Hey All,

So i had WLS last September. The gastric sleeve. Its been almost 8 months and I am working hard to get the last bit of weight off. It has been no walk in the park, thats for sure. My devotion to hard work( 2-3 hours in the pool) combined with a reduced calorie diet got me where i am so far..but its slowed down significantly and i am fighting weight gain due to my inability to go to the pool and work out for 2-3 hours now. I don't have the available time to work out for as long or as often as i used to. This combined with a slowing of weight loss has led me to having to learn how to really understand the body and create a specific calorie deficit. Ect ect ect.

I have been doing a lot of research on fitness and dieting. So far, i understand that diet is 80% of the battle. That i get!
I have been forced to go gluten-free as i am celiac and i have also had to battle blood sugar issues. I often suffer from what some Fibromyalgia sufferer's know as " reactive hypoglycemia". Basically, I eat a meal high in carbs and instead of battling insulin resistence and having my blood sugar staying high and struggling to stay down, it does the opposite..it crashes. I will give you an example:

I ate a 1/2 cup of chopped peach in light fruit juice. I took my blood glucose reading 20 minutes after. My blood glucose level was at 12.0. Thats pretty high! Less than 15 minutes later, i took it again and my blood glucose was down to 6.1. That is a significant drop. 1 hour post my 6.1 reading, my glucose level went down to 3.0. So significant drops that tend to come right after eating a high carb meal. This leads me to experience shakiness, to the point where I have to open up a bag of anything(candy, carbs, sugars, pop, you name it) in order to try and control the increased heart rate and shakiness.

So.. I started researching diets and fitness. I read a lot of information on common diets and have determined that due to my insulin resistance issues that I had previously, prior to my Fibro diagnosis, a lower carb diet is necessary. I am a flat out carb addict. I crave bread as if it were gold. Mostly bread. I think part of this is due to the fact that i cant eat gluten cause it makes me deathly ill.

Point is: I know i do better with a lower carb diet. My question is: to fat or not to fat? I have tried atkins before. I have tried south beach before. I have tried IP before. I attribute my failure of Atkins to the fact that i was 16, and there werent alot of substitutes for sugars in recipes. People can get a lot more creative on low carb diets now. But the fat consumed was a concern. Being an "ex-anorexic/bulemic" as a teenager, the idea that fat in a diet can help you get skinny..is hard to overcome in my head.

I tried south beach. I had some success. In fact.. 40 pounds. It worked well..and i now see that they have gluten solution book.. yay! Someone loves the gluten free people. I have no hangups on this diet. However, i found it hard to stick to. Its almost as if the amount of good carbs were still to high. I seem to do better under 40 grams of carbs. I was eating way too many beans.

I tried IP. I lost almost 40 pounds. My frustration with IP: drinking protein shakes. Lord Almighty!! I am so sick of protein shakes. I have 4 boxes of Premier protein shakes sitting in my house because i cant even stomach the idea of drinking another protein shake. To me..the low dietary fat and low calories makes me think its not going to be sustainable long term. I mean short term, yes. But how long can one sustain it for? I think that kind of restriction would cause me to fall of the wagon and binge on carbs.

So i turn to Lyle Mcdonald. Went on his website and started reading up on keto diets. Researched bodybuilding.com about different ways to get lean and lose fat and gain muscle. In turning to Lyle Mcdonald and reading his articles I got very confused. He writes about all 3 types of keto diets. High fat, low fat, moderate fat but he doesn't specify whether a high fat diet, low carb is more valuable then a low fat low carb diet.

Can anyone shed some light on this? What is easier to stick to? I know that carbs will have to be low. Even if i were to allow myself fruit, it might go to far. But the question is whether or not high fat or low fat is better?

If you are eating low fat and low carb then you are eating mostly protein. This will result in rabbit starvation (google it). You either need to increase your fat or increase your carbs. Now the low carb people tend to lump all carbs together, they put wonderbread and sugar in the same category as sweet potatoes and boiled wheat berries. Have you tried eating whole foods carbohydrate sources? This would be whole grains (and not whole grain bread, either, like actual intact grains), starchy vegetables, legumes, and lower glycemic fruits (like berries). I would try eating a more balanced diet with whole foods before going the fake sugar / high fat keto route.

At least an adequate fat amount to absorb nutrients is necessary - high or low fat - I guess it depends on how much you want to lose given that most people have an easier time cutting with high volume foods (usually low in fat). I don't know the specific amount that you would need though - maybe you can Google for some online calculator?

Also, Lyle seems to answer a lot of questions, maybe you can email him? Especially because your situation is unique compared to a lot of his clients! He also responds to a lot of comments on his articles. Plus, his forum is pretty active, if you want his readers to help you out. LINK

A lot depends on your goals. Remember, many bodybuilders are not trying to lose weight, they're trying to gain muscle to "bulk up."

For someone who hasn't had wls, low-fat, low-carb diets can be safe, if they're not too low. Rabbit starvation (also called protein poisoning) has very intense symptoms (I also recommend looking it up, so you can recognize them), so if a person was experiencing any of the unpleasant symptoms, they could up the fat or carbohydrate until they disappear.

The more vegetables a person (who has not had wls) would eat (even if they're not particularly starchy veggies) the less likely rabbit starvation will be an issue.



However wls changes everything. You can't experiment as safely as those of us who haven't had surgery.

With wls, your need are different than someone who has not had the surgery. Please consult your doctor about any diet you want to try.

I'm not familiar with each of the wls options, but I know there are also different impacts for different surgeries, some putting you at higher risk for vitamin absorption, particularly the fat soluble vitamins. For some surgeries, a high fat diet would be recommended, but for others a low or moderate fat diet.

Too much can make you as deadly sick as too little, so you need to talk to your doctor or a wls-trained dietitian before you experiment.

- AGREED!

I am not Lyle but I have read a ton of his stuff. The reason you may be confused is because you were reading BB.com.

Lyle has very clear dietary instructions and they are always based on the context of what you are trying to accomplish.