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Help...i have their attention what should I say

L

LivingLoud

Active Member
Messages
37
Location
Brighton
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Dislikes
Things I should
I have managed to get myself a chance to present at a conference.
Its called Preventing Illness in London next week
I will have a room with 200 doctors, scientists and public health officials most of them focused on diabetes.
These are the guys that define the policies that affect our lives.
I have 30 minutes of their time.
I have told them that i will present a type 2 diabetics perspective called "fresh thinking on managing diabetes".

Tell me what you want me to say?
I want them to hear our voice, our demands, and start to respond to us as community.
thanks for any help.
 
You must have some views on what "Fresh Thinking on Managing Diabetes" is? Wouldn't it be better to state what that is then garner feedback on your own point of view?
 
Wow! What a tremendous opportunity!

I can see from your signature, that sugar is/has been your priority. Is that still the case, or would you be willing to broaden your presentation to show the wider impact of carbs in general? Presumably (but not automatically) from the T2 perspective?

If so, you have some fantastic contacts available via the forum - Dr David Unwin (our very own @Southport GP ) is saving the NHS masses of money, lowering his T2 diabetic's A1cs, and their weight, and improving their health - using a lowered carb approach. And DCUK (our very own @Administrator would be the contact) have just rec'd a prestigious award for their Low Carb program.

They would probably both be great contacts to ask for stats, graphics and presentation aids if you are a Power Point kind of person.

Plus, of course, there is all the Newcastle Diet findings and studies (all data available on the Newcastle university website) and Jason Fung's Intensive Dietary Management website/blog focussed mainly on Intermittent Fasting...

I would imagine if you went any of those routes the general theme would be something like 'Thinking Outside the NHS Box'.

You can tell I am very excited by your opportunity! But whatever you say has to be something YOU want, and something that enthuses YOU.

Good luck!!!
 
You state you are managing on diet and exercise. What diet and how much extra exercise?
I would imagine that your own experience would be a good place to start. Did you try the usual advice and fail and then find something better? Need to know more about your own journey.
Obviously I would push an ultra low carb diet with fasting because that's what i do. Exercise.. not so much.
You could take a look at the success stories section here and report back from there.
I think you need to be a little more specific about the track you intend to take before we can assist.
Hope that helps.
Mark
 
tim2000s said:
You must have some views on what "Fresh Thinking on Managing Diabetes" is? Wouldn't it be better to state what that is then garner feedback on your own point of view?
Click to expand...

yup fair point
my view is that 90% of T2 diabetes starts and ends with food.
in most cases people get T2 because they make "poor lifestyle choices", I know I did
but why, (I am (was) an ad man by trade)
The answer lies in a combination of lack of good choices, poor knowledge, poor direction and the wrong desires.
what we tend to see in response is a focus solely on knowledge, but realistically most people have a reasonable general sense that junk+sweet+sofa=bad whereas veg+fruit+exercise = good. Knowledge is helpful in the hands of the willing - the low carb mantra at the heart of this site are an excellent example. But with no will there is no way.
But there are 4m diabetics in the UK, a reasonable small number are active here. The reality is that 60% of diabetics are failing to managed their glucose, fat and pressure levels. The system is failing them - a skinny healthy looking nutritionists grinning away suggesting we swap chips for lentils rarely works. Any plan that requires will power will ultimately fail, which is why 99% of diet fail (fact). The only thing that works is a change in desire.
We need:
- at home we need recipes that are easy, delicious, affordable and don't spike our glucose - we need to encourage the chefs, grocers and food makers to give us these choices. As diabetics we mostly see recipes and products that are either soulless or often irresponsible high in sugar but labelled as low/no sugar.
- in restaurants we need delicious choices on the menu that are clearly flagged as being low sugar, ideally with a recognized and trusted kitemark
- and we need snacks that are tasty, delicious, occasionally naughty but always low in sugar - so we can be human, stress eat, comfort eat, have treats and rewards but do so safely.
Above all we need to use the power of advertising in its many forms from TV through to packaging to make no sugary choices exciting and attractive.
I could go on, but that is the heart of it.
What do you guys think?
 

thanks, and thanks for the heads up on Dr David Unwin, I'll find him
Carbs, yes absolutely, carbs are the key point, smart carb management is the biggest challenge - sugar is a carb, and the problem with carbs is the sugar they contain, or more precisely the starch which is just glucose. The most important role for education is to explain to people that many carbs are just sugar in another form and need to be controlled.
 

i now do little carb, 30 minutes raised heart rate a day, nothing obviously sweet, but i do go for polyol alternatives which I think are excellent - life savers. I have a lovely bar of super low sugar chocolate lined up as a treat this weekend.
One of things that works for me is trading. I always have 1 x very dense rye toast for breakfast. But lunch, I earn lunch by going for a run - if i run i'll have a wrap, otherwise no carbs again that day. It really works for me, i earn my treats, I have food things to look forward to. In food marketing we call it normalization, its all about establishing norms and then when we step outside the norm it is exciting.
 
catherinecherub said:
Ask them what do they think the impact is on our mental health when most news articles stereotype Type2s as lazy couch potatoes.
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so agree with you
for me the images of super obese, totally sedentary, and insane diet people = diabetes made me think that this wasn't me, i was only 17st (6'2"), i walked to work and didn't eat that much. I think the current blame and shame in the media is destructive to the whole issue
 
catherinecherub said:
Ask them what do they think the impact is on our mental health when most news articles stereotype Type2s as lazy couch potatoes.
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Exactly! It's depressing being fat in the first place, this negative media coverage just isn't helpful.

Our physical health can be affected by this type of thinking too. I dread going to the doctors for fear of being lectured about my weight yet again. I would love someone to tell me how to lose weight, not why I should. I follow LCHF and this helped me shed over 35 pounds, but I am now stuck and can't seem to lose any more.

I always put off going to see my doc when I have health concerns and I can't be the only one who does this. Right now I am ignoring something that could need treatment because I can't face going to the doctor. Only yesterday I was wondering just how many health problems that seem to come hand in hand with T2 are simply there because the patient can't face going to their GP for help and then wait too long.

I would like to be treated with compassion. I would also like the medical profession to realise that many people without diabetes have dreadful diets and rarely exercise but they don't get the lectures. I would like them to understand that very often the insulin resistance starts many years before T2 is diagnosed.

Yes I agree with the others that carbs are a major factor.
 

interesting, i'd love to tell a room full of medical folk that people are hesitant to see them because they focus on why not how, anybody else experienced this?
 
LivingLoud said:
interesting, i'd love to tell a room full of medical folk that people are hesitant to see them because they focus on why not how, anybody else experienced this?
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The problem is they think they know how but they don't! I have been given diets by a GP and told 'yes, they will work if you follow it properly and don't cheat...look at me!' Well I followed the GI diet plan she gave me to the letter and put on 8 pounds in 2 weeks. Of course, I must have cheated. Except I didn't. She didn't listen to me when I said that if I ate that much food I would put on weight and that I never ate junk food anyway.

It is utterly exasperating and depressing when you do as you are told and then when you don't get the expected results they think you must have cheated. No! It's the carbs! grrrrr.

Edit: When I was diagnosed I read the DUK booklet I was given and then threw it in the bin as I realised the advice in it wasn't right for me. I had already cut the big carb items from my diet and I simply cut a few more until my BGs were in the normal range. Oh yes, I also ignored the advice not to test......
 
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Can you ask them to think and consider why the growing epidemic of T2D and it's associated complications doesn't seem to be abating even though 10% of the NHS budget is used to deal with it? Would it not suggest there's a fundamental flaw in the way they are tackling the problem?
 
LivingLoud said:
interesting, i'd love to tell a room full of medical folk that people are hesitant to see them because they focus on why not how, anybody else experienced this?
Click to expand...

I was handed a tatty photocopied 'Diet Sheet' by the nurse. It told me to eat carbs at every meal, making them the basis of my diet. Brown carbs, toast, bananas, OJ... low fat, of course.

Thankfully I know my body well enough that even a quarter of those carbs as day would result in ballooning weight, water retention, increased insulin resistance, aches, pains, lethargy and middle-of-the-night loo trips. So I binned the diet sheet before I left the building.

But I really pity the people who follow that advice, and then turn up for their next appointment as fatter, sadder, more sick individuals, only to be told they didn't 'stick to it'.
 
ye

yes it would, what would make a big difference to you?
 

How did your slot come about LivingLoud, and what is it actually called? Knowing what the presentation title/remit would undoubtedly influence all manner of things?

Are conference registrations still open, do you know?
 
AndBreathe said:
How did your slot come about LivingLoud, and what is it actually called? Knowing what the presentation title/remit would undoubtedly influence all manner of things?

Are conference registrations still open, do you know?
Click to expand...

http://www.preventingillness.co.uk
i am going as I volunteer on Sugar Smart City for the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation and I'm on my own personal mission to try and fix the world of sugar and diabetes ( see profile)
It came about because I noticed they had a empty workshop slots, so I emailed and asked and they said yes
I need to send them a work shop summary tomorrow, but the main theme is preventing and managing diabetes, and I am giving a perspective of food advertising person turned type 2.

oh and i think registrations are still open, i blag a free ticket
 
LivingLoud said:
ye


yes it would, what would make a big difference to you?
Click to expand...

As a T1D this discussion doesn't affect me directly, (indirectly yes - if the NHS didn't waste so much money on their current failing thinking on how to care for T2D I might be offered a pump and/or a CGM!) But money isn't the real issue here it's the people lives that are affected by this awful disease - and to be blunt in most cases the NHS isn't helping the patient by just giving them some tablets and told to eat sensibly. I've seen it on here countless times where people think they are eating properly following the Doc advice and getting nowhere fast, except down the plug hole of complications.
 
Perhaps all that T2D needs is to learn how to get into and maintain a healthy state of ketosis.

A fats fueled rather than carbs/glucose fueled life may be how we were meant to be...glucose is more toxic than fats, hence it is a priority to remove it from our blood stream...
 
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Hmm well you keep mentioning sugars where you should really be thinking carbs IMHO. I try to have as few as possible.
But each to their own.. I think we would have different things to say to the group that you are addressing. I know what has worked for me so far.
 
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