Kickas.org Forums Treatments, Drugs and Alternatives NSD and diet-related; Losing too much weight on NSD

How do you maintain a healthy weight on NSD? I am paleo and do the NSD, and I am losing too much weight. The diet is helping my joint swelling. It's hard for me to eat enough healthy food to maintain a decent weight. I work out lightly (no heavy cardio) 4 days per week to try and build muscle, and I'm naturally thin. I want a strong and healthy body, which means gaining at least 10 pounds. I really need more muscle mass to protect my joints, but my body is eating its muscle....not good.

Any suggestions?

This is a pretty common theme in many NSD'ers.

My take is that there is a dramatic loss of weight initially while the body adjusts. After a while, the weight will creep back.

I was about ~155 lbs when I started a very strict no-starch and no-sugar regime. I dropped 27 lbs (I was frighteningly gaunt). Over the next few years, I slowly gained the weight back. I suspect that once my bodied adjusted to getting my energy via fats instead of sugars, my body returned to 'normalcy'.

My biggest epiphany was realizing I was NOT getting enough (non-starchy) carbs and I was eating too much protein. So I halved my meat consumption back, doubled up my non-starchy carb consumption, and slowly things turned around.

Today, I'm very happy with my weight. I'm about ~150-152 lbs now. 4.5 years later, I rarely suffer from low energy, even when I am more active. Interestingly enough, I never have a desire to snack, but skipping meals is a big no-no for me.

When I am more active, walnuts, coconut oil, and eggs are key. I added some select fruits back into my diet last summer, and those are treats for me now, but I still notice that I like the way I feel when I do not eat any sugar.

Good luck!

I was the same when I first started the NSD 9 months ago. Lost weight while my body adjusted, and it took a while to find out what I could and couldn't eat so I wasn't eating as much. Now my weight is back to normal.

You need enough carbs for Protein to be used as muscle mass/good proteinconversion. (In contrast to what the very lowcarb crowd wants everyone to believe).

Also I'm finding that favoring a higher calcium(with adequate)magnesium to phosphorus ratio is very helpful. Meat is very high in phosphorus which typically gets eaten a lot in Paleo spheres. I don't know how 'active online' you are in regards to the Paleo community,but if you are you probably have seen the name of Ray Peat come by. Check his work,although I wouldn't advice to do the strict Ray Peat Diet but more use dietary guidelines as a framework.

This is the no starch diet though and not the no or even low carb diet. There is no restriction on simple carbs and sugars

I was skinny too.

But there is one thing that helped me put on weight : amylopectin. After years on the diet I tried a little thai sticky rice desert. I hadn't eaten very much of it but I expected a moderate reaction, however there was no pain afterwards. So I tried it again.. still no pain. Why? Well, one day I found out why: sticky rice has no amylose starch. Practically all the other starchy plants have amylose in them.

Now, anytime I eat lots of carbs I am liable to come down with Candida unfortunately. I found methylene blue was the only thing that worked decently to control Candida.

Zark, I tried a cooking a couple different brands of sticky rice but they all fail the iodine test, is that normal? Seeing the iodine turn black leaves me reticent to add sticky rice into my diet, but I've seen several threads where people are suggesting it.

Didier

Didier,

Rice will always be a starch, so it will always show up black on iodine tests. Zark is referring to a type of starch (due to it's molecular structure) that is safer for us to eat & can keep the weight on. I did an amylopectin vs. amylose starch comparison blog post of rice vs. potatoes and have done many tests since then. I hope that blog post can explain the differences in foods for you & how one digests easier than another.

it's the same here.

+1

Rice has starch... a bit more easily digested. I trialed brown basmati rice. I could eat once / week with only minor stiffness for a day... last test was 5 years ago. Maybe now I would do better.

I think gut health has a large part how you respond.

Tim