chalcedony said:
Hi Cultivator. Saturated fat raises your blood cholesterol more than anything else in your diet.
So is there a diet book to follow this Diet? I have just started metformin hBA1c was 11% testing myself I've got down to 9 in the mornings but still need to get lower. BP is already being controlled by tablets and the cholesteral levels are nearing 5.
There is a part of me that says this can't possibly work, then another part of me that says I've got to eat something other than lettuce for the rest of my life so owhat can get me more healthy and keep me sane at the same time!
Appreciating the help that you guys are shelling out!
SS
I'm afraid I would have to disagree with you there simply from experience.
When I was diagnosed T2 last December with an hBA1c of 11.3% or 100 mmol in the new measurements I had followed a classic low fat 5 a day diet where everything was cooked from fresh for most of my life. At that point I had been on statins for two years and despite that my cholesterol level was in the high 5's.
After diagnosis and finding this forum I swapped to a low carb high fat diet similar to that recommended by the Swedish Health care system. My diet is now roughly 15% carbohydrates 65% fat and 20% protein. Of that 15% carbohydrate the vast majority of it is in the form of vegetables. The result after 6 months was an hBA1c reduced to 4.9% (yes FOUR point nine) or 30 mmol and a total cholesterol level of 3.9 with an Tot/HDL Ratio of 3.33. My blood pressure has reduced from 160/95 to 115/75. I've also lost just over 4 stone in weight and rarely feel hungry. I now have a BMI of 23.2 and am still losing weight at roughly a couple of pounds a month. I exercise by walking my dogs for around an hour a day exactly the same amount as I did prior to diagnosis.
I have my gp's and DSN's full support as they can see what I am doing obviously works. I've even come off the statins on my high fat diet at my gp's suggestion as I no longer need them in his opinion. My doctor says my diabetes is "in remission" but like me fully accepts I am not cured. For example if I eat more than around 50g (two level tablespoons) of rice or pasta my levels still spike well into double digits.
I consciously consume saturated fat. I eat cheese, eggs, leave the fat on meat, have bacon and eggs fried in a small amount of olive oil twice a week, eat a fruit salad with sugar free jelly with a good amount of double cream most days in fact yesterday I had a low carb very rich home made chocolate pudding with double cream. I eat roast potatoes when I eat any potatoes at all and put knobs of real butter on the piles of green veg I eat and when I occasionally eat a slice of Burgen bread I make sure it's covered in real butter too as that way it doesn't raise my levels that much. I never buy anything labelled low fat anymore so use full fat yoghurts etc. The only low fat product I still use is semi skimmed milk that I put in my tea and coffee simply because I don't like the taste of full fat milk. I have an Indian takeaway minus the Nan bread and minus most of the rice most weeks but up the calories and quantity by buying extra meat starters and vegetable based bhaji's
I avoid highly processed high carbohydrate foods and trans fats and have never felt healthier. Why do I eat saturated fat? Simply as a source of calories. My current diet works out around 2000 calories a day. If I didn't eat the saturated fat I would be on a starvation diet because I have dropped all the sugar and the vast majority of starchy foods from my diet.
For my diabetes I simply take Metformin and nothing else. My gp says I don't really need the Metformin but recommends I continue it for the health benefits it gives to your heart and not for any diabetic blood levels reducing reasons.
While you can undoubtedly lose weight on a low fat diet that's hardly the point when its carbs that raise your blood levels so adopting a low fat high carb diet may well make you slim but can quite easily lead you to end up as a thin but blind amputee on insulin. Adopting a low carb high fat diet is also scientifically proven countless times to just as successfully promote weight loss and has the benefit that you end up thin and able to see and use all your extremities. What will definitely kill you is a high fat high carb diet.
Many others on this site follow a very similar regime to myself and have done for years with identical results.