Keeping weight on and stomach pain

[moxie1]

Hi all,

I need some advice. I'm 37 years old DDF508. All my life my parents have kept me on a low-fat diet to minimize my need for enzymes. I've always been a healthy weight and am even slightly overweight. (5'4" 142 lbs). I take 1 or 2 Zenpep 20s with meals.

Well, a few weeks ago I had a glucose tolerance test. It came back abnormal. I am not diabetic, but I am spiking after meals and then my blood sugar goes low. (I guess you could call it insulin resistance).

I bought a glucose meter and through experimenting have discovered if I eat every 2 hours and have no more than 20 carbs per meal, my blood sugar is beautiful. I would like to control my blood sugar now and preserve my pancreas rather than need to go on insulin later.

My problem is that since changing my diet 2 weeks ago I have lost 4lbs. That is fine if I don't go under 135, but I like to keep a little extra weight on in case I get sick. Also, for the first time in my life I am having stomach pains.

Does this mean I need to increase my enzymes. I have been eating more butter and some nuts figuring the extra fat will keep weight on.

Sorry if these are questions I should know the answers to.....its just that I've never had digestive problems since I was a baby and went to a low-fat diet.

Thanks!
Becki

 

[Twistofchaos]

Hi there,

To lose weight or to keep it on it's basically as simple as calories in..calories out. So if you eat less then what your body needs throughout the day you'll lose weight, and if you eat more then that you gain. Factoring in activity, being sick, etc.
For this purpose it doesn't really matter if those calories are made up of fat, protein or carbs. With too few calories you lose weight though it's right that per gram of fat you get about twice as much calories than for either protein or carbs.

Stomach pains can have a lot of causes so yep experimenting with enzymes is a good idea as well as different types of food, combinations, amounts and timing. Personally if I eat loads of fat no amount of enzymes will save me though.

I get those insuline spikes too and for that too it takes experimentation to see what works. For me, going the Intermittent Fasting route ie. eating my daily food in a smaller window has brought those spikes and lows down significantly. But YMMV and maybe you wouldn't like it at all.

Cystic Fibrosis takes a lot of trial and error but it's also what makes us so smart right. (And it makes me feel like a James Bond villain somehow. Don't ask)

 

[Printer]

moxie:

Google Steven D. Freedman,MD, PhD, in Boston. Trust me, it would be worth your time and effort to see him one time and get your CF-GI on track.

Bill

 

[moxie1]

Hi there,

To lose weight or to keep it on it's basically as simple as calories in..calories out. So if you eat less then what your body needs throughout the day you'll lose weight, and if you eat more then that you gain. Factoring in activity, being sick, etc.
For this purpose it doesn't really matter if those calories are made up of fat, protein or carbs. With too few calories you lose weight though it's right that per gram of fat you get about twice as much calories than for either protein or carbs.

Stomach pains can have a lot of causes so yep experimenting with enzymes is a good idea as well as different types of food, combinations, amounts and timing. Personally if I eat loads of fat no amount of enzymes will save me though.

I get those insuline spikes too and for that too it takes experimentation to see what works. For me, going the Intermittent Fasting route ie. eating my daily food in a smaller window has brought those spikes and lows down significantly. But YMMV and maybe you wouldn't like it at all.

Cystic Fibrosis takes a lot of trial and error but it's also what makes us so smart right. (And it makes me feel like a James Bond villain somehow. Don't ask)

For me, it's not as simple as calories in, calories out. Current science thinking is wrong on that one. Your body processes different foods in different ways. That's why a low carb diet is so effective.
I am eating way more calories than I ever did. The only thing I've changed is cutting down on carbs. The weight is coming off. I had been trying to lose about 5lbs for the past year and couldn't budge them. Now, it is coming off effortlessly. I don't mind losing 5 lbs.....it's how easily it is coming off that is scaring me. I don't want to lose too much.

 

[ForeverDance]

I learned from a dietician (not a CF dietician) that our bodies can't store protein, only carbs and fat. So if you reduce the amount of carbs you have and up the protein you may find that you lose weight. She was telling me this because I am trying to lose weight (my dd is the one with CF not me). It might be worth discussing with your CF doctor.

 

[Twistofchaos]

The body does not run on air so there's not really any way around calories in, calories out. Ofcourse how our CF bodies take in those calories might be a slightly personal and different story. Also for example there can be some degree of bloating and for example carbs can be a cause of that so indeed they can make a difference. Even upto 5lbs I guess though it's a lot. But in that that case it'll be more or less a one time loss instead of a continuous loss of weight.

The body uses carbs, fat and protein in many different ways all around the body. You can't say one gets stored and the other does not. Your macro's do matter depending on your goals but in the end you put on fat on an abundance of all three if your body gets a surplus of useable calories (for the sake of CF digestion..) from it than it uses and you lose weight with less calories even on a mainly-fat diet. (theoretical, for the sake of CF digestion..) There is a ton of misinformation and myths surrounding weight gain and loss (mainly fueled by commercial interests) but atleast this one is simple physics.
It's a lot harder to get as many calories by consuming protein as it is by consuming carb-rich food as well as protein-rich food generally keeping you from being hungry again longer.

The hard part for me is figuring out how much I really need for a given day as it can suddenly go up or down a lot even when hardly noticeably sick or something going on.

 

[scarecrow]

It is NOT TRUE that a simple calories in calories out equation is the answer. Think about it. If your body doesn't absorb those calories it doesn't matter if you eat 5000 calories a day. I am supprised that a person w/ CF would say that. What does figure into that equation and makes it a much more complicated problem is that many things affect how you absorb different types of food. If you really want to understand nutrition you will have plenty of questions and very few definite answers.

 

[Twistofchaos]

Read my post again?
Also, one's absorbtion of nutrients generally doesn't suddenly hugely change from one day to the next so if you're planning on gaining or losing weight you pretty much know what you're up against..

The calories thing makes it a lot easier to understand.
I'm PI myself, doesn't mean you can't get a good idea on how much you will need to eat for a given day.
You can try to way overcomplicate it for whatever reasons I don't understand. People are very defensive when it comes to weighgain/loss and that's fine by me.
Won't argue about it either, comming days I'll post some research if I have some time.

Anyway, had huge (under)weightproblems all my life. Wasn't till I started weightlifting that I developed the discipline to actually figure out my diet and eat accordingly day by day. It's not much fun, but it works.