Terrible weight gain

For many folks on this site, we have kept our weight down with a radical change in diet.  For me, no salt, no sugar, no packaged food, no deserts.  Basically, the healthy, whole food diet pundits recommend and few people follow.  Oh, also went Gluten free which basically means no bread and no beer.  I am 61 and have experienced zero weight gain. 

If your weight is your concern, I suspect the antitote is discipline.

Hi there

Many of us go carb and sugar free. You will still get carbs but i have got rid of bread, potatoes, rice, pasta which means cakes cookies etc.

I have also stoped alcohol but have cheated occasionally.

I eat cheese and dairy like i should own a cow and eat alot of veggies. I eat most of my veggies raw with a dip or cooked with cheese sauce since i was never a veggie person. I had steak for breakfast today but will normally have eggs and bacon.

I have kept my weight in check. As for sandwiches i now wrap the filling in lettuce. My substitute for pasta is spaghetti squash about to try zucchini.

The fruit i treat myself to now are blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. I live watermelon but no more.

Many people use the ant iinflamaion diet and omit night shade plants.

I hope this helps.

Mariane

If you have a good read around the forum you will find frequent discussion of low carb diets to help avoid weight gain with pred. It has worked for a lot of us, either to minimise and even avoid weight gain to start with or to enable weight loss while still on pred. I lost 38lbs of pred-associated weight while still on between 10 and 15 mg pred, albeit a different form of pred to the one that had caused the weight gain. I recently had to return to 15mg from 5mg because of a flare and haven't put any weight on at all.

It depends on the person and so does the dose at which problems start to reverse. In some people the weight remains until they are entirely off pred, but that is when they have taken no measures. Pred changes the way the body processes carbs - take them out of the equation and it helps. Steroid-induced diabetes is also a risk - cutting carbs reduces that too. Some of it is also fluid retention - cutting the salt may help that as well as eating diuretic foods. Some people swear by eating anti-inflammatory foods, including oily fish at least 3 times a week, garlic and turmeric - saying they noticed a deterioration if they missed out for any reason.

As Daniel says - it does require some discipline. No magic answers.

However - saying you will accept pain over weight gain isn't necessarily an answer. I had 5 years of PMR without pred (not my choice, I wasn't diagnosed), I still gained weight because i was in so much pain and so stiff I couldn't exercise properly. And I ate in compensation, craving carbs every afternoon - no idea why, but I couldn't settle until I had eaten something I really didn't need and certainly shouldn't have been eating!

Also, not enough pred to manage the symptoms leaves unmanaged inflammation rampant in the body - and that leaves you at risk of other unpleasant consequences in the longer term including cardiovascular disease and cancer.

I have taken entierly different approach to PMR, and weight issue.  Instead of trying to reduce weight by diet, I have focused on exercise. I have taken adequate dose of pred to take care of PMR symptoms and GRADUALLY, increased my exercise from just walking to now walking about 100miles/month and also exercising 3hrs/week ( swimming and mountain biking). I burn about 5000Cal/week ( or more) and have not gained any weight.  If you can be active.

You can combine exercise with diet, that works too. 

Interesting forum several months ago about PMR and exercise.  Bottom line seems to be that exercise is good and acute exercise is not.  I am probably the poster child for not overdoing things.  I was until last year a very competitive rower, and in the face of PMR and prednisone (and the obvious side effect of muscular myopathy) I tried to power through it all and continue to train and compete at the highest levels.  It nearly killed me.  I know understand those things I wished to deny: 1) PMR is stronger than the strongest of us, 2) it has a mind of its own and 3) our bodies are functionally compromised by both PMR and prednisone.  

So yes, exercise for mental health and physical health.  I still row on the order of 10,000 meters 4-5 times a week, but as a matter of policy I keep my speed and cadence down to avoid going anaerobic.

Eileen, that's exactly how I found out I had PMR.  Went skiing and completely burned up after two runs.  I was incredulous, believing myself to be in very good physical condition.  Massage, which historically helped me accelerate the purge of lactic acid, only made things worse. One week later, I couldn't lift my racing single out of the water...all 27 lbs of it.  Suddenly, I had this epiphany: Gee...maybe something's wrong!

As to Nick's strategy about training in heart-rate zones, that is precisely the same approach I am taking.  Basically, 80% low aerobic (HR 100-120), the balance what I would term high aerobic (HR 120-140) and no longer at my anaerobic threshold (150+) 

 

it hardly warrants the label "diet". Nor "exercise".

Hardest part was not eating when I couldn't do anything else due to enforced couch potatoness.

But basically, if eating more than required weight goes up, less than required weight comes down.

The diet consisted of stopping bread and smaller portions, along with no chocolate biscuits.

The weight loss was at the rate of 207gm/week. Hardly noticeable on a daily basis. Needed to draw a chart to notice it. 10kg in 6 months.

Conversion of muscle mass to fat was somewhere in there. Exercise, walking and exercise cycle (I hate it), helped convert some of it back.

What we all have to remember is that the inflammation from PMR is doing our bodies just as much 'damage' as the pred, only different.

Why is it we need to take pred in the first place? to reduce inflammation! It's not just painful, it's damaging!

So to just put up with the pain in order to avoid weight loss is not doing you any good at all.

That said, I completely and utterly understand your despair. I'm so obese now I hate myself.  I've just ballooned. And I've given up. And tried to lose weight, and given up. And stuck to full the AIP (autoimmune protocol 'diet) and given up.. and stuck to paleo, and given up.

I clearly have no discipline and the end result is I've gone from running 10km and doing triathlons only 2 years ago to being morbidly obese. Go figure.

Hi Scott, I'm in your age group and have found the increase in appetite and fatigue to be very disturbing.  On top of that, I can hardly walk to exercise.  My condition is called CPPD, which brings on debilitating 'flare ups' in my tendons, in my case the Achilles tendons.  Anyway, I tried the Dr. Phil Diet (which I'm sure he's never tried) because it's main advantage was its anti-inflammatory benefits.  I dropped 17 pounds in 5 days, all fluid I'm sure.  I was on it for about 5 weeks and was down 30 pounds all total.  One would think with that success, I'd stay on it until I looked like a teenager!   But no, it's just too strange and boring.  I will say that I've only regained about 10 of the pounds despite my suicidal consumption of  sweets!  I very much wish I could muster the discipline to do another round of it. It's a strange plan but I lost all cravings within 3 days and was never hungry. It must be followed exactly.