This started out as a forum post here on TuD, then as a blog post here, and then morphed into a full-fledged post about my thoughts and experiences around being told I could "eat anything" as a young adult. Now that I've stayed up well past my bedtime writing this post, I hope you enjoy it, and please share your thoughts! :)
You always write such thoughtful and heartwarming posts. I also feel very conflicted with the advice that you can eat anything you want and just dose. How can a health professional actually say that and not feel like they have compromised themselves. Whatever happened to the part of the Hippocratic oath that said Primum non nocere (first, do no harm). It just makes me a bit sad that we as patients are put in a position where need protect ourselves from our healthcare advisors.
Great post Jen! I find it difficult to understand why so many health care professionals continue the "Eat anything you want" mantra in the face of so much empirical evidence to the contrary.
Jen, you write so well and I always enjoy your posts so much. You are such a great role model for other young people.
I have had the same struggles with the "eat anything you want" mentality. And the dietician telling me "you have to eat *some* carbs at every meal"... have to? why? I think this is a throw back to the old insulins but they're still saying it.
Yes, I've been there, done that, too with trying to eat "normally" and cover it with insulin with roller coaster results - I think I'm at a point where it's just not worth it to me anymore. It's just easier not to subject myself to that. And when a craving overwhelms me and I cave...I remember when I'm sitting up at midnight treating high blood sugar why I don't eat that way anymore.
The one thing that always gets me about people trying to push food on me is that if you say you are diabetic, they say "can't you have just a little?". But if you say you are allergic, they don't push any further. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said it's because they don't see us getting physically ill.
This is a fantastic blog post. I've recently come to a similar realization. I've been on an insulin pump for most of my diabetic life and have I always told myself that a big carby bowl of cereal, bowl of ice cream, pizza, etc. was fine because I could just cover it with insulin. Except my blood sugar always rose dramatically afterward -- no matter how much I struggled post-meal to correct it -- and my pants don't always fit the way I like. It's only within the past few months I thought to myself, "Gee maybe a lower carb diet would be beneficial." So I gave it a try and my numbers are lower (and more consistent) and my weight is dropping. Imagine that!
jen, this is a great post. me and a very good friend became t1s in our 30s, she just two years before me. her doctor in the us put her on the pump and they told her she could eat anything she wanted. she went from a size 12 prediagnosis to a zero-really sick, icu for a week. in about two years she was back up to a size 14, eating whatever she wants. her a1cs are good, she says, because shes all sorted on her pump. but she eats chick fillet and fast food and, well, whatever she wants.
i was diagnosed about two years later and from the get go ive been low carbing, having eliminated those White foods that i know will probably spike me-bread, rice, potato, pizza. i splurge now and then, but then i see the spike (especially after pizza, no matter what i do with this MDI) and go back to my low carbing.
i dont understand how doctors can tell t1s that we can eat whatever we want. moderation is great but if i ate whatever i wanted then i would be eating chocolate cereal every morning and pasta and paella every night and working like a dog to control things.
thanks for a great post, im glad i didnt live in the "no sugar" for diabetics-it would have depressed me to no end!
I think your blog is a 100% dead center bullseye. I could take up space agreeing with everything it says, but I would just be repeating (poorly) what you already said perfectly.
Nicely done.
Good post! I ate all sorts of stuff and still do but the amounts that you get, particularly if you eat out, are totally ridiculous. Tonight I was taking junior to dancing and there's a fantastic middle eastern place right by there but they don't sell any carb free options, it all comes with a heap of rice and it chafes me to buy it and not eat it or save it or whatever so we just blew it off. I did ok BG wise eating a lot of crazy stuff but it's a lot more work and I am way better off since I stopped that and have pulled back, for the most part.
Thanks for a well written post. What if the "eat anything you want" mantra could be me more spesific? "Eat anyhing you like as long as you compensate with insulin AND manage to keep your blood sugar within normal range".
Thanks for writing this. I am beginning to understand that as a Type II, I can eat what I want and compensate with meds, but the better I control my eating now means that I need less medication, now and in the future. It seemed like a simple trade off, the future heavier meds for a care free eating regime now. I am just now trying to understand the relationship between extra weight and insulin, and that my food choices actually can make me feel better.
Excellent essay. As a T2,I've been puzzling over this advice,too. I think the medical professional who give it, really think the advice is liberating, similar to "Girls can do anything."
Thanks everyone for all the great feedback! I'm sort of surprised to hear that T2s are getting this advice; I thought it was more of a T1/insulin thing.
Jen and others , I must be getting old ...I don't recall being told, I can eat anything I want ..when I was diagnosed 1983 and when I started pumping in 2001 .What I do recall as I so enjoyed my liqueurs prior to being diagnosed : have a liqueur on your BD , have one at Christmas and fit another one in during the year ...it never happened ..as I found the stuff far too sweet :) Hang in Jen and keep on writing !!
Well, don't forget there there are a lot of T2s using insulin also (holds up own hand). And nowadays Joslin starts newly diagnosed T2s on insulin right away. The attitudes about earlier use of insulin are slowly, slowly shifting -- and not a moment too soon. Personally I wish I had done it years ago (and I wouldn't be, now, if I hadn't insisted on it myself).
I wonder if T2s without insulin are being told this type of thing, too. I meant "T1/insulin" to cover T1s plus T2s using insulin. :)
Good question, Jen. Type 2 diabetes is very common, and we are treated with a degree of distain by many medical professionals. We often get haphazard treatment, and many T2's erroneously believe if we take some meds, we can eat anything. If the Metformin doesn't work (which it won't because it isn't insulin and it doesn't actually let us eat more carbs) then we ask for a higher dose; then an additional medication; then another, until we no longer produce insulin, and we get an insulin prescription. Current research shows most T2s have exhausted 80% of their beta cells by diagnosis, so we are already well along. Without insulin, we should rely on diet, but most people don't really understand what that means.
mho ...no one living with diabetes or NOT living with diabetes should be told " you can eat anything " ...it is not so ...and I am glad I was not told by anyone of my health team members , I would have argued with them if they had !! ...unless I really can't recall that " they " did " :)