So I am an obsessive type and I have spent many years obsessing about eating, losing weight, being healthy - all of these things have never worked of course and have led to what is likely some form of eating disorder, but still, it set me on this path to figuring out food.
Tiny bit about me: I am 33 years old. I was very active growing up and as a teenager, healthy weight but chesty and thought I was "fat" at 120-125 pounds (shut up younger me, you idiot), and totally ate whatever I wanted through high school. One thing to note was that I rarely ate breakfast or lunch and would eat after school hours only, for a variety of reasons I won't get into here. At about 19 years old, after being in college for a year (stressful year), I probably weighed about 130 pounds. By the time I was 20, I weighed 200. I blamed stress, school, severe insomnia, something of a caffeine addiction (damn you, cherry coke), and that I was less active because I was so busy (and I went to school where there was always snow and ice, so I walked to class, but I did not go out for regular walks in between just for fun). Yes, all those things realistically could turn into such an extreme gain and I was told by my doctors that it was simply all those things, genetics, and that I was "getting older" (I still don't get wtf that could mean from 19 to 20 years old).
After nearly a decade of probably having Hashimoto's and it going untreated, I'm finally receiving appropriate treatment for it while I'm bouncing between 260-270 pounds (oh, and I'm a hair's breath away from 5'1"), the heaviest I've ever been. I have followed many life-altering diets, including weight watchers where I did lose 30 pounds, then bounced back up and more while still doing all the same things for weight watchers and aside from those special 30 pounds, I've never done anything but gain or remain the same. I was also told years ago that I had diabetes when doctors after that said "but all of these numbers are indicators that this is not diabetes" and have been pretty mentally messed up over this since (understandably). In the approximate decade since all that weight gain and my graduation from college and attempts to eat more like a normal person should, I've seen a variety of nutritionists who seem to all give similar advice that is the opposite of what my own research says.
I was actually pretty proud of myself after having more than one meal over the past few weeks since I attended a diabetes education group course March 7, 8, and 9. My A1C officially hit 6.5 in January and my primary care doctor told the paper "you are diagnosed," so I initiated finding more help, which was those classes. I saw the nutritionist one on one yesterday. Aside from how I couldn't convince my doctor to test for Latent Autoimmune Diabetes in Adults (which I have some red flags for and my GI says he's pretty sure I have an autoimmune B12 thing that he's waiting to test again about) and felt annoyed that I once again had to hear how I've obviously been doing so many bad things that I caused diabetes, I was at least grateful that the nutritionist didn't harp on weight too much.
She did, however, insist that if I simply follow the Plate method, I will lose weight. And my A1C will go down. Well... okay I can try this I guess along with learning to eat more than once, sure. But then she scolded me (like kind of a lot) for having any saturated fat on the plate. "Oh bacon should be once a month at most!" "Don't use butter to saute vegatables, use PAM spray!" (ew, no)
I was super proud that I had managed to eat more than once in a day, and was learning to listen to my body's signals (I frequently have no idea when I'm hungry, sometimes eat a tiny bit of food and feel full, and then sometimes have days where I realize it's 8 p.m. and I'm not just hungry, I'm ready to eat the refrigerator door.), and that the bacon in particular seemed to make me feel full for longer, seemed to significantly lower my blood sugar readings (which she said I was wrong about and that I should test more to clarify - while avoiding the bacon), and gave me some energy, something that my other problems frequently cause me to have none of. She again insisted that using butter at all was terrible and that diabetics can't have saturated fat. I asked why things like the Paleo diet worked and she said it wouldn't work for me because diabetes increases risk for heart disease. I tried to say but isn't it that animal fat, the saturated fat she's so afraid of, actually helps clear those clogs that are from carbohydrates, especially added sugars? It's like I was speaking in tongues.
Here's just a little of my research with links, and I won't list every obscure article ever:
Article from Time that discusses a book that urges saturated fats be included in a diet rather than eliminated or severely restricted This Harvard Health article takes blame away but isn't comfortable saying eat saturated fat to your heart's content, but still points to the real problems The Naughty Nutritionist - an article for Psychology Today about bacon and saturated fat Article about Saturated Fat I have read the Nourishing Traditions book, here's a link to their website This book I've read summaries about, but haven't gotten my hands on yet - Same authors and similar to previous book Book Documenting a Family's Year With No Sugar Fat Head Documentary
I am going to spend a month, between now and April 27 when my next appointment with the nutritionist is, doing this plate thing as best I can, and she insists that it will be so healthy and I will just lose weight without counting anything (an important thing for someone who has some OCD running through her veins that has been a black hole of lunacy previously in creating counting logs). A friend of mine who has no metabolic conditions but has generally hovered at 60+ pounds to lose up and down through her life started a "crazy" diet from her acupuncturist who wants her to slather everything in butter, avoid carbs that aren't in vegetables (I think she can have fruit, too) and eat as much meat and cheese as she pleases, the more the better, fatty, lean, organs, everything. In about the same amount of time that I have been doing this "eat more often and use this plate thing" she has been aiming per acupuncturist's recommendations to use half a pound of butter a week and in literally only days longer than I have been doing this (I think she started 5 days before me), she has lost 13 pounds. The scale at the nutritionist's said I lost 4, which I think is simply water weight and bloat (I have IBS and I know that I was very bloated the evening they first weighed me, because the next day I went to a doctor's appointment and they said the same number on the scale yesterday.).
Today's experiment example: I woke up today and was 134 at 11:49. I waited about thirty more minutes, maybe a bit more, to eat because I had just gotten up and my levothyroxine requires no eating for an hour after taking in the morning. I ate slowly and had two left over chicken wings (the whole wing), some leftover sauteed in olive oil (and only a little bit!) zucchini, green cabbage, and onions, and a small orange (which I ate last). It took me til about 1ish to eat that and a few minutes ago I checked again and I'm at 157 (it is now 3 p.m.). My bacon breakfasts were frequently like these numbers, in reverse. I simply snacked on bacon once and it lowered my number by about 60 points. Yes, this is anecdotal evidence, but it's kind of compelling enough to want to investigate further.
Sooooo... which experiment is smarter? Are nutritionists giving bad advice? What's the "right" science behind what we're eating? What has everyone been most successful with? Are my ideas about just eating the damn bacon and using butter instead of chemical sprays crazy? Will eating saturated fats be less "effective" in what I would be hoping they do because of my diabetes?
TL;DR : Nutritionists have been telling me to fear saturated fats and use the "plate" method, some anecdotal evidence suggests otherwise, so I did more research and linked some of it above. Are nutritionists giving bad advice?
