Rapid weight loss, hard keeping weight on despite eating A TON of food. HELP!!!

Sorry to hear of these issues!

Have you done a calorie-for-calorie comparison of your pre-Lyme diet to your current one?

Please know that 100 calories of a healthy food is "better processed" by the body than 100 calories of junk food so you might find the need to increase your intake to compensate.

Another thought is hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid). When was the last time you had your thyroid checked?

Hello I had the same problem first time around last year I lost 6-7 kg in 2 months. I ațe but not well and it all passed trough not beeing absorbed. I went to the bathroom 3-4 times a day. Really it got better progressively with treatment, in the month I did Abx. most consistently (I took 5 of which 1 was Artemisin ).And I gained 4 kg în the last two months of treatment. I heard the fast passing trough of food trough the digestiv tract is due to bartonella and babesia has also some contribution. Do you know your coinfections?

There are non-dairy cheese substitutes. They taste very different, but are an option. Gluten free bread is an option too, if you are avoiding gluten.

I agree with Traveler about the protein shakes. Not the ones in the store in a can, they have a very high sugar content. Get whey powder.

Traveler said...
If you cut out cheese & bread just because you have Lyme, add it back in. You have to maintain a healthy weight to heal. If you have issues with candida, it can be tricky, since cheese and bread can add to the issue for many.

Try using protein shakes instead of just some of your water.

You're biggest issue with this though is leaky gut: "I eat, and eat, and eat and food passes straight through my system. I'll go to the bathroom just a few hours after eating, and think, "Great- another meal that my body didn't absorb"."

This will have to be addressed very soon, as you aren't absorbing the things you are taking in. When at my lowest, I had whatever I ate pass through me (with food easily seen undigested) in 20 minutes, which is also painful.

/sites.google.com/site/marylandlyme/lyme/leaky-gut-syndrome

goodbyelyme.com/plugging_leaky_gut

I cut out gluten because I was having bad abdominal paint after eating it. Dairy I could tolerate, but I cut out only because I have lyme. Should I add it back in? You mentioned healing leaky gut first - don't I need to cut out dairy and gluten, sugar, nuts, legumes and even some vegetables to do that?? That seems so extreme and I surely will lose even more weight by doing so. Suggestions?

Post Edited (jbousquet) : 12/14/2015 10:35:00 AM (GMT-7)

Could also be parasites. Parasites are considered to be among the most common of Lyme coinfections by some LLMD's/LLND's.

For thyroid info, check out stopthethyroidmadness.com

And I also agree about checking your calorie intake now vs. prior to changing your diet.

Also, most of us don't chew our food enough times before swallowing. Digestion begins in the mouth, with the mixing of the food with enzymes in our saliva. This is particularly important with carbohydrates, but also the food itself needs to be very broken down by the teeth first before sending it along to the stomach. The stomach doesn't have teeth, so large pieces of food can't be broken down easily once swallowed, which means the nutrition in those large pieces won't get digested & metabolized.

White bread, cheese, and other similar "soft, white foods" typical of the "standard American diet" will eventually dissolve in liquid solution, but high fiber healthier foods don't break down well even when wet. Thus the teeth must do more work, so that the enzymes in the stomach and small intestine can get to all the nutrition in the food to enable absorption.

It is also known that Bartonella and Babesia (in addition to Lyme borrelia) can affect gut transit time, either speeding it up or slowing it down. Furthermore, these critters can cause inflammation in the gut, which causes leaky gut, protein loss into the gastrointestinal tract (a marker for inflammation), and malabsorption. All of this can lead to weight loss.

Marshmallow Root, DGL, zinc carnosine, Slippery Elm Bark, okra, L-glutamine are all things you can try for helping to heal the leaky gut. Omega 3 fatty acids (from fish oil) are also very important for healing a leaky gut.

Candida can also complicate this (by making leaky gut worse), as can taking antibiotics that destroy beneficial bacteria in the gut. Probiotics are an important part of restoring health to the gut, but start carefully because a leaky gut can make tolerance of probiotics difficult.

I went through a similar experience, while on antibiotics i decided to go gluten free, dairy free, sugar free. Started to loose weight rapidly. BAD IDEA.

My LLMD told me to add dairy back. I'm also eating gluten free bread. There you go, 5m later i am feeling much better and have put some weight back on.

I no longer have any gut issues at all (and that was the first place where Lyme has hit me). I believe it's important not to eat gluten during treatment, but dairy does not seem to be such a big issue (at least not for me). But it can become a big issue if you don't eat it as it is a great source of energy. Also Calcium levels can drop if you don't eat dairy.

jbousquet said...

coconut oil in my coffee

Im eating around 1.5 pounds of coconut butter per month. That coconut oil you put in your coffee is too little to do anything IMHO. Maybe if you would have had huge candida overgrowth it would have help cut it back a bit. Coconut is a great source of healthy fat, especially for lymies which have a restricted diet, so im seeing it more as food now and less as a medicine.

Another thing that helped me tremendously is this calorie app. I've installed it on my phone and i've just put EVERYTHING in. I have found in horror that i am not eating enough to maintain my weight, even though as you, i was sure i am "full tank" and eating all the time. But it makes a huge difference what you eat. Some veggies have very few calories and can make you feel full... So i ended up force feeding myself an extra meal before bed just to reach my daily calorie threshold. Ofc that was partly because i was not eating any dairy and gluten free bread...

I have the same problem... I'm exactly you weight/height, the Lyme, stress and anxiety caused my weight loss and actually eating healthier, made me lose weight