You could be giving what you believe is honest advice, but without the supporting cites to back up what you claim just because it is honest doesn’t mean that it is sound advice.
What regimens and supplements did you use? What kind of testing did you undergo to determine what dosages?
Who performed the evaluations and what certifications does the person have?
People here have shown hard data that shows some of the supplements you’ve taken probably aren’t effective and you use your dad, a chiropractor, as a basis for you taking the supplements.
I am not saying you are wrong, but without you showing your data it is hard to accept what you’ve advised to be good advice. Quite a few posters, me among them, are very interested in seeing what kind of data you will bring.
There’s a lot of great advice here and my friend has been interested to read the thread too. I’ll come back and address some things later. Right now I just want to address the burning question in my mind to JLynn:
JLynn, why did you have “last resort” surgery first, and only take your father’s advice as your actual last resort when your health insurance dried up?
My apologies, I must have been having a senior moment and forgot.
Eliahna, I haven’t checked all of your links but just as a data point - the gastric sleeve (compared to lap band and gastric bypass) is relatively new, less invasive and has a much lower rate of complications. So I am wondering if some of your links have been rendered obsolete by the newer iterations of bariatric surgery?
I agree that any surgery should be a last resort option; just thought I would throw this out there. A very good friend had the sleeve surgery last month - she is almost 60, was diabetic and super-morbidly obese with at her heaviest a BMI of almost 70, and her metabolism was so fucked up that even on a restrictive, low carb diet she was barely losing weight. She has lost over 70 lbs so far (in about six weeks!), because that particular surgery actually corrects metabolic syndrome, decreases the urge to eat and can also cure diabetes. She was up and walking within 24 hours and back home on her second day post-surgery.
We are still waiting for the promised cites and research materials…
In the meantime, and while I am not calling sugar a “toxin”, I think that recent research points to sugar in all its forms (especially in processed foods) as being addictive and something to be, mostly, avoided.
Seriously - I watched the documentary movie Fed Up a few months ago and it was an eye-opener. I encourage anyone interested in food and nutrition to watch it.
Your doctors are incorrect – there are tests to measure ovarian function and estrogen (and other hormone) levels. Changes in these levels indicate that you’re going into menopause or that something else is up, depending on age and symptoms.
Among things that can be tested to check hormone levels:
[ul]
[li] Estradiol[/li][li] Total Estrogen[/li][li] Progesterone[/li][li] Pregnenolone[/li][li] Total and Free Testosterone[/li][/ul]
These are standard lab tests, not woo-ish at all.
My female GYN did a hormone panel and found that I’d started peri-menopause rather young. I’d suffered symptoms for years, and finally got relief through HRT at age 42. (My GYN thinks I started peri-menopause a bit younger than average because I’ve needed to take steroids for my asthma a lot.)
Anyway, All Hail Transdermal Hormone Replacement Therapy!
I’m sure one of the site Dr.'s can speak to specifics around hormone testing better than I can. But there are tests that can be run. If you have symptoms, there’s no reason to not get tested.
Hey there,
I used to be heavier and these things worked for me: no table salt, eating less sodium, cayenne pepper, Yerba Mate, probiotics/fiber, eating good fats like coconut/olive oil, and avoiding fried foods. Good luck. Hope that helps.
Um, what exactly does cayenne pepper do for weight loss, except perhaps to make up for the lack of salt (ugh; if you eat real food, you don’t need to avoid salt, barring medical conditions).
Capsaicins - the part that makes peppers hot - seem to ever so slightly activate brown fat which increases metabolism a bit, at least during cold exposure. You have to eat quite a bit of it and the effect is pretty small but it is still pretty interesting. This study gets quoted a lot because it showed an increase in fat oxidation in the capsaicin group during weight maintenance but it still had no impact on weight regain over 3 months of use. It may also help increase satiety.
Are there any other strength training exercises that she could do? fitness bands, specific exercises on a universal gym, or whatever?
The doctor might be willing to refer her for a few sessions with a physical therapist who can help develop a plan for things she can safely do - PTs routinely work with patients to strengthen muscles w/o aggravating injuries, to help recover from those injuries.
Building up more muscle mass is supposed to improve weight maintenance - as it burns more calories at rest than the same weight of fat does. Not dramatically so despite what some sites claim; reasonable-sounding sites - some sites suggest 3-5 calories per pound of muscle per day or hour - but every little bit helps.
WebMD has some hints - that’s where I got the 3-5 calories per pound per day estimate - including things like fidgeting more (seriously).
Does she still work with computers? If she’s physically able, a standing desk (at least part of the time) might encourage movement while she’s working; at the very least, standing burns a few more calories than sitting.
If she spends time on conference calls, a phone headset (I use a wireless headset and Skype or Google Voice on my conference calls) can let her pace around while still paying attention to the call. I do this whenever I can - obviously it doesn’t work when I’m the presenter
Agreed, mostly - though the combination of Fitbit and MyFitnessPal (if that’s what the person is using) will usually allow for that. If you watch your “calories burned” over the course of the day it will slowly tick along when you’re sitting, and it seems like it handles the difference when you’re walking (or whatever). Say I burn 80 calories an hour breathing, and walking for an hour would burn 300 calories (ignoring the 80 calories breathing).
If you manually add “walked for an hour” it’s going to say you burned 300 calories, but it should adjust for the 80 and only give you the extra 220. I don’t guarantee it works that way, but it should.
If you let the Fitbit do the tracking, you just get the extra 220.
So - make sure she’s handling those adjustments right, and then follow the advice to not eat up the extra calories she’s earned. Maybe deciding “I can eat half those calories”, so the hour walk gets her another 110 not the whole 220.
Another thing to double check: make sure she’s updated MyFitnessPal and her Fitbit (or whatever) software with her current weight and exercise levels. It may be miscalculating her allowances. The sad thing about MFP (well, any planning tool) is that as you drop weight, you burn fewer calories doing the same thing. A 200 pound person is going to burn more calories on an hour walk than a 180 pound person, so they have to eat less / exercise more to maintain status quo.
AND, something that had bugged me with MFP / Fitbit: I’d check my calories in the evening, see I had 400 calories left, have a 380 calorie snack, and the next morning find I’d gone 200 calories over my limit. Where did those calories go? It turned out to be a time zone issue - MFP thought I had 3 more hours of breathing to do than I really had. Once I updated the settings to my correct time zone, I didn’t have that problem any more.
My dad was helping me and was on board with my lap bad. When I still wasn’t having any great success and my insurance was up he looked into what was working for others within his specialty or chiropractic and nutrition. He found with plan with a very heathy and fit based doctor out of California. He studied it looked into it and then ordered me the products. When I started having great success on it he bought into the system and began to offer the doctor supervised weight loss plan.
Side note for those waiting for my cites and lists of toxins. Around the beginning of this year I had emergency gall bladder removal surgery followed by the pain fiasco and then when I told my doctor I was having trouble sleeping they have me sleeping pills which knocked me out for almost two days straight and I have no been up and down. Feeling exhausted. Missing work. Behind on work and home tasks so please forgive me if providing cites to people on the internet that I don’t even feel welcome by isn’t necessarily my first priority.
You’ve been welcomed by lots of folks. We’re glad to have you here. But, if you’re going to make claims about stuff we’re going to ask that you back it up. It’s the main purpose of the Straight Dope.
The Mayo Clinic site says that there is “no definitive evidence” that yerba mate has significant positive benefits (other than by way of it containing caffeine). It also points out that yerba mate consumption has been linked to cancer.
The study was on mice, not people, but it does suggest that yerba mate MAY be beneficial.
So like the DHEA, the yerba mate may turn out to be helpful in weight loss, but further study is needed, both to confirm the links and to learn more about the side effects.
So not COMPLETE woo, but a long long way from being able to declare it “amazing.”
JLynn - even if you don’t provide us with cites, why don’t you look this stuff up for your OWN safety and health? On reputable sites.
Sites that I look to for health information include the Mayo Clinic, the NIH, and the CDC. WebMD is okay, and Wikipedia is a good resource, especially for links to other studies and sites. ( I’m not a doctor or other healh professional, so maybe these aren’t the best out there, but they’re decent enough)
And you’re welcome for doing your research for you.
The problem I have with people asking for a “hormone test” is that it is a very nonspecific request. Here is a list of human hormones. I find that the majority of people who want a “hormone test” would like their thyroid tested. Others want to check for menopause or low testosterone. However, you can’t just do a panel of all hormone tests. You need to have a reason to do the tests and some data showing a benefit to treatment if the tests are abnormal. In addition, most insurances require a valid medical reason to check tests and even the 5 hormone tests cited above by GrumpyBunny would run well over a thousand dollars, which I find that patients are reluctant to pay. Being more specific with your doctor (like, for example, saying that you are worried about early menopause) helps to narrow down the list to appropriate tests.
I would definitely like to know how to have your toxins checked. Is there a toxin panel that I can order for my patients? Which toxins does it cover? Is there treatment available for these toxins that has been medically studied and FDA approved?
I understand that you are being sarcastic but I would truly like to know:
Which hormones are you concerned about and which does your research recommend testing for and why.
Which toxins are you concerned about and which does your research recommend testing for and why.
What are the treatments available to “balance” these hormones or remove these toxins and can you show some evidence that doing so help with weight loss?
You may want to think of it though.
Honestly it is hard to welcome someone who repetitively spouts off ignorance and then whines when asked to defend her ignorant statements about the meanies who called her ignorance out. There really are plenty of places to go where spouting off crap will be welcomed uncritically and without question. This place is not one of them.
Too tired to do any more than spout off unsupported crap? Simple then. Don’t post until you can post coherently and engage in some best attempt of critical thinking. Maybe right now you need to be coddled and tucked into bed being read a nice fairy tale. In case you have not realized you won’t get those things here. Here we will treat you as a fellow adult. Patting on the head and "whatever you say dear"s are down the hall.
Sorry if these have been mentioned before, I haven’t read the whole thread.
I’m reading a survivalists book at the moment, and the author has several times mentioned working at 60% of your capability burns stored fat and not glycogen in the muscles and liver. Apparently this means you can work longer without getting exhausted (and it burns fat). Maybe woo?
What’s worked for me previously is eating rice and veg, with lots of chili. Lots, like OMG this food is burning my fucking mouth. It seems to satiate my hunger quickly and is supposed to raise your metabolism (as does caffeine). For variety I might put in some chopped lean meat or fish. I lost the most amount of weight in Vietnam, motorbiking around the country and living off adrenalin and spicy pho. I didn’t realise until I got back home and my girlfriend was concerned at how thin I was.
So move more, eat fewer calories but make the food really count, I guess.
