Choosing the right diet for medical issues (PCOS/Thyroid)
By Michelle Slater
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It doesn’t seem fair, does it? All that hard work and so little to show for it!
So many years I spent in traditional diets, hungry and insatiable much of the time, sweating my ass off… except not really sweating my ass off, because the scales did not reward me after all that work. Most of the time I was left wondering what I was doing wrong. Blaming myself. No wonder I gave up so many times! It seemed that my body did what it liked no matter what. Then I found out, after starting infertility treatments, that I had Hashimoto’s Disease^. And Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. And Insulin Resistance. And Endometriosis. And Adenomyomas. And on, and on, and on.
No wonder my body wasn’t responding to the punishment I was giving it! It was telling me something, it was telling me it wanted to be treated another way, and I wasn’t listening. Instead I continued to persist with conventional wisdom… and I continued to struggle.
Each of us with medical needs must research to determine the right approach, listen to what our bodies are telling us, and make our decisions in concert with our trusted medical professionals^.
I believe in science, I believe in research. That is why I followed the SAD (Standard American Diet) for so long. But I didn’t pay attention to the most important study: the study of one (me!) and the results I was getting. I just thought I was doing something wrong and needed to be “better”.
In addition to published research, now believe that I am also my own science experiment, I am my own research and that if I pay close attention, I can run my own study and see what works for my body, my unique gut biome and my unique endocrine make up. I don’t ignore studies or research, they are vitally important. But I equally listen to my own body now.
One of the earliest aha moments I remember having, when I was purely calorie counting and eating healthy foods according to the SAD, was ordering my usual Subway sandwich on multigrain bread with teriyaki chicken for lunch. It fit perfectly into my allocated lunch time calories, but I was always ravenously hungry for a sweet afternoon snack around 2 – 3 hours later.
One day I decided to experiment and have a Subway salad bowl (I didn’t even know such a thing existed but I saw someone in the line ahead of me order it). I had double chicken teriyaki meat and I added cheese. It was exactly the same amount of calories as the sandwich according to My Fitness Pal, but I didn’t get hungry again until dinner time.
“Huh,” I thought to myself, “That’s a bit odd. Isn’t a calorie, just a calorie?”
So I tried it again the next day. Same result. No wild craving at 3pm for a chocolate bar. Just decently hungry for dinner in the early evening.
“Huh. Maybe there’s something to this carb thing.” I thought to myself… and that’s as far as I took it.
My body was telling me something. Telling me something really important. And I heard the whisper. I started choosing Low GI carbs as part of my meals. Losing weight wasn’t quite as hard, and adding Metformin and getting my Thyroid medications balanced helped. But I failed to have the complete conversation with my body about all carbs, until much later.
After 5 years, IVF finally worked for us, and (of course), I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. For the first time in my life I was finally forced to pay strict attention to the carbs I was eating, and by testing my blood sugars five times a day, I could see exactly what each morsel was doing to me. It was fascinating! I could have a high-fat piece of cake (for example an orange/almond meal cake with whipped cream) and my blood sugars remained stable, but if I had a piece of supposedly low-GI multigrain sourdough, my blood sugars shot up higher than if I’d injected myself with white sugar!
As a life-long dieter and calorie counter, I thought I knew what was up with food. But I soon found out that carbs were more than just bread, rice, potato and pasta. A banana is high in carbs? Who knew?! This carb thing was a bit trickier than I thought!
I also learned that Low GI was relative: everyone’s gut biome processes carbs in different ways. Something might be classified as a Low GI carb for the general population could actually spike my blood sugar.
Throughout those 9 months I felt the happiest and best in my entire life. My body was buzzing and I felt so in tune with it, I knew perfectly how my body responded to any given food, I nurtured my body as much as the baby I was growing inside, and my body felt completely listened to.
Post-birth and in the blur of breastfeeding a newborn, I ate when I could and many carbs were consumed. Because my labour had ended in a c-section, and because of my thyroid condition and a baby with a tongue tie, I had problems producing milk. I desperately wanted to breastfeed and so I was put on high doses of Prolactin to produce milk. This, along with lack of sleep, made my cravings for carbs almost insatiable. I had lost weight during my pregnancy but I soon gained that back and then some. My body performed beautifully for me in terms of nurturing a baby, I was in awe of what it could do, but I very naturally stopped listening to it for a while when my priorities switched to my baby and eating what I could, when I could.
I joined an online mothers group, and after some time, the conversation turned to getting our pre-baby bodies back. One of my online friends mentioned low carb, high fat. It was the first time I had heard of high fat in a diet context. Normally I would pooh-pooh a diet that went against what I thought of as conventional wisdom but I trusted this person enough to investigate it further.
Soon I was bubbling with excitement. I already knew to a certain degree that my body was carb-sensitive but the limited research I looked at around utilising fat in a dietary context was startling. There was only one way to determine whether this low carb, high fat diet was right for my body.
And so began my year-long on/off experiment with a LCHF (low carb high fat) diet. You only have to look at my DietBet progress chart to tell when I was following a low carb/high fat diet and when I wasn’t.
I've recently discovered intermittent fasting. What a concept, only eating when you're hungry!
But I can't possibly skip breakfast, isn't that the most important meal of the day?!
The latest research on this says that fasting prolongs your life. I spoke with my doctor about fasting and a low carb, high fat diet. I confessed. I told her I was eating under 100 grams of carbs a day, that I was eating butter and cream in copious amounts. She opened my latest blood results.
"Your cholesterol has significantly dropped since last year, even though you tell me that the majority of your calories are coming from what you called 'bad fats'. You've lost ten percent of your body weight. Your blood sugar is fantastic. You're happy and you look great. What does that tell you?"
I stared at her.
"Just so you know," the doctor said, "I'm on a low carb diet too. If your weight loss stalls, experiment with limited fasting by skipping breakfast. Look up 16 & 8 and see if that works for you."
I nearly fell off my chair. I was expecting to get a lecture about sticking to the SAD diet. So no, breakfast is not the most important meal of the day. Coffee is. ;)
She went on to tell me that according to what she has seen with other patients, in most people the type of fat they eat is not the problem, it's carbs and genetics. She said that the minute I added a standard amount of carbs back into my diet as I had done previously (300grams), that my cholesterol would likely skyrocket. She said to listen to my body, and to look at the results, to just keep doing what I am doing.
If you're anything like me, you need a doctor to tell you this way of eating is okay. Trust me, there are plenty of doctors and medical professionals out there who have seen the latest research and know that the SAD (standard american diet) doesn't work for everyone, least of all people with medical conditions. See my research links below.
And now, at 42 years old, I’m finally learning to listen to what my body has been trying to tell me all along.
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Are you at the point where you want to research whether a low carb / high fat diet is right for you? Read my blog post "Kicking off a Low Carb High Fat way of eating": https://www.dietbet.com/community/posts/diet-nutrition/17504-kicking-off-a-low-carb-high-fa
Please feel free to join my LowCarbFit Facebook group for support, diet plans, meal inspiration and workouts: https://www.facebook.com/groups/444158355947348/
I'm only half way to my goal. Do you want to join me? You can by joining my upcoming Dietbet where we can cheer each other on, here: $50 Version - http://dbet.me/yTDeVu $10 Version - http://dbet.me/1wAFtF
Here are some research links if low carb / high fat has you intrigued:
Here's what a diabetes doctor has to say about a low carb, high fat diet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da1vvigy5tQ
The science behind low carb high fat diets: https://www.dietdoctor.com/science
What does a LCHF diet do for cholesterol: https://www.dietdoctor.com/get-elevated-cholesterol-low-carb-diet
^Is low carb bad for hypothyroidism? https://www.dietvsdisease.org/low-carb-hypothyroidism/
How to calculate net carbs on Atkins: http://www.livestrong.com/article/83532-calculate-net-carbs-atkins/
Setting up MFP for keto: http://cavemanketo.com/configuring-mfp/
Setting up MFP for keto x 2: http://ketosizeme.com/my-fitness-pal-keto/
Ditch the Carbs - great resource for recipes and tips: http://www.ditchthecarbs.com
Diet Doctor - another great resource: http://www.dietdoctor.com/
DietBet HoneyIshrunk Coaching page: https://www.dietbet.com/coach/michelle