My Maintenance Rules

[Tantravaya]

My struggles to reach and hold a comfortable weight for me began when I had my first child at 19. Totally unexpectedly I had gestational diabetes and was very ill. I am now 57 and about 7 months into maintenance after Cohen's. I have learnt a lot being on this program, more than from any other source of information on nutrition.

For the last 20 years I have been very focused on eating a healthy diet and getting balanced butrition and continually finding that "expert" advice isn't always accurate for me. What was "supposed to work" just didn't seem to, for me.

We are all different and what works for one won't work for another. I feel that I have finally found the secrets for healthy weight for me and wanted to share them with the forum. I know that they aren't rules that everyone needs to live by however they might help someone who is similiar to me.

I've written them down as my maintenance "rules"

1. No complex sugars.

I can digest food such as fruit that has simple sugars. In fact I can eat copious amount of sweet foods, (including chocolate - I eat dark) without it affecting my weight as long as I stick with all my rules and this one in particular. Anything that contains complex carbohydrates is a no-no and I must avoid completely.

2. No complex proteins.

I must stick with Dr Cohen's rule of 5hours minimum between proteins. I am a vegetarian and I also have to eat protein at every meal. I can't snack on protein foods between meals and I can't mix proteins at the one meal. So no egg and cheese together for example. This is totally opposite to what vegetarians are told by nutritionists which is that proteins must be mixed to ensure proper balance of essential amino acids. I just need to vary my protein food although can't eat proteins that contain complex carbs.

3. I need to take good oil. Emu Oil is better than fish oil or flaxseed oil for the omegas that we need. I take Emu Oil capsules and also use the oil all over my skin as a moisturiser. I still use spray olive oil for cooking as I did on Cohen's.

4. Keep 2.5 hours between snacks and meals. Too much snacking, even of food that is ok to eat causes me problems. I have to give my digestion a break. Whilst I often eat fruit between meals, sometimes it is best for me not to snack at all and just eat my 3 meals. I feel lighter and have more brain power if I don't snack so much.

5. I have to think ahead. If I have yoghurt for breakfast I can't eat cheesecake for morning tea as I have to wait 5 hours. If I know that we are going to have a special morning tea at work I'll forego the yoghurt for fruit and then have my cheesecake later. Then I need to hold the protein for lunch and have an early dinner with protein.

6. I drink water, soda water and mineral water and herbal tea. If I have an iced chocolate or hot chocolate (I don't drink coffee) then I have to follow the protein 5 hour rules with the milk so I need to also plan ahead.

Anyway, these are the rules that work for me.

[louise41]

Good on you for setting some rules. I think if we dont set some boundaries its very easy to revert to our former ways. I find I have to roughly stick to the program or my weight just goes up again - hence why I am here again

[sixsoo]

Yep I'm with you Louise- not having rules has brought me back to Cohens a second time. Well done Tantravaya! I am now thinking ahead to what my rules HAVE to be.

[fornight]

Thank you so much for sharing with us!!!

[divineparadise]

Hi tantravaya, sorry I don't really get your first point about Simple Sugars. Do you mean that you can eat for example a dessert like creme brulee or dark chocolate (simple sugars) and yet not eat brown rice (complex carbohydrates)? Sounds really bizarre to me.

[fornight]

Divineparadise - There are some people whose bodies are made this way. During my short maintenance period, I also notice that i have similar body reactions towards simple sugars BUT within a certain limit. Seems like I can take 75g of dark chocolates without gaining weight. The same weight of bread will make my hands start shaking (sky-high insulin reaction I think).

I will have to retest it again when I reached my target this time. I also notice that my body cannot take too much fats like butter very well and fried food such as fried chicken (KFC crispy chickens) will immediately make me feel like throwing up later on and sick for the whole day.

I remember Flamie told me she can take milk but I tested it on myself and found that milk is no no for me. Coconut milk is also not nice to my body - so sad which means no curry.

[Kohinoor]

Hi girls,

Tantravaya seems to have covered a lot of ground - and this thread (linked below) that she started might hold some more clues for you. I wanted it to be in this thread, as it might help you to understand you a bit better :-

http://newyouforum.com/forum/showthread.php?p=257075#post257075

Of course, I have NO knowledge whether the link is giving good info - let's just say I found it be "interesting", and that it may well hold the key to why you might be "different". Worth a read IMHO

Koh

[carrieanne_c]

i totally can't do rice or pasta either, insta weight gain. corn on its own is ok bread is ok in small amounts and better toasted.fat stuff like butter is ok on veggies and meat-icecream wasn't bad if i ate it before or instead of meal.

[forfreddie]

Hi

Weird isn't it that what Tantra is saying goes against everything we are told is supposed to be 'good' for us. I have tried to follow low GI principles based on complex carbs for a number of years and (altho portion size etc mostly to blame) continued to gain weight.

Think that we all need to learn to listen to our bodies in refeed and maintenance and work out what makes us feel good. And if that is chocolate rather than porridge...... I ain't gonna complain!

ff

[divineparadise]

Thanks Koh for that thread! Need to run trial and error tests so as to know what works and what doesn't.

[RachyF]

Tanta,

Can i ask how you learnt the rules?

From testing and weighing everyday, or...?

There just seem to be so many other factors that go into the weight on the scales.

For eg on the plan I'll go up every week and then at the end of the week have a drop which surpasses all the gains and goes lower than the start of the week.

Weird.

[carrieanne_c]

Well think about chinese people, normallly thin people but when I eat that kind of food, I can blimp up 2 kilos after one meal.

[divineparadise]

I am Chinese but sighs NOT THIN!!! My sister is!

[carrieanne_c]

wow, you might have to stay away from chinese food too, I guess it is like being from ohio and not being able to eat corn. oh, well

[Future Yummy Mummy]

I think you'll find traditional Chinese food is not what we eat in the West, either.

But interestingly there are starting to be concerns about rising levels of obesity in Asia too. I see a surprising number of over-weight kids NOT doing cross country running at a school near me.

[Tantravaya]

Just to follow up on this thread...

I live in Darwin and I have lived in the tropics off and on for the last 30 years. Every time I headed back to the heat after living in the cooler areas, I put on weight instantly. I could put on 5kg in just days after relocating. The weight became impossible to shift. I sat at 75 kg for years living on less than 1000 calories a day and it would not budge. I went to doctors and psychologists looking for answers and nobody knew why the heat affected me like this.

Living in southern Australia I also struggled a bit with the weight sometimes, but certainly not to the same extent, nor all the time.

Left to my own devices I looked at everything I could think of that might be a factor. I knew I had problems with fluoride, particularly fluorsilicic acid. When I was a child I lived close to a fertiliser factory which emitted high levels of this fluoride. No EPA restrictions in those days. I had a gut feeling my problems with weight were connected to fluoride. I seemed to be fine, weight wise, whenever I lived in places free of fluoridated water.

What I discovered was that Darwin has fluoridated water and in the heat and warm water, it is absorbed through the skin as well as in the drinking water. Every time I got into the pool (daily in the wet season) I was soaking up more and more fluoride. Daily showering was also another huge source of it.

Yet it wasn't the fluoride alone that was the problem. I was deficient in iodine. When there is an iodine deficiency, fluoride takes up the iodine receptors in the body and worsens the fluoride effects. One of the roles that fat has in our body is to hold onto and protect us from circulating toxins, such as fluoride and the many other chemical poisons that get into our system. Some sources say that many of us are low in iodine and I know that thyroid problems in populations is increasing which is a bit of an indicator.

I need to regularly keep up my iodine levels with atomic iodine so that the fluoride doesn't flood my system leading to my body needing to increase fat levels to keep my organs protected from chemical damage.

We tend to look at the psychology of weight gain and get upset with ourselves when we put on weight. From my experience weight can also be protecting us from damage. There is so much chemicalised food. In many areas grains and other food are sprayed heavily in the paddocks while growing. Then, a lot of genetically modified ingredients gets into food without us knowing about it.

I can't eat complex carbs but then they are foods that tend to be heavily treated with pesticides. I can't mix proteins but then I never had (even as a child) a strong digestion. If I eat simple foods like fruit and veg, dairy and a minimal amount of fish, all organic where possible, as well as homemade desserts that contain simple sugars like maple syrup, I will maintain my weight and feel fantastic.

Discovering all this has been trial and error. We are all different but sometimes the issues are similiar. With the huge amount of public water fluoridation over the last few decades, the amount we are consuming is increasing. Canned and bottled drinks contain it, iced tea is very high in it, a lot of seafood is alos very high in fluoride. A lot of people are exposed to all sorts of toxic chemicals in the environment. If this is ongoing through food or the environment, you might find it hard to keep weight off until the chemical overload is removed.

cheers

[Future Yummy Mummy]

That's very thought provoking - never knew that. Thanks for sharing.

[SlimUnderneath]

Yes that is so interesting. I knew about the link between fluoride and the thyroid but didn't know that the fat protects our organs from being flooded with the toxic chemicals we absorb etc. Such a shame the government tries to keep poisoning us with these nasty unnecessary chemicals in our water.

[Winkiedo]

I can attest that there are a lot of obese Asians already. I am Asian, 45 y.o. 4'11" and weigh 202 lbs (as of this morning). I am not a heavy eater and can live without breakfast but the weight has slowly crept in. I used to crash diet when I was younger and it worked. But when I entered my 30s the weight just kept piling up.

Glad to have found Cohen's diet and to start on it soon.

[Kohinoor]

This is SO worth a bump.....