Michelle, go easy with the low-fat stuff. I think it's perhaps an even bigger cause of obesity in the western world - because we are lulled into thinking that it's going to be good to eat if you're trying to lose weight and eat healthily - and it's not.
Low-fat often means compromises have to be made in order for the food to taste good. So they add sugar. Also, when you take out the fat, often the GI goes way up. This means that the food goes into the bloodstream with a fast sugar hit. Even if it's a piece of fruit - you can get a fast sugar hit and this trains your body to respond accordingly.
I speak from experience - I ate a low-fat diet for years. At least 12 years. I also tried to avoid foods with added sugar, but you still get elevated blood sugar levels even if you avoid added sugar, simply because a lot of low-fat food is not balanced with the sugar content.
Even if the food is allegedly savoury - it often tastes sweeter. And even if it's plain carbs - your body STILL processes it into glucose, and does it more quickly due to the higher GI.
When your body is accustomed to sudden and frequent surges in blood glucose, the pancreas responds by pouring out gushes of insulin. This speeds up the uptake of that glucose into energy for the muscles, but if your muscles aren't able to use it all (ie you're not doing a 100 metre dash at the Olympics) then the excess gets quickly converted to fat and stashed on your body.
For some reason, this quick conversion of excess glucose into fat seems to get deposited closer to the body core. Including in the liver, which is what I'm fighting - fatty liver. And as your body fills up with fat, and especially as your liver fills up with fat, your body's ability to mobilise that fat back into energy and to then metabolise and excrete the waste by-products of fat metabolism - it drops. THis actually makes it even harder to lose weight.
Meanwhile, your body is STILL adapted to gushing out insulin in quantity, in response to sudden surges of blood glucose. We try to diet, and REALLY feel the cravings, especially for carbs. A bowl of mashed potato! Aw, c'mon, just ONE little potato chip! And so on. We eat plenty of fruit thinking it's good for us (and besides, can't stand eating vegetables ALL the time!) and the problems just get worse.
I've found that eating low-fat was not enough. And it didn't stop my liver from accumulating a dangerously high level of fat. The doctor blamed my diet and said that I must have been getting fat into my diet from somewhere; but I know I wasn't. Then I did a bit of research and found that under these circumstances, it's the added blood sugar that is getting paid down as fat, especially as insulin resistance builds up (and a big factor in insulin resistance is - surges in blood sugar levels).
This isn't always bad news. But you need to be aware of the dangers of what you eat. You can still eat the piece of pie you want, but you need to be aware of exactly what it will do, so you can PROPERLY compensate for it.
Every person is different, and in dieting males and females are VERY different. Blokes can get away with a lot more. Us women, especially older women (past about 30) have to really watch it.
What is working for me - low-fat for sure, BUT ALSO low sugar. This includes natural sugars. If you're trying to lose weight and you like fruit, you need to limit yourself to one serve a day. Two, if you're a very active person. You CAN have more variety if you make fruit salad and only eat a cup a day, in total. You can also puree it and freeze it into cups, so you can eat it with a spoon. That also helps with portion control.
Watch the carb intake too. Again, it depends on you and your body, but we eat too much carb. I've found that the amounts recommended by dieticians are just way too much. It's fine for an active kid to eat the "balanced diet" a dietician recommends, but an older woman WILL gain weight, unless she's also very active physically. And how many of us are?
You can lower GI without adding fat, by adding fibre. I've switched to wholegrain bread (max one slice a day, for me) and brown rice instead of white (again, a cup a day max). I make my own muesli because that way I can leave out the ingredients I react to. Again, wholegrains where possible. You might find that some otherwise high-carb foods are OK for you, because of their fibre content. For example, I can eat corn on the cob even though it's fairly high in carbs and natural sugars, because a lot of it is also fibre. My body doesn't get the fast sugar hit and so I don't get the sudden conversion of that sugar to fat, followed by the plummetting of blood sugar levels to the point where I feel faint, sick and desperately hungry.
No longer.
I don't know how much I have managed to improve my insulin resistance - I have to wait another month before any more blood tests. But I feel I must have got some improvement because I no longer feel the need to have something more to eat by mid-morning, like I used to.
So stick to your low-fat diet by all means, but on its own it will only make your weight problems worse. You need to eliminate sugar and most carbs, too.
And if you get your craving for pie and just HAVE to have some - OK. Do it. Enjoy every mouthful. Then eat carefully again after that for a while. Don't feel guilty, you're entitled to a treat now and then. It's treats ALL the time that are the problem!
I mean, I still eat chocolate, almost every day. One square, sure, but it's STILL chocolate!
Marg
