Weight Gain - Editor's Choice

Hi all,

At a check up in July my husband had some bloodwork done. His bad cholesterol number was a concern. Due to a bad family history (his father died of a heart attack at age 37) the doctor wanted him to get a calcium score test done. Well the results of that were not good either. He had evidence of significant plaque in all four arteries of the heart. His doctor gave him two options - statins or a gluten free, no sugar, whole foods vegan diet.

Well, my husband did not want to go on statins. He is 55. We have seen what they did to our parents.

So he started eating vegan, gf, ns (no sugar). I, for the most part, have joined him. (Due to alpha gal allergy I can't eat mammal products anyway, and it wasn't much of a change for me.)

He has been eating this way for 3 months with very few exceptions. I have enjoyed being more creative with vegan cooking. I don't really feel like going to much trouble to cook for just myself, but I do love to make food for others.

He goes back in January for more bloodwork. I don't know how his cholesterol is or if this has improved the issue with plaque in his heart arteries. (I'll let you know, though! )

What surprised us both is that he has lost 40 pounds in the last three months, without even trying (about 15% of his weight.) He has had to buy new clothes.

This is the lowest weight he has had since our first year of marriage (1989.) He has been on diets before. He did the no carb/low carb diet 20 years ago (Atkins) a couple of times but he couldn't bear the diet long and he always gained it back pretty quickly.

My husband is a meat and potatoes kind of a guy. He loves a good burger. So he is surprised himself by how content he is on this diet. Eating out is harder but we have found options. He now loves Smoothie King. Chipotle works, too. There are lots of plant based meat substitutes that are close enough to the real deal that he says I could have fooled him. (I read a lot of labels as being meat free or dairy free doesn't necessarily mean it is particularly healthy.)

He eats oatmeal for breakfast nearly every day. I put bananas or fruit in it with erythritol/stevia sweetener. We have found that oatmilk in coffee is our favorite dairy alternative.

For lunch he eats hummus with sweet potatoes crackers, cashews, raw carrot sticks with guacamole. I send two apples with him and he eats them for snacks most days. Sometimes I have leftovers to send with him.

Dinner - chickpea pasta with a veggie marina, stir fry, beans and rice (with gauc and fried onions/peppers) etc. I serve lots of salads. I learned to make California rolls with brown rice.

He has a sweet tooth. I told him I thought it would get better and surprisingly it has. He does drink Stevia flavored carbonated drinks for a treat. He drinks a glass of wine with dinner a couple of times a week but has completely cut out beer (which went very well with burgers or pizza. :) )

His snoring has reduced by 90%, even when he ends up sleeping on his back.

His blood pressure has gone down and the doctor gave him the go-ahead to cut his blood pressure medicine in half. We hope he can get off of it eventually.

I have known him a long time. I have never seen him so faithful to a diet or so motivated. I am very proud of him. We are hopeful to move to sometime more Mediterranean down the road, as in, add in some chicken and fish.

I think there are many factors involved in the success of this diet for weight loss. He wasn't even doing it primarily to lose weight. He has not done any sort of fasting with it. He doesn't skip meals and eats when he is hungry. He snacks (on healthy stuff) when he is hungry and needs one. He has not increased exercise. He work in construction so he isn't sedentary, but he doesn't do much in the way of cardio. He may be eating less calories. The calories he consumes may be more efficiently used. It seems likely that he has less overall inflammation and perhaps that is a factor.

The weight loss has leveled out now, and that is fine.

Meanwhile, he said I could share his success story!

~Mama to Many~

I have been taking a teaspoon of activated charcoal first thing in the morning since the weather got hot. It has reduced my appetite considerably, given me more energy and I have no BO! I have also lost a few pounds without trying. I love it.

Fasting 5:2 Diet

This is incredible! I have tried EVERY diet out there, doing research for years on nutrition and diet, went gluten-free for a while, went vegan, but could not lose those those last stubborn 10 pounds. I started fasting 22 hours, two days per week, and my life has changed. I am under 130 for the first time in a decade and ALL my old clothes fit again. Words cannot describe what it feels like to feel like your old self, and more importantly, feel in permanent control of your weight--it's been years of desperation and yo-yo dieting. Not to mention what it does to your mood!

I fast on Mondays and Wednesdays(or Thurs, depending on plans). I eat a full meal the night before around 7:30 and then eat 22 hours later around 5:30. I drink coffee in the morning and maybe another cup of coffee or tea around 2:00(I set an alarm on my phone) and just sip water casually throughout the day. Life changing. It's so much easier than you think just to skip a couple meals and just say to yourself, "I'm not very hungry" than it is to constantly stress about planning meals and waste time and energy counting calories. Just find projects to focus on and keep your mind distracted and you will be fine. Sipping water also prevents hunger pangs so it's easy to forget you are even fasting.

Prayer and/or journaling during these days is the easiest way to transform your mind while transforming your body. Just purge every thought out on paper and don't sensor yourself(you can always burn it! ) But try fasting, it will seriously get you off the diet roller coaster and completely reset your taste buds for healthier eating. Trust me, you really can do this!

I'm of normal weight usually but have a tendency to add pounds when I stop working out and eating poorly. Just this month I did just that...due to a terrible sinus infection I didn't work out for 3 weeks (normally I work out 3x/wk) and ate poorly...sweets, no fruits/vegetables, etc. Normally my diet includes a huge salad each day and eggs for breakfast, etc. This time I was eating leftover brownies (for breakfast! ) and was too tired from being sick to make my salads, so no veggies at all. And...I had already gained a few extra pounds prior to getting sick.

But I constantly ate ginger for those 3 weeks to help with my sinus infection. Once I got better and made it to the gym weeks later...I braced myself once I got on the scale, preparing myself for the news since I was already a few pounds over...so knew it was now doubled. Shockingly...I had lost 4 pounds!! (That's a lot for me as I'm about 120lbs, 5'3")

I kept thinking it was the scale but it's the same scale I always used. Then I noticed how lean my arms were and knew it was real.

I racked my brain for what supplements I was taking consistently that might cause that and realized it was the ginger. I had ACV and iodine and Vit C occasionally...but it was ginger all day every day for weeks.

I googled Ginger and weight loss as soon as I got home just to see...and sure enough the articles are there.

I used fresh ginger and went through several good size roots. I would slice off the skin (to avoid pesticides) and then cut about 3 pieces an inch or two long...and a couple millimeters thick (so a few thin, 1-2 inch long pieces). I would simmer them for 10-15min in a few cups of filtered water and drink it hot like that or add a green tea bag (for my morning cup) and drink it as ginger-green tea (I never added honey or anything else). Sometimes I'd do that twice a day.Then I would also EAT the boiled ginger pieces throughout the day. I sort of gnawed on them as I worked (they helped with my cough and opened my sinuses). By the 3rd week (b/c I was back at work and didn't have time to boil ginger tea

Then I would also EAT the boiled ginger pieces throughout the day. I sort of gnawed on them as I worked (they helped with my cough and opened my sinuses). By the 3rd week (b/c I was back at work and didn't have time to boil ginger tea so I was just taking small slices of the raw ginger and eating them straight like that...chewing gently to ease into the burn...maybe just 1 inch of the raw, uncooked per day.

Hope this helps someone. I think many ways of preparing the ginger will work...and it's portable so can go anywhere. Just slice it ahead of time. I never tried adding honey or the crystallized versions...just the raw.

Hello,

I have been trying to lose about 8 pounds for the past few years and have been very unsuccessful despite regular exercising and eating a healthy diet. I had been taking lugol's iodine drops daily on and off for years, but decided to switch to potassium iodide tablets I had in the cabinet that I had ordered after the Fukushima nuclear disaster (but never tried).

A few weeks after starting on the potassium iodide, I got on the scale and noticed I had dropped 7 pounds. I couldn't believe it. After trying so hard to lose weight for years, it came off with no work.

I take 1 potassium iodide tablet (32.5 mg per tablet) once a day. Morning or night, doesn't matter. On days I fly and go through x-ray security machines, I take two tablets.

Lately I have felt I don't need to take the iodide every day and now take it every 2-3 days. My weight has not gone up. I think that the potassium iodide gave my thyroid what it needed and thus sped up my metabolism. Yippee!!

I really hope this helps people who have similarly tried many remedies, diets or exercise with no success.

P.S. I could not find a large bottle of potassium iodide on amazon when I ran out of my first bottle, they only sell small batches for nuclear disaster preparedness kits for some reason. Search "potassium iodide tablets" on google and you'll see websites that sell 120 tablets for under $10. I got my bottle on iherb. It lasts a long time!

I have been on a weight loss plan (diet and exercise) for the past 8 months, losing weight slowly and steadily. I had been taking a tablespoon of Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) with dinner for months as a general tonic. After reading all of the great things that ACV can do here on EC, I upped the dose to 2 tablespoons in a glass of water, several times a day (3 to 4 time a day). I started to feel it in my teeth at that dose, so I recalled reading on Earth Clinic that adding baking soda to the ACV will help prevent the wearing down of the enamel on the teeth, but won't diminish the effectiveness of the ACV. So I started adding a little baking soda (I mean a little...I used the handle of the measuring spoon to scoop a little out...I'm guessing about 1/8 teaspoon or less).

Since I had been dieting already, weighing and measuring my food, and nothing had changed, and I know what kind of weight loss to expect, I was surprised at a sudden loss of fat around my midsection. I was trying to figure out what caused the sudden drop and the only thing different was the addition of the baking soda (I had been taking the ACV for months already, and the increased dose for weeks). So I kept taking the baking soda and I continue to have faster weight loss results with the baking soda, although it has only been a few weeks. For people already dieting, I think that taking a little baking soda, or baking soda with ACV is a worthwhile addition to your plan. I would take more, but I actually like the taste of ACV and I don't want to eliminate the flavor entirely. :)

In the last 8 months, I lost about 35 pounds, but an additional 3 pounds in the past week and a half. I lost 7 inches off my waist during that time, and an additional 1/2 inch in the past week and a half. Results are supposed to slow down, not accelerate, the longer you are on a diet plan. Not too bad for a 49 y.o. guy. I may try adding more baking soda by itself (as to not ruin the flavor of my ACV.).

Thanks,

Will