@Unbreakable wrote:
Good morning!
I have been attempting to cut/lean up for a while now and have a lot of difficulties with it since I am hypoglycemic: I get really sick when I don't eat for more than two-three hours. So this makes cutting calories really difficult since I only have so many that I can spread out throughout the day. Even eating "whole foods", I'll still become hungry relatively quickly. Carbs, fats, protein; it doesn't matter what I had eaten for my rebound to wanting food again.
For three to four days, I can keep up with a meal plan (I'm eating around 1,500kcals a day), weight lift daily, and do my HIIT workouts every other day. Day five though, I am weak and sick feeling unless I overeat - borderline binge.
Before I have asked about this and I was told that there is a transition period into becoming more comfortable with being in a calorie deficit. It should become habit within a few weeks. I can't get into that pattern so I am trying to reverse diet and see how many calories I can eat and still lose weight. I've also gone to the doctor about it even and all they have told me is that it isn't something that has a treatment other than eating more food.
I'm not overweight, I'm about average build at 148lbs and 24% body fat. I just want to get down to seeing my abs.
Anyone else going through this? Do you have some tips to help out with this?
I've gone through this myself and I am a low risk pre-diabetic. Did your doctor have you do a BFS and a hemoglobin A1c test? These are fasting sugar tests that determines if you are a diabetic or not. If your BFS (Blood Fasting Sugar) level is higher than a normal person, then yes you will be more prone to hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) for which I am too.
The approach to weight loss for people like us needs to be slightly different, because as we attempt a weight loss, we need to eat more because our bodies are very good and efficient in converting carbs into glucose for the energy the body needs, but not so well in converting fat into energy, despite the fact that 1 gram of fat can supply 9 calories to the body whereas 1 gram of carbohydrate can supply only 4 calories to the body. So for us, the trick is to supply enough carbohydrates so we don't go hungry and yet convince the body that we are not in famine mode. Basically when you hit hypoglycemic, you are in "famine mode" and it's around day 5 when you are then in conservation mode which forces you to eat more or you'll faint or worse die. Which is why your doctors told you to eat more -- mine did as well. The only treatment in this case is food.
The trick is to find the right kind of food that allows our bodies to be in a state of satiety longer before hunger sets in. Satiety in medical terms means feeling full. There are 2 types of macronutrients that can makes us feel full. Protein and Fiber (a form of carbs). There are some high fibre food that are low in glycemic index and yet pack a high amount of carbs. The difference between high fibre food compared to carbs is that, fibre does not turn immediately into glucose for our body to absorb. It has to go through the digestive system (which forces your body to work harder and hence burn more calories) before it gets turned into energy for the body to use. This process helps keeps people like us in satiety longer before the body needs more carbs. High fibre food like hot cereals (I eat Red River in the morning) and for lunch and dinner, I eat Quinoa. I chose Quinoa because of its high fibre and high carb content, but also for its full complete protein amino acids and other nutrients as well. Then I combine those carbs in my breakfast, lunch and dinner with protein (Whey in the morning after a workout) and lean meat like fish or chicken or beef if I can't find chicken) for lunch and dinner. You need to play with these combinations to find the right caloric count for each meal.
In terms of your exercise, you need to work smart. For us, we need to approach exercise in terms of the "quality" of our exercises with interspersed rest periods rather than the "quantity" of our exercises.
What do I mean by the quality of the exercise?
For an additional 1lb of Type 2 muscle fibre, you will burn an extra 300 calories/day even in your sleep. For weight lifting and doing HIIT, 2lb of Type 2 muscle fibre growth would be a reasonable guess -- that's 600 calories in total/day of caloric burn.
In order to gain Type 2 muscle fibre, you have to do 100% all out effort in your weight lifting and HIIT sessions. What this means is that, you will be completely exhausted after the workout that you will not feel you are able to do the same workout the next day. An all out 100% effort consume your muscle glycogen storage in about 1 min or so, but sends a message to the body that now it needs to adapt to become stronger. So what is an all out weight lifting session would be like? It would be lifting the weight SLOWWWWLY UP and then SLOOOWWLY DOWN while maintaining good form. Too many people I see in the gym are just doing weights either way too fast in reps or way too light that they may never hit 100% effort. It is only @ 100% effort is when you signal the body that it needs to adapt to a harder workout. The harder workout it adapts to, the more weights you can lift and the more muscle growth. In terms of HIIT sessions. Same thing -- you need to go a full all out @ 100% effort. This then will signal the body to adapt to a higher fitness level.
So if you do the math right now. 600 calories/day burn with 2lbs of new Type 2 muscle growth + possibly 400 calories/day of a higher fitness level with walking because you helped raised it with your HIIT session equals about 1000 calories/day of caloric deficit while safely stressing the body enough to adapt to a harder workout, but leaving enough rest days to make sure your don't stress out the body enough to create the impression that you are in famine mode either or incur a serious injury while doing those exercise routine .
Fitbit Product Experts Alumni are retired members of the Fitbit Product Expert Program. Learn more
Best Answer
