Losing Weight in Pattaya

[BeerBelly 1,026]

6 hours ago, awesum4 said:

I got very offside with my teacher when I was 12 because I asked him to explain how eskimos were able to live and grow quite healthily on a diet of meat, fish and fat only.

You are doing real well it's been a really interesting thread,   keep it up mate, and all the best for the future.

Recently I read a paper about Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids in the Eskimo diet. Then there is the French Paradox. Both of these go in the face of "common knowledge" at the time.

We are all built on the same biochemical engines, but that doesn't always mean what works for one person would work for every person. It's up to the individual to find what works for them.

 

[BeerBelly 1,026]

On 11/15/2020 at 1:26 PM, sailingbill said:

Pretty much no flour, no white sugar ,no potatoes. Went from 210 pounds to 165 pounds since moving here.  Dont know what that is in Stone.  No DM, Htn or Obesity.  But the drink will get me. Something gets all of us men. 

First of all congratulations on your weight loss!

Second, may I ask how long it took for you to lose those 45 pounds, and how long it's been since you achieved a 165 pound weight? I am in that range now and just doing some predictions to see if I maintain my current weight lose how long it will take.

Note, that I do not think I can maintain my current weight lose, as the more you lose, the longer it takes to lose the next pound. My next goal is 90 kg which would be 198 lbs. My current four week trend predicts it will be sometime on the 23rd, so the 24th should have a weigh in less than 90 if I stay on track. If I extend it out to 75 kg (165 lbs), then assuming current trends, it would be sometime in February, 2021.

I like consuming data so your input would be appreciated.

[sailingbill 1,015]

Beer Belly well done. You have more patience than me but it is important. I used My Fitness Pal to track my calories. Im to lazy to calculate and they have most foods in the data base.  When i first looked i realized if i consumed no food at all my beer drinking would still add 1/2 pound a month. Embarrassed  to say Maryland winters are boring and i could easily have 12-20 beers a day, hadn't a beer in 2 years but Sake and the demon rum will still get me. I would typically eat 800-1000 calories a day. The fitness site would not give me a projection saying your not eating enough. My weight loss was to short.about 2 months. The wisdom is that quick a loss will not last. But the wisdom, as you and i have found with choices in Doctors is wrong. So its been 2 years and i drop a baht in the scale at Family mart every week. If i get above 75 kgs then i pay attention. No more pizza.  You do have to pay attention. A Mcdonalds fish sandwich has only 4 carbs if you remove most of the bun. Lean cusine fish, 40 gms carbs. Also it is much easier here to stay somewhat fit despite my unsavory lifestyle. I swim 0600 every day, no one in the pool. Walk at times from Naklua to Central Festival.    A friend is coming down from Bangkok today and we will send a Billabong girl off for a PIzza, and consume many calories upstairs at Kinks tonight. I may not drop that Baht in the scale tomorrow. 

[keyman 1,379]

5 hours ago, BeerBelly said:

I like consuming data so your input would be appreciated.

Let's hope the data is low calorie!! ?

 

However, well done on your weight loss. ?

[BeerBelly 1,026]

7 hours ago, sailingbill said:

Beer Belly well done. You have more patience than me but it is important. I used My Fitness Pal to track my calories. Im to lazy to calculate and they have most foods in the data base.  When i first looked i realized if i consumed no food at all my beer drinking would still add 1/2 pound a month. Embarrassed  to say Maryland winters are boring and i could easily have 12-20 beers a day, hadn't a beer in 2 years but Sake and the demon rum will still get me. I would typically eat 800-1000 calories a day. The fitness site would not give me a projection saying your not eating enough. My weight loss was to short.about 2 months. The wisdom is that quick a loss will not last. But the wisdom, as you and i have found with choices in Doctors is wrong. So its been 2 years and i drop a baht in the scale at Family mart every week. If i get above 75 kgs then i pay attention. No more pizza.  You do have to pay attention. A Mcdonalds fish sandwich has only 4 carbs if you remove most of the bun. Lean cusine fish, 40 gms carbs. Also it is much easier here to stay somewhat fit despite my unsavory lifestyle. I swim 0600 every day, no one in the pool. Walk at times from Naklua to Central Festival.    A friend is coming down from Bangkok today and we will send a Billabong girl off for a PIzza, and consume many calories upstairs at Kinks tonight. I may not drop that Baht in the scale tomorrow. 

Thanks for your information. Regarding the wisdom of quick weight loss, I have found a lot of "common knowledge" to be more nuanced.  For example, they claim you should not drink Diet Beverages as it will "raise  your blood insulin". I have not found this to be particularly true. I drink 4-6 Coke Lights each day. I did find there is something called cephalic phase insulin release (CPIR ). Basically, this is when your brain triggers insulin release in anticipation of eating/drinking something sweet. This is similar to salivating when you smell something savory. But a bigger issue, claimed by some dietitians, is that when you eat/drink something sweet, then you will crave something sweet, thus making you more likely to go out and eat a bar of chocolate. So it's not the diet beverages that are breaking your diet, it's the breaking your diet that is breaking your diet.

The same is true for those who become diabetic after quitting smoking. It's because the former smokers switch from a smoking habit to a sweets habit.

As long as we, as individuals, have agency, then we can decide for ourselves what is the best course of action. If you are committed, then I think a quick weight loss is fine as long as you don't bounce back in your diet.

A lot of the "diet foods" simply replace fat with sugar. I'm sure that's why Lean Cuisine fish have so many carbs. Be careful with the McDonald's fish tartar sauce.

[bigbadbaz 69]

Well done beer belly, good to see you focussed. 

I started a low carb/higher protein plan January 2005. I started at 28st 3lb (393lb) and passed  my target 3rd December 2006 weighing 13st 2lb (184lb) It took 23 months but it would have quicker but I had 3 holidays to LOS in between where I left the diet in the UK.

I didn't do any exercise at all just did it by healthy eating. The main tips I would give anyone is eat your meals every 5 hours, dont eat after 9pm at night, although fruit is good for you bananas are lethal with the sugars they have, I used to eat galia melon for breakfast, had an apple with lunch and Blueberries after evening meal.

The main tip is no diet/low cal/zero soft drinks or squash in water, just drink normal water (bottle abroad obviously) still not sparkling, not flavoured as full of crap, drink it at room temperature not too cold and if possible 3-4 litres every day. You will need to work around your consumption as it's a pain in the arse going to the loo.

[BeerBelly 1,026]

4 hours ago, bigbadbaz said:

Well done beer belly, good to see you focussed. 

I started a low carb/higher protein plan January 2005. I started at 28st 3lb (393lb) and passed  my target 3rd December 2006 weighing 13st 2lb (184lb) It took 23 months but it would have quicker but I had 3 holidays to LOS in between where I left the diet in the UK.

I didn't do any exercise at all just did it by healthy eating. The main tips I would give anyone is eat your meals every 5 hours, dont eat after 9pm at night, although fruit is good for you bananas are lethal with the sugars they have, I used to eat galia melon for breakfast, had an apple with lunch and Blueberries after evening meal.

The main tip is no diet/low cal/zero soft drinks or squash in water, just drink normal water (bottle abroad obviously) still not sparkling, not flavoured as full of crap, drink it at room temperature not too cold and if possible 3-4 litres every day. You will need to work around your consumption as it's a pain in the arse going to the loo.

(393-184)/23 = 9 lbs/month (4 kg/month). That's a really good weight loss rate! Well done.

I drink plenty of Coke Light (4-6 cans/day), so I don't ascribe to the believe that diet beverages are bad. But drinking lots of water is always good for you.

I'm focused on my fasting glucose numbers because of my T2DM. Coke Light doesn't seem to affect it at all, but recently I found a very surprising food that did affect it, when it really should not. I'll talk about it in my Dec 1st update along with the data to support my thoughts.

[BeerBelly 1,026]

December 1, 2020 Status (136 Days In)

Well, things are still going fairly well. I lost 6.15 kg (13.5 lbs) in the month of November, down to 87.75 kg Dec 1st. I created a spreadsheet to track everything by week and by month.  In it, you can see November was pretty good with an average of 205g loss each day. Still not sure if this is from diet or exercise. My average daily caloric intake in November was really low, but my exercise was high(er). Looking at the weekly stats, it doesn't really clarify things. So maybe it is a combination of diet and exercise, not just one.
 

Monthly Stats
			Monthly Numbers									Daily Numbers
Monday	Sunday	Days	mg/dL	Start (kg)	Delta (kg)	Start BMI	Delta BMI	Eaten kCal	BMR	Burned kCal	Net kCal	Avg mg/dL	Avg Delta (kg)	Avg Delta BMI	Avg Eaten kCal	Avg BMR	Avg Burned kCal	Avg Net kCal
2020-07-17	2020-07-31	15	2,312.0	115.50	-4.10	37.71	-1.34	30,975	29,359	550	1,066	154.1	-0.273	-0.089	2,065	1,957	37	71
2020-08-01	2020-08-31	31	3,305.0	111.40	-6.70	36.38	-2.19	54,450	59,115	4,950	-9,615	106.6	-0.216	-0.071	1,756	1,907	160	-310
2020-09-01	2020-09-30	30	2,688.0	104.70	-6.10	34.19	-1.99	50,677	55,305	3,025	-7,653	89.6	-0.203	-0.066	1,689	1,844	101	-255
2020-10-01	2020-10-31	31	2,624.0	98.60	-4.70	32.20	-1.53	47,055	55,699	12,034	-20,679	84.6	-0.152	-0.050	1,518	1,797	388	-667
2020-11-01	2020-11-30	30	2,887.0	93.90	-6.15	30.66	-2.01	41,115	52,231	17,726	-28,842	96.2	-0.205	-0.067	1,371	1,741	591	-961

 

Also in this spreadsheet, you can see my average mg/dL (ignore the total on the left, that is there just to get the average). It went from 84.6 in October to 96.2 in November. This was the result of my stopping of Glyburide/Glymide in late October. When I stopped the medicine, my fasting blood glucose went up, but was still in the high normal range. I decided that high normal off a medicine is better than optimal or low normal while on the medication. 

However, doing this made me discover something. Before, when my glucose was very low, it was easy to ignore when there were fairly high fluctuations. Going from 75 to 89 was fine since 89 was still low normal. But now that I'm high normal on average, a big fluctuation makes me go from high normal do pre-diabetic. If you look at the glucose chart below, you can see there were five times in which I went above 100, there were also a couple of times that fluctuated on the low side.

I had already discovered that alcohol lowers hepatic glucose production, and it shows up as a the drops in my next day fasting glucose. So what could cause an increase? Sadly, my food log points to BACON, well, cured meats in general. Looking through my records, it seems when I eat bacon, salami, ... the next day my glucose goes up by almost six points on average.

The first pre-diabetic reading in November was after I tried canned corned beef. The label claimed there were no carbs, yet, I had the spike the next morning. Then a friend of mine recommended Pattaya Prime Smokehouse bacon, so I bought some and you can see the results. These are not high carb foods, in fact they claim they do not use any sugar in their dry cures. So I'm guessing the culprit is curing salt (sodium nitrite and sodium nitrates). I have not found any research papers mentioning it, but I will be staying away from bacon (at least this brand) for now.

Finally, in November I've had to adjust my CPAP pressure down several times. Before I started losing weight, my pressure was at 12.5 and had zero large leaks. My AHI was very good being well below 1.0. As I lost weight that high pressure started to blow my mouth open and this showed up as large leaks, so I kept reducing my pressure until where it is now at 6.0. I've only used that pressure three nights, but so far, no large leaks, and my AHI is still really good.
 

Edited December 1, 2020 by BeerBelly

[RhinoTusk 4,901]

In 2012, I went into Bangkok Hospital-Pattaya with gastrointestinal difficulties, weighing in at 121 kg.  They took some tests and prescribed some medications but didn’t identify or solve the problem.   Bangkok Hospital Medical Center finally did four years later, and I bottomed out at 88 kg after plenty of involuntary vomiting.

Last year, I gained 6 kg of muscle by weight lifting but had to abandon because of hernias, compounded because my intestines now act as my stomach.  Since I no longer have a stomach, I can’t eat much and don’t need to watch the diet because anything with a lot of fat or sugar makes me feel ill.  My unusual anatomy dictates a healthy diet of fruits and veggies, chicken and seafood, and sushi are what go down best.   I try to compensate with cigars and good whisky.  

Now I’m stuck at 97 kg, it’s probably easier to lose because I don’t get hunger pains, just know when to eat when I feel empty.  I’d like to resume weight lifting but don’t wish to risk recurring hernias. 

[BeerBelly 1,026]

On 12/14/2020 at 5:31 PM, RhinoTusk said:

In 2012, I went into Bangkok Hospital-Pattaya with gastrointestinal difficulties, weighing in at 121 kg.  They took some tests and prescribed some medications but didn’t identify or solve the problem.   Bangkok Hospital Medical Center finally did four years later, and I bottomed out at 88 kg after plenty of involuntary vomiting.

Last year, I gained 6 kg of muscle by weight lifting but had to abandon because of hernias, compounded because my intestines now act as my stomach.  Since I no longer have a stomach, I can’t eat much and don’t need to watch the diet because anything with a lot of fat or sugar makes me feel ill.  My unusual anatomy dictates a healthy diet of fruits and veggies, chicken and seafood, and sushi are what go down best.   I try to compensate with cigars and good whisky.  

Now I’m stuck at 97 kg, it’s probably easier to lose because I don’t get hunger pains, just know when to eat when I feel empty.  I’d like to resume weight lifting but don’t wish to risk recurring hernias. 

With no stomach, does that mean you have to eat more frequently?

[RhinoTusk 4,901]

1 hour ago, BeerBelly said:

With no stomach, does that mean you have to eat more frequently?

It means I don’t do buffets.  I could eat more frequently but generally don’t.  After a while the intestines stretch out and I can handle more food but if I eat too much I get sick and it’s typical to feel poorly for half an hour after a meal.  Frequent snacking works best but I eat out a lot and meals are fixed size, Thai size is better than farang size.