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Low Carb, what's the debate?

M

mikey

Well-Known Member
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I find all this a bit silly really.
Carbohydrates raise my blood glucose so I am advised to eat more carbohydrate. (Sorry?)
By eating less carbohydrate (Or less dense carbohydrate foods) I can moderate BG but this is unhealthy.(What?)
Vegetables are good for me but if I use them to provide carbs, instead of rice, pasta, potatoes etc I am doing something wrong (Why?)
Using fat for energy is bad,so all all endurance athletes must be ill (What?)
I was brought up to believe what the doctor told me but this is hard to take.
I'm an engineer not a doctor, but even a machine as complicated as the human body cannot defy physical laws can it?
I'm told there is a petition available through this site to ask the NHS to stop giving out silly and damaging advice, can someone direct me to it?
By the way I'm type 2 and diet only.
Does anyone else get fed up with being treated like an alien?
Mike.
 
i signed up.

i feel like i am banging my head up a rick wall too.

i was supposed to see the diabetic dietition on monday but i cancelled it as i didn't see the point in being told to eat carbs.i am sick of not agreeing with them.its a waste of energy.i always end up being in a argument with them.i thought they were trained in nutrition ?
 
What we are all failing to understand, obviously, is that we will die if we don't eat cake. It's been medically proven, I assume. I can't think of anything else that would explain the logic, anyway.

(NB, that was sarcasm...)
 
Actually, I felt a lot better when I worked out where the logic did come from, as it makes it easier to believe it is now wrong when you can see the workings. The current advice makes sense when you realise that it was developed to treat insulin dependent diabetics who had no access to home BG testing, in an era when the various damaging effects were seen as symptoms of Diabetes, not effects of high BG.

The essential thing was to avoid hypos - a very real danger when nobody had any way of telling what was actually going on in their bodies at any given time, and so had to guess dosages etc. It was much safer to manage in such a way to keep BG levels even but high as the pressing danger was dying of a hypo, not losing your feet in ten years time - and there was no understanding that the latter might be avoidable anyway.

The inexplicable thing is why doctors are so resistant to looking at alternatives to a system which works so badly in many cases, particularly when the answer seems so obvious.
 
I was told recently by another type 2 at work that I was kidding myself and the sooner I started taking insulin the better.
Diabetes is progressive, he says, and I am only making things harder for myself.
He eats lots of cake and adjusts his insulin to compensate.
The thing is, people at work think he is being more responsible because he does "public" blood monitoring and I don't.
I do test, although I don't make a fuss over it, and adjust what I eat rather than take medication.
I may not always be able to make this work and I understand that people who work harder than me still need to move onto medication, but I will try my best to make it work as long as I can.

I don't tell other people how to live because I don't feel qualified.
Strange that everyone else feels that they are.

Stay happy,
Mike.
 
tracey72 said:
i signed up.

i feel like i am banging my head up a rick wall too.

i was supposed to see the diabetic dietition on monday but i cancelled it as i didn't see the point in being told to eat carbs.i am sick of not agreeing with them.its a waste of energy.i always end up being in a argument with them.i thought they were trained in nutrition ?
Click to expand...
 
mikey
I have a theory about carbs. I believe we evolved with the metabolsm to eat certain things and those were raw initially. We DO NOT have enzymes to digest raw starch grains. In addition, raw grains contain the same toxins as kidney beans.
Thus I believe in eating those foods, which we COULD eat raw, even if we choose to cook them. That firmly excludes starchy carbs and grains.
I don't really undertand why we are equipped to digest cooked starches, although sprouting seeds do unravel the starch grains in a similar way to cooking them.
Do you remember the experiment in school science, where you were presented with a "solution" of starch( actually a colloidal suspension) and some salivary amylase, plus food test solutions to track the digestion of the starch?
This demonstration ONLY works if the teacher remembers to cook the starch. I've seen teachers come a cropper over that.
If our early ancestors( pree cooking) didn't need starch and couldn't use it, Why are we now being brainwashed into thinking it's essential or in some way "healthy"
there's nothing else as processed as a breakfast cereal.
 
mikey said:
Thanks Ken?, signed up.
Mike.
Click to expand...
Thanks Mike - but your name doesn't seem to have appeared. Don't forget to click on the link in the email that you will receive from 10 Downing Street. If you don't do that your vote will not be registered.

You might be interested to read my story of Type 2 reversal:

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=10512

I'm an engineer/scientist by training and I share many of your views.

Best wishes - John
 
Good man, mikey.
Many of us have been beating our heads against that same wall for years.
Either we keep at it, our numbers grow, the cracks get wider and the wall topples over, or we all just end up with stonkin' headaches?

fergus
 
John,
I've just seen the email from 10 Downing Street and checked it out, thanks.
Fergus,
I thought I was the Lone Loony until I found this forum.
It's a comfort to know that the deranged have a home!
Cheers,
Mike.
 
Wallycorker,
I have just read your account of how you took control of your condition (It isn't a disease) and I was inspired.
A logical argument is a good argument and you have proved it, I cannot help but think that if more of us were bad patients our health would improve.
Thanks again for your help and support.
In the words of my father, the biggest misnomer in our language is "common sense."
Regards,
Mike.
 
hanadr,
I do remember the experiment you mention.
I wonder if in times of shortage we found that we could find enough calories by processing carbs.

Maybe it was an act of desperation that became the norm.
One thing I am sure of though, is that we don't need to do it now.
By the way I didn't know I was a Low-carber until read this forum.
I started by using the Greek Doctors Diet and saw significant improvement.
When I mentioned it to the DB nurse, she told me it was "extreme"
It's so nice to know I'm not alone.
Mike.
 
not an expert on this by any stretch, but didn't we start eating grains when we started to cultivate the land? I suppose it became easier and more economical than hunting and gathering. I also think that because up until fairly recently most people did a fair bit of exercise in their daily work perhaps they were better able to tolerate starches as the exercise and resulting lean bodies would cause them to be more insulin responsive, rather than insulin resistant.

I'm happy with my low carb lifestyle but it annoys me how difficult it is to find low carb food when you're out and about. Eg today, started new job and the food in the canteen is just total carb fest, barely anything I can eat that's not surrounded by bread, potatoes or biscuit.

So much is about economics, rather than health, these foods are cheap to produce, have a long shelf life etc - any business providing low carb foods such as veg and protein on a mass market scale would be hard pressed to make a profit.
 
I couldn't agree more!
Carbs, carbs and more carbs equate to a healthy diet.
Lean protein and veg is dangerous.
Please explain because I don't get it!!!
Cheers,
Mikey
 
How I love this forum!

For years I've felt that maybe (on and off) I was wrong to low carb. My sister (5 years my junior) has all sorts of horrible complications (heart, feet, 3 stone weight gain etc.) calls my leaning towards low carb a 'fad diet'. Fad? After a million years? But then, of course, she has 'white coat is God syndrome' and physically is at least 10 years older. Sadly, sadly, I do not think that she will make old bones. The expression 'there's none so blind as will not see' (or something like that) is so true. In her case it's tragic. I've tried, truly I have.

From tomorrow I will be low carbing again with great passion. That is, providing my lovely daughters stop presenting me with massive sandwiches that don't have enough fat and protein inside them and my lovely (skinny civilian) husband stops buying extra pain au chocolat! (Well they looked lovely, but strangely didn't taste it.)

Barb
 
I was going to wish you the best of luck nannybarbera, but decided against it.
You won't need any luck when you follow the only diet guaranteed to improve your health.

Keep us posted anyway! :D

fergus
 
Thank you Fergus,

Reading this forum has given me the impetus to keep going and to know that others think as I do. Obviously, McVitie's Plain Chocolate Digestives are going to lay in wait for me and jump out from the bushes from time to time, but you've all given my confidence such a boost I'm sure now that this is the right way to go.

Thank you so much
Barbara
 
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