• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Not overweight but eating foods like on a diet

B

bivry29

Member
Messages
7
I'm 22, 6ft and weigh 70kg. I've been diabetic for over 12 years now. I get it, we diabetics need to eat healthily to keep our blood sugars in check, which usually means diet versions of sweet foods and low fat versions of savoury foods. Is anyone else sick of eating like they're on a diet to lose weight? I mean usually the processed foods that are within our nutritional range are marketed to those trying to lose weight and at a BMI of 20.5, I don't want to! Conversely, if I wanted to eat highly calorific foods, there's a greater chance of having high blood sugar levels which also can induce weight loss by process of body fat and even protein catabolism. Any suggestions in the form of approaches to deal with this and avoid the stress? Ways to eat well and getting enough calories? Thanks
 
Difficult to advise as I don't eat a lot of processed foods or diet versions of sweet food, perhaps it could be worth your while asking to see a dietitian at your next diabetes check-up who will analyse your diet and advise accordingly.

Nigel
 
High calorie foods dont always mean high sugar and can be eaten by DBs I am a skinny type 2 and I eat lots of calories eg cheese ,cream ,nuts, but I dont eat many high carb foods like bread rice and pasta .Good idea to ask for a dieticians advice.
CAROL
 
If you are insulin dependant then surely it's just a matter of gradually increasing the amount of carbs and calories that you eat and adjusting your insulin to match?

I have the opposite problem, I eat extremely healthily and I'm constantly watching what I eat (I hate saying Im on a diet), but I just don't seem to lose weight!! I know this is because I love carbs, and I eat too many! but my BG is fine because I carb count.

Foods such as brown pasta and rice, wholegrain bread and potatoes are calorie and carb rich but low fat, having a higher portion of these each meal will increase your calories but not impact on your health or heart. And whilst it is recommended that lower fat food is better for us, I am not sure this is just a diabetic 'us' but everyone. The only way high fat foods affect diabetes is changing the absorbtion rate of carbs, so fat is fine, as long as it's within the recommended 70g limits, and not full of saturates. So enjoy cheese, eggs, nuts, crackers etc as part of your varied diet.
 
wendy_doncaster said:
And whilst it is recommended that lower fat food is better for us, I am not sure this is just a diabetic 'us' but everyone. The only way high fat foods affect diabetes is changing the absorbtion rate of carbs, so fat is fine, as long as it's within the recommended 70g limits, and not full of saturates. So enjoy cheese, eggs, nuts, crackers etc as part of your varied diet.
Click to expand...

You've got some valid points there Wendy. I am insulin dependent and I could just up the dose of bolus insulin to allow myself to eat more carbs, I'm just wary of doing so as my day to day life isn't so consistent which makes it more difficult to judge the amount to take each time.I think the options for high calorie foods where the calories are mostly unsaturated fats and carbs aren't as obvious as the sugary and animal fatty ones that tend to be promoted the most in supermarkets. I guess what I'm ultimately looking for is something calorie dense so that I don't have to eat a bucket of pasta to reach my calorie intake target. It's all very pedantic haha but these forums are here for a reason :)
 
I'm a Type 2 so apologise for butting in on this one, but I'm an unrepentant protein and fat eater, and I'm both thriving and losing weight on it!

The human race developed on a diet of free-range organic animal products, certainly here in the northern hemisphere over the last 100,000 years, and carbohydrate was not the most important, nor the largest, part of our diet.

Eat seasonally available food, avoid highly processed things, and don't be afraid of good quality meat, fish and fat in your diet. Calorie dense = fat; (9 kcal per gram). Protein and carb - 4 kcal per gram.

I know not everyone agrees with me on this, and I don't want to get into an argument - we are all entitled to our opinions - but just give it a bit of thought. I think we've been brainwashed over the last 4 decades - I know I was. Beef fat is only 45% saturated; pig fat is 39% saturated. (Figures from the USA's National Nutritional Database - official government site.)

The way "they" tell it, it's all 100% saturated :shock:

Viv 8) (with the best of intentions! :lol: )
 
Hi Viv,

Could you inform us about any physical activity you are/may be doing alongside the food you eat? It will help to justify you're stated unrepentant intake of proteins and fats. Secondly, could you provide a source of information on how carbohydrates didn't form the basis of the diet in the northern hemisphere because I can't help but feel like that's not really the truth, perhaps for the wealthier populations, royals etc but I'd imagine that wheat and potatoes were the biggest sources of energy for the working classes. This feels like a history lesson, please note that these are all derived from my overall knowledge, I may be wrong!

Surely, as diabetics, we can't apply government recommended levels of fat intake to ourselves. This is based on studies in the last year that have shown that diabetics have thicker and stiffer arteries compared to the normal population. Bear in mind they normalised the results for age, race and levels of lipids. It is the consistently elevated levels of blood glucose that contribute to the formation of atherosclerosis.

My logic is if our blood glucose levels are on average above the normal average, we need to not only control our blood glucose but other factors that contribute to heart disease such as lipid levels and this can be controlled with exercise and eating fat at quantities below the normal recommendation. We should also note that there are many, many factors that influence the pathways between fat consumption and fat in our systems!

I'm going to look into foods with 'good' fats of which there are plenty of but I won't go teetotal on steaks either!
 
Oh dear! You've pushed a number of buttons, but I'll try to be brief!

First - I'm a professional archaeologist, now semi-retired, with a particular interest in prehistory - which is the period of human development I was talking about, from about 100,000 years ago to the development of agriculture about 7000 years ago in the Near East (the Neolithic period). Before then we were hunter-gatherers, and would have gathered grains as we gathered other foodstuffs, seasonally when they were available. These were the very meagre forerunners of our present cereal crops - more like glorified grass seeds. Obviously greens would be available in the spring & summer, fruit, nuts etc in the autumn, but preservation and storage was difficult, and much of the food that got them over the long glacial-period winters would have been what they could hunt.

There is evidence from more recent hunter-gatherer societies that fatter animals were targeted in the hunt. Fat was valued. Oh, and hunter-gatherers behave like other predators eg lions - lots of lying around conserving energy, with bursts of high-level activity when required.

Potatoes didn't enter the western european diet until the 17th century as a staple food - less than 500 years ago. By that time, yes - you could say that the peasantry lived on bread, potatoes and beer, certainly in towns. I could expand on that - but I'm really talking about how long we've been eating meat and animal fat as opposed to basing our diet on carbohydrates. We haven't, in evolutionary terms, really had time to adapt to a high-carb diet. Some of us may have adapted; others get diabetes!

Second - I am not a scientist, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason diabetics are considered to be more susceptible to heart disease etc is because the studies have looked at diabetics over the last 4 decades , when the tools and drugs for good blood sugar control were not available, or were not as good as they are now. In fact, the studies were done on a population of what would now be considered badly controlled diabetics - who (particularly the Type 2s)were following a lifestyle that would probably account for heart disease in anyone! They were encouraged to base their meals around carbohydrates.

I don't see why a well-controlled diabetic need have any higher risk of heart disease than anyone else - and if I'm wrong, you may say so on my tombstone :wink:

An extract from your post says:

It is the consistently elevated levels of blood glucose that contribute to the formation of atherosclerosis.
Click to expand...
(my italics)

and I would completely agree with that! because elevated levels of blood glucose come from being unable properly to metabolize the carbohydrate in one's diet. The implication of the quote is that if we can keep our BGs low, our arteries won't thicken.

The theory I am working to, as a Type 2 diabetic, is that as I am unable to process carbohydrate properly, the best thing to do is to eat less of it. So I'm eating low-carb and as naturally as possible (Atkins, in fact), which I had done in my non-diabetic days, but sadly fell off it and ended where I am now.

On my first go at Atkins I was able to exercise, and was in fact walking at least 3 miles every day. I lost 5 stone in 16 months, have never felt better in my life, and had an excellent lipid profile with triglycerides at 0.65. That's all to do again now, and sadly I can't exercise much because I have finally (after progressing over 25 years) been diagnosed with lumbar spinal stenosis, which has lead to difficulty in walking more than 100m. I'm waiting now to see if it can be operated on; if not I'll have to work out an exercise programme by other means.

This time around I've lost 3.5 stone on the diet in roughly the same period. I put the slower loss down to less exercise and more insulin resistance. Also to me being less able to stay off the red wine :oops: :lol: . However, the fat is still going. My next HbA1c is on 19th September, so I'll report weight loss, HbA1c, lipid profile etc when those results are back - and I'll be honest!

To finish - I will admit that what I have written may apply to Type 2s rather than Type 1s. After all, you have to run your BGs higher than we do in order to avoid hypos, so Type 1 may be more susceptible to artherosclerosis. I just think that a well-controlled Type 2 is not necessarily susceptible to these diseases, and that we can control our BGs very well with a lower carb, higher fat/protein diet.

Dr Atkins does say decrease the fat as you increase the carbs; the fat/carb combination does the damage.

Hope I haven't missed anything!

Viv 8)
 
bivry29 said:
I'm 22, 6ft and weigh 70kg. I've been diabetic for over 12 years now. I get it, we diabetics need to eat healthily to keep our blood sugars in check, which usually means diet versions of sweet foods and low fat versions of savoury foods. Is anyone else sick of eating like they're on a diet to lose weight? I mean usually the processed foods that are within our nutritional range are marketed to those trying to lose weight and at a BMI of 20.5, I don't want to! Conversely, if I wanted to eat highly calorific foods, there's a greater chance of having high blood sugar levels which also can induce weight loss by process of body fat and even protein catabolism. Any suggestions in the form of approaches to deal with this and avoid the stress? Ways to eat well and getting enough calories? Thanks
Click to expand...

I eat a perfectly normal healthy diet.

Yes fizzy drinks (when I have them) are of cause the diet versions.. But everything else is bog standard... I don't even do the low fat, my milk, cheese ect are all normal fat versions..

The trick is to keep the carb content moderate and if you want a larger serving bulk out the meal with veg and/or meat (protien) and you need to know how foods react to you so that you can adjust insulin to match your needs...
 
At at BMI of 20, you're within normal limits , you're also young. Many people tend to put on a bit of weight as they grow older, I wouldn't try to do it intentionally!
Theres a lot in Vivs post that I disagree with but I don't think that this is the right thread to discuss it except for one thing. You are right to be careful about keeping a good lipid profile and as well controlled glucose levels as possible.
Studies on T1 children have unfortunately shown that the process starts early. http://care.diabetesjournals.org/conten ... l.pdf+html

As Jopar says we can eat a normal healthy diet, we don't need to eat special diet foods, just a good balance of unprocessed natural ones .
I think that one of the problems is that there are an awful lot of temptations to eat an non healthy foods . Walking down any British high street or supermarket there are lots of temptations. It's also perfectly obvious that many others are eating lots of calorie dense (high fat and carb) industrially produced foods Often these foods are deliberately designed to be highly palatable with flavour additives, high salt, sugar, fat content an easily assimilated texture etc . They 'make you' come back for more. It maybe that if you see your peers eating them you feel somewhat deprived. Keeping away from them though would be better for them also.

If you want to put on some bulk , you don't want that bulk to be fat.
If you eat fat it is stored as fat (and if you don't use that as fuel it accumulates)
People who are really underweight are often advised to eat more fat, indeed my elderly mother, who wasn''t eating adequately was prescribed a horrible thick emulsion to drink. She hated it but it worked.
It is also true that if you eat more carbohydrate than you use, the excess may be stored as fat.(but it takes energy to do that so it is not an efficient way in normal weight people)
If you eat excess protein your liver may convert some to glucose but otherwise you will excrete it.

I think it's better to try to put on muscle rather than fat . To do that, I would suggest that you need to use your muscles and eat a healthy diet to give you the additional fuel needed for that exercise.
 
Hi All
Interesting post Viv, Firstly Bivry I was told by my Endocrinologist recently that we Type 1 Diabetics are at no higher risk for heart disease than an other member of the general populous if we have good Glucose control :D so that's good news. My last risk for CHD on my test results was 2.5% so I,m happy with that considering my Genetic background.....and this is Living along the lines of the Atkins principles.

I would like to say this is based on my own experiences and I do realise HOWEVER someone reaches good control and a good balance in their lives is the most important thing and not for me or anyone to judge, but there are more way's than one to skin a cat or so the saying goes :wink:

I have Familial Hypercholesterolemia, I have to see a Matabolist aswell as an Enod , my whole Metabolism is out of whack . I had Choloesterol of 13 was 5 stone overweight and heading towards cardiac city, there is a lot of heart disease at a young age in my family.
I adopted the Atkins Diet shed the weight very easily ,took up running got fit and turned my health around . I too thought long and hard about the core principles behind the diet and had tried a few other to no avail but the biggest difference to me on living by the Atkins principles was my Labs really started to improve . My Cholesterol on the higher fat, though I never went crazy mad on this side was amazing even on the same amount of Statins.
I was told I could never lower mine naturally even on a diet of lettuce, but the Atkins diet brought them within normal ranges.Also my BG was a lot easier to control on a LOT LESS insulin .
There was even the odd time when I was in training at certain times of the month when for a few days I could go insulin free, I don't produce any. This was on the strict stage and I would not want to live like this but interesting anyway.
I have just gone back to the Atkins diet not for weight loss and I'm not in the strict stage but I was having carbs about 150/200grams a day from slow release carbs , and was finding my diet was more restricted eating a carb inclusive diet because it was these that caused the peaks and troughs in my Glucose control sonI tried to stay with carb foods that I found predictable to work with..it really got restricted. Even with carb counting.
On the DAFNE you are fought to count carbs , very few veg , a few fruits are in the book. well it brought me back to my Atkins way of thinking and I have decided to eliminate the carbs except from fruit ,veg ,berries ,nuts ect out of my diet and go back to when I can honestly say I felt and looked my healthiest and was fullest and had the best BG control and best blood fats without as much strong medication.
I've been on the Diet, and believe me it is not diet, just eating straight healthy natural foods really, I'm eating a lot more than I was ,a lot more varied and my meter readings have stayed the most stable on a lot less insulin than they have been for ages....and I have put on 3 lbs which I needed to ,which is due to being able to eat more without the fear os a spike and having to correct ,then going low later and correcting with carbs ,then a spike....oh the roller coaster, I'm glad to be off it and am feeling great at the moment.
I realise this is not for everyone and as I said earlier it is horses for courses where diet, exercise and individual Diabetes control achieved , but it has worked for me in the past and has been a breath of fresh air for me again with my control now. so I've tried both sides of the fence and know which one seems to work the best for me.
Sorry for the long ramble, just going back to your post Viv . There has been a few studies done and Men are better for bursts of speed ,they have good stamina for this . They have found that women are better at endurance sport's ,good for long distance .
This goes back to the Hunter Gather days ,when early Man existed like this and Men would hunt and needed the short burst of speed , women would cover miles in a day gathering seeds ,nuts berries .
it is how we have evolved : :wink: Women invented farming because they thought stuff this for a game of soldiers . I'm going to plants some of these swines, save on the old skin on my feet :lol:
:lol:
so we are to blame :lol:
 
sorry for typo's ect on above post, I'm on my iPad and it does not scroll back up for corrections..but you get the gist :lol:
 
Good post, Fallenstar! My feelings exactly on Atkins - but I know it doesn't suit everyone, wouldn't wish to impose it, and know that people can achieve good results on other lifestyles. We are all different!

Women invented farming may well be right, I doubt we'll ever know. Once we were settled and growing crops, we lived in fixed settlements, and hunted out the country around us, thereby making the crops, particularly grains, more important in our diet.

Different areas had different economies. Where I live, livestock (sheep and cattle) have always been the chief "crop" because wheat doesn't grow well. Until the railways came, the staple bread was a form of oatcake known as "havercake".

I always like to hear your point of view, Phoenix, because I respect your informed opinions. You know a lot more than I do about this disease, and about nutrition. I did make a very silly statement in one post about adapting to carbohydrates:

Some of us may have adapted; others get diabetes!
Click to expand...

which I apologise for. :oops:

Viv 8)
 
I actually find that the Atkins style diet a bit flawed, as they are promoted based on prehistoric man's hunter/gather assuming that this man ate very limited carbs and high amounts of protien/fats..

Yes prehistoric man would have had a more limited amount of carbs and meat, but what protions were involved, if he ate meat then he had to catch it first so was the percentage more based on carbs that he could find such as verious roots, fruitsm fungi etc..

But the meat they would have eaten would have been very lean unlike modern meats we have today, as the animals it was killing would be in the same pardicament, foraging for it's foods.. Don't forget our animals cows, chickens etc all been genetically altered over the years to provide more meat on one animal and increased fats which helps to produce a much more tender meat..

I see this with the rabbits I feed my dogs, they are wild rabbits shot by a local farming as pests (you be surprised how much damage wild rabbits do to crops) they are much more lean and the take a lot longer to cook to tenderise the meat than a Rabbit that's been perphaply farmed for the table!

The problem with the modern diet, is it's abundance and it's highly processed combination of fat and carbohydrates... It's mainly this that leads to people being overweight too much of the wrong stuff..
 
Hey Viv
Well ,two grilled tomatoes,three slices of grilled bacon,an egg and a big portion of fried mushrooms and a portion of fresh fruit was a **** site more filling than my two pieces of wholemeal toast and fruit......and my sugars have been at 6 all morning :D I'm a full up happy bunny!

I think the old gathering thing has evolved and stayed with most of us women , I'm off shopping now :D I must be one of the best gatherer's in History, much to my Husbands dismay :o .. :lol:

Hey Bivry , If you are looking for weight gain without raising lipids ,whatever diet you follow. Get some Organic Virgin Coconut oil. A couple of Body builders I know use this for the extra calories but it helps to build lean bulk/muscle and not fat. It is cholesterol free, Very rich in medium chain Triglycerides . I have been having a couple of spoons of this a day just to eat, and I think this has what has helped me put on a bit of weight which I needed to do so....it also gives you great energy.
just a little thought. I also do all my cooking with it :D
 
Hi fallenstar
Does the cocoanut oil taste strongly of cocoanut when you cook with it?
CAROL
 
Hi Carol
No it doesn't ,it does to me if I fry an egg in it, but I did one for my OH the other day and he hates coconut with a passion and I let him in on it after he had eaten it, he said he could not taste any difference :shock: ...nice one :D

It is great for flash frying, it gets to such a high heat very quickly , so for stir fry's it is great. I love the taste of it and eat it off the spoon . It does work as an appetite suppressant but I use it to lay down a bit of fat at the moment as I'm training but probably will only use it for cooking soon.

It's also good as an all round moisturiser and hair conditioner....Blimey I sound like I have shares in the Coconut company :wink: I haven't honest!
 
How much of an appetite suppressant is it I am trying to put weight on and already fighting the metformin :mrgreen:
CAROL
 
Does the Metformin make you feel sick Carol?

This might not be for you then, I don't think I feel as hungry as I did because my BG is very steady on the Atkins type diet and I started with the oil at the same time, but I am not getting the Carb spikes I was which used to make me feel very hungry....so maybe it is not the oil that is making me feel full up for longer, time will tell.
It is nice to eat though on it's own so I think it will help with the weight gain if that is what you are looking for. It has certainly helped me, usually on the Atkins I lose weight fast but I have been eating the oil and a lot more calories than usual so probably the two together for me is working at the moment ...oh and the more stable BG that always helps with weight gain :D
 
Wow I am truly in awe in the response to my question! You guys have brought a lot of facts to the table and I've read every word :) I think my initial post may have spawned from seeing what my colleagues at my new job eat and wishing I didn't have to think about the impact of the food I eat on my diabetes for every morsel I consider!

Fallenstar, I've read about familial hypercholesterolaemia and its rarity in the population and I take my hat off to you for learning to control it mostly by diet and exercise, it didn't sound like an easily treatable condition. And I will look into the coconut oil, if I eat more foods with coconut milk is that the same principle? I'll also look at rejoining the gym, my sugars were great back then (4 months ago) and I was eating a great deal more (a lot of cereal).

Phoenix, I totally agree about the terror of processed foods today, very tempting but you know it will ruin the rest of your day with the blood sugars rollercoaster. I try to avoid them, unfortunately a few people in the office generously bring in baked goods and sweets to share and leave them by the printer and after a whole day I tend to cave around 5pm and grab something :S I endeavour to bring in fruit and such and eat them first before I consider any other snack.


But what I have learnt from the responses so far is that I shouldn't fear fatty foods as much as I have been in the last few years, to be fair my Dad is a low-fat freak, I can't even spread butter on my toast around him but that's just how he's been since I can remember (although I'll never give up my crunchy peanut butter, sugar-free, naturally) Secondly, choosing foods that can help me limit complications down the line is easier to fit into my schedule than exercise and I KNOW that is a lame excuse but its the most convenient form of control, in addition to my insulin of course.

I will have a proper sit down and plan meals and snacks each week, it all comes down to caving into convenience foods when you haven't invested enough time into preparing real foods.

I'll reply with some more points of view another time, great thread so far!
 
Back
Top