@JoKalsbeek - you’ve done so well and you’re so nice about not making anyone else feel bad. You are lucky to have such a nice family. Unfortunately, most of mine would just throw stones rather than ask what they could do to help. People are very judgemental here in England. It’s not a genetic thing, I ate too many carbs and my cup of sugar (ref. Dr. Jason Fung) ran over. My fault. I would love to run around telling everyone what I’ve learned in the last couple of months and to save themselves!
Incidentally, I have been fasting for 16 hours every day. Supper at 6-6.30pm (which is very early for us) and then breakfast at 10.30am. Does anyone else find this a good idea? Does it help significantly or would doing it for longer be better? I have done a couple of 24 hour fasts, which I can do. In fact, in the days when I was younger and slim, I never really ate during the day, but I smoked then, and I was never hungry. Ha ha, I gave up smoking years ago and ended up overweight and with type 2.
Yeah, but how many people
know carbs (
and not just sugars) are bad for them? Everyone keeps telling us fruit and spuds are good for us, after all. My dieticians certainly did, and told me to eat more bread, and brown rice, and and and.... That's the hospital's dietician eh. The lady who was supposed to know this stuff. Quite a few people can have carbs just fine, so yes, it IS genetic. Some can eat carbs without anything ever happening. Some, like us, can't. That's our DNA at work right there, and explains why T2 runs in families. (Thanks a lot, gran...
) Did you know what side of the coin you were on, genetically? I certainly didn't, as my gran's been dead a long time and I completely forgot she was diabetic, as I was young when she passed. And there's some nasty comments here in the Netherlands too. Ironically enough though, no-one gave me more grief than a fellow T2. Insulin dependent, fixed dose, thinks my diet is hogwash and will humiliate me at parties every single time, but is in a panic when she binges on cupcakes and doesn't understand why her blood sugars are high. I tend to avoid parties where she's at.
And hey, my own family had a laugh at my expense every now and again... But still made sure I had a LOT to eat over Easter and Christmas, last year. More than I knew what to do with, and not a blip on my meter. So while they took the good-natured mickey, they
did actually listen. After all, they saw I lost a massive amount of weight and got a lot healthier and more active this way, rather than spencing my days in bed being too tired to do anything at all. And I know it's not like that for everyone. Blaming people for their own predicament is
easy and makes others feel superior to them, so yeah... If I wasn't such an isolated hermit, I might've encountered more of it. I know there's some talk behind my back, but I don't quite care... If they don't talk about my diabetes, they'll pick something else to badmouth me about. It's always been thus, and there's plenty of topics they can pick.
My HbA1c is presumably still good, going from my finger pricks (can't get a HbA1c done right now, but I assume it's still mid-30's.), and that's all that matters. So yeah... Only tell those who'll be supportive, and not tear you down. Support is paramount, but if that's unavailable, do whatever works for you. When people say they want to tackle their weight or something through diet, everyone's supportive... When there's T2 in the mix, the stones get thrown. So it's a personal, highly individual choice. Not just because of personal preference, but because we don't all have the same friends/family/in-laws/colleagues etc...
I quit smoking half a year before I started ballooning too, quit in august 2004.
But hey, low carb and smoke-free. My astma and my bloodsugars are grateful.
Just took a while to get here.
Fasting can be done in all sorts of ways, you just figure out what works for you. I might have one, two or three meals a day (usually not three, that's a very, very rare occurrence), others are consistently doing one meal a day (OMAD), or eat 3 low carb meals or so for 5 days a week, and fast for 2. Some have an "eating window" of 4 hours, others, like you, go with 8, though the longer you go without eating, the more benefits you're supposed to reap. Wholly depends on what suits your rhythm, really. If you're interested, Fung also wrote a book on fasting. But yeah, I do recommend doing it, if it suits you.