Originally Posted by
Sixty Fiver
george - My wife has endocrine issues as she has no thyroid and has to take supplemental and synthetic thyroid medications to regulate her body.
The low carb, high fat diet she has been enjoying has made her absorption of these medications much better in addition to causing quite the incredible weight loss and getting her some really good test numbers at her physical.
She does not count calories and maintains a decent level of activity through walking daily and her job keeps her moving as well but she has not been doing any rigorous exercise.... although we have not checked I am sure her weight loss is now pushing 50 pounds since August and she is almost back to her pre-surgery weight.
If I posted before and after pictures you'd be stunned... I am stunned on a daily basis and so happy that this is working so well as she feels so much better. She is not a tiny woman and her normal curvy weight is 160-170 pounds and even at a higher weight she carries that well but it kills her hips and is not good for long term joint health.
Although I don't do it often I ran the numbers on our food intake yesterday and we each took in 2300 calories where the fat was 174 grams, the protein was 70 grams, and carbs for me were 54 grams while she stayed below 20 grams to maintain ketosis... this would be a pretty typical day here for both of us although the protein was a little higher than normal due to the bacon and eggs we enjoyed for breakfast (not a daily thing).
Our bulletproof coffee is 2-4 tablespoons of butter and coconut oil mixed with coffee and a generous amount of 18% table cream with a little vanilla for taste... this is 200-400 calories with no carbs and the medium chain trigylcerides in the coconut oil behave differently from other fats in that they get converted directly into energy while other fats take a little more processing.
From a metabolic point of view, processing fats requires fewer digestive enzymes than glucose and think this is where the extra benefit for her comes in.
My thermos is full of BPC for my afternoon ride... these are calories I will drink.
I agree that a high protein diet is more conducive to weight loss -- and I do not want to take anything away from that...
But, 50 pounds in 4 months is a LOT of weight. I have to wonder if some of that could be due to going from hypothyroidism to euthyroidism or even hyperthyroidism?
... I assume that she is having her levels checked regularly, so it's probably not a problem. But I just thought I would bring it up.
But, in any event -- I am very glad to hear that she is doing so very well! And I do not doubt that a large part of the credit goes to the great support she receives...