Dobbs said:
An American friend of mine who is type 2 did a low-carb diet for about five years, with good results. A year or more ago he read Dr Neal Barnard's "Program for Reversing Diabetes" book and switched over to the diet Barnard recommends, which is a vegan, low-fat diet, but allows things like rice, potatoes, bread etc. My friend swears it's good, takes no medication (but runs a lot), and his latest Hb1A was 5.8.
So I wondered: does anybody else out there follow Barnard's program(me)? And if so, how do you find it?
Hi Dobbs,
I started my improvement programme after being inspired by reading Dr Neal Barnard's book - "The Reverse Diabetes Diet". Certainly, things happened to me just like the examples given in his book. I am a Type 2 taking metformin and since I started my improvement programme one year ago, my HbA1c has reduced from 8.5 > 6.8 > 5.7 > 5.5 and 5.3% last time - i.e. just like your friend in the US I have managed to normalise my blood glucose levels. Unlike him, I do very little in the way of exercise. Also, I am still taking metformin but those tablets didn't seem to be doing very much for me - I still had a HbA1c of 8.5% after having taken the tablets for around a year.
However, at the same time as I started following Dr Neal Barnard's methods, I also started slimming to lose weight by calorie counting. As a consequence, that led me to also cut back drastically on carbohydrate foods - particularly, cereals, bread, rice, pasta and potatoes. The end result is that I'm not exactly certain what led to my improvement.
More recently, I have found that I can best control my blood glucose levels to extremely tight levels (a fasting level of less than 6 mmol/l and a maximum reading of 8 mmol/l one hour after finishing eating a meal) by managing my carbohydrate intake. As a consequence, I have started to re-introduce a little more meat and fat into my diet. I'd describe my current diet as mainly plant based low-fat and reduced carbohydrate diet with loads of fruit and vegetables with a very low alcohol intake.
I get very little exercise and I'd say that I definitely ought to do more. During the course of my improvement, I haven't changed my exercise levels hardly at all.
Whatever it was exactly that caused my massive improvement I can't be absolutely certain, however I do recommend Dr Barnard's book to you and to any other Type 2. I found the book to be extremely motivating and inspirational and have read it over and over again. If you do buy the book make certain that you buy the one with the colourful front with drawings of an artichoke and carrots on the front cover (i.e. the Rodale version). That version seems to have been written specifically for the UK market (units etc) and that makes it very much more readable than most books by US authors.
I'd be interested to hear how you get on.
Best wishes - John
