Experiences with weight loss and CPAP?

Yeah, me too! The 6-month backside I had stalled my wt loss too . Even tho my appetite is pretty much gone & I eat a lot less, my thyroid's gone wonky now, so no more wt loss. Hopefully when my metabolic rate increases, that'll change... .

Muse-Inc wrote:Yeah, me too! The 6-month backside I had stalled my wt loss too . Even tho my appetite is pretty much gone & I eat a lot less, my thyroid's gone wonky now, so no more wt loss. Hopefully when my metabolic rate increases, that'll change... .

I wish you well with that. I was diagnosed with Hypo thyroid about 2 years ago and really haven't felt the same since. Hair loss, extremely dry hands, muscle weakness, aches, weight that won't budge... I have friends who have thyroid issues and they take their pill and feel fine. I've recently switched to natural thyroid and am waiting another 3-4 weeks for another blood test to see if my levels have changed. I don't feel as achy, but that could also be the CPAP treatment as I made both changes at about the same time. The more I read this forum and do research, it appears that thyroid issues and Sleep Apnea go hand in hand! Can't wait to try the grapeseed extract -- hope it will work for me. Sounds like you have had good results!

JohnBFisher wrote:

DreamStalker wrote:... Basically, eat a very low carb to ketogenic diet, get good sleep, and move the organism around daily. ...

CAUTION! Anyone who is diabetic needs to be careful to not overdo this. Work with your healthcare team to be certain you do not overdo it. Why? A diet with too few carbs can actually cause problems for a diabetic. And even then, it's a great approach, with some moderation.

I suspect that may depend on the type of diabetes you have. With type 1 diabetes, you need to be really careful about balancing carb intake vs blood sugar. Some carbohydrates need to be there to balance the body's need for them, and its inability to assimilate them.

Type 2 is a different story. It has been shown experimentally that the normal body has no real requirement for carbohydrates. They have had people go on 'eskimo' diets and eat nothing but meat and other animal products for a year at a time, as the eskimos in the far north do. They showed no significant negative health effects from this, and were capable of the same performance as someone eating a more varied diet. Not having any external carbs in the diet forces the body to synthesize the few carbs it needs in a ketogenic cycle (or else the carb level was just above that which prevents ketosis, which is the ideal 'maintenance' state for a low carb diet, once you have lost the weight.). Protein is always essential, and believe it or not, so is fat (especially the unsaturated fats). Since the body is only making as much carbs as it needs, insulin levels and blood sugar remain fairly constant. This constantcy is not only a 'treatment' for type 2 diabeates, but it causes a lot of other things in your body to run better. A low carb diet, properly used in a borderline person (such as myself) can hold off for many years, or prevent type 2 diabetes.

To rev up metabolism, you need to add saturated fat to your diet, specifically medium chain fatty acids like coconut oil (obviously, you don't want to do this if you are eating carbs as all fat goes directly to storage when insulin level is stimulated). I was doing a mostly low-fat/low-carb paleo diet (lean meats and veggies, nuts and berries) for most of the year and only dropped about 20 lbs over 8 months ... when I tried the unthinkable and began supplementing with a tablespoon of coconut oil twice a day and eating fattier cuts of meat (Mmmmm bacon ), metabolism went up (confirmed with rise in my average body temperature) and I lost 25 lbs in about 7 weeks. Fats regulate leptin and adiponectin which then stimulate adrenals and thyroid to rev up metabolism. Saturated fat also stokes body for catabolic lipolysis (fat burning) and ketone production, and enhances sateity, thus enabling one to do intermittent fasting (ie. skip a meal or two once or twice a week ... making it easy for caloric deficit). Keep in mind I do not weigh foods or calculate calories so I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm comfortably full (something I could never do when addicted to carbs). Furthermore, I'm able to eat when I have the time to eat because I'm not a slave to hunger anymore ... leptin is a wonderful hormone, lord over all other hormones including insulin. The number one reason to avoid fructose is to avoid leptin resistance ... which is why HFCS (second only to trans-fats and Dick Cheney on the scale of evil doers ) is the primary cause of the metabolic syndrome induced obesity epidemic.

Some books to read:
Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson – a good layman's explanation of why a low-carb organic diet is the foundation for optimal health.
Primal Body, Primal Mind by Nora Gedgoudas – fills in the above reading with more technical details.

A few links to visit:
http://nephropal.blogspot.com/
http://www.paleonu.com/
http://high-fat-nutrition.blogspot.com/
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

JohnBFisher wrote:

DreamStalker wrote:... Basically, eat a very low carb to ketogenic diet, get good sleep, and move the organism around daily. ...

CAUTION! Anyone who is diabetic needs to be careful to not overdo this. Work with your healthcare team to be certain you do not overdo it. Why? A diet with too few carbs can actually cause problems for a diabetic. And even then, it's a great approach, with some moderation.

No. That is a myth. Read Dr. Bernsteins Diabetic Solution book, he has Type I. Although humans are adapted for carb digestion (amylase enzyme production ... perhaps due to a remnant gene from earlier proto-human evolutionary period), the human organism (regardless of whether type I or II diabetic or not) does not need dietary carbs and can produce the necessary glucose needed by red blood cells, the only cells in the body required to be fueled solely with glucose (due to O2 cargo they are responsible for). The liver also produces enough glucose to maintain a glycogen storage in the liver and refill stores in muscle tissue although not as quickly as can be replenished with dietary carbs ... reason one should only do high intensity exercise no more than once or twice a week ... however, chronic exercisers require chronic carb intake to quickly replenish glycogen leading to chronic hyperinsulinemia which leads to heart disease). In a ketogenic state, the liver produces all of the glucose requirements from the amino acids of your dietary protein. Eliminating carbs for diabetics also minimizes or eliminates the need for insulin injections and thus avoids the hypo-hyper glycemia roller coaster caused by trying to target the right amount of insulin at the right time. A year ago, I was pre-diabetic ... but no more as I have completely reversed it. I'm able to maintain my glucose levels in a very tight range between 70 and 90 mg/dL in either fasting or post prandial state on 24/7 basis. A year ago, my fasting glucose was variable between 90 and 120 and eating a tennis ball sized apple or an equivalent 1 cup volume of oatmeal (yep the supposedly heart healthy whole grain) would spike my post prandial glucose levels by an additional 80 to 100 points ... keeping apples away helps keep the doctors away too ... at least for me anyway.

It is so great to read about everyone's weight loss success My doctor is having a follow up with me soon to see if I have lost any weight and we will go from there to see if I need to adjust anything. It has been a hard time recently for me so I doubt I have lost any weight.