Losing Weight, Insulin Resistance, and Low Glycemic Index

I am trying to lose weight and have been struggling for 1.5 years.  I am down 60 lbs (yay) but I am restricting calories and working out 6 times a week so I should theoretically be losing more.

When I first met with a nutritionist over a year ago (over the course of 4 visits), she told me to increase my fruits and veggies, only eat carbs from whole grains or fruits, veggies and dairies, and increase my protein.  She also taught me how to read food labels and understand calculating percentages of fats/carbs/proteins in foods.  I implemented all these things as she suggested.

Now, I went back to her again because my primary care physician wanted me to get a metabolism test and to have her review my food logs.  At 261 lbs, I am eating an average of 1500 calories a day.  The breakdown was 15% fat, 25% protein and 60% carbs.  She told me to change that breakdown to 30% fat, 30% protein, and 40% carbs.  She said this because I have PCOS and hence, an insulin resistance problem. 

I have tried to implement her suggestions (yesterday) and was able to do 20% fat, 40% protein and 40% carbs but was eating even fewer calories than before (1350).  I am not quite sure what to do.  I'm not as hungry eating more protein and she has put all these weird restrictions on my eating that seem unnatural and hard for me to do.  For instance, she said every time I eat a carb alone (even something like a cup of strawberries), these carbs were being stored as fat.  Hence, she said I needed to eat them with a protein.  Well, I just don't even know what kind of protein to eat though.  I tend to like cheeses and nuts and have been forcing myself to eat more yogurt lately... but it all just seems very unnatural and difficult to do.

Lunch is okay because I tend to make a lot of sandwiches (to take to work) with deli meat and high fiber low carb bread.  But, when I sit down for dinner, I don't know what to eat.  I have grilled chicken and fish all the time but used to do them with brown rice and other carbs that NOW seem off limits because of the 40% carbs rule.  She basically told me to eat no more than 25g of carbs in any given meal and no more than 15g of carbs in any one snack -- does that mean that skinny cow ice cream cones, for instance, which is one of the few treats I have been having all these months are screwing me up?  Sadly, I am also not a big salad eater and have been getting most of my veggies from carrots and soups.  Now, I don't know what to do since carrots are carbs and I cannot eat a carb alone.  What should I eat with those carrots then?

Finally, things like breakfast.  I have been eating whole grain waffles with berries and syrup.  She told me to add in nuts.  That's well and good but the syrup (even though I only use 1/8th of a cup) takes up my carbs intake right there!

Sorry for the long post and all of the questions but I have been told that once I get the hang of this, I will start losing much faster than 0.5-1 lb/week so I really want to get this down.  I just bought a few PCOS/Insulin Resisance and Glycemic Index books so hopefully those will help as well.

I think your nutritionist is over-complicating things.  No-one can sit down and work out their eating plan like it's a maths exam.  Distilling the advice down I think all she wants you to do is add a portion of protein to each meal and to eat a little more fat

You only need another teaspoon of olive oil here and there or a couple of eggs on toast for breakfast occasionally instead of cereals in order to achieve that.   Really don't do low-carb bread because that's defeating the object of eating the wholegrains.

My way of Low GI eating is make sure my plate at each meal is filled 1/4 wholegrains, 1/4 protein (meat/fish/eggs or beans/lentils/tofu), plus a little fat (olive oil, mayonnaise, nuts, seeds, butter) plus as many vegetables as I can fit on the plate.  That's about as complicated as I can cope with. 

I eat a 40/30/30 ratio...about 1400 cals per day. It is easy to increase your cals w/o changing your ratio just increase portion sizes evenly in a meal or two. I am not sure that every meal is a perfect balance but it is close:

Here is what I do every day:

Breakfast

1 carb serving

1 fruit serving

1 milk serving

1 protein serving

1 fat serving

Snack

1 carb serving

1 fruit serving

1 fat serving

Lunch

3 protein servings

1 fat serving

1 carb serving

1 veggie serving

Snack

2 protein servings

1 milk serving

1 carb serving

1 veggies serving

Dinner

4 protein servings

1 carb serving

2 fat servings

1 veggie serving

1 fruit serving

Snack

1 milk serving

1 carb = 1 slice whole wheat bread, 1/2 c brown rice, 5 whole wheat crackers, etc...

1 protein = 1 oz of lean meat or an egg

1 fat = 1/2 T peanut butter, 1/2 T olive oil, 8 olives etc...

1 milk = 1 cup fat free milk, 1/2 low fat yogurt

1 fruit = 1 apple, 3/4 cup berries, 1 banana etc..

1 veggie = small salad, 1 cup raw veggies etc...

Original Post by gi-jane:

I think your nutritionist is over-complicating things.  No-one can sit down and work out their eating plan like it's a maths exam.

gijane, it's funny you say that because that is exactly how i feel.  i made a whole list of foods and their calories and grams of fat/carbs/protein to try to figure out how the hell i am going to eat -- what combos i could do, for instance. it's soooo complicated now.  very confused still.

I think all you have to do is 'test' that each meal has some carbohydrates (C), protein (P), fat (F) and either fruit or veg (F/V)

Examples

Porridge oats (C), milk (P/F), pumpkin seeds (P), raisins (F/V)

Wholewheat pasta (C), chicken (P), olive oil (F), broccoli (F/V)

Red peppers (F/V) stuffed with brown rice (C), nuts (F/P) and vegetables

Grilled fish (P/F), new potatoes (C), a little butter (F), peas (F/V)

Scrambled eggs (P/F), wholegrain toast (C), grapefruit (F/V)

Vegetable Chilli made with kidney beans (P), chopped vegetables (F/V), canned tomatoes (F/V), olive oil (F) and served with brown rice (C)

Snack: Oatcakes (C) with peanut butter (P/F), wholegrain crispbread (C) with cottage cheese (P/F); vegetable sticks (V/F) with hummus (P/F)

I was told the same thing about having protien with my snack carbs (15g) and I've also been tracking nutritional values to "create" meals (40-45% carbs, 18-20-% protien, 35-38% fat) that keep my calories, fat, carbs, protien balanced. It is a royal pain! Hang in there!! And I haven't totally given up all the "sweets"; I only have 1-2 bites from my wife's plate(and only occasionally).

 

 

 

I have insulin resistance (and the PCOS that goes with it) and the majority of the 75 lbs I have lost so far is by going low GI (though I didn't do it on purpose at first, sort of stumbled onto it).  I don't break it down to the exacts that your person is doing but I just keep it about broadly eating slow burning carbs.  I have cut most of the meat out of my diet and replaced it with beans, wholegrains, pulses, etc and it is when I started doing that when the weight started to move.  I try to have as little rice and that sort of carb as possible.  If I make rice for my partner I will have a green veg like kale or broccoli instead.  It is a learning curve at first but after a few months it just became how I ate and the slow burning carbs really do keep me full and stop me from having an urge to eat between meals.

I have been having the same problem.  I just bought the book The Insulin-Resistance Diet.  The explination and the breakdown in the book were easier to understand that my nutritionist telling me to eat this and that %.  I still count calories, but it doesn't take as much thought to achieve the breakdown I need.

kell, has that helped you lose weight?  what is the rate at which you are losing? 

I just bought it last week and started reading it over the weekend.  I don't know if I've lost any weight yet.  I get less shaky, so that's a positive.

I also suffer with the same issues. Buy the book, it will help you understand how you need to eat. Bascially, for every 15 grams of carbs, you need to eat 7 grams of protein. It's called link and balance.

The Insulin Resistance Diet by Cheryle R Hart & Mary Kay Grossman

Thanks, everyone!!  I bought the book and some other ones... have a heart rate monitor.  going to make this happen now!!