• Guest, the forum is undergoing some upgrades and so the usual themes will be unavailable for a few days. In the meantime, you can use the forum like normal. We'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

This forum "v" The NHS (sort of)

Terryrhino said:
why are our health professionals suggesting we eat them ???
Click to expand...

They have all bought into the idea that carbs are essential to life. That eating carbs in copious amount is NOT the reason for chronically elevated insulin/glucose vicious cycle...the devastating insulin resistance/chronic inflammation that is linked to almost all chronic diseases.

Most importantly, they believed with all sincerity that all of us with diabetes have a God given right to continue to enjoy carbs/life as we knew it. That is why all the arrays of lifelong medications have been provided...so that we may continue to enjoy carbs...no change in diet needed. Also any complications are but part of the natural aging process...or a stroke of bad genetics...don't blame our diet or lifestyle.

Only a few of us have managed to step out of this piped dream...
 
Last edited:
Eating a lot of carbs is not the only problem due the modern eating habits. Eating a diet heavy on refined carbs and sugars means that the average person eat a lot more calories than needed and suffer of malnutrition. Eating some carbs is a thing, basing the diet on refined breads is another. This causes a lot of problem that could be probably avoided with a more healthy.
I think also that lowering the carboyhdrate intake is a different thing about the ketogenic diet
Most importantly, they believed with all sincerity that all of us with diabetes have a God given right to continue to enjoy carbs/life as we knew it. That is why all the arrays of lifelong medications have been provided...
Click to expand...
Is way easier for the doctor to give a pill and solve the problem. The patient loves the magic pills and want them on most cases....
 
Pre lchf I never ate white bread, nor crisps and very rarely potato heavy dishes. I've always been a big protein lover. No chocoholic. I prefered mackerel or seafood.
Not a sweet person. Still aren't.
I went severe on lchf which is when the palpatations and dizziness started. Supplements and more veg didn't resolve those symptoms.
Palpatations is noted as a lchf diet side affect. It's documented even on the low carb programme info. It advises to increase carbs to try and get rid, as I've done.
Maybe I'm still low carbing compared to most carbaholics but I wasn't that much of a craver before I started lchf. I wanted to lose weight!
I didn't add as much weight as expected starting high doses of mixed insulin due to lchf but I only lost weight on the dawn period of taking canagliflozin. It stopped with nasty side affects and I regained that 7-9lb.
I can honestly say lchf helped with my high bgs and reducing insulin. Because of that I encourage newees to try it as most people don't get palpatations!
Definitely an asset to fighting diabetes.
 
I'm guessing you upped your salt intake when you got the dizziness?.. on my last 7 day fast I forgot to have my usual glass of water with a teaspoon of salt (forgot .. probably avoided cos it tastes rank) and got a few bouts of dizziness especially when getting up fast. Still not sure I would have bread..there may be better carbs or ways to eat carbs.. but whatever works for you.
 
Yes oxo cubes in veg stir-fries and cheese has salt in it. I blame nother medical conditions rather than just having diabetes for lchf not working as well, for me. Blood pressure increased so reduced salt but still high blood pressure. Thyroid tablet became more sensitive.
 
Not sure that would be enough.. I usually have a teaspoon either in one hit or sprinkle in tea and coffee to disguise the taste.
My blood pressure used to be high too but I think loosing a chunk of weight helped that a lot. As always though what works for you.. good luck
 
Freema said:
. it is kind of a newer phenomenon to eat low carb isn´t it ?
Click to expand...

Claude Bernard 1813-1878 used to lecture on the subject in Paris. A Dr. William Harvey attended a lecture and brought the idea back to England. One of his patients was a William Banting who wrote of his experiences on what later became known as the Banting diet.
 
Sorry I have a complaint about this thread, @Terryrhino stop putting photos of your food, it's distracting! but looks bloody lovely
 
ickihun said:
Give it your best shot. I only know my own bodies reaction, sorry.
Click to expand...
but that doesnt explain how you knew you were inflamed. How can you tell? I understand you could feel the palpitations.
 

does that mean that the blood pressure may be causing the dizziness, not the low carbing? not sure how the low carbing affects blood pressure - can you explain please or point me in the right direction to find out?

I am finding this confusing. Is the dizziness caused by low carbing, or by lack of salt? @ickihun seems to say its because she low carbed, and therefore she cant low carb, and your explanation seems to say its not that, its blood pressure.

confused : (
 
Hospitals have always and still do serve rubbish food and they are especially poor dealing with the ongoing needs of people with diabetes, whether they take insulin or not. My uncle who developed diabetes after a stroke and spent long periods moving in and out of hospital would have died years (if not decades) before he did if his wife wasn't with him nearly all day whilst he was in hospital dealing with his insulin regime and food, supplementing and replacing as necessary what was provided. This was maybe a level of care that a general hospital is just not equipped to do on a one-to-one basis even on a needs-assessed basis.

A low carb diet is the most obvious and simplistic response to diabetes (especially type 2) - stop eating what the body can't cope with. There have been many periods over the years where other diets have been tried mostly ones allowing use of significant amounts of starchy carb of one form or another but none as I see it have been as effective overall, at least with a minimum of drugs in addition. Like any treatment it won't suit everyone as each human body is not a uniform machine cast from the same mold.

I do have some sympathy at times with individual GPs who seem under much greater pressure these days than in the past - 10 minutes is just not long enough for a standard appointment for someone with a number of chronic issues. My first 2 GPs still came from an older time (pre NHS, at least in training terms) where they didn't care how long they spent with each patient as long as it was enough. You might have needed to wait, but you felt you were being dealt with as an individual rather than almost being dealt with by choices on flow chart. Those doctors probably wouldn't survive in today's NHS.
 
Last edited:

raised blood pressure (and low blood pressure) can be caused by many different things. Lack of exercise and a high salt diet is often blamed. And in some cases, this is true. But not all. Weight loss often lowers blood pressure, but often it is a lot more complex than that - especially for people with hormone issues like thyroid or pcos.
Have a read of this and you will see what I mean.
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/high-blood-pressure/basics/causes/con-20019580

As I have mentioned on the forum before, in my case it was drinking coffee. Took me AGES to work out what it was. Had to get my own blood pressure monitor and test at home, because all my doc wanted to do was throw tablets at me for the rest of my life.
I tested the exercise theory - it made no difference
and I tested the salt theory - and it made no difference
yet when I eliminated caffeine from my diet (tea, coffee, etc) my bp dropped to a very chillaxed normal.

So we really all need to track down our own personal causes, and address them individually.

Worth noting that blood pressure does not affect blood glucose in any way. I can remember forum posts in the past which have confused the two, leading to more confusion so I thought I would just mention that here!

On the other hand, raised blood glucose has been known to raise bp too - stress maybe? Dunno.
 
There is also the possibility that a finely tuned drug regime like Ickihuns could cause reactions when they adopted a diet that dropped their insulin requirements. I.e. Hypos.
My brother started having dizziness and lost consciousness a couple of times after 10 years on Metformin and glicazide, out of the blue. Doctor took him off glicazide and he is fine with just Metformin.
 
lindisfel said:
It can't be right for you guys to take food out the mouth of pharma bods and carb producers/sellers you'll have their kids starve for the lack of cola when you put them on the dole.
Click to expand...
If they insist on me putting the wrong foods into my mouth, then I may well not be there much longer to put food into theirs...

Robbity
 

Just thought of this, too:

Here is a list of symptoms of low potassium, taken from here
http://www.livestrong.com/article/469315-low-potassium-dizziness/
constipation, fatigue, muscle weakness, spasms, paralysis dizziness and irregular heart rhythms

and this is a list of symptoms of low magnesium, taken from here
http://www.livestrong.com/article/519671-about-magnesium-deficiency-vertigo/
loss of balance and dizziness

Many low carbers supplement with both, either and additional bone broth, to ensure that they do not get too low on any of them.
And if anyone finds that their low carb diet causes any of these symptoms, then they need to fine tune their intake by increasing foods containing these minerals, and supplementing, if necessary.

Personally, if I experienced the things on the list I would be straight off to the doc! But then, I have been low carbing for a while, and take mag and pot supplements daily, usually with my mug of broth.
 
Ok question!!! I know what most of the benefits of low carbing are and its helping me loads, but what are the downsides to it ? Should I be taking supplements???
 

I went to my GP a couple of years ago because of dizziness. I had it when getting up from sitting, kneeling, being in bed. Also when out and about, walking, if I looked up at say a tree top, I experienced it a bit then. She initially thought blood pressure dropping so I was fitted with an uncomfortable 24 hour monitor and asked to make notes. It showed me normal other than one drop to 90/53, which was during a walk in warm weather with no dizziness. The GP dismissed blood pressure drops (Note the word drops, not increases). She did some quick tests in the surgery and announced I had postural vertigo. She pointed me in the direction of YouTube for some suitable exercises. It disappeared and only very infrequently appears again, briefly.
 
Terryrhino said:
Ok question!!! I know what most of the benefits of low carbing are and its helping me loads, but what are the downsides to it ? Should I be taking supplements???
Click to expand...

Well, in terms of nutrition, LC is as good or as bad as any diet.
I mean, some people manage to b*ll*x up the '5 a day' don't they? By interpreting it as potato and 3 litres of OJ = enough veg

So with LC, as far as I can see from the forum, the most common mistakes are these:
- not enough water/fluids
- too much protein
- thinking you should stuff yourself on fat (nope, just eat enough to prevent hunger or to maintain weight if that is what you want)
- not enough veg. this is debatable, but I still think people are better off with a variety of textures and colours of above ground veg. I mean, if you are eating normal protein and some/enough fat, then you need veg to fill the plate, and your tum, don't you?
- not drinking the broth (this is because most people on carby diets eat a lot of hidden salt. When they drop the carbs, they drop the hidden salt too, and need to add back in enough. Not too much. Every summer we get threads on 'help! I have cramp!' from newby low carbers, because they need more salt
- many, many people are mildly deficient in magnesium nowadays, due to commercial farming stripping the nutrients out of the soil. Symptoms shown in my post above. Low carbers often seem to benefit from supplementation.
- likewise potassium, which is another cause of cramps and muscle weakness.

These links show good food sources of both minerals.
https://draxe.com/top-10-potassium-rich-foods/
https://draxe.com/top-10-potassium-rich-foods/
8 out of 10 of the foods listed on both lists are low carb, so it is easy enough to add them into a LC diet.

Personally, I firmly believe that a well designed low carb diet will automatically have better nutrition that a standard carby diet. Carbs are notoriously low in nutrients, and even bread has various supplements added to it, because it is so nutritionally poor, otherwise. Bell peppers compete with oranges for Vit C content. Veg often have more nutrients than fruit, but without the fructose.

However, as I mentioned earlier, people have to make the effort to eat a sensible, colourful, varied diet.
Anyone living on a narrow range of a few foods, cooked to death, with added fat, is going to go the way of Pottingers Cats... IMHO. Whether they are eating LC or non LC.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_M._Pottenger,_Jr.

My choice is to have a plate full of 1/4 protein and 3/4 veg. To me, that is a balanced plate.
And a lot of that veg is lightly cooked, or salad.
 
Last edited:
How many times can I recommend this.....
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Menu
Log in
Register
Cookies are required to use this site. You must accept them to continue using the site. Learn More.…