite know what to make of that. Before/after pics are almost always used as a marketing ploy to sell magic pills (or fad diets, or workout programs, etc). But there’s no magic pill here, no promise of fast and easy weight loss and ripped abs in 30 days. Just the truth: if you make healthy choices, consistently, over the course of several years, you will have results as dramatic as mine. You won’t look exactly like me, because you have different genetics, but you WILL have dramatic results. Your health will improve and your body will change. It’s true.

I also share these pictures because I am NOT traditionally beautiful, I frequently am on the receiving end of personal attacks against my body and my appearance…and yet I still think I’m awesome and love my body and believe that I am a valuable human being. I want to show my daughters (and you guys) that it’s OK to not fit into society’s little boxes. It’s ok that some people don’t like the way I look. People can call me ugly and say I look like a man until they’re blue in the face, and I still think I’m just fine exactly the way I am, and I think my daughters are fine exactly the way they are, and I think all of YOU are fine exactly the way you are. I share my pictures and allow the hate to roll off my back so that my daughters learn that they can allow hate to roll off their backs. Their worth is not defined by how well they fit into society’s boxes, or by what anyone else thinks of them. I’m proud of what my body is capable of, and I’m proud of the way I’ve turned my health around! The aesthetic changes are fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things, I’d MUCH rather show you pictures of my improved insulin sensitivity, or my no-longer-cystic ovaries, or my anxiety- and depression-free brain, or the migraines I no longer get. But I can’t, so I show you pictures of the ways the shape of my body has changed.

Finally, I share these pictures for a very pragmatic reason: they get people’s attention. They draw people in, especially people who are trapped in the fad diet mental maze of restriction and dysfunction. And once I have their attention I can tell them the truth. You’re valuable. You’re worthy of love and respect. Your worth is not defined by your abs. I have visible abs and I’m telling you, they do not define me, and they do not define you. When was the last time someone with visible abs told you that you don’t have to have visible abs to be loved? Never? Well, maybe it’s time someone with visible abs told you: you’re worthy of love and respect regardless of the status of your abs. Maybe it’s time MORE people with visible abs started telling the truth: visible abs are not a barometer of health, or fitness, or desirability. Visible abs are nothing more than an indication of low body fat in the abdominal region. Nothing more. NOTHING MORE. And that’s the truth.

Sometimes, when you’re trying to change the world, you have to meet the world where it is.