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Carbs and Fats

Grace04

Well-Known Member
Messages
193
Type of diabetes
Prediabetes
Treatment type
Diet only
Could I get some help to clarify what it is I’m aiming to do in order to lower my HbA1C please.

I know I need to be low carb. I’m back home from holiday this weekend so that’s going to be much easier as I have a supply of food from the Seriously
Low Carb Store in my freezer. I also know I need to limit how much fruit I eat and choose more carefully what fruits I eat.

What I need some help with understanding is the fat element. If I chose not to eat full fat. As in yogurt, milk etc. How would that affect things? Is it bad for your body to go low carb and not replace the carbs with fats? Would it result in weight loss?

For the last three months I’ve not been getting it right if my HbA1C is anything to go by and I’d like to rectify that if I can.
 
Usually, low carb or keto means eating more fats.
Why not have full fat milk and yogurt?

Sometimes if weight loss stalls on low carb then reviewing the amount of fat in your diet could be useful but I found I could lose weight while having oily salad dressings, full fat dairy, cream on my berries, etc. The key for me was using my meter to understand the maximum amount of carbs my body could manage then eating as much protein and fats so I did not feel hungry after meals.
 
Low carbing usually results in weight loss anyway. Your body needs something to run on, and if not carbs, then fats and protein. Low fat items usually have carbs put in to bulk them up, make them tastier, more filling etc... So most -not all- will have a higher carb content than their full fat compatriots. Weight loss might go faster if fats are lowered as well, but the odds for malnutrition go up. Cut carbs and fats, and all you're left with is protein... Which is a bit meager and not very sustainable for more than 6-8 weeks, as it would basically constitute a crash diet. And in the end, one can, indeed, crash on one. You do need vitamins and minerals, besides something to burn for energy. So it's not recommendable, no.... You mention choosing, so there is, I take it, a choice here?

Just keep an eye on yourself eh. Don't go too far. I've tried rather extreme diets and sometimes they do give you a kick in the head. (And a long time to recuperate from the damage done.)
Jo
 
Fats not only play an important role in the control of blood glucose levels, but also weight management. It may sound counterintuitive, but fats do not make a person fat. Carbohydrates in excess do that!

Fats will prevent you from losing weight if you overdo it, but have no effect on insulin; the body's fat-storing hormone, and will not cause weight gain.

I'd steer clear of industrial, processed oils like the soy, corn, sunflower and safflower oils often hidden in processed foods, You won't go far wrong if you keep to butter and extra virgin olive oil at the outset. Then gradually extend your range of cold pressed oils along with your low-carb,-healthy-fat [LCHF] recipe collection.
 
This is what works for me. No guarantees, obviously. The other point is that this is the Tour de France, not a 500 metre sprint. What happens in one stage has very little impact on the race overall. It's only when you add everything together over a much longer time that you'll see which team is leading.

I aim for around 20g carb/day. That comes mainly from veg, and sometimes pulses because I can handle those acceptably. I don't eat any of the heavy carb items - bread, fruit, pasta, rice, pastry or sugar. I don't want to be using protein for fuel, because I'm interested in keeping and building muscle, so fats are the only practical fuel option (alcohol will provide 7 calories energy per gram, but that's not a realistic plan) .

So I eat plenty of meat and veg. That goes along with cream, ghee, butter (before I found SRSLY I had difficulty finding a method to eat butter other than in cooking) and olive oil. So, for example, a lamb and spinach curry will have onions as the base and I'll use lamb with plenty of fat. Eaten on its own as my meal in OMAD and (depending on quantity) that tops out at a maximum 10g carb from the spinach and onions (I usually overestimate) . Doesn't have to be curry, you could make a stew the same way and leave out the spices. I eat only what I want - I find it impossible these days to overeat.

One of my other priorities is not to be hungry. I do really badly in that respect on "calorie-control" diets, and they never worked for me. I have not felt hungry on 20g carb as I'm taking in enough food and fats are sufficiently satiating.

I'd advise eating to your meter. It can sometimes be difficult to predict results for foods in combination and any alcohol (eg one glass of wine) will tend to suppress your post-meal reading. The issue is though that you're not diabetioc, so the official "targets" for diagnosed diabetics are different. In a sense, that doesn't matter. What you are trying to establish is whether your system can handle the glucose load you just took in.

If my (unskewed by alcohol) post-meal reading is not above 7.8 and not more than two points higher than where I was when I started, I am happy. In practice I rarely see a readinbg above 6mmol/l after food (and I usually know why). The one-off meter readings do not directly predict your eventual A1c (they measure different things in different ways) but if yiou're testing after food and first thing in the morning those are likely to be your high BG points in the day, so you should be getting a worst-case picture. If that's consistently (say) under 6, and stays like that for three months, you should be seeing an A1c improvement.

Best of luck
 
There's nothing at all wrong with normal full fat food - and the fat in dairy produce (milk, cream, youghurt, butter...) is there for a definite purpose - it's nature's source of basic building material for new life. But there are plenty of other sources of suitable fats - e.g. from skin on chicken, fattier cuts of meat, oily fish, avocados, olives. nuts..... It's the low/reduced/lite/etc type stuff , often padded out with extra carbs, that you need to avoid if you want to eat a healthy low carb/ketogenic diet, and this means you'll (hopefully) be replacing your body's main source of fuel for energy with sufficient fat instead of often continuous carbs. And less carby input is actually what results in improved/lower glucose levels and so better HbA1cs.

It's not really a sensible idea to simply cut down on the carbs . You may well lose weight without a problem if you have plenty of it to lose, but if not you may well find your body will end up believing it's starving and start struggling overtime to preserve what fat there is still available to keep it functioning if you choose not to provide it with a sufficient amount of external fuel.
 
This is an article from 2002, quoting studies that are even older. It's a clear example of the low-fat ideology that has contributed to the rise in both obesity and T2 diabetes since its introduction in the 1980s. Thanks for posting it.
 
KennyA said:
This is an article from 2002, quoting studies that are even older. It's a clear example of the low-fat ideology that has contributed to the rise in both obesity and T2 diabetes since its introduction in the 1980s. Thanks for posting it.
Click to expand...
Has it been refuted?
 
I do low carb keto as “clean” as possible with 20g carb a day, but I don’t gorge on fat either. I just eat “normally” with my fats which for me means no low or reduced fats eating fat naturally so, butter on veg, oily dressings or mayo on salads and when cooking either using a bit of butter or olive oil or both (oil stops butter burning) ghee, coconut oil (great for curries and Asian based foods) I eat fattier cuts of meat and eat the skin on chicken. Full fat dairy such as yogurt a bit of double cream, cheese. A few nuts, avocados, I don’t add lots of fat but I never take it away
 
plantae said:
Has it been refuted?
Click to expand...
I don't know - do you? - whether a particular study has been refuted or not. Have a look at this though, published in Diabetes Care, May 2013.

https://diabetesjournals.org/care/a...e-Effects-of-Carbohydrate-Unsaturated-Fat-and

It says -

CONCLUSIONS
A diet that partially replaces carbohydrate with unsaturated fat may improve insulin sensitivity in a population at risk for cardiovascular disease. Given the well-recognized challenges of sustaining weight loss, our results suggest an alternative approach for improving insulin sensitivity.

The diet they're talking about was only a very small switch from carb to fat - carb still provided 48% of the diet. And yet the results were significant.

I guess though that my personal experience, following a switch to a low carb/high fat diet, is more convincing for me than anything else. Substantial weight loss >25kg, last A1c 34, all blood indicators improved. If the 2002 study is correct, that shouldn't have happened.
 
Yes, you're right because that study excludes diabetics and the OP says they're not diabetic. I'm not debating that carbs elevate blood sugar levels -- anyone with a meter can see that they do. But protein does as well (I can't cite a study, that is an anecdotal statement, but I'm sure I could find one). However, and this makes sense, fats do as well (https://diabetesjournals.org/care/article/36/4/810/37916/Dietary-Fat-Acutely-Increases-Glucose). I don't think this forum should be promoting fad diets, and apart from some very specific cases I think that "keto" is a fad diet. I'm glad that it works for you though
 
As a personal study of one, who once upon a time bought into the "low calorie" system of so-called "healthy" eating, this propelled me into T2. By going keto, I brought my BG into first pre-diabetic then non-diabetic levels within a very short timeframe. I also lost loads of weight, ditched some niggling symptoms and sleep better than I have for years. Calorie control really didn't get a handle on what was going on with my health, and left me bitterly hungry. Keto is perfectly sustainable and brings great results. Low-carb works for many people too. I eat healthy fats and proteins, and eat when I'm hungry, once or twice per day. Due to long-term injury, exercise has to be walking only, and doesn't impact on what's left of my general health. There are many roads to the same destination.
 
This is rather a long article but I found it very informative about vegetable oils and which ones to avoid and why

Top 7 Vegetable Oils to Avoid

Discover which vegetable oils to avoid and learn why vegetable oil is bad for you. Choose healthier alternatives like avocado, coconut, olive, and MCT oil.
hunterandgatherfoods.com
 
Keto diet literally saved my life! -over the 14 years since diagnosis and low carbing to then keto I lost over 11st to date, have gone from max meds to small dose of Metformin, I no longer walk with a stick, I can sleep flat. I feel years and years younger. (I was 45 and felt 75!) all my other health markers are within range

If eating unprocessed foods, fresh above ground vegetables, meat from a local butcher, natural fats from animal and plants, cooking from scratch is considered a fad diet than bring it on

Yesterday I ate -
a salad made up of steamed broccoli, green beans and cherry tomatoes with a homemade oil & vinegar dressing, baked salmon filet

Chicken kebab marinated with garlic and fresh mint and olive oil with a slaw made from thinly sliced fennel, more cooked green beans, some red onion and a smal, amount of chopped apple and walnuts bound with mayo

Strawberries and a splash of double cream, a square of 85% chocolate, a bit of cheese and plenty of water - my one vice is a small glass of Irn Bru Extra with my main meal

How can anyone say that this isn’t healthy?
 
This forum exists to promote the low-carb lifestyle and I don't expect it will stop doing that - please take a look at this link:

https://www.diabetes.co.uk/type2-diabetes.html

The link you attach does not say what you claim. It covers seven patients, refers to T1s not T2s, and it is about calculating bolus dose for meals with both fat and carbohydrates. This is the well-known "pizza effect".

If you read a bit more widely you'll find that low carbohydrate diets - often called starch-free - were the absolute norm for treating both excess bodyfat and diabetes up to around the 1980s, when the real fad diet - low-fat - was first mandated. The intention behind it had nothing to do with diabetes - rather it was that a low-fat diet would address anticipated high levels of heart disease.

In the end, the heart disease epidemic never happened (because of the decline in smoking). The UK, like some other countries, had a surplus of trained cardiologists who had no patients.

Low-fat (as still recommended by the NHS) really hasn't worked either in personal or population terms. The 2010 forecast was that about 8% of the adult population would have T2 by 2025, up from 6% in 2007 (Bilous and Donnelly).
 
Sorry to point this out, but the low carb way of eating lowers blood glucose and that is reported many times each week on this forum.
Other sources of energy do exist, protein can be converted to glucose - but day by day, week, month, year, a low carb way of eating is good for Humans - how many millions of books did Dr Atkins sell? How many people cut out bread and potatoes to lose a bit of weight?
Personally I never felt well eating a 'healthy' diet even with my GP and surgery staff gaslighting me about it.
Low carb is not a fad diet. It was the accepted way of treating diabetes and obesity for quite some time, and it was known but disregarded for some reason I cannot fathom but it could well be down to money - what a racket the diet industry is, and has been for so very long.
 
Thank you Tricia. I will certainly give full fat things a go.
 
Hi Jo, useful to know that low fat items may well be bulked out with carbs. I certainly try three months of low carb with fat.
 
Thank you. I’ll be sure to stick to butter an extra virgin olive oil. I love butter so that won’t be any hardship
 
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