not sure if this is working...

I posted this first on theNewbies bit but thought I might get an answer here. By the way I also have ME, diagnosed 15 years ago and spent two years in bed and another two housebound, light and noise sensitive, falls and sheer exhaustion.

I have printed out the marvellous newbie guide - thankyou sooooo much for that.

I have been trying to lo carb and reduce my metformin but the gp insisted it should stay the same as my bg had only come down to 6.9 from 7.4. He will not let me test my own blood daily as the NHS have decided that it makes people's bg worse! However he has acknowledged that both my bad cholesterol and triglycerides have improved.

I am going to see a NHS dietician next month to try to help me formulate my diet to help me lose weight - current BMI is 26.5, and I am going to take my guide with me in the hope that she/he will approve and not force me to go on a lo fat, hi carb regime.

I have tried some lo carb instructions but I have a bowel problem and when I was strictly lo carb ended up in hospital with kidney infection and faecal back up. The only way to 'regulate' me is to have All bran each breakfast and I have been soaking this in water and then adding cream before eating. The all bran weighs 50g so if after that I have an apple or clementine and some greens with evening meal of meat/fish would this be too much for weight loss to occur?

Well, ok. I'm going to back away from this as I seem to have upset some people. I'm still pretty new here and I guess I didn't think I was so offensive. Like I said, I usually low carb things myself, but you guys seem to be talking about one of those internet things so I'll navigate around to a different thread.

UPB, you're not being offensive - well, I wasn't offended anyway. Healthy debate is never a bad thing.

Learning how the body burns fat and uses different fuels is the crux to understand how and why low-carbing works. Personally I feel it won't work half as well if the level of fats in the diet isn't increased.

We are used to carb-burning because that is what, in the Western world we are used to and what has been promoted for the last 40-odd years, but it is not necessarily the right or the best way for the body to work.

You only have to look at the fitness and good health of those that eat little or no carbs at all to see the benefits of dumping the carbs, particularly the refined and 'mucked about with' ones.

There are pockets in the World where the tentacles of our extremely damaging Western Diet hasn't yet permeated, and those people are still well and healthy.

A while ago big study was done of the inhabitants of two remote islands - Pukapuka and Tokelau. Their predominant sources of food are coconut and fish. Their diet consists of 60% fat from these sources. It is naturally low-carbohydrate. They had no incidence of heart disease, diabetes or any other degenerative disease that is common to our Western Society. They don't have the pollution endemic within our Western society either and that would likely have some effect but the major implicator has to be diet.

I a so pleased you put this one up as it feels like you are speaking of me! I too am a recently diagnosed T2 and have had the same difficulties. I visited my Doctor this morning for a followup on an ECG test which was thankfully all clear and discussed things with her. I was told to reduce my pills from 4 to 3 a day and go for a walk instead of sleeping, this is all well and good but with no energy walking seems such a task at present! I also have an underactive thyroid plus i stopped smoking 30 a day nov 2007 so the weight has poured on to me. Reading the replies helps me understand a lot of whats going on in my body and what I can do to help myself - Thank you all who have contributed for helping me too!

Serena, you may find that upping the fats in your diet may help to remedy your bowel issues. It certainly has helped mine.

At the end of the day, like an engine, our elimination system needs lubricating too!

Good fats are Coconut oil, butter, ghee and olive oil all of which can be used in cooking (best not to get them too hot though) and fish oil, of course, rich in omega 3s.

As long as the diet is low in carbs, the fats are very beneficial, especially my favourite, coconut oil.

AliB - thankyou for the reply - I will increase my fats but I would also like to know about the allbran issue. Do you think I could get away with that and two pieces of fruit (apple/orange/berries) and LOSE wieght ? Or maybe upping the fats would be enough? I try to have 3 tablespoons of coconut oil a day - 1 tabsp in warm water about 20 mins before each meal. And I dress salads in flax oil with lemon juice.

Hi Serena, you obviously are taking a fair bit of oil already so probably don't need to up that too much.

I'm not sure what to suggest.

Before I dropped the gluten, I had raging diarrohea/IBS. I also dropped dairy at the same time because I knew I was dairy intolerant. It took a while, and my bowels went through the whole gamut and back again but it eventually started to settle down.

As my digestion improved I started to introduce some dairy but found that it seemed to trigger constipation so now I keep it to a minimum and that does help. I also take 500mg magnesium either every day or every other day. The coconut oil does seem to help considerably too.

How long have you been taking the coconut oil? When you change your diet, the body has a lot of clearing out to do and healing and it can take a while for things to settle down. Do you eat much dairy?

For me, the D reaction I had to gluten was obviously stronger than the C reaction I had to dairy and that didn't become evident until after removing the gluten foods from my diet. But we are all different and don't always react in the same way to the same things.

You may find that as you settle in more to the lower carb/higher fat regime that your bowels will gradually sort themselves out and you may not need to take the bran, or at least be able to cut down on it.

In some ironic way, the bran may actually be causing a similar effect that I had with wheat products in expelling things but something else you are having is causing the C it is combating, if you see what I mean............ The effect the bran has might just be because your body is trying to get rid of it quickly!

The Specific Carbohydrate Diet that I have been following was good in that it removed most, if not all the foods that are common triggers and enabled me better to see what I reacted to. Elimination type diets are helpful like that because it gets you 'back to basics' and uncomplicates the diet so that you can see better what is going on.

I had issues with all sorts of foods initially, even things like eggs and meat when I started but gradually, and especially in the last two or three months since I have been taking the coconut oil, my digestion has improved to the point that there is little in the way of natural foods that I can't now eat (I won't be eating any rubbish again anyway). In fact, I would say that my digestion is better now in many ways than it has been for years!

AliB - thanks for that, very informative. I was very good on lc for about 2 months and taking the coconut oil all that time and felt fantastic BUT then I did start to eat a lot of cheese. I've always loved cheese and having been lo fat for twenty years the fact of being able to eat cheese again led me to overeat bigtime.

Then I had the kidney infection and had to go into hospital overnight, it was when they did a chest xray (! true it showed up that high, the dr was amazed) that the back up was shown. They started off giving me senna and lactulose immediately, then added Metumicil the next day. All that happened was a little D so once home I felt I needed to eat greens, fruit and as that didn't give any result but D, I then added the Allbran to try to 'firm up' things. I must say that the Allbran gave me dreadful wind, bloat and then gut pains but I was at a loss of what to do.

Also I had visitors and a family wagon and went off the programme in a big way. Result was felt fat, bloated, ill and exhausted.... So I have just this week got my head back in the right place and started lcing properly and also restarted the coconut oil regularly again. I shall definitely cut back on the cheese as I hadn't realised the effect it could have, thanks for that,. I'm also going to stop the Allbran asap 'cos I don't want the pains - so I guess I stick to the Metumicil and lots of water.

Would two pieces (apple/orange) be bad on the lc diet, I feel that I should get something natural in to shift my probs otherwise I will be stuck with the D and that is quite debilitating.

I do hope that is not too much info but I do need to do something about this soon.

'Family wagon' - should of course read Family Wedding. lol

Hi Ming - have a look at my thread on the benefits of coconut oil - you will be amazed. I sometimes get it from Holland & Barrett but most good health stores should sell it. If you live in or near an area where there are Asian shops, they often sell it (and it is probably cheaper), but try (not easy) and establish that it isn't hydrogenated. Most aren't but I have come across some tinned coconut milk that is (Pride Brand). Some of the Asian shop brands come in bottles which is a bit perplexing because it is a solid (how do you get it out of the bottle???) - flummoxed me for ages! Actually the oil melts at a relatively warm temperature and becomes liquid - of course in India it is always warm so it is always runny! Just pop it in a warm place somewhere - on a radiator perhaps and it will soften. In 'proper' summer weather here it will melt.

You can use it both for edible use and externally - is so good for the skin. It used to be thought that because it is a saturated fat that it raised cholesterol but that is now known not to be true. It is a medium-chain triglyceride (fatty acid) that is extremely good for us - in fact, apart from human breast milk it is one of the few MCT's there are (which is why it is used in infant formula). Many of us, especially those who weren't breastfed (and may have been bottle-fed before the age of the modern formulas), or who, if they were may have been fed by Mums whose milk did not contain a very rich source of it may well be lacking in these important little fats.

Hi Serena.

I have had that back-up you described. At one point it felt as though my heart, liver and stomach were trying to burst out of my chest - very frightening. It has felt as though my colon was in my chest too. Seems like we've been in the same place! I had been thinking of having a colonic done for a while but kept putting it off, but when this happened it forced my arm.

She couldn't do it the first time I visited, because my BP had gone sky-high due to the pressure (I had a hernia too as my stomach was being pushed up through the diaphragm. But a few days later, although it was still pretty high I felt well enough to cope with it so went ahead.

It was quite an experience, but I have to say it did make a big difference and over the next few days it did settle down quite a bit. She did advise that I may need two or three more sessions and I am sure she is right (and I should have done) because although much better, I do find that things have 'swelled up' again (including the lymph under my left armpit - my hand goes all tingly) somewhat by the end of each day (goes down again overnight). I have had to shelve the other sessions at the moment though as funds are a bit tight (it becomes less imperative when you feel a bit better!) which is probably a 'false economy'.

What a shame they don't offer those on the NHS! But then they aren't into giving out preventative stuff - they usually wait until your symptoms finally indicate that things are really bad and then they just try and patch you up (but that's another subject entirely).

This lady got into doing the colonics after having some herself when the only option open to her Medically was to have a resection. She said that after 4 sessions everything 'went back down' and now she just has a maintenance session every few months. She was so impressed by it that she became a practitioner.

Definitely the coconut oil has helped a lot and I am awaiting a bigger order so hope to up the usage and am hoping that will help even more.

It is probable that we have some kind of restriction in the gut somewhere which is causing the 'backing-up'. I would never have known about it before because my IBS was always D. It's only after things started to settle down that this became apparent and now I am doing what I can dietarily to deal with it.

Back when I was really bad in May my Doctor said she would send me for an Ultrasound - I'm still waiting! Have you had an endoscopy or anything to see what is happening?

I use nuts as my bulk on LC diet. Try adding Brazil, Walnuts, Almonds (with skins - not blanched) and hazlenuts. Works a treat for me.

Hi Ming,

This latest news must have been a shock to both of you. (((((hugs))))).

It doesn't have to be the worst case scenario. I was recently told that I had bowel cancer after having two ultra sounds and a cat scan. This was followed up with a colonoscopy and a biopsy. The findings were that it is a benign mass so please try not to worry. They don't always get it right.

With regard to what your husband needs to eat, I would give him what he fancies as he needs to eat but also needs to eat something that suits him. The diabetes can go on hold for the time being. If the constipation is still bad then it's plenty of veggies and fluids. If it has changed to diarrhoea, then bland foods are best for the time being.

Hope this helps,

Look after him and yourself Ming,

Catherine.

Well Ming, keep positive love - tests are just tests.

Getting him off sugar and carbs would not be a bad thing whatever the outcome. It seems that sugars and high sugar levels in the blood can actually help 'feed' cancer cells.

Let us know how things pan out.

Regards,

Ali.

Sorry to hear your news, a very worrying time for you both.

However, tests are just that, tests. Usually they are trying to rule things out, usually the worst possible. There are an awful lot of unpleasant and painful bowel problems without it being cancer, and it is absolutely right that they take it very seriously. Constipation is excruciatingly painful, especially if you have anything else going on down there such painful haemorrhoids.

I hope the tests are not too traumatic or embarrasing.

Ming, bowel problems seem to be very common with Diabetes. Undoubtedly he had the Diabetes long before he ever started the diet. Gastroparesis, Steatorrhea, IBS, slow transit, etc., are all very common (I am still trying to figure out why).

I had IBS for years - tending generally towards D but since I have changed my diet it tends to go the other way. But what do I do? I'm stuck in between the 'Devil and the deep blue sea'. Not only am I very gluten-intolerant (quite a few health problems went away after I stopped eating that), but my body just can't cope with carbs very well at all, and that, of course, is pretty true of all Diabetics.

It seems that I was getting the Diarrhoea because my body was desperately trying to get the gluten food out of my system. I then found that dairy foods were making me constipated - presumably the reaction I got from the gluten was stronger than the reaction I was getting from dairy and I didn't discover that until I dumped the gluten. Sigh. I have tried reintroducing some dairy but it still seems to have the same effect.

The biggest problem is, of course, that none of our food is as it should be. Everything has been meddled and mucked about with - grains contain far more 'glue' than they should, dairy has been pasteurised and homogenised and had all the necessary enzymes and good bacteria sterilised out of it - the homogenisation changes the fat structure and there is a possibility that it may be causing problems (the scientists are still not sure on that one).

Goat's milk is a little better because although pasteurized, it is not homogenized. I tell you - if you ever see anything ending in 'izes' or 'cides' you know without a doubt that it has been meddled with in some way or another. Our fruit and veg, although better than the carb-laden rubbish, is also meddled with - and often sprayed to within an inch of its life with a whole concoction of chemicals.

For thousands of years people have lived quite happily, and heathily, on pure, natural, unadulterated, un-meddled-with food - along come the scientists with all their high-faluting ideas, and suddenly we are plunged into a maelstrom of awful and endless health problems.

Progress? What progress?