Attending an "Empower" course next Wednesday,............
I will report back on it though - I cant see anyone else mention this one (although I didn't read all 23 pages!).
Just got back from this "Empower" course, nothing surprising at all, but as suspected slightly worrying especially for those that do not know any better and haven't done any research.
Theme of the course was: "Carbs good, Fat bad!"
I did point out that these so called "Fad diets" have been around for a good 50 years or so backed up by scientific research that even the NHS occasionally accepts (but then still goes on saying the opposite), and that the low carb high fat diet promoted here has been given a seal of approval.
Of course we had the "game" of putting the food on the "Eatbad (sorry I mean well) Guide". Not a total waste of time as it is good to recognise what food groups are in which items of food etc - you cant make an informed choice without that knowledge. I did however challenge the notion that everyone should be eating 30% as carbs. I said it may be a good - or at least not terrible - "guide" for general use. However as everyone is different it needs to be individually tailored to people's needs. Diabetics should generally not eat as much of their intake as carbs.
I even went so far as to say that the government's insistence of promoting this guide has caused many people who may not have otherwise developed diabetes. People have long believed that being overweight can cause diabetes, but I challenge that notion. I believe it can be a trigger that can cause someone who is already predisposed to it, to develop it. They have to have that predisposition there already. The problem is that those people are also the same people whose bodies do not process carbs efficiently. They eat more carbs, but are still hungry and eat more carbs because their body doesn't process them correctly so they stay hungry. They just put the weight on instead. For people who do not process carbs correctly, it is not possible (in my view) to loose weight without reducing carbs by a significant amount. The government instead insists that we eat more carbs. Because of this, those predisposed eat more carbs, and put more weight on. "Eatwell" causes those predisposed for diabetes to become overweight, and that can then trigger them to develop it. If they had not followed the "Eatwell" they may not have become overweight, and may not have developed diabetes. Of course this is supposition - but I strongly believe it.
I got one thing out of this course this evening (well two if you consider anger something I got from it?). I got out of it - that the NHS doesn't have anything more useful to teach me about diabetes so I know I am not missing something they may have told me. I will now go elsewhere for things like "lifestyle" choices as I have no confidence in the NHS for that. I would not personally recommend this course to anyone - apart from MAYBE someone who knows nothing about diabetes and is NOT going to read up about it themselves. Even then though I would feel responsible for the bad advice they would get that could make their condition worse.
Quality of the course was as expected, but disappointed to find out that my initial guess about it was correct. I would have loved to have been wrong.