How to really manage your Diabetes And / Or lose weight

Hi,

After I got diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes, I started following the poor assumption medication of several physicians to treat type 2 Diabetes as usual; They basically working in making the pancreas secretes and keep on secreting more insulin rather than working in improving its insulin sensitivity.
(Sentence in red was well said  by Dr. Robert Atkins in his book Atkins Diet) 

As a result; my pancreas almost lost its own ability to produce any insulin at all; then I was taken to the next level of poor assumptions or name it lack of knowledge state of the majority of physicians who treat Diabetes and that was putting me on Mixtard 30 - 70

Which, in fact, was in charge of :

1. Making the possible future complications a present ones for me
2. Dancing with my BS way up and way down -
3. Tighten my hand securely and my flexibility in Diabetes management as well.

There was no choice left for me as I was shifting myself from one Dr to another, all seemed to have the same solution MIXTARD. It was like they were machinating against me to get rid of within 10 years !!!

I had no choice but to look around for a solution for my case - my numbers was in 400 or 50 s

Then, I found out about Dr. Richard Bernstein and his approach regarding eating way less Carbs to stabilize BS. I purchased his book and Dr. Atkins book as well and read them both carefully and read them twice at the time.

I was totally convinced about Dr. Bernstein approach because of couple of reasons:

• It makes sense to me
• Because Dr. Bernstein himself is type 1 Diabetic ie... he tried all what he preached about on himself.
• Because he changed his own career from Engineer to a Physician to spread the word.
• Because Science is almost supporting that...before and now.
• Most importantly - that is the only thing makes a huge difference in my Diabetes management journey.

But to be honest; I felt that  the 30 gms of carbs per day that he advised Diabetic to stick to; was too restrictive to be followed, at least by me, so I bought other books talking about the low carb diets and relating them to management of Diabetes and after a lot of reading I decided to follow a higher version of low carb diet.

At that time, when I decided so,  I preferred  the version of  80 to 110 gm carbs / day and followed that intermittently for about 2 years and tried hard to stick to the plan but on my hesitating medium Carbs trip; I found out the following:

• My numbers were OK but not fine - not good and of course not excellent.
• I exercise 6 days a week and my weight is like a rock ,,,stable not moving down....but of course could move up.
• More doses of insulin and as a result; less insulin sensitivity.
• I still have occasional highs and lows  every couple of days due to high content of carbs that may be found in one meal or so
• I still have the desire and craving to eat more carbs and that is a true fact - the more you eat carbs the more your BS swings and the more you will need to eat more of it especially the starch ones.
• By consuming more Carbs; I often miscalculate  the dose count, the dose timing, the digestion timing , the carb counts, etc...and the result is high (very high sometimes) or lowwww and irritated life ..always.

In these two years I never followed whatever Dr. Bernstein mentioned in his great book about doing a 30 gm carbs per day in order to stabilize the BS around 83 as he mentioned in his book - as a matter of fact I considered this is impossible thing to be achieved or at least to be stuck to it and have it happens on a daily basis.

Being unable to control my Diabetes the way I want it to avoid problems.
Reading more and more about Diabetes and seeing Diabetics in clinics suffering from fatal complications and a lot of them young men and young women kept in the hands of Mixtard, Amaryl, Diamicron, etc....
And of course seeing the level of medical attention given to Diabetics in general; ...
All those factors  led me to go deeper and deeper ..... search more in the topic of  real Low carbs system for managing Diabetes for either insulin or non insulin dependent Diabetics.

So I read about the Low carb issue from different opinion and directions as follows (all are references for you to search and read if you like):

1. The concept of low Glycaemic index and Low Glycaemic load in Dr. Rob Thompson great book the The low starch Diabetes Solution,
2. About Atkins through Dr. Robert Atkins old books and new book new Atkins New you..
3. Again Dr. Bernstein book the Diabetes Solution, I read it two more times.
4. Got through in details some amazing websites just like http://www.eatingacademy.com By Dr. Peter Attia. (one of the most talented Drs. in this area)
5. Read whatever in Jenny Ruhl website, and her great book The truth about low carb diets
6. Read Gary Taubes great book Good Calories bad Calories.
7. Read Think Like Pancreas and Using Insulin by Gary Sheiner and John Walsh.
8. read about the Paleo and South beach diets.

The real fact that I came out with after reading all of that and much more; can be summarized in the saying of Dr. Charles Clark, the Diabetes expert:  No one has ever explained to me.. how you can ask someone (Diabetic of course) to lower BS and yet recommend a diet based on sugar.

It made a lot of sense to me to lower the carb intake to the limit that will stabilize my BS.

So I decided finally to go down, Carbs wise, to a very close amount of daily carbs of what Dr. Bernstein advised and then see what will happen with me when doing so.

And Here I am; I started one week ago; restricting my carbs intake to 30 to 40 gm of  Net Carbs a day only and check my blood sugar accordingly and the results was amazing ...really amazing..

Check out my results - maybe it will inspire you to do it:

1. My blood sugar was never above 115 and that was once or twice when I increase the carbs a little in that meal and did not calculate the dose of Insulin required for protein the right way (with me every three ounces of protein I take 1 Novo).
2. 85 % of my readings was below 100.....WOWWWW
3. My BS is never below 65 (and the 65 reading was after a 75 mins of hard exercise)
4. My daily Novo dosages went down from 28 / day to 10 all day long (the 3 meals along with snacks)!!!
5. My Lantus went down from 39 to 31 and still will go down... I guess
6. My weight is down with 4 kgm
7. My wake up numbers was from 72 to 90 always...never above 100...isn't it great?
8. I consume the good fat items like Olives, olive oil, Avocado, eggs., etc....
9. It is very easy to fix any BS mistake right away and easily.
10. No food bangs or feeling hungry all the time.
11. No more Hypos in exercising (less insulin taken)

My BS Chart looks like a straight line in the Android application that I am using.

 

 

Of  Course I passed through two days or so of withdrawal symptoms and already started to live what they call nutritional Ketosis which needs the following to be achieved as per Dr. Peter Attia -
The “rule of thumb” for NK is that caloric intake is determined as follows:

1. Carbohydrate (total, not “net”): less than 50 gm/day, but ideally closer to 30 gm/day
2. Protein: up to 1 to 1.5 gm/kg, but ideally below about 120 gm/day (100 gm of Protein in weight equal around 30 gm of protein)
3. Fat: to satiety

 

 

 

So what did I do to be able to stick to less than 40 net carbs a day:

• I restricted, eliminated and stopped eating all starches and white flour products or grains from my menus, bread, pastries, pizza, white rice, all grains, etc...
• No sugar - no High Fructose corn Syrup (HFCS)
• I get my Daily Carbs from Leafy vegetables and vegetables low in Glycaemic index and load like Spinach, Cauliflower, beet, Broccoli, Zuccini, etc...
• I eat Avocadeo, Olives, add put Olive oil over Salad, and always choose good sources of fat
• I get little nuts through Almond bread that my wife bakes it home for me; as a substitute for flour bread.
• I tried the great Flaxseed bread, it is tasty, healthy and will help you a lot, in this way of living, regulating your bowl movement. we also do it home

I am not telling you all the above to direct you to do so, no.....

 

I am just transferring to you my experience about something I always believed in it but did not have the real power and the burning desire to practice it strictly as advised; to get the most benefit from it and when I did it and still doing it - I felt the huge difference in my Diabetes management and in my weight management as well.

 

I just kept myself away from the empty calories that a lot of us think it is a necessity - but the reality is ..... it is not.

 

I knew; by time and by a lot of trials that I am very sensitive to carbs. That is my Genes (I am Diabetic, overweight  and lose weight very hardly)

And I also Know that I have high expected goals .....which can be concluded in

1. A burning desire to control my Diabetes. .
2. Manage my weight
3. Live good life by avoiding complications.
4. Being able to exercise with a lighter weight and without being afraid of Hypos or Hypers.

So considering my High goals and bad genes, it was a must for me to follow a real low carb system in my life and my case could be also similar to yours and could be not...you judge it.

 

If your genes is better than me and you can tolerate  more carbs and your goals is lower than mine (you wanna lose 4 Kgs only for example) then go ahead and do 90 or even 120 gms of Carbs to the limit that you can tolerate it -  but do not take it to to 200 and above ...it is not good for you dear friend....read about it please.

 

If you are Diabetic, overweight, having metabolic syndrome, insulin resistant, or having high blood pressure, etc... Try and see yourself the difference that will occur to you

 

And again let your Glucose meter to be your Judge and when the judge says his word; you gotta respect it or else.......