I should have posted here

As an experiment I'd up your calories a bit - but with fat.  E.G. same diet but with full fat cottage cheese, egg WITH yolk, full-fat yogurt, chicken WITH the skin...  

I've been reading quite a bit about different diet mixes, it seems like upping fat (as long as carbs are not prevalent) can be helpful - it might give you the energy you need for exercise, without causing a weight spike...  

The diet above has virtually no fat - fat could be the missing ingredient in your dis-satisfaction... and lack of energy around exercise...  also fat tends to make things taste better so maybe you won't be so repulsed.  And fat also adds to satiety - perhaps better than protein.

I'm guessing you'll need to experiment, but if I were in your shoes I'd consider adding fat by just eating the full fat versions.

Let me know what you think...

This is a very interesting line of thinking.  I read many things you post about food and research and know you are thoughtful about these issues.  I have purged fat from my life for so many years its nearly impossible to think of going a different route.  Actually, I thought I was going all out by eating 1% fat cottage cheese instead of fat free.  :O)

That said, I do realize that many of the things we used to think about food choices are wrong.  I really might do this.  It would be an interesting experiment.

Annie

I think it's worth a try - you can stop if it doesn't work, but I can't find any current thinking that super low fat will help much - you're calories are already so low that cutting more seems unlikely to help... also fats are often required to generate various hormones, etc...  

It's also possible that it won't cause you to lose more weight, but may give you more energy for exercise without adding weight.

No matter what, you're going to be an outlier, and you're likely to have to experiment with different approaches to find one that works for your condition...

You are right.  I am an outlier and that means I have to figure it out.  i will try it.

A

Keep us up to date - I'd love to hear how it goes!

I was thinking about this overnight and had a few additional thoughts if you don't mind me continuing to think out loud... tell me to shut up if you're sick of it and just wanted to vent :)  My wife does it all the time :)

One possible thing - if you don't like food with a lot of fat... try something like Udo's Blend (an oil blend of various "healthy fats") available in many health food stores.  A lot of people swear that by adding that to their diet, they lost weight.  It didn't do that for me, but we're all different.  I did find that I could add various kinds of fat while I'm stable and not gain weight...  You could also look at adding Krill oil (preferred over fish oil, but more expensive), etc.

Another trick is to make sure your dairy and eggs and chicken are "pastured" - then the animals are (A) treated more humanely by being allowed to run free most of the time ('free-range' is somewhat bogus), (B) more important in your case - they eat a natural diet and can forage for their preferred foods. The resulting dairy/egg/meat is much more complete in terms of nutrition.  It's more expensive, but at the amount you're eating it shouldn't matter much.  Farmer's markets are a good place for this.  Grass-fed milk is available in a lot of grocery stores up here in the Twin Cities, but not everywhere.   Pastured eggs are harder to find - Whole Foods is where I can get them reliably, and they breathtakingly expensive compared to regular eggs - but if you're eating one per day, who cares...  Grass fed beef is easy to come by (but looks like you don't do a lot of red meat), and pastured chicken - not as much - again, if a place sells pastured eggs, the pastured chicken meat is probably there too...  

Finally, there seems to be growing evidence that a disrupted gut flora can cause a huge range of odd problems from IBS to depression to obesity.  Are you feeding your friendly bacteria?  Supposedly our gut bacteria outnumber our human cells by 10 to 1!  They're hungry!  You may not be giving them anything to eat on the diet above.

Here's my story.  Just prior to surgery I was in India.  I got a case of the dreaded Delhi-belly (think montezuma's revenge).  I carpet bombed it with strong anti-biotics.  During and just post surgery I was then bombed again with anti-biotics.  Yay, no infections.  What this did was wipe out nearly all my beneficial bacteria.  I ended up with a couple of issues.  One - thrush on my toungue.  Took a long time to get rid of it.  Ate yogurt, etc. to try to replace my good bacteria.  I felt a little out of sorts for months.  I was irritable, snappish, crabby, short-fused, etc.  I put that down to the calorie restriction and weight-loss.

But it went on into maintenance.  I researched and kept looking around on all topics related to diet, and stumbled upon some deep discussions of gut bacteria.  It's a huge new area of research.  Turns out that it may be one key to obesity... but the critters also digest things we cannot and crank out many products we use, like short-chain fatty acids and seretonin, among many things.

So I've started to try to rebuild my team.  First I added pro-biotics.  I read more.  I found that many of our beneficial guys come from the soil and from foods that came from the soil that aren't sterilized. I found a pro-biotic that contains these soil-based organisms (SBOs).  Started taking that.  Another great source is fermented foods - think sauerkraut, kim-chi, yogurt, kefir, etc.

But I've also read that these guys need to eat certain things to thrive... reading further I found that there's been research for 80 years on fermentable fiber (unfortunately named "resistant starch" - but it's not starch, it's a third type of fiber).  This fiber is indigestible, except by our beneficial organisms, and using it they really can crank out some good products.  At first they also crank out some really gigantic farts, but that's for entertainment only.

The single best source for resistant starch appears to be Bob's Redmill Unmodified Potato Starch. - $5 a bag.  The standard dose is around 30-50 grams/day (1-2 oz by weight)... though due to farting issues if you work in enclosed spaces you may want to start slow and acclimate.  You can just mix with water, shake vigorously (it doesn't dissolve) and drink or you can mix into your yogurt or cottage cheese - it is pretty tasteless... so not a big deal either way.

I can honestly say that i feel the difference.  My mood has improved greatly, my sleep quality is better.  One side effect is extremely vivid dreams - not crazy/violent or weird, just very very realistic and detailed... 

Anyway - the whole topic is interesting to me.  After further reading, I concocted my own "mix" of  potato starch, psyllium powder and green superfood (a vegetable powder to up my veg. nutrients) that i mix up every morning and drink, specifically to feed my gut buddies.  It hasn't helped or hurt weight loss, but it has helped my energy level (more stable, fewer swings - even with extreme workouts), helped my mood, and helped my sleep.  

The other thing is there are no real side effects to worry about - except the few days of gas production initially.  I can't really find any reported issues other than the odd headache here or there  that could be coincidental OR could be caused by a surge of activity by the bacteria that are now getting fed.

Anyway - I thought I'd mention it since so many things are going on in this gut flora that feeding them MAY be one other odd-ball thing to try that a doctor isn't going to recommend... but seems to be a harmless (at worst) thing to try if you're in the mood to experiment for a month.

Tom

Tom, you and I geek in exactly the same way - and I mean that in only the most complimentary manner.

First - your continued interest is very welcomed.  I sometimes hesitate to ask for help.  But I know we are all in this together.  

Food/fat - Right this minute, I am going to continue to keep calories as low as possible - which means keeping fat down (which works as long as you don't replace fat with sugar, which I watch for like a hawk) to try to go down a few more pounds.  I finally lost a pound, so am 6/10ths of a pound up from when I started gaining.  I hope to go down a few more over a month or so.  Then I will stop that focused effort and increase my calories.  I will try to maintain both with food experimentation and with exercise.  I am really interested in seeing what happens when fat is increased.  After I maintain awhile, I will try to go down again.  I think it's the best approach.

I do eat all organic foods, to the extent possible, and don't mind paying for it.  I didn't realize there is a difference between pasture eggs and free range.  Thanks for that heads up.  Now I will have to make a trip to Whole Foods and ignore their "snacks" (which is a big part of how I gained weight over the past 6 months).

I read a good post Elina did on the other board about not obsessing on some of the details once you have maintained for awhile, but how very important it is at first.  She was talking about things like chewing 30 times, etc.  She wasn't talking about being lax about weight issues.  I have gotten so much help from Elina and I always think carefully about her messages.  When I read this, I realized that...it's true for me to some extent - as ongoing LIFE has to become more "routine" and I have already found that with myself, but with my particular metabolism/endocrine realities, I really have to do some very specific experimentation to figure out what my body will tolerate.  Everyone has to do it to some extent, but I have to really step up the game.  It's just how it is.

BUGs - OMG...I am reading COOKED, by Michael Pollan (my hero) and had just read a very detailed dissertation on bugs, research on gut bugs and the excitement of that new research, fermentation...etc....when I read your post.  Now Michael probably sent you subliminal messages to share this with me, as he worried he might not be convincing enough.  Really, it was such a coincidence.  I am very new to learning about any of this - and must admit it really grosses me out - the bugs and all.  However, I have to think it is very, very intriguing.  

I have also read some stuff about resistant starch but never had any real thoughts about how to put any of this together.  Your suggestions are great.  I am going to look at doing something similar to what you are doing.  

I have had a rather significant "depression-like" feeling ever since surgery.  I have never suffered from depression before and only use that word now because it sort of describes the feeling.  However, it's really more like apathy.  It has improved somewhat over time, but I am still not myself.  I want to see if your strategies could help.  

Honestly, I am so thankful for your time and interest.  BTW - I love your gorilla based quote.

Annie 

I'm glad you're losing!  

Try the bob's red mill potato starch (should be available at whole foods) - definitely cheaper than zoloft :) and if nothing else the farting will make you laugh.

:)

My wife just returned from Whole foods - with a fresh supply of pastured eggs... here's what the carton looks like:

I will definitely try the potato starch and the eggs.  Farting doesn't really make me laugh, but I get your point.

Hope spring comes to us all soon.

Annie