Experience Switching to Paleo Diet

Type 1 and LADA
1

Disclaimer: I am not preaching or saying this is what you should do even though it has been very helpful for controlling my sugars. I just wanted to share my experience with shifting to this diet since I have seen a lot of talk around about it. I am a T1 since 2012 and take humalog/lantus. I have the Eat Smart food scale I use to weight most everything I eat.

My Diet and Sugars Before:

I would eat 60g of carbs with each meal and about 2 meals a day. Essentially I just avoided foods with more than half of the carbs as sugar. I would still eat high glycemic index foods like bread and rice now and then but tried to eat wheat bread or oatmeal or quinoa when possible. No sugary foods/liquids, obviously.

Often I would find 1 hour after eating my sugar would be as high as 180-220 before going down to around 120 at 2 hours after eating. This would cause what I called "first hour weirdness". I would feel slightly nauseous or dizzy or confused in that first hour after eating. After eating like this for about a year I started getting body pains in that first hour. Basically it felt like my whole body just ached and was very difficult to function after eating.

The Paleo Diet:

Essentially you just don't eat grains or beans (legumes) or rice of any kind. All your carbohydrates should come from non-starchy vegetables and fruit, preferably with a lower glycemix index and high fiber content (so that you can eat more, feel full and avoid sugar spikes). The rest of your diet should be lean proteins like fish or chicken. You should also try foods like liver and kale every so often since they are high in important nutrients that you might not be getting a whole lot of anymore on this diet. You should also supplement with calcium citrate since you might get less of this.

When on this diet you must also be very low carb (under 20g). The lower the carbs, the lower the amount of insulin and the lower the chance of miscalculation. That might seem like not a lot, but trust me it is plenty. I have heard it recommended for T1 on this diet that you should also avoid certain sweet fruits/veggies like beets, carrots, watermelon, pineapple etc... I have been avoiding these but have no evidence that this recommendation is true.

My Experience and Sugars Now:

I eat about 15g carbs with each meal and eat 2 carb meals a day. I take 4-5 units of humalog for this amount of carbs. My A1C was at 5.3 after about 3 months on this diet. At about 1 hour after meals my blood sugar spikes are around 120-130. At about 2 hours after meals I am around 80-100 on average. I no longer get body pains during the first hour of eating and I generally feel better than before. I won't say "Oh my god, I feel so energetic and my skin glows and I just feel healthy!" like I have seen people say, but my blood sugar logs indicate that my sugar control is pretty damn good. Almost like a non-diabetic. And I am going to stick to what is working for me.

The only problem I have with my sugars now is weight lifting (which makes me high) and beer (which I am trying to stop drinking). My excercise routine is 1 hour a day: 20 minutes of elliptical, 40 minutes weight training. I believe if I add 10 minutes of jogging after weight training that will bring my sugars back down to normal.

Sample Meals:

15g of something like brussel sprouts, asparagus or mixed fruit is actually a lot of food and will be quite filling with a small side portion of meat. I started the diet at 25g carbs, but that is just way too much food when your talking about vegetables and gradually settled on 15g. I am not really losing any weight so I must be supplementing my calorie intake with more meat. Meals with just the nuts or apples are usually less filling. When I go out to eat and I can't weigh my food, I usually just get a salad with some chicken in it or just eat straight meat.

Breakfast: 3 hardboiled eggs, 1 apple

Breakfast: Smoked salmon, 1 pear

Lunch: 1/2 chicken breast, some spinach, 3 oz Mixed Nuts

Dinner: 1/2 chicken breast, large bowl of Brussel Sprouts

Dinner: 1/2 chicken breast, large plate of asparagus

Other great foods: red cabbage leaves as a taco shell, green peppers, portabello mushroom for a sandwich bun, pico de gallo to add flavor, hummus

2

I was dxed the same time as you and had the same experience as you with diets. I do eat more carbs now, probably around 100/day, but none from any kind of grain or processed food. I also eat any kind of vegetable, including carrots/beets/etc that have a higher carb/sugar load. i dont notice much difference in my bgs when i eat these as part of a full meal compared to broccoli or some other lower carb veggie.
This diet has been a lifesaver(literally) for me. I also exercise every day and find this to be an instrumental part of my control.
great idea about the cabbage leaves as tacos and mushrooms for buns! ill have to try that.

3

Thanks for the post. I've tried Paleo in the past and had similar results, though for me the hardest part was giving up dairy, which I've noticed can certainly spike my blood sugar. Did you give you dairy, too? Looks like it from the meal options you listed. I'm not a huge cow milk drinker but do like cream in my coffee, yogurt, and cheese. And coconut, almond, and flax milk just don't taste as good to me.

Maybe I will give Paleo a try again after hearing these good results (and Shawn's results below). Thanks for the inspiration. : )

4

I have given up dairy except for cheese since it has no carbs.

Almond Breeze almond milk has 2g carbs in 1 cup and costs about $5 per package. You have to decide how important your health is to you concerning the milk (I still have trouble giving up beer!). If you want something sweet, use concentrated stevia liquid drops. It is a delicious creamer substitute with no sugar/carbs.

5

Also try cauliflower buns sometime. I just found out about these and am going to start making a lot of them at once to reduce my meal prep-time.

http://valerieazinge.wordpress.com/2013/05/08/cauliflower-buns-flour-free/

6

ive done cauliflower crust pizza and want to try cauliflower tortillas which would be along the same lines as the buns. I also like spaghetti squash in place of pasta. many different substitutes for the typical high carb comfort foods.
The only negative is the extra prep time.

7

I have also given up all dairy except butter,cheese, and some heavy cream occasionally. I do eat alot of cheese, probably more than i should because it has little effect on my bg and is delicious. Milk is not good for the bg, i have seen it recommended for use as a treatment for hypoglycemia(similar to glucose tabs). In my pre-paleo days, i would eat a big bowl of cereal and milk in the morning and wonder why i couldnt control my bgs even with careful carb counting. lol!
I too drink almond milk, silk unsweetened vanilla flavor from walmart. 3.50 for 1/2 gallon and 1 carb/8 oz serving. tastes pretty good, takes some getting used as it is very different from cows milk

8

I was dx in July 2012. I went from an A1C of 13.3 to 5.4 in three months on Humalog/Lantus and a lower carb diet. I don’t do Paleo, but limit my carbs. I only eat cereal/grains for breakfast - I have about 25g of bread or cereal carbs every morning, but workout for about an hour every day. I walk 1.5 miles every day, and then add 40 minutes of cardio/strength training or stretching. (I follow Jessica Smith TV - she is perfect for me, and suggests a weekly routine that I add to as needed). I use unsweetened vanilla almond milk, Mission Low carb Tortillas for sandwiches (what most would call wraps), pizza crust and toast and cut them up as dippers. I make almond meal muffins for an occasional meal that may need “bread”. I put on a lot of weight because I was eating too many almonds - a handful became many handfuls. (I’m working on that!!) I eat much more fruit than I should and my coffee has 10g carbs, which I have 2x per day. When first dx, I ate many fewer carbs, but all of my A1Cs have been 5.2-5.4, so adding more is a matter of learning what will happen when I eat it, and eat to your meter. I even have ice cream a couple of times a week.

When I was dx, I already had neuropathy and kidney damage (I was 49 and must have been sick for a while - last blood tests were 3 years before dx). The exercise makes a big difference, as does the low bs. I know we can eat anything we want to and cover it with insulin, but that results in so many highs, lows, over corrections resulting in more highs and lows. I’d rather just eat the way that works for me. And yes, that includes an occasional black & white cookie.

9

DFresh, I too follow a modified paleo diet. I say modified as I also eat aged cheese and use cream/butter regularly. I also do weights 3x/wk and find that 3U of Novorapid just prior to the workout covers the inevitable adrenaline spikes quite nicely. I often wonder what all the fuss is about pumps and CGMs. If people were willing to eat the diet that is best for them, diabetes management is really little more than an inconvenience. I enjoy my very active lifestyle not being hooked to a machine 24/7. I suppose I would be attacked by those who demand to eat carbs however.

10

Hi there,

I agree low carb, whole food diets such as yours prescribed above in combination with accurate IC ratios do wonders for HbA1c and blood markers in general.

However, I've always struggled with calling such a diet paleo.

This video offers an interesting insight into real paleo diets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMOjVYgYaG8

11

I don't think it's useful to worry about what a way of eating is called, or whether the name in question is historically accurate. I can appreciate those arguments from a historical and agricultural point of view, but since hybridization and plant evolution has made it impossible to eat *exactly* what my ancestors ate, I will settle for its current incarnation.

I don't eat this way because it is "natural" or somehow honorable to eat as my ancestors did -- I eat this way because it helps my body to function more closely to the way I want it to.

What matters most is that we all know what someone is talking about when they refer to a Paleo lifestyle -- I would call it "The Flying Spaghetti (Squash) Monster Diet" if we all agreed to it!

12

Hmm I appreciate your sentiments and I wasn't attacking you so not sure why you feel to defend your eating habits, If it works for you it works for you.. :)

But in my experience paleo and crossfit bores are unbearable though.. I don't like the superiority and holier than though approach which comes with such diets. (Nothing against the original poster or yourself) but if I have to listen to another guy or girl at the gym talk about how they're eating like a caveman/woman or see another paleo cross fitter do a poor form injury inducing kippy pull up or half arsed squat i'm going to jump out of a window..............

The name "Paleo" makes a clear reference to eating as our ancestors did and is typically defined in such terms, when in reality most following this diet aren't eating in anything like this manner, arguably because it's not actually possible anymore.

The premise of the entire diet is pretty much nonsense and it's a fad.

It's marketing for the web 2.0 buzzfeed generation.

To me it has a cultish wiff about it, there always has to be something bigger, better, faster, easier.. I'd rather people put their efforts to the basics over the long term ,rather than hopping from fad to fad. Crossfit, Paleo, Low Carb, 5:2 fasting, raspberry ketone, cambridge, cabbage soup.. ZZZzzzz

Sure it has some validity in certain applications (such as controlling blood sugars), but I've yet to be able to cycle 150 miles in a day, train for a marathon or build any lean muscle eating paleo. I've known "Paleo" followers who have but then they were also eating about 250g of complex fruity carbs a day as well :)

I don't like adding complex layers to diet and well being. It over complicates things and it isn't necessary. Diets don't tend to work in the long term. Long term life style changes and calorie awareness and restriction do.

Eat less rubbish, eat more whole foods and move more. Keep it up for life.

If you're diabetic and you're eating less carbs/ sweet foods and following the law of small inputs with insulin, you're sugar levels will be better and standard deviation smaller than somebody who is eating large amounts of carbs and sweet foods.

The broscience and entire industry drives me to distraction and creates more losers than winners in my opinion, if it keeps people in business though and mystifies a relatively simple subject area and keeps the blogsphere spinning then who am I to complain.