Does anyone here practice a Vegan Diet? I’ve been getting intrigued lately, but have some concerns. It seems like Carbs are increased quite a bit which concerns me. Also, I would like to Gain weight, and this seems like it would reduce weight.
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ART7, I follow the vegan diet the guys on Mastering Diabetes have written about. I eat 10 times the amount of carbs that I ate on the Bernstein 30 carbs a day diet and don’t take much more insulin at all. I took a total of 19 to 23 units of insulin while low carbing and I take 21 to 25 total units now.
It is a vegan diet with only 10 to 15 % of your calories coming from fat. All of the carbs are healthy carbs.
I lost weight on this diet as most people do. Your insulin resistance will also be greatly reduced.
I have been a type 1 for 60 yrs. I followed the Bernstein diet for 11 yrs before switching to the low fat plant based diet. My A1c is 5.2 and I try to keep my glucose levels between 65 and 155. I am not always successful but I do pretty well.
Perhaps Marie20 will post too about her vegan way of eating.
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Hi @Art7 I have been vegetarian for over 50 years and am a strict vegan for the last 35 years, and a type 1/ LADA for 16 years.
It just depends what you want to follow. I eat what I want as long as it’s vegan, some days are high carb, some are lower, it just depends what I choose to eat?
There are a lot of the fake meats out there that aren’t high carb and they are high protein. Also really bowls of veggies aren’t high carb either. I do love nuts and eat those daily. Nuts and avocados are higher fat/calorie items that would help with weight gain. Vegans have a tendency to be skinnier, although I have never been skinny. Weight gain comes down to you need to consume more calories than you use, so you would need to make sure your calories stay higher.
I have a Dexcom that has helped with Bg control. Prebolusing is the most helpful to Bg control. My A1C is 5.1% and I stay within 99% TIR of between 65-160. I did a whole thread on Vegan, Type 1 and my Numbers.
I’ve often wondered about the dividing line between vegan and vegetarian. I looked it up and came to this page which describes both very nicely. At the end, there’s a nicely done poster/graphic too.
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I’m not vegan, but I do have food allergies to dairy and eggs, among other things. I also don’t like cooking red meat and I can’t often eat processed meat or red meat at restaurants due to my allergies. So I’m pretty close to being vegan. I also try to eat a moderate carbohydrate diet because carbohydrates really spike me unpredictably.
I think it would really depend on the type of vegan diet someone ate. You can eat really unhealthy vegan (or low-carb) diets if they’re full of processed food. Since I make almost all of my food from scratch, it’s fairly easy for me to customize things based on what I want.
For example, last night I ate a vegan, low-carb hamburger that I made from scratch and it was amazing. The bun was made mostly of coconut flour, almond flour, and psyllium husk powder (plus a few other things) and the patty was made mostly of zucchini and walnuts (plus a few other things).
I think if I was retired or otherwise not working, I likely would be eating a fully vegan and low-carb combination diet. I really enjoy experimenting in the kitchen and building my collection of recipes that work for me (one of the few upsides of severe food allergies was allowing me to discover this hobby). My main limitation is time.
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@Tapestry I love your chart you found!
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Thanks for all the responses and the added links. All very interesting and appreciated. I got interested in this after watching The Game Changers and the Knives and Forks video. I guess I didn’t really know the difference between Vegan and Vegetarian. At this point, I’m probably not looking to go all in on anything, but probably switch out some meat choices for Tofu protein and something similar. But it is very interesting to see the different approaches that people are taking to their diet and also specific approaches to treating the diabetes. Thanks again for all the input.
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