Why Do Diabetics Fail To Adhere To Dietary Regimes?

After 13 years of following the so called NHS healthy diet guidelines because I believed I had an undiagnosed sugar issue, I went on to develop full blown Type 2 diabetes. I now follow a strict LCHF diet and am back in normal range. I will never again adhere to any dietary advice the NHS has to offer - proud to be non compliant - add that to your statistics.

I do not see a box to tick that says because your low fat high carb diet is what got me here in the first place. I also don't like the idea that people trying to live their lives in the best way they know how are being labeled non compliant because they do not agree with the outdated diet being pushed on them.

Not willing to change or not ready to make a change.

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It's very similar to giving up smoking, you have to be 100% serious about it.

datkins65 said:

I am an advanced diabetic educator dedicated in finding solutions as to why diabetic patients fail to follow their diets and exercise regimens. I do recognize socioeconomic status, level of obtained education and depression as reasons that compliance has not been achieve, but measures are being taken to address each of these obstacles.

I am of the opinion that taking the time to assist the patient in building an individualized dietary plan creates "ownership" in the task of managing T2DM. Another component in building the dietary plan is to identify the patient's favorite foods and traditional family recipes, and discuss making minor changes to effect the glycemic load of the dish. The patient is made aware that this diet can be changed as required, and that they are not stuck with eating the same food over and over for the rest of their life. Discussions about appropriate portions of each food group, and acceptable snacks is also discussed. Before the appointment is concluded, the question as to why these dietary restrictions are so important is answered, and the patient is able to repeat this information. Written information including substitute options, easy recipes, and contact information accompany the full dietary plan created by the patient with the assistance of the diabetic educator or nutritionist. Follow-up in 6 weeks intervals.

In tracking 100 patients over the period of a year in the clinic, these dietary changes have produced a gain of dietary compliance of 12%. Weight loss ranging from (13 to 26 pounds), and HbA1c have been decreased in these patients by 9% with HbA1c goals reached in 88%.

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I developed diabetes due to being put on steriods as well as the implant!

Do you think it is fair to judge me like this? (I do feel very judged to be always catagorised as if i did something wrong, that i ate myself into diabetes!)

I didnt vote as the reason is not on there!

I am a low carber... an extremely low carber, my body CAN NOT tolerate most foods that people like you tell me i can eat! If i followed the diet "you" (as in dieticians and nhs, gps, dns) gave me i would be progressing and need medicine!

The nhs tells us not to test... so how can we "own" (as you put it) our diabetes, our diet and our future if we dont know what effect it is having on us?

Now let me ask you no.1 did you get any of the symptoms of diabetes? The hunger, the thirst the fatigue? Could you "starve" yourself when your body is screaming at you for food?

Almond flour in holland & barrat is £10 for a very small bag! That to replace wholemeal as my bgl rise with that also...

I cant eat sweetpotato, carrots, bread, pasta, rice, potatos etc etc etc the list of "i cant have" is huge. Trying to find the "can haves" is hard.

Testing the bgl gives ownership, high bgl while on the diet given by nhs causes depression which then creates a lack of will power.

We are already fighting the screaming "feed me" call of our bodies! We are already fighting society and the markets and advertising EVERY WHERE you go is temptation... but to do it on our own without the support of the organisation who is meant to support us (nhs in giving wrong dietry advice)... that is why people fail!

I lost 20kg in 4months, 20cm from my waist, my hba1c went from 85 to 48 in 2 months and about to have another to see if the diabetes is "resolved" i know it isnt "resloved" it is just well controled without medicine.

I fell off the wagon a few times! Not because i didnt know the risks, not because the healthy food was too expensive (even though it is) not because i dont kniw which foods are best, or even mental health/depression... it was because i felt so hungry... nothing was able to fill that void... i gave in. But the bad bgl slapped me out of it and i was able to pick myself back up and start again...

Stopped blaming and being negative and try to be positive and show them the positives to the diet, show them how they can find out what they can eat and be there for them when they are struggling...

But how are diabetic educators going to make any money if people sort out their own diets?



@busydiabeticmum I just use ground almonds from Tesco. Much cheaper and not much different from almond flour.

Why are you offering a set of answers that you think are the reasons instead of just asking people and letting them give their own answers. Might be the reason you don't know is because you have not asked the right question.

Avocado Sevenfold said:

But how are diabetic educators going to make any money if people sort out their own diets?



@busydiabeticmum I just use ground almonds from Tesco. Much cheaper and not much different from almond flour.

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Tried the ground almonds (lol from tesco) and were too "heavy" for breads etc... sooo i have a hand grinder and make my own flour as suggested by a celiac friend of mine (who struggles more than most diabetics to stick to her diet with the free food as well as having more choice of food than diabetics!)

But then we "diabetics" brought it on ourselves right!

Even though i too read a study that diabetes, celiac, crohn disease and other auto immune diseases may actually come from a gene passed down from the neandethals... how true that is though will take a long time to find out while people like the op are fighting any other possible links!

I saw my daughter (12yrs old) who is NOT obese or fat, who eats a VERY healthy diet, is already showing bg readings of pre diabetic... it makes me wonder just how long the diabetes was there before it was found and if it pre dated the obesity? (Which i am not obese) there is diabetes in the family and my mum has crohns disease which does give credibility to the theory above that this is something genetic! I do believe that though my diabetes was brought on by "medicine" it would have eventually come upon me and see myself as carb intolerant rather than diabetic...

@busydiabeticmum Sorry to read about your daughter. Good that she has you looking out for her though x

Why haven't you put on the poll
Trifle is lush
Cakes are yummy
Confusion, follow eat well plate, come on a site like this and find half a dozen diets that contradict eat well plate

Or more importantly, what are manufacturers putting in food, why do we think processed food is tasty, have we been fed hidden additives that have made a generation of people believe they are eating healthy.

I loved Brazil nuts but I cannot eat them as the chemicals used to keep them "fresh" causes a severe reaction.
Manufacturers and big supermarkets have been adding sugar and other unnecessary things that just don't need it.

Mono sodium glutamate added to lots of ready meals and takeaways to enhance flavour of food that doesn't fill you but makes you want to eat more.

I don't fail to adhere to my dietary regime - probably because I trust my glucometer to let me know if I've eaten the right thing or not.

If I'd followed the dietary advice given out by bodies like Diabetes Australia, I'd have been "compliant" and still eating the kind of food that gave me diabetic BG levels in the first place. I trust my glucometer because it's not swayed by dietary guidelines based on biased science and driven by industry lobby groups. It will always tell me the truth

Just reread the original post and it is so condescending. Sounds like that program is being taught to a group of slightly thick first graders instead of perfectly intelligent adults with a medical condition.

Dreadful OP, dreadful poll, dreadful attitude, very condescending.

When I was diagnosed I was given a booklet. I read it and then threw it out. I already knew that some of the guidelines in it were harmful and had helped me on my way to T2, yet I had only been diagnosed 5 minutes and this booklet had been produced by Diabetes UK! So I set about treating my own condition myself and finding the diet that was right for me. I stumbled on LCHF myself without realising others were following it until I joined this forum 2 years after diagnosis.

The question I would like to ask is why do 'diabetes educators' fail to listen to their patients? Why do they assume that because the patient isn't controlling their BG's well that it's the patient's lack of compliance with the diet that is the problem. Errrr no... maybe it's the diet that is being pushed which is wrong! Can you imagine what it is like to follow a diet to the letter and then be told that you can't possibly be following it properly because the diet isn't working?

lizdeluz said:

All of the 'reasons' in the poll seem quite offensive. This is a poll for people with prejudices, not for people with diabetes.

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Looking at the title and removing the first word 'Why', would of been more pc .................

A "none of the above" option might have been a good idea as well.

Judgemental... Much?!?!?!

Diabetes is different for every person ..it is a very individual disease, what works for one is not necessarily going to work for someone else.

Is my diabetes die to having my gall bladder out 30 years ago, is it because my body does not tolerate carbs, is it because I dieted continually iny 20' s trying to eat low fat which is therefore high sugar, is it because so called health y foods are so full of sugar and carbs, is it because cheap foods are filled with high fructose, corn syrup and flour.

Why is it that mass produced foods are pushed and are so cheap?
They ate ultimately full of cheap to produce flour and filler materials.

Im an Australian. We have a similar eat well plate that does absolutely nothing to assist in my BS lowering. It just makes me use more and more insulin.

Yes we have low GI but that never did anything to help my diabetes either.

Perhaps you should do some intensely reading of diabetes.co.UK and realizing how individual diabetes is for each of us, our trials and tribulations and the support we get one another to deal with our individual diets, health issues, medications and tolerances to medications, the education and lack of education we get, the attitudes we get from dieticians, nurses and gp's.

Just my thoughts and opinions

Shar67 said:

Why haven't you put on the poll
Trifle is lush
Cakes are yummy
Confusion, follow eat well plate, come on a site like this and find half a dozen diets that contradict eat well plate

Or more importantly, what are manufacturers putting in food, why do we think processed food is tasty, have we been fed hidden additives that have made a generation of people believe they are eating healthy.

I loved Brazil nuts but I cannot eat them as the chemicals used to keep them "fresh" causes a severe reaction.
Manufacturers and big supermarkets have been adding sugar and other unnecessary things that just don't need it.

Mono sodium glutamate added to lots of ready meals and takeaways to enhance flavour of food that doesn't fill you but makes you want to eat more.

Click to expand...

What chemicals are used to keep Brazil nuts fresh? How do you know that it is the chemicals that are the problem rather than the Brazil nuts themselves?

Robinredbreast said:

Looking at the title and removing the first word 'Why', would of been more pc .................

Click to expand...

Yes, interesting. This is a good lesson for HCPs everywhere maybe. At least!

Zand hit on a good point that has narked me all my diabetic life..
Why don't the health professionals including NICE, CCGs and Docs etc..
"Why can't they learn off the diabetics that are getting good results and better health?"

Only one superb consultant and nurses in MK hospital asked me. Nobody else has ever given a monkey how I ate or got my good hba1c results...

Hi @datkins65 Your profile states that you have Type 2 diabetes yourself. Could you share with the group how you yourself manage the condition? Have you managed to overcome the barriers in your poll (e.g. being skint, thick, etc) to achieve your goals? Thanks in advance.