Weight Issues

[Guest guest]

(originally posted May 2008, slightly updated)

SCD is a great normalizer of weight. The person who introduced me

to SCD had severe digestive issues and was desperately underweight. She

gained weight on SCD. I was (and am) quite obese. My acquaintance gained

weight on SCD. And SCD has made great strides towards normalizing my

weight, with a loss of nearly 180 pounds.

Once you get past the early days of shifting from rumen to human

digestion, the trick is eating the right number of calories for your

body.

http://www.lifeclinic.com/focus/weight/calories.asp

has some useful information about how many calories you need to

maintain your weight. Basically, a woman needs 10-11 calories per pound

of her optimum weight just to maintain that body. If you're quite active,

you may need more. A moderately active man takes 15 calories per pound of

his optimum weight -- it's manifestly unfair to the female of the

species!

So if your chosen optimum weight (which you should verify with your

doctor) is 140 pounds, a woman needs between 1400 and 1540 calories per

day just to carry on your life processes of a sedentary life. A man will

need 2100 calories per day to maintain the same weight. If you are at all

active, you need to figure out how many calories you use up with

activity, and add those. This will almost certainly vary from day to

day.

I've mentioned before, and, someone else has just mentioned, that

FitDay.Com can be a useful tool in this quest to get your weight

stabilized. Just keep in mind that their recommendations for protein,

fat, and carbs are based on the USDA Food Pyramid, which in turn, is

based on the idea that Fat Is Bad and that you need Lots of Grains. We

SCDers know better.

If you want to gain 1 pound per week, you must consume 500 calories per

day MORE than you use.

If you want to lose 1 pound per week, your must consume 500 calories per

day LESS than you use.

Using Fit Day lets you see just how much you're actually eating, and lets

you track your activity levels so you know when you need to have an extra

snack or reduce the size of that serving of nut-flour goody.

Also keep in mind that there's plenty of evidence now popping up to

indicate that unbalanced gut flora can cause issues with both weight gain

and weight loss, so although the above is necessary, it may not be all

you have to tinker with. But for certain, if the calories aren't

there somehow, you can't gain weight. Similarly, if there are too many

calories there, you are unlikely to lose weight.

One person I worked with was quite concerned about his weight loss as he

was a very active person. Turned out, with his activity, he was consuming

something like 1500 calories a day less than he was using -- no wonder he

was dropping weight like crazy and was exhausted all the time!

—

Marilyn

New

Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Undiagnosed IBS since 1976, SCD since 2001

Darn Good SCD Cook

No Human Children

Shadow & Sunny Longhair Dachshund

Babette the Foundling Beagle