My husband is having the same difficulty.

Abs are made in the kitchen...

When he quit eating wheat and kidney beans and ate more red meat than chicken, he really began to lose that cooler his six pack is stored in.

he also has intramuscular fat and diabetes is all over his family. He doesn't have it thank goodness. He also takes bladderwrack, which helps up his metabolism without jacking his adrenals.

As for the rapid weight loss, men naturally have more muscle tissue than we do (BOO!!) and as a result, they store more water in them.

Good for your DH for helping himself. Best of luck to you both!!

Claire

His HDL is low (which is bad) and his LDL is normal. They can't calculate the ratio things properly, since his triglycerides are so high.

We've been eating oat bran pancakes or waffles for breakfast for the past two years- so he's getting plenty of oat bran. I cook from scratch and replaced half the flour in the pancake recipe with oat bran, so he's getting at least a quarter cup per day, which is plenty.

We also take fish oil capsules for the omega 3 fatty acids, and have been doing that for 2 years as well.

We just got back from a weeklong vacation where we didn't calorie count at all, nor do any formal exercise. He lost 3 lbs, I lost one! I know it was because we were so busy and out in the heat a lot. It takes energy to sweat!

His metabolism seems to be fast enough as long as he doesn't mindlessly munch on things, he'll drop weight, and he's been good about it- so he's losing weight. I bet his blood work will be fine once he drops down to goal, which is about 208 lbs.

Diabetes does run in his family, so the large abdomen and low hdl and high triglycerides that indicate metabolic syndrome is of concern. There isn't much doubt that he will get diabetes if he doesn't correct the situation. But he is correcting it, so he doesn't have to go down that road.

If his "good cholesterol" levels are bad-which my DH's were at one point-they suggested that he needed to eat more fruits and veggies in his diet as well-and it has really helped.

The HDL is only slightly low, while the triglycerides are very, very high. Our doctor was worse than useless: she suggested he go on a low fat diet. Even papers put out by the American Heart Association say that low fat diets RAISE triglycerides. His chances of a stroke are significantly higher with triglycerides up like that. Our first priority is to lower the triglycerides, which involves decreasing carbs of all sorts. We are trying for a Zone diet ratio of 30% fat, 30% protein and 40% carbs. Since he loves meat, this is no hardship for him. It just takes a readjustment of how he loads his plate for meals. And how much I cook!

While we were on vacation, we didn't eat so well- and he was getting far too many carbs. He's showing signs of high triglycerides again, even though he has lost weight: he gets out of breath easily during exercise. High triglycerides interfere with oxygen transport. We can get around that by having him take a nutritional supplement right before exercise, a sublingual tablet call dimethylglycine (DMG) but first we have to realize what's happening. *sigh* It's back on high protein for him! 10 days of higher carbs was definitely bad for him.