The only time I've ever been able to control both my diabetes and weight simultaneously is when I've been low carbing. I've had periods of controlling my weight but not my diabetes and more recently, my diabetes but not my weight. I'm sick of having to choose between them! I'm now 3 stone heavier than in my low carb days a few years ago and fed up of it! I find carbs psychologically addictive too, once I start eating them I can't stop which is obviously very bad for my diabetes.
So I've decided to give them up as a bad job! Not 100% but I think I need to commit now to the idea of a low carb diet for life - I just can't handle high carb food, both physically and psychologically.
When I low carbed for eight months a few years ago, I didn't feel deprived, but liberated. My hba1c was 6.6 and I was not having any novorapid at all, and only testing 1ce a day if that.
So it's bye bye to bread, pasta, rice, chocolate, cake, crisps and all of that. And hello to meat, fish, cheese, vegetables, nuts.
I gave up low carbing before as it became a hassle and a faff, but being fat/having complications will be much worse!
Would love to hear from others who have given up high carb foods for life, and stuck with it!
I sympathise.
As far as I can remember, I've always had a complicated relationship with carbohydrates. Not a small problem growing up in Italy, carbs heaven. Then I moved abroad, but my problem came with me.
I spent almost four decades trying to manage my weight with High Carbs Low Fat regimes, a daily, relentless struggle. I never understood how people could have two slices of bread and be happy. Personally, I couldn't sleep knowing there was bread in the house.
I don't think it was simply a matter of willpower, as I have been in situations where I was able to gather more will power than most people. I'm incredibly stubborn, and when I want to do something, I usually do it. Yet, I was powerless with carbs. My ravenous appetite for them never, ever stopped.
This of course made my life quite unpleasant. Always hungry, either binging or starving myself, constantly obsessing about carbs, and suffering from guilt and low self-esteem. Outside I looked like a pretty normal Mediterranean girl, inside I was a knot, always thinking about food, always denying myself.
On NYE 2013 I was diagnosed with diabetes. The disease is rife in my family and I had put on some weight recently so I shouldn't have been too surprised, but I was shocked nonetheless. Diabetes, that's for life, no way back. ****.
I immediately knew that the NHS nutritional advice wasn't good enough; I just don't believe grains and fruit should be staple foods for diabetic people, fullstop. I wanted to see whether there was a viable alternative, and after some research I stumbled upon the LCHF regime.
I decided to try and see whether it may help, so in January I threw away all my starches and hopped on the horse. I can't deny I was somewhat sceptical at first, I had read all the science but a lifetime of brainwashing about the evils of fat weren't to disappear overnight.
Alas, I persevered, and then a few things happened, to my astonishment:
- My blood sugars decreased and stabilised, and I got pretty good readings. Even in the non-diabetic range.
- My energy level shot up. From being a sluggish, tired lump of Italian, I became a bouncy bunny.
- My weight started falling off me as if I were melting, despite never denying myself any LCHF food.
- My relentless hunger, my carbs cravings, my internal screaming for food ceased. Silence. Peace.
The last four months have been blissful. Of course I miss pasta, but I feel like inside me something switched off that strident, aggressive, soul destroying demand for a carbohydrates fix, and it has made an incredible difference in my life.
I am truly convinced I have a
starch addiction, which would explain how I was powerless to manage even small quantities of them without losing my mind, and how intrusive food thoughts were whilst I was following the standard nutritional advice (grains, grains, grains).
If tomorrow I were told that I was misdiagnosed and I didn't have diabetes, I would still follow the LCHF regime. My only regret is not having discovered it before. If one has a healthy relationship with carbs and a healthy pancreas, go for it. But if one is anything like me, giving up starches is possibly the single best thing one can do.
I apologise should I sound evangelical, but I'm struggling to find the words to describe the magnitude of the improvement of my quality of life this way of eating has brought me. It's bordering on miraculous.