Newcastle diet starting Monday, done it once who gonna join me on my journey??

Steve50 said:

Hi MD

In the UK there is broad acknowledgement of the fact that a large rate of diabetes remains undiagnosed. I would not rely on the stats too much. They may suggest the French are slightly better at diagnosing.

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Had I not gone for my free NHS health check I would have remained undiagnosed. I had no idea I was diabetic despite having a glucose of 18.6mmol/L and an HbA1c of10.4%.

Steve50 said:

Good debate.

I think we agree diabetes knows no boundaries. There is something to be said about culture though. Not so sure about the 'class' issue. (I did mention I have spent most of my life in Australia)

I do visit my daughter in New York and have noticed far fewer overweight people living there. I presume it has something to do with the logical street design and relatively flat landscape. Not to mention the complete nightmare of trying to drive around. Much quicker to walk depending on time of day or catch the Metro. All very good exercise walking and climbing stairs. Not to mention the whacking big park slap in the middle.

In England we too have our share of oversize portions and ridiculous sales of chocolate and sweets. I mentioned earlier in this blog about an experience I had at a newsagent outlet where I was offered cheap chocolate at the till. This was an outlet at a hospital.

However in England ( where I live) there is no particular reason to own a car. It is such a small place and very accessible by public transport. I know Brits like to have a bit of a moan about it but everything is relative. Try living somewhere where there are only one or two buses a day! So I don't own a car. This keeps me moving more getting too and from places.

Lifestyle changes can be made but they are often good reasons not to make them. It really comes down to priorities. If we eat at the table or in front of the TV. If we eat alone or in company. If we walk to the bus or train or drive. If we use large plates or small one. All choices we are capable of making.

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@Steve50

I live on the left coast her in the US and yes NYC has peculiarities that make one more active. Its very difficult and expensive to park a car in NY. That's the deal. There's trains & subways everywhere, its fully connected. So people don't have cars as much or rarely use them. So the locals get much more exercise natively.

OTOH In Los Angeles to this day has metro systems do not yet have a direct connect from the airport to Los Angeles downtown railway system! In LA realistically you can't live with out transport. Bikes do help enormously. We have buses now that will pick you up with your bike as you mount that onto a rack at the front of the bus. So per capita most New Yorkers get more exercise because of how their local systems work. On a Saturday night in the old days I'd regularly drive 20 miles for a pizza. That would be unheard of in the UK but it feels easy here as the motorways (= freeways) are well designed. FWIW In the 1960's the car companies bought out the railroad companies in Los Angeles and took out all the tracks. Now 50 years later the councils are struggling to put them back and its car gridlock to get to work.

The bigger problem in the US is the distances though. California (just one of 50 states) is 3 times the size of the UK so while grandiose plans have been drawn up for high-speed rail link between San Francisco & Los Angeles one can't get a high-speed link between LA and Chicago. That's a plane ride away. Its a big country over here.

In his latest video presentation in 2014 by Professor Taylor, (which is worth watching in its entirety) https://campus.recap.ncl.ac.uk/Panopto/Pages/Embed.aspx?id=c3bef819-e5f4-4a55-876f-0a23436988ed&v=1 at minute 46.10 shows a photo of skinny people walking across a street in front of C&A's in Newcastle back in the 1980s. Those folks no longer exist. I suspect that its the long term effects of HFCS has taken its toll on society.

Arab Horse said:

Had I not gone for my free NHS health check I would have remained undiagnosed. I had no idea I was diabetic despite having a glucose of 18.6mmol/L and an HbA1c of10.4%.

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That was exactly the same in my case. I had no symptoms. I did feel a bit tired but put that down to my hectic & stressful job at the time.

Eurobuff said:

That was exactly the same in my case. I had no symptoms. I did feel a bit tired but put that down to my hectic & stressful job at the time.

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@Eurobuff

Wow, that is scary, I too recall the days of late summer 6 months prior to discovering I was T2D when I would sleep on a couch on sunny afternoon. Oh well at least we are in front of our issues now.. .

Steve50 said:

Good debate.

I think we agree diabetes knows no boundries. There is something to be said about culture though. Not so sure about the 'class' issue. (I did mention I have spent most of my life in Australia)

I do visit my daughter in New York and have noticed far fewer overweight people living there. I presume it has something to do with the logical street design and relatively flat landscape. Not to mention the complete nightmare of trying to drive around. Much quicker to walk depending on time of day or catch the Metro. All very good exercise walking and climbing stairs. Not to mention the whacking big park slap in the middle.

In England we too have our share of oversize portions and ridiculous sales of chocolate and sweets. I mentioned earlier in this blog about an experience I had at a newsagent outlet where I was offered cheap chocolate at the till. This was an outlet at a hospital.

However in England ( where I live) there is no particular reason to own a car. It is such a small place and very accessible by public transport. I know Brits like to have a bit of a moan about it but everything is relative. Try living somewhere where there are only one or two busses a day! So I don't own a car. This keeps me moving more getting too and from places.

Lifestyle changes can be made but they are often good reasons not to make them. It really comes down to priorities. If we eat at the table or in front of the TV. If we eat alone or in company. If we walk to the bus or train or drive. If we use large plates or small one. All choices we are capable of making.

Click to expand...

Steve50 said:

Hi MD

In the UK there is broad acknowledgement of the fact that a large rate of diabetes remains undiagnosed. I would not rely on the stats too much. They may suggest the French are slightly better at diagnosing.

Click to expand...

Very possibly. But my point is that the French for all their good eating habits are having a problem, no?

Living-by-the-beach said:

@Steve50

I live on the left coast her in the US and yes NYC has peculiarities that make one more active. Its very difficult and expensive to park a car in NY. That's the deal. There's trains & subways everywhere, its fully connected. So people don't have cars as much or rarely use them. So the locals get much more exercise natively.

OTOH In Los Angeles to this day has metro systems do not yet have a direct connect from the airport to Los Angeles downtown railway system! In LA realistically you can't live with out transport. Bikes do help enormously. We have buses now that will pick you up with your bike as you mount that onto a rack at the front of the bus. So per capita most New Yorkers get more exercise because of how their local systems work. On a Saturday night in the old days I'd regularly drive 20 miles for a pizza. That would be unheard of in the UK but it feels easy here as the motorways (= freeways) are well designed. FWIW In the 1960's the car companies bought out the railroad companies in Los Angeles and took out all the tracks. Now 50 years later the councils are struggling to put them back and its car gridlock to get to work.

The bigger problem in the US is the distances though. California (just one of 50 states) is 3 times the size of the UK so while grandiose plans have been drawn up for high-speed rail link between San Francisco & Los Angeles one can't get a high-speed link between LA and Chicago. That's a plane ride away. Its a big country over here.

In his latest video presentation in 2014 by Professor Taylor, (which is worth watching in its entirety) https://campus.recap.ncl.ac.uk/Panopto/Pages/Embed.aspx?id=c3bef819-e5f4-4a55-876f-0a23436988ed&v=1 at minute 46.10 shows a photo of skinny people walking across a street in front of C&A's in Newcastle back in the 1980s. Those folks no longer exist. I suspect that its the long term effects of HFCS has taken its toll on society.

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This is to Steve and "Living" - something weird happened to my last response and I can't be bothered to figure it out.

I live in NYC and I can assure you that we are getting as averagely fat as the rest of the country. Averagely meaning a lot of 20-40 lbs overweight, "ought to lose a few," etc. type obesity. I see central adiposity everywhere now. We didn't used to look like that when I was growing up. Not morbid obesity, but "you can get around type obesity." The amount of exercise an average NYer does simply doesn't make up for the amount of food available. Yes, of course, you see a lot of people running in the park, and exercising in gyms, but they are the sort to watch their weight in the first place.

There's a theory that weight is very socially conditioned. In France, Japan and Italy, women have lower BMIs than men because there is a great social stigma in a woman being plump. In certain neighborhoods in NYC it's the same. I believe the thinnest state is Colorado, where a significant portion of the pop. is sports mad. And I would say even there it's a 2-way street. You keep a good weight to exercise, and the exercise helps keep the pounds off.

Sorry if I hijacked this thread and made it America-centric.

Hi MissD

Not at all. We are discussing weight and culture. As a native of NY'er you would know better than I.

I have to say I don't see myself jogging round Central Park (or any park for that matter) - but that is probably more to do with being lazy (ans the understanding that a lot of exercise is not recommended on the ND). And while I did see people jogging - I didn't see 16 mil people jogging - and those who were jogging seemed to be in pretty good shape.

I did notice a lot of coffee and doughnut shops. We have plenty of fast food outlets and coffee shops too. Not so many doughnuts or bagels. When I was at the Great Lakes training base in Chicago - I remember the class took it in turns to bring a box of doughnuts in each morning.

But in spite of all this I did not notice that the population was any larger - but perhaps it is as LBB says - a mildly obese person looks slim in a crowd of really large people. Just as in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king!

Miss_Dior said:

This is to Steve and "Living" - something weird happened to my last response and I can't be bothered to figure it out.

I live in NYC and I can assure you that we are getting as averagely fat as the rest of the country. Averagely meaning a lot of 20-40 lbs overweight, "ought to lose a few," etc. type obesity. I see central adiposity everywhere now. We didn't used to look like that when I was growing up. Not morbid obesity, but "you can get around type obesity." The amount of exercise an average NYer does simply doesn't make up for the amount of food available. Yes, of course, you see a lot of people running in the park, and exercising in gyms, but they are the sort to watch their weight in the first place.

There's a theory that weight is very socially conditioned. In France, Japan and Italy, women have lower BMIs than men because there is a great social stigma in a woman being plump. In certain neighborhoods in NYC it's the same. I believe the thinnest state is Colorado, where a significant portion of the pop. is sports mad. And I would say even there it's a 2-way street. You keep a good weight to exercise, and the exercise helps keep the pounds off.

Sorry if I hijacked this thread and made it America-centric.

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@Miss_Dior

I worry too about hijacking a thread, yet, out west here in the Golden State the obesity is dreadful, & I was one of its sinners. I had a come to God experience when I got the peripheral neuropathy. That's an education = a feature of T2D for me at least. I think the food industry (think "Coca cola, Pepsi etc) all the soda companies & firms that have replaced pure sugar with HFCS have done us all in.. It took so long between adding 3 lbs of weight / annum to T2D that public health medicine isn't going to catch those ***holes. They caught the tobacco industry but I seriously doubt if the CEO of Kraft will see the inside of a court house fighting for his own hide.

I think there is a great deal to be gained from figuring out why we have an obesity epidemic for sure. It costs everyone more in health insurance. Even the NHS will have a higher cost because not everyone is going to figure out how to lose the weight they need to become un-diabetic.

As for my pre-prandial tonight after cycling 17 miles I got south of 100 @ 97 or in millimols I was 5.388 Yea! My graphing chart (thanks to @Andrew Colvin ) is heading the right way..

Day 51. Fasting blood 5.2. Away with work again so no weights.

5 days to go

Steve50 said:

Day 51. Fasting blood 5.2. Away with work again so no weights.

5 days to go

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You are almost there mate really happy for you.

Fell off the wagon yesterday...went to visit some friends holidaying nearby and went for a pub lunch. I succumbed to the Ploughmans taking the LCHF perspective, but as a one-off meal it was high calorie content and so for the first time since I started the ND I've actually gained half a pound compared to yesterday AND I'd just dipped below the 15st for the first time in YEARS - back to 15st and 1/4lb this morning. That should go again by tomorrow all being well. Having said that I did abstain from alcohol and the follow-up ice cream cornet that everyone else indulged in on the walk back through the Langdale valley.

On the flip side, I monitored my bloods and pre-lunch was 4.2 (quite a late lunch, so I was definitely hungry), 2 hours post was 6.8, 3 hours post 7.5 & 4 hours post was 5.3, so the doorstep of granary bread alongside ham, 3 superb cheeses, an apple & delicious chopped salad was managed well it seems.

My BG averages are creeping up marginally, but still in the 5's. I must remember that I've dropped from 6 tablets at breakfast to 1 1/2, so medication is not contributing as much. At least with self-monitoring I can judge the impacts of variations as the days progress.

RobOwen said:

Fell off the wagon yesterday...went to visit some friends holidaying nearby and went for a pub lunch. I succumbed to the Ploughmans taking the LCHF perspective, but as a one-off meal it was high calorie content and so for the first time since I started the ND I've actually gained half a pound compared to yesterday AND I'd just dipped below the 15st for the first time in YEARS - back to 15st and 1/4lb this morning. That should go again by tomorrow all being well. Having said that I did abstain from alcohol and the follow-up ice cream cornet that everyone else indulged in on the walk back through the Langdale valley.

On the flip side, I monitored my bloods and pre-lunch was 4.2 (quite a late lunch, so I was definitely hungry), 2 hours post was 6.8, 3 hours post 7.5 & 4 hours post was 5.3, so the doorstep of granary bread alongside ham, 3 superb cheeses, an apple & delicious chopped salad was managed well it seems.

My BG averages are creeping up marginally, but still in the 5's. I must remember that I've dropped from 6 tablets at breakfast to 1 1/2, so medication is not contributing as much. At least with self-monitoring I can judge the impacts of variations as the days progress.

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What's done is done onwards and forward from here mate.
I did have one friend get together to go to during nd but I took my shakes and some boiled veggies and had a sip or two of diet coke but that was it.

brettsza said:

What's done is done onwards and forward from here mate.

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Yep, that's the pragmatic outlook I'm going to adopt.

Never mind Rob - this is not a cause for real concern. I had one cheat along the way. The only thing it really did was stalled the weight loss for a little bit. Brave of you to fess up! but really happy to hear you are back on track. THe social stuff is the hardest

While looking for an internet link to your @Roytaylorjasonfunglover video I found a website cure diabetes dot com that was re-enforcing the precepts of Taylor and others..

Living-by-the-beach said:

[


@Roytaylorjasonfunglover

I'd like to watch that video but I feel cautious about downloading an executable. Do you have somewhere else on the web that you can share that video or point us to the source of the video? Doesn't the BBC still have the interview on their website?

BTW while looking for an internet link to your @Roytaylorjasonfunglover video I found a website curediabetes dot com that was re-enforcing the precepts of Taylor and others..

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05p5k5p

I found this link, but the programme is not longer available, and for all the people not in the UK it would have been impossible to watch it.

Living-by-the-beach said:

@Roytaylorjasonfunglover

I have to say I ended up with a bunch of viruses much like I was concerned about by trying to see that torrent. I gave you the benefit of the doubt yet I have now discovered 94 viruses on my computer. Other folks should be aware.

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Sorry I am such an idiot, I have deleted the link now, and will find another way to make the link available, I feel really bad for linking it should not have done that, could you remove it from your reply too?

Off to see GP today, plan to ask for his support to do ND, currently prescribed Metformin SR 2g and Glimepiride 4mg. 16-20kg to target weight. I have annual leave until Monday so I plan to start tomorrow and get the first few days under my belt. My work can be mentally draining but not physical, any advice re how to avoid the grumps in the early stages? I don't want to upset my colleagues, it's a small office!

HI Bewildered

This is tough, because from what everyone is saying in this thread, it seems to effects us differently and at different stages. But I can sum up what might happen.
Day 1 - not much - you may feel a bit hungry and empty (drink plenty of water)
Day 2 - 4 - you may experience slight headaches and dizziness - (drink plenty of water)
Day 5 - 7 - carb withdrawal....carvings and some 'discomfort' in general. (stay strong! Don't give in - drink plenty of water)
Day 8 - 56 - things begin to settle. Hunger goes away, but you may have the following;
itchy skin
a buttery taste on your tongue (it can go quite yellow) 'ketosis'
Cold hands and feet (very uncomfortable - I needed a hot water bottle)
Loose skin
A little short tempered (as with T2)
stomach cramps - trapped wind
Dizziness - if you over exert yourself
I had some moments when I could not think clearly - or remember things (embarrassing - I had to write things down)
Moments when you feel disappointed (i.e. high fasting blood scores - weight loss plateaus)
Boredom with basic foods
Genuine concern from others that you might be dying of cancer.
A lightning of the wallet as you have to buy new clothes
Fan mail from the charity shops

I'm sure others can add a few other symptoms and side effects to this list

What I have learned to overcome these;
Make sure you see your Dr or DN before you start - take the Prof T handout.
Keep monitoring your fasting bloods - and keep records of readings
Drink plenty of water (have I mentioned that????)
Add salt to you salad. (helps with 'transit")
Add olive oil to your salad (helps with gall stones)
Think about the timings of your meals and shakes. I delay my first till midday.
Stay warm
Think of strategies for social events (i.e. have the salad, drink sugarless drinks etc..)
Read loads about the ND and Carbs

Keep blogging and telling us how you are getting on. Share you success and and failures and concerns and thoughts with us.

This is a physical, social and mental trial - and not for the faint hearted - so surround yourself with support (people, knowledge, food choices etc...) and try and get support from those closest to you - who may start to show genuine concern and apply pressure on you to stop!!!

Consider life post ND - and what your diet and eating might be like. Your taste and pallet will change so you will have chance to start again with a clean slate. Things will taste different and feel different inside you. Your mindset towards food will be refreshed.

Bewildered wrote "My work can be mentally draining but not physical, any advice re how to avoid the grumps in the early stages? I don't want to upset my colleagues, it's a small office!" I would explain to them what you are doing and why and tell them that one of the effects of the lack of food can being grumpy and short tempered so that they know what to expect. When you are ask if they will tell you politely and then force yourself to apologise even if your mood doesn't want you to!