When does low carb eating NOT produce weight loss?

When does low carb eating NOT produce weight loss?  Funny question, but I find myself asking it.


I dropped 85 lbs in 8 months, then stopped.  I have held my own pretty well for a year and a half since then.  The only thing that changed was that over time, I reduced the amount of meat that I was eating, and substituted cheese and GG Bran Crispbread, a wonderful product that has almost no carbs in it.  In fact I go days on end eating nothing else.  I have wondered for a while why my weight loss coasted into where it did.  I might have some idea now.....  


My journey down this path began with heart trouble.  In 2002 I went to see the Doctor because of shortness of breath; in fact what I had was Congestive Heart Failure which caused my lungs to be half full of water, and my heart was enlarged to about twice its normal size.  Fortunately for me, my Doctor pointed me in the direction of the Atkins approach to nutrition.


I have spent a long time reading, and a long time devising a program of supplementation to help me combat the various difficulties I have.  Recently I found out some things that are interesting.


Carbohydrates cause obesity, heart disease, cholesterol problems and host of other issues.  The relationships in the body are complex.  Excessive carb consumption over time causes hormonal imbalances, mostly excessive insulin production, which stimulates the formation of body fat.  One element of low carb eating is that this hormone imbalance is corrected, and weight loss follows.  It turns out that while this is a necessary condition for weight loss to occur, it is not the only thing at play.  In order for your body to process stored fat into energy, there are vital nutrients that are required for the process to complete that must be readily available in the body.  Two very important ones are Coenqyme Q10 and L-Carnitine.


Coenzyme Q10 is a substance that is manufactured in the body's cells, and is vital for the conversion of fats to energy in the cells, and is absolutely critical to the function of the heart muscle.  We make this in every cell of the body, so why would anyone have to take it as a supplement?  There are two very good reasons:


  1. Obesity is an indicator that your fat burning machinery is compromised and not working correctly, and that may be a result of insufficient Coenqyme Q10 production.
  2. People who are obese nearly always have a combination of other problem - which I have - including Diabetes, heart trouble, and cholesterol problems.  Physicians nearly always prescribe statin drugs to combat the cholesterol problem, and statin drugs INTERFERE with the body's ability to create Coenzyme Q10.  Supplementation can correct this and help the fat burning engine to start to work properly, with ensuing weight loss.


The other necessary nutrient is L-Carnitine.  As its name implies, this is a substance that we absorb when we eat meat.  L-Carnitine is critical to the general conversion of fats to energy in the body, and again, obesity itself likely indicates that you have not had sufficient to be able to burn off the fat that is stored in your body even when you are low on glucose.


In Canada we cannot purchase L-Carnitine as a supplement.  I find this funny, because my work is next door to  pet food store, and I know from looking around there that L-Carnitine is routinely added to dog food!  L-Carnitine can be purchased from health food stores in the United States.  However, the supplemental variety of L-Carnitine is not overly well absorbed (15% of what you take in pill form, the rest is excreted).  The best means of getting it?  EAT MEAT.


I find myself speculating that in my case, as my food changed from strictly eggs/meat/cheese to bran products/meat/cheese to bran products/cheese, my weight loss stopped, because I was ingesting less and less and less L-Carnitine.  I am about to revert my eating back to meat products to test this hypothesis.


A quick review on the Internet shows that the best sources of L-Carnitine in meats are as follows, in order:


  • Mutton
  • Lamb
  • Beef Steak
  • Ground Beef
  • Pork
  • Canadian Bacon


Other sources are minor compared to these.


So it appears to me that as I reduced the amount of meat that I ate, my very rapid weight loss slowed, then stopped.  So now I will reverse that process, and see if it starts up again.  


Back to a life of eating Steaks, Chops and Bacon.  Tough, eh?


NOTE:  Supplementation suggestions are for purposes of discussion, and not a prescription.  I am not a Physician, and I do not recommend anything to anyone; I am simply talking about what I am doing myself.


References:  
http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/othernuts/carnitine/

http://water-weight.com/Articles/is-red-meat-or-tempeh-a-better-source-of-l-carnitine/

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/carnitine-l-000291.htm

http://www.livestrong.com/article/390680-natural-sources-of-l-carnitine/