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Newcastle Diet - to follow it and do shakes and veg, or deviate?

Brunneria said:
Yup,

And if your Trigs are over 1, then it may be worth asking for an ALT test.
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Funnily enough when I was diagnosed with type2 my alt was at such a level the gp pulled me aside to ask, whispering, how much I was drinking. When I told him nothing he said "but you have alcoholic fatty liver"
 
trotskyite said:
Funnily enough when I was diagnosed with type2 my alt was at such a level the gp pulled me aside to ask, whispering, how much I was drinking. When I told him nothing he said "but you have alcoholic fatty liver"
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They should change the name to carboholic fatty liver
 
I've been meaning to say too, by the way, that one thing that doing a VLCD/LCD/D-ND (ie go hungry for two months! To go some way to defat my liver and my pancreas) did for me is to make me be super aware of the role of food in my life (well - that was more of a reminder of how much I love good food), my natural inclinations with food and appetite, and more aware of food as fuel - certainly in terms of the respect for it powering my body and hence my life.

For instance, I am very aware now, because of having to pace the 800-1000 calories out over the day - what part of the day I prefer to have the most food (for me it is the mornings - if I have to forgo food in any time period it will be the evenings and night). So now I am eating normally I know I prefer and am 'powered' by food best if I have two decent meals in the morning - ie breakfast and an early lunch - and can have a small dinner easier than the other way round. (People must vary enormously in this way I think.) I did not know that so clearly before doing the D-ND.

I know I think of nuts as powerhouses, as I do eggs, cheese, and avocados - and appreciate being able to eat them whenever I want. (Too high calorie count on a VLCD!) Salads and vegetable dishes I see as staples that provide an enormous amount of diabetes-fighting nutrition that won't affect my liver and pancreas but well. I am very grateful for food that doesn't affect my BG but well.

This extra food awareness, and nutrition awareness (greater even than what being diagnosed as diabetic afforded me), has been a godsend in my life. I can pace my meals and what kind of food I eat to meet my needs and lifestyle much better than before. All that calorie counting (which I hated, really) gave me extra insight into the wonders of vitamins and minerals (because the calorie counting websites also had a nutrition breakdown of the food as well - I'd often have a wee read while I was there as it were) and insight into the goodness wholefoods bring. Which helps, as I have to cook so much more now, being healthy post-diagnosis, and now post the D-ND. I have come to truly respect and appreciate herbs and spices so much more now that I have some knowledge and control of them too! Even more than before. (Thank goodness cooking wholefoods gets easier, and fitting cooking sessions into one's life easier too.)

I must say - I never portion control. I would hate to live like that, and I don't count calories (oh god no!), but I do like the mindfulness, if you like, that that time (two months is a really long time, lest folk need reminding) of never eating enough (the agony!) gave me, for glorious food, and being able to be full. I am quite sure that there is some satiety/fullness control process (as I have read re leptin and incretins and so on in our digestion) going on that 'corrects' itself after radical changes from a 'pro-diabetic diet ' to eating wholefoods (prodiabetic for me means eating wheat and grain products, and too much sugar in processed food, trans fats and additives like I was before going diabetic approved then modified paleo as I am now). I have a hearty appetite (always have) but now I don't have a wheat belly, to coin William Davis's phrase, and my HBAIc has come down to reflect a healthier level. Or, as others say on the forum - going low carb. And I still have a hearty appetite, but I believe I feed that appetite much better now in terms of when, and what. (Better meaning healthier, for me as someone with blood glucose and insulin problems).

I say this, as I know when one is on the ND, one is very aware of wondering what life will be like with food after one is back eating normally - whatever normally is for those on the diet! (And our lives and our diets are so very varied.) (As is our food environments if I can use that phrase.) I am one and a half months after now, and the above is what I can say is how having being on that Deviated Newcastle Diet seems to have affected me deeply.
 
@AloeSvea - which calorie/nutrition websites did you use, out of interest?

I know what you mean in almost all of your post - LCHF Primal has had the same effect for me. Now I seem to have found a groove with intermittent fasting and am quite amazed by how well it suits me in many different ways. Like you, I've discovered I'm a morning eater - I couldn't imagine not eating breakfast and eat my main meal any time between 11.30 and 3.00 depending on appetite, then quite happily fast without thinking till the next day. It's so liberating! If I want a snack in the late afternoon, I'll have one, but for the most part I don't even think about it. And I'm sleeping heaps better as well.
 
My goodness, I would love to be like that! (Big meals early, forget about food late).

But I'm the other way around. I could drop breakfast completely (except that would cause a hypo), and I get hungrier as the day continues, wanting a main meal in the evening.

I wonder if it is an insulin resistance thing? Presumably yours has dropped or disappeared?
While my insulin resistance means that the more I am active during the day, the more my muscles need fuel, and the more I crave food (because the insulin resistance is preventing the fuel from getting where it needs to go.)
Have you seen @jack's video on the insulin resistant mice?
 
Who were your questions for, @Brunneria? I'll answer anyway

Can't recall whether I've seen Jack's video or not but one of the puzzles to me is how to know if you're insulin resistant or not? I've watched so many in the past few years they tend to blur together unless it's really standout information.

I assume I'm still insulin resistant because my BG has never fully normalised and despite losing nearly 20% of my starting weight, I still have the apple shape and my waist measurement is still above the recommended. Since starting this IF regime (53 days now), I've lost weight and lowered carbs, bringing much better fasting BG levels and especially good pre-prandial levels. I haven't had any carb challenges to test whether my response to them has improved and I'm not really keen to try that. Short of an insulin clamp, is there anything definitive to let you know if your insulin sensitivity has improved? It's a question that's always confused me.
 
I would think (for most) your fasting bg is a good indicator of insulin resistance as it rises due to the inability of the liver to "see" insulin and to limit producing glucose. More info here:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hep.20920/pdf
CONCISE REVIEW IN MECHANISMS OF DISEASE Insulin Resistance: A Metabolic Pathway to Chronic Liver Disease
 
Thanks - it was a general query, but your input is brill.

No, I have no definitive way of gauging my insulin resistance. But I have a number of personal, subjective ways of doing it.

Level of lowest readings is one. I have a 'lowest comfortable reading before I start feeling iffy'. It varies a bit, going higher with increased IR, and lower with decreased IR. (My dawn phenomenon is silly high, due to hormone stuff, so that is no guide. It needs to be my lowest reading of the day, pre-dinner).

Another is apathy - muscle apathy. I'm lucky that exercise reduces my insulin resistance. But it is an experience I go through every time I take the dogs for a walk. It starts with max insulin resistance, which is a kind of heavy limbed almost-ache in my big muscles. Stairs, hills, fast movement, are all reluctant, heavy and it is an effort to overcome the inertia. By the time I have walked a mile or so, everything is easier, the inertia has disappeared. I no longer have to brace for stairs and hills. This will last for a few hours until the IR re asserts itself. (This isn't the same as 'warming up'. I used to swim for the school, do gymnastics and yoga, so I'm very familiar with stiff cold muscles v warmed up ones, and this is different.)

The muscle apathy/leaden limb feeling of IR also rises, directly in proportion to my carb intake. After a meal of say 30+g carbs I might avoid getting up to make a cuppa - for hours. The effort of heaving myself to my feet and slogging through to the kitchen is worse than sitting there thirsty. It's like wearing an inertia suit. This isn't the sleepiness of high BG. It is a sensation of being weighed down.

This is one of the reasons I love ketosis so much. The IR experience reduces dramatically. I find myself pottering. I'll wander into the kitchen to boil the kettle, then 15 mins later realise I never fished the teabag out, because I got distracted wiping out the fridge, or tidying a cupboard. Or dead heading a pot plant. Enough energy No sloth, apathy or sluggishness. It's marvellous. I wonder if this is how normal people feel?

Of course, I'm probably an extreme case. I have PCOS, prolactinoma of the pituitary gland, am obese, and have a sedentary office job. Plus hereditary type 2 stuff going on. All of which increase IR. I'm also 15 yrs on medication (cabergoline) which is well known to increase IR and significantly increases the chance (!) of developing T2. No fatty liver, either, so may be pumping out a fair amount of insulin at my second insulin response stage. I probably have more insulin resistance than most...

As a result, I can feel myself slipping in and out of ketosis like slipping in and out of a swimming pool.
 
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I reckon both of us can answer no worries Indy! I must still be insulin resistant too. Can't eat sweetcorn or figs without my BG going sky-high. Nearest and dearests say theirs probably goes sky high too, with stress and sweeties, but I doubt it. Good for them though! I'm just grateful for a hopeful big reduction in 'complications'. (Complications? Blindness and footlessness? Strokes? Kidney dialysis? Hmm. I'm ok for calling it 'horrors' if you guys don't mind me calling them that!) Sad to still, always probably have to pass up feijoa cake, coconut cake, and Russian fudge, but you know - them's the breaks.

As for food and when and how much - I actually do think it's all just part of the normal range of human variation. I am pleased to know myself better now, is all. That way I can eat up large with cheese, sauerkraut and nuts and fruit in the morning, along with a hot brunch - and eat assured that I won't be going - bananas? nutty? crazy? with overeating.And refatting that liver and prancreas. I think a lot of us T2Diabetics, and post a VLCD, worry a lot about and fear overeating and refatting? I know I did. Not so worried now I seem to be comfortable in a pattern. (My satiety thingies operating, hopefully.) It sounds like you are too Indy. (Everyone craves food! It's called being alive! Are you sure your hunger is atypical? I wonder...)
 

Righto. I was wondering if I was ever going to be asked which sites I was using for calorie counting! I would plug in the food, and in what form, press enter, and click on whatever site, pretty much, which came up first! But I did notice I preferred some sites than others. Haven't visited them since, just the once after to check that I wasn't going bananas with the calories after the semi-starvation diet (I wasn't.)

Bearing in mind the wonderful 'diet doctor''s 'why calorie counters are confused', 'a calorie is not a calorie', and huffingtonpost 'Still Believe a calorie is a calorie' -

Looking through my favourites/reading list:
Nutritiondata.self.com
ichange.com

And just the common garden variety online calorie counters -

calorieking.com
fatsecret.com
caloriecount.com

There is another one I really liked but I have no memory of it now! And I must admit, this makes me very happy. (Have I said I hated being hungry all the time? And I hated counting calories?! .)
 
June update: I became alarmed watching my fasting blood glucose (FBG) rise over the last month from May to June - it’s gone from 5%s to 6s i.e. 90-110 mg/dL, to mid to high 6s - 115-125, and then in one week I had a 7.6, or 138 mg/dL reading, and 8.3-8.6 a couple of times (150-155 mg/dL) ((Yeah - bummer indeed!). High FBGs mean higher daytime BGs, and no more lower readings that reflected more efficient dealing of my BG as in earlier in the year. Now I see in my mind’s eye my liver pumping out glucose in the wee hours, misreading the glucose level already in my blood (already too high in other words) - the dreaded dawn phenomenon when there is a misfiring/misreading in my liver (or so it looks at any rate).

Then a couple of weeks ago I got my latest HBAIC and was very disappointed to see it has risen up to 44, again. A 4 point rise in two months, after leaving home on an extended trip.Egad. And my first rise after 10 or so months of lowering HBA1Cs.

I’m still away from home so managed to get to a scales (in-store! Don’t ask!) (OK, it involved standing on tippy toes to get all my weight on the scales whilst still in packaging - what a hoot.) Anyway, as I had suspected, I had indeed gone up in weight - from 66kg post deviated-newcastle-diet, for a few months, to 69-70kg now.

I worked like a starving dog to get my liver and pancreas functioning better by doing the DND (documented in here and other various threads in the forum) for a couple of months earlier in the year. A month later with an HBAIc of 40 in April, with tight BG control, leapt off on a plane on a transglobal flight, ate the on-flight food, got an infection somewheres halfway that took over a month to go away, had a couple of days of eating wonderful middle eastern and Indian restaurant food in the middle east (no opportunity to be in control of my food ingredients as I have been doing but gee the food was good) (I just love middle-eastern and Indian food), experienced a hormonal muck up as a middle aged woman, caused by circadian rhythm changes care of transglobal travel (I won’t go into the details, but trust me on this one), then been on a motorhome trip for a month (no regular resistance exercising, no long walks, no multiple flights of stairs, nor mild but regular weight lifting as I had been doing), lots of friends and family which was wonderful but stressful at times (the way that traffic, family relations and even friendship can be) (stress definitely affects my BG). More bread, even though still very little but more than none, even the odd slice of cake, and my once a year McDonalds breakfast treat (post-diagnosis) to add to the long list. Still eating healthy homemade food most of the time, but way more eating out and eating at others’ tables than I had done in the previous 8 or 9 months post-diagnosis. My metabolism, for whichever reason from above, couldn’t take it, it seems. Sigh.

And it would seem, as I said coming back from the in-store weighing - Prof Taylor would be pleased! As this chapter in my own diabetes journey is a confirmation of Prof Taylor’s personal fat threshold theory - and mine seems to be borderline at a bmi of 22 (when my HBAIc was at 40 - the highest end of long-term normal blood glucose), and gluconeogenesis provoking/fatty livered at 24.5 (as expressed in FBGs in the 7%s and 8%s). Groan.

I am imagining very damaged mitochondria cells (after reading Dr Barnard’s description and sighting the pic of the dear little things in Dr Neal Barnard’s program for reversing diabetes ), I am imagining a liver massively misreading or not getting signals about my BG levels, still. My triglycerides are fine I believe - sitting at 1. Thank goodness for that.

Coming to terms with my fragile health based on a tight control that is not constitutional, it would seem. VERY dependent on tight control on my diet and exercise. My goal then is to get down to 66kg again, and check my FBG, and maybe even lower it so I have a sickness and travel buffer, ie so I can gain a couple of kilos without a big jump in blood cell glycation. (Hey! What a drag it is to be diabetic! :-(.) So I am ultimately going for 62-65 kg I guess.

Am targeting my liver health, and getting my muscle cells firing up again, and began the 14/10-16/8 intermittent fasting regime (and starting a new thread for that), taking bitter melon, for liver support, and steeping up resistance exercise and reinstating the long walks. (I am out of the motorhome at least!) I am also eating fibre - glucamannan in the mornings so I can stretch the fasting period to 15 hours without biting my poor partner’s head off. (When hunger combines with fatigue - poor man!) (I binge watched youtube last night.) (Yeah - I know - diabetics on the decline should not lose sleep!) And I must change my forum profile stats again - groan. But all part of the journey I guess! Writes Aloe, still groaning.... still sighing (and not in a good way). Oh well!
 

I feel for you, I just recently 2 weeks ago got my HbA1c and I came in at 6.1%. Same as 8 months ago. I had been training like an an Olympic athlete (or at least that's what it felt like to me) & I'd lost 10lbs in the 8 weeks too to a loss of 60lbs off my frame! I saw my doctor today and he was full of fun and joy also.. I 'll save that for later..

I know its tough..
 
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It is tough indeed! Diabetes is a beep.

I'm looking forward to reading the joy! (And in the meantime... there is always the beach!)
 
Hello all, great thread. I'm just about to start doing the ND but with food not shakes.
I've found some low carb bread online and am wondering if it would be allowable on the diet even though no bread was stipulated?

The nutritional information is; per 29g serving - one slice (may be less): 57 kCal, Fat 1.5g of which saturates 0.2g, Carbohydrates 3.04g of which sugars 0.07g, Fibre 1.83g, Protein 5g, Salt 0.11g.

The ingredients are: Wheat flour, wheat gluten, wheat bran, oat bran, soya flour, pea protein, vegetable oil, salt, bread improver (emuslifier E472(e),flour improvers (E300, 920), calcium propionate.

Lowcarbmegastore provide the bread.

Thanks in advance
 
Also three years old so you may not get any replies (although most of the contributors are still here).
You could try and post a new post in the Low Cal diet area and you may get a better response?
 
Hi @pottsywebber. Ah yes, the passage of time! I like very much in that passage of time the Newcastle Diet has been accepted as a T2D treatment method, and various versions and so on are, well, standard! This can only be a good thing. It was very pleasing to have a wee glance at this thread again.

Yes, lots of contributors/posters in the Low Calorie section, and you will enjoy sharing in there I am sure, and get the support that is so wonderful.

The big thing about the ND with food that I take away with me to this day, is you think 'tiny'! You can eat any type of food that takes your fancy, but in order to be in the minimal caloric window, as in semi-starvation, the serving needs to be teeny tiny. I remember having roast, and it being doll size. I am pretty sure I laughed. But one slice you say? Of bread? OK! A low-cal bread indeed.

I think that was one of the longest two months I have ever lived. And whenever I talk about doing it again my partner ducks his head and groans, lol. But I feel hunger very keenly. And for me, that does not diminish. and calorie counting everything you eat and drink - yikes! (But I do take some of that information with me about the energy content of food with me to this day, which has been useful.)

But my HBA1c dropped from 49 to 40 when I maintained the weight loss of, using waist measurement which is how I think it is determined for me. When my waist size rose to somewhere in the middle of pre ND and immediate post ND, so did my HBA1c, and has remained in that range since. Prof Taylor counts dropping from diabetic levels to prediabetic levels as a success, and I get his point.

I have since identified myself as a severe insulin resistant type two, of which about 15% of type two's are. Most are the mild obesity and age related diabetics - 60% of diabetics according to Swedish researchers. My own thoughts is that if you are in the 60% bracket your chances of remission/reversal to non diabetic BG levels and remaining there is much greater.

And I do think about doing it again to see if I can lose that stubborn few cm around my waist, and keep it off with keto/lchf.

I have tried everything else instead! As in period of time no-food fasting as well as intermittent fasting, and for me it has not had the kind of results I got from that two months semi starving regime of the ND with food. (And that was before I became a low carber.) I have no idea why that would be the case, scientifically speaking. But there it is.

But when I discuss doing it again, with my partner, a mournful air is there for sure. (At least he isn't running out of the room! .)

My best wishes to you on your ND journey!
 
pottsywebber said:
The ingredients are: Wheat flour, wheat gluten, wheat bran, oat bran, soya flour, pea protein, vegetable oil, salt, bread improver (emuslifier E472(e),flour improvers (E300, 920), calcium propionate.
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I think you'd be better off eating regular bread. However, it probably doesn't matter too much what you eat (within reason) as long as you keep to 800 calories per day.
 
Re bread, I would even go as far to say - bake your own bread! That way you are in control of the ingredients and don't get any c*** in it that you don't need. Better for your new gut biome. Even better still - make it lower carb by baking bread with almond flour. Go all out! And yeah, then weigh it and figure out the calorie count. I do remember weighing a lot of stuff during the real food very low calorie diet...
 
TY all, you've put my mind at ease and now I won't feel so guilty if I munch on a slice of bread or 2!

I saw a show on telly the other day about the ND and there was mention of ketosis, and, having done Atkins before, to reach this state, bread was absolutely restricted. So I wasn't sure if there is some ingredient in bread even though it can be low cal, that could knock one out of the 'fat burning state'.

My first day yesterday was tough because I forgot that my worst time for hunger is in the evening and going to sleep hungry is so tough. I've decided to not start eating until noon and have my last meal at 9ish.

Thanks again for your advice all, I'll head on over to that other thread you recommended!
 
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