My family is from the south so there are a whole SLEW of comfort foods I have to restrain from. This Christmas was especially hard-all the buttery biscuits and rich sweet potato pies everyone else got to partake in was pure torture. Baked macaroni and cheese, I'll miss you. I just got diagnosed this very month, so everything is so new to me. I can't wait until the yearning goes away...
Fortunately, I am not particularly insulin-resistant, although I ought to be given my cholesterol, triglyceride and blood pressure numbers. I am also not obese, but am 8 lb. over BMI 24.9, which is officially designated as normal.
I am very grateful that I was allowed to go on insulin early -- all there was available at the time was sulfonylureas, and they didn't work, so insulin was the only other choice.
I like your doc's choice of words -- at least he acknowledges that you are unusual!
this is very very very true. Thank you for reminding me of this. I find it interesting how these facts are ignored about the minority communities. I think people are scared to open a mythical pandora box that made lead to racial factors but I don't see how you can talk about this with being racial. Folks like to pretend we are all the same which in general yes we are but when you start going deeper into genetics it gets very different.
I am finding it interesting these studies about India, China and Korea which are all Asian countries is not making a bigger news item then what we normally here.
Being vegetarian or not has nothing to do with it (unfortunately). I was a vegetarian for 20 years before my Dx this year. I really honestly believe it is those high carb "white" foods that do it. Not meat or dairy (this coming from a vegan! haha!). Bread is what they believe is the food most responsible for the fat on your middle. And that is the only fat I have ever had and I was a huge bread eater.
Indian food has a lot of bread and potatoes. Korea lots of rice. Bread and potatoes I ate alot of of - but not much rice. Korean people tend to be genetically on the tiny side too.
It is all aboout genetics first when it comes to Type 2 - what triggers it off is most often obesity - thus, the "fat" stereotype.
Natalie, that's all the bready foods that get the fat on the belly. Polish food has a lot of potatoes, floury things. Look at some Italians that eat way too much pasta - big fat bellies. :)
Oh I DO miss my spaghetti (1/2 Italian, raised on Italian food)!
The doctor that dx'd me actually called me "fresh produce" (no joke!) meaning I was not your typical diabetic patient. He was baffled by me. He still did a good job of figuring out what I needed (tested my c-peptide) to make sure I didn't need insulin (which I don't) - which he thought I might because I am skinny. He was pretty admant about me starting on Met (which I was scared to do - probably not excepting it yet) but since he was a dr. at a low cost clinic in the inner city - who mostly gets poverty level African Americans with diabetes who are overweight, and not a skinny white girl like me - he wasn't too oppitmistic about patients improving and getting off their meds when I asked him about that. Which is kind of sad - he complained that the patients never ate right and took care of their diabetes - I can guess why - because no one every tells you how to do it! Although that dr. was OK and not horrible, they tell you nothing about how to do the diet part of this. So, was not surprisng to me his patients don't do better - no one shows them how! And I am sure they leave the office thinking it is their faults unfortunately! That was one of the biggest peeves when I was diagnosed - the lack of diabetes education AFTER you get dx'd. It was honestly non-exsistant!
Funny enouhg, I have never had an "official" Type diagnois - no one has ever said "You are Type 2". But that is what runs in my family and test-wise everything points to that right now. I actually call myself "Type 2 non-fat" - hahaha! (this way I sound like a Starbucks drink!)
Yup, it's the wheat flour in bread and pasta and all the things I USED to love! Haven't had high-carb foods almost at all in the last 3 months, and lo and behold, I have lost 20 lb. I will never be a vegetarian or vegan -- I just don't like vegetables very much, but I'm trying to eat more.
Chinese, Japanese, Koreans ARE on the tiny side. But they develop Type 2 at much lower BMIs than Europeans do. Seems like you just can't win!