Welcome


My name is Gina and I would like to welcome you to my blog!

On this blog, I not only share the dietary and lifestyle approach which reversed my metabolic disease and achieved my weight loss, but I also debunk many misconceptions surrounding obesity and its treatment.

I am 5'5" and was weighing 300 lbs., at my heaviest. I lost a total of 180 lbs. I went through several phases of low carbohydrate dieting, until I found what worked best and that is what I share on this blog. Once on a carbohydrate restricted diet, along with intermittent fasting, I dropped all of the weight in a little over two years time.

My weight loss was achieved without any kind of surgery, bariatric or cosmetic. I also did not take any weight loss medications or supplements. I did not use any weight loss program. This weight loss was solely the result of a very low carbohydrate, whole foods based diet, along with daily intermittent fasting and exercise.

I allow discussions in the comments section of each post, but be advised that any inappropriate or off-topic comment will not be approved.

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Dec 28, 2020

Six common beliefs addressed, Part 105

1. You should check your blood glucose after 1 cup of rice. This is a good strategy for controlling diabetes. 

That is simply fooling around with a blood glucose meter. In order for diabetes to have a chance at remission, “chance” being the operative word here, rice must be eliminated. The ability to simply reduce rice consumption is long past a diabetic. Now the only recourse is elimination. 

You can play around with 1 cup of rice or 1 slice of bread or whatever you want and have fun checking your blood glucose afterwards, but that is not the proper way of addressing metabolic problems. Diabetes requires action. It is not a spectator sport. The only action that it responds to is elimination. Total and complete elimination of carbs, in the form of grains and sugar, is priority number one. 

2. If you gain 5 lbs, you need to change your protocol.

A 5 lb. weight gain is not true "weight gain" and should not be addressed in any way. Until weight has increased by 20 - 30 lbs., with an accompanying increase of inches in waist circumference, a protocol should not be abandoned or changed. This is not Weight Watchers. We don’t deal with any weight gain below 25 lbs. especially if it’s not accompanied by actual changes in waist circumference. 

Tracking "pounds" like this is not the proper way of addressing obesity or metabolic disease. 

3. Real foods are only low carb foods. 

There is this very annoying term, out there, called "carbage", as if the only foods that are garbage are made of carbs and that’s simply not true. This can mistakenly cause you to eat incorrectly, while assuming that you aren’t because your fare is marked or deemed to be “low carb”. Garbage or junk food is any "food" that disrupts proper blood glucose regulation. Most of these foods are high in carbs and/or fat and low in protein. 

Real meals are protein centered. That is why there are no recipes, on this blog, for “chaffles” or “keto” cheesecake. You are supposed to be eating food in its whole form. That is why we recommend fresh meat and vegetables because both of these items are in their natural states and make for a proper meal when combined. 

4. Low carb is the cure for high blood pressure, so if you are still having blood pressure symptoms, you need to go "zero carb". 

“Zero carb” is not the cure of hypertension. Most hypertension responds to low carb diets because it is being caused by chronically high insulin levels. Insulin is anti diuretic, so the body retains a lot of water and sodium, causing for blood pressure to increase. If insulin levels lower, water is allowed to be released and blood pressure goes down. But not all hypertension is caused by hyperinsulinemia. 

If you are on a low carb diet, and your blood pressure is still up, then you can safely assume that something else is going on. The body could be retaining water for other reasons besides high insulin caused by diet. It could be retaining water because of poor circulation, due to heart disease, or you can be experiencing the effects of poor renal function. Lay off the salt, as it’s clear that your body cannot expel sodium efficiently. 

You might also still have very high insulin levels because of a systemic stress response, Dawn Phenomenon/hyperglucagonemia, which I have discussed extensively before and is not driven primarily by diet (carbs) at all, but by poor glucose regulation. Insulin remains high and begins to malfunction whether the glucose is coming from the outside or the inside of the body. Doughnuts aren’t the only thing that causes blood glucose to be erratic enough to affect insulin function. 

You would have to talk to your doctor about this problem and find a way to resolve it with them. You do not want to ignore blood pressure issues, especially when diet is not improving it. Uncontrolled blood pressure will only damage your cardiovascular system further. Stop assuming that low carb will save you. Only believe that when it shows you it can. 

5. The body stops burning its own stored fat in order to burn dietary fat instead.

The body does not do one thing instead of another. It multitasks. So, it’s not that it absolutely stops one task in order to do another. If that was the case we would all be dead, as it would stop its heartbeat in order to breathe and vice versa. The body does not stop managing fuels. It simply under utilizes one for another. That is why glucose displaces fat burning and vice versa. It’s more of a competition rather than a halt. You do not want anything competing with the body’s ability to burn as much stored fat, as it possibly can. For that reason, you do not want to intake too much dietary fat, as that will compete with the burning of stored fat. 

The same goes for in taking too much dietary glucose. The reason for this is simple. Body fat is already in storage. The body does not have to use it right away or do anything with it. The body has to prioritize dietary fuel first because it is in the bloodstream and has to be either used or stored. If it’s not used, it’s stored. You want to prevent more storage. So, think of the body as a scale rather than an on/off switch. You want your scale to lean towards stored fat burning, not dietary fat hoarding. 

6. I cannot get into ketosis. Something must be preventing it. 

We don’t focus on ketones, on this blog, because ketones are simply the spillover of fatty acid metabolism. Metabolism is the operative word here. Not burning. Metabolizing. 

The body breaks down fatty acids (metabolizes), and ketones are the result. These ketones are used primarily by the brain, if blood glucose is low. This has nothing to do with fat loss or metabolic improvement. It’s simply an interesting operation by the body to prevent starvation. Quirky and fun, but it won’t cause a single pound to be shed. 

Not everyone produces ketones in a significant enough amount to be measured. If you are using fat efficiently and/or have proper insulin function, it simply does not occur. The only real way to know if you are actually burning fatty acids, rather than just breaking them down and storing them back up, is results, not ketones. You need to lose inches around the middle and lower your body fat in order to really see the benefits of true "ketosis".. 

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