I was overweight for years. Now, 'thanks to' my newly-diagnosed insulin-dependent diabetes, I have lost 40 pounds just by doing what I have to do in order to live - eating low carb. By all accounts I look great, and feel I have energy, etc. (I also have a problem digesting carbs, because of my Whipple operation, so by not eating carbs I feel a whole lo better).
The problem is my family (mother, mother-in-law, sister...) "Watch out that you don't become anorexic", "What about essential carbohydrates?" "how can you be getting all the nutrition you need without eating fruits". Funny that I never got so many comments when I was overweight -- then I was obviously eating a much less healthful diet than I am now. What is their problem? Is it jealousy maybe? Anyone experience this?
Ha, yes. When I was first diagnosed with T1 I had already intended on following Whole30 (stricter paleo). So essentially I was just going to buy meats and veggies. I had just moved somewhere new and my aunt was offering to buy my groceries. My mother was there too. I was told what I was doing seemed like "Atkins" and that it is "unhealthy." They tried to give me a bunch of junk food - cereal, ice cream, cookies, etc. It was bizarre. I was also chastised about my weight. I wasn't overweight before, but the undiagnosed diabetes + new diet means I've lost roughly 20lbs.
My endo also told me to not do low carb. I didn't tell her I was, but then in an email she said "I hope you're not doing low carb" because I was slowly losing weight. I am not going to keep fat on my body if the only reason it was there before was because of an unhealthy lifestyle. This type of meddling with my body is annoying. I'll choose what I want to eat, and I'll let my body find it's ideal weight.
I had to laugh when I read this, I get it all the time mainly from mother, who if she doesn't see massive amounts of potatoes on a plate she thinks we are back in the famine. She has no time for salad foods or any cold food. Been driving me nuts for years.
Hi Negg. I think you have a valid point. First though I think we have to accept that many many people will talk for the sake of talking, and often never consider what it is they are about to say! Mothers and Mother in Laws are high on the probability scale in this! When does caring become nagging, when you hear it several time a day, week in week out! They can often also be the very last people who will alter their buying and cooking to accommodate your life needs. Well you don't take their advice so why should they listen to you? Lets face it Negg, it's not just 'Low Carb' Is it? But pretty much anything that appears to make us different or special, Must Be Extemism in their eyes! And Mums always know best don't they!
My lunch just arrived as I type this. 2 large white bread rolls stuffed with Tuna chips, salt,vineger, a pile of Pringles potato chips and a Cuppa Soup with Worchester Sauce. "Hey dad your favorite!". It was 10 years ago! Now I would rather have Goats cheese and 3 year old cured fat free local Serano ham and Danilyon Tea, buy hey, no one listens do they! Pease no one say get your own lunch!
My frriends think I'm nuts, but accept my diet.My family wouldn't but my veteinarian brother says I'm right to low carb and they all believe his medical knowledge. So I no longer have anyone arguing against it. Today in a queue for coffee in Marks and Spencer's, i met a woman, who was being chatty. She told me that her husband follows the teaching of the Eades on the subject of diet. We both agreed, that none of the snacks on display[except a small side-salad!] would suit a low carber.
Hana
All diabetics CAN eat carbs, but they risk putting their blood glucose up. There are 2 basic ways of keeping BG DOWN;
1 Use medicine to knock it back and risk the side effects that all medication has, including weight gain or hypos from insulin
2 Don't eat the stuff that puts the BG up in the first place, For many T2s, that will be sufficient. For all T1s and many T2s, some medication will still be necessary.
Make no mistakes, It's high blood glucose which damages micro blood vessels and leads to diabetic complications. The long term side effects of many diabetic medications are pretty nasty. Although T1 and T2 have very different causes, they have similar consequences so can be treated similarly. ALL diabetics can be treated with insulin and I think that's where the NHS here in Britain is heading. I shall resist. They can't force me to take it and I want to use as little medication of any kind as I can.
I've yet to see a headline that low carb diet has been withdrawn, because it's killing people, but I've seen just that about some medicines in the years since I've been diagnosed
(I know this. I am a type 1 diabetic who low carbs, remember?) :)
Personally I feel that explaining these every time someone makes a sweeping statement isn't possible in life without sounding like a bit of a tool in my opinion, and so...I generally let it go.
My point was that while before, I could confidently dial up a dose on my pump while people stared in disbelief that I was even thinking about eating a cookie, I was able to at those moments explain the differences quite reasonably without lecturing, whereas now, I turn down carby things, and hear "Oh yeah, you're diabetic. I remember" knowing full well I've joined the vast array of 'mashed together' of what diabetic means for the people who aren't.
The general synopsis for the uneducated is...'You can't eat sugar because you were too fat from eating too much sugar and became diabetic, and insulin has something to do with it...somewhere.'
It just saddens me to re-enforce the myths. I do enjoy the simplified variables though.
The points here are true and valid, can't add much in the way of substance. I'll just comment on one of my own pet peeves: people who evidently can't hear what comes out of their own mouths.
I wish I had a dollar for every time someone has commented on the weight I've lost with low carb by saying, "You're too thin. What you're doing isn't healthy."
Then -- usually within 60 seconds -- they say something like, "I wish I could do that."
I think diet is a lot like politics. Many people seem to have strong opinions without really thinking through the truth or the facts from which to base their opinions. My son was diagnosed T1 in August and we decided right away that it made sense to cut the carbs as much as possible to control bgs and to break the carb addiction. We have experienced a lot of negative even hostile comments that we are doing the wrong thing. It seems to be the prevailing dogma that complex carbs should comprise 60-65% of the total diet. My son's endo thinks along this line, but at least she told us that "diet is your own business". I appreciate the hands off approach. Also a lot of my friends are into the green agenda in a rather doctrinaire way. They circulate petitions to get people to pledge to not eat animal products, so I really don't talk about what we eat. It just invites an unpleasant lecture.
I'm cerain that somewhere in an english language standard text-book on nutrition, it says that complex carbs are slow to digest and necessary in 60% of the diet. The students see this, believe it and neither test it nor ask for the evidence.
It's like the colours of the rainbow. You learn Red. Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet. However if you look at a rainbow, you won't see indigo. It's in images of rainbows and spectra on-line, because they are created images, but it's simply not in natural rainbows. It's in the text-books so it MUST be there, so why look at rainbows?
Hana
I do think a lot of these comments stem from jealousy. Many people who don't control their bad eating habits feel bad about it - instead of dealing with it constructively, they put down those who are.
Oh these fruits! Everyone talks about fruits with me. And thinks I am not doing the right thing.
Another thing is that everyone seems to think that I should it nomally and take more insulin. That’s it. And those comments on high fat …
DNS. I keep looking for the dietician who can describe to me the symptoms of "carbohydrate deficiency" Only if someone can show that a food or vitamin, causes specific symptoms when deficient and corrects them when replaced, will I believe in "essential"! After all we know of Kwashiokor and Scurvy and Beri Beri and a host of others. I ALMOST NEVER see dieticians and the last few I've met have wholeheartedly supported low carb eating for diabetics.
