We are carbohydrate junkies

Community Share Your Stories
1
I am not one of those who goes around with a sticker affixed: "Loose weight. Ask me how."

But I have lost weight so easily that I am gob-smacked by the experience.

You know the same old story of course:
"No matter what I did, I could not lose weight and if I did I gained it back again."
It wasn't as though I was so sedentary and such a gormandizer that I was my own worse enemy. I exercised more than any one I know and swallowed a good menu. . But as I aged and the consequences of my illness consolidated my 'big boned' body kept going cellular.

This all changed when I switched to a low carb diet. I cannot now get over the fact that I don't hunger at all I eat to satiation and very well in way of cuisine options. My blood sugars have fallen and stabilized.

I am, in point of fact, a new man who is becoming even more novel by the day.

That such a shift in diet should have such a beneficial consequence, makes me rethink all the dietary assumptions I've been party to all my life. The low carb promise is indeed a knife that plunges into the heart of the cultural attributes that underpin "the western diet" -- or "the Asian diet" for that matter. Indeed, "the diseases of civilization" is not simply a catch phrase but a scientific fact that begins at the counter in your local McDonalds outlet and extends way back to Ancient Mesopotamia.

Why the "western diet" should now bear down upon us with such devastating consequences today, after a few thousand years of consuming it -- in regard to such diseases of civilization as diabetes, obesity, coronary heart disease, etc -- may have a lot to do with the industrialization of both agriculture and food preparation. Today our calorie dense fast food intake congeals almost all the attributes that are 'bad' about the diet we have inherited.

That you can eat well today and still be a victim suggests that the epidemiology isn't as simply as staying away from soft drinks, potato chips and fast food.

We are carbohydrate junkies.


2

Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts. I was on ADA prescribed food pyramid of fixed percentages of carbs, protiens and fats before being jolted by Lizmari’s remarks. Your experience reinforces that and now my experiments with Lo carb diet has benefitted me. We, today’s human beings (I also hear pets), are carbohydrate junkies.

3

Way to go Dave Riley! You rock. I’ve followed low carb diets for some years now. While I never was overweight, I’ve thrived on the diet. I’m reading a new book, you might find it affirming (http://www.amazon.com/New-Atkins-You-Ultimate-Shedding/dp/1439190275/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1275567186&sr=1-1).

4

It seems to me that the evidence is strong – not just for diabetes sufferers, but more generally .-- that carbohydrates are a very mixed blessing. While they aren’t “toxic” you have to wonder how much of them is enough before some dependencies kick in. It’s not only how much glucose you ingest and deal with at the cellular level, but also what sort of environment you create for gut , and mouth, flora. If you are out and about and wanting some fast food or to eat at a restaurant , when you are thinking low carb, it’s shocking how much of what is available is carbohydrate dense with grains, of course, being the main driver for that. We are drowning in wheat, corn, potatoes and rice…Its’ a junky’s playground.

5

Great Post! It is true we are a world of carb junkies. My name is Kimberly, and I am carb junkie! :slight_smile: And its true - I was! Until D…My food before was bread, bread and more bread (I should have joined the BA - Breadaholics Anonymous).

I never realized how many carbs I actually ate until I couldn’t have it anymore (at least not like I used too). Now when I look back - holy carbs! I was never overweight either but I lived off the carbs quiet nicely.

Like Tom, I efforlessly have lost 20 pounds in the last three months by having to give up my carb addicted lifestyle. My carbs are low now - I think under 100 on most days but I don’t always count. My bread addiction is fed by an allowed one piece of low carb bread at breakfast and sometimes with a halfsie sandwich at lunch.

In all though, my life and body are probably better without all those carbs. But do I miss them? Yeah. But wonder if me getting D was my bodys way of telling me I was eating too much bread! :slight_smile:

6

Sounds lovely. Now I just need to figure out a way to stop eating carbs… I don’t suppose there’s a sort of methadone for carbs, is there?

7

Revise the food pyramid! That would indeed be radical: it would turn nutritional science on its head. I was on “Low GI” for years and thought I was doing right by my ‘pre-diabetec’ status – but carbohydrate is still carbohydrate and GI is a false god.

I too eat around 100 grams per day of carbohydrate. I measured at first but now I more or less keep to a rough target level which I find easy to do.

I do eat bread however – but sourdough bread I bake myself. Research suggests that sourdough has a lot going for it that other , even whole grain, breads don’t offer. In fact while the acidity lowers its GI rating, the other dynamic is the fact that it relies on bugs to completely produce itself. Theres’ no shortcuts. The “Paleo Diet” folk are getting big on preserves and yeasted foods and I suspect there’s a lot of useful elements harnessed by hard working yeasts.

I can include the bread in the diet as I have an arithmetic image of my total daily consumption of carbs. If I think , because of a higher blood result, I should adjust my two slices of bread ration, rather than skip it, I slice a thinner slice. Thats’ the beauty with home made – it’s real bread with real bread texture and I have a ‘size’ option.

I bake every two days.

The other interesting thing about cutting back carbs is the famine it creates for your gut flora who expect to be sustained each day at maybe 300 + grams intake under a “normal” diet regime.

For those interested, here are my sourdough links: http://delicious.com/ratbagradio/sour_dough

I use supermarket bought bread flours and rely on considered rising: feed the ferment overnight in the refrigerator, then rise it again for about 4-5 hours before baking. It should come in at about 12-16 grams of carbohydrates per slice.

I also drink beer – home brewed – to which i add a low GI sugar. I’ve done the maths and I can still come in under 100-120 grams by being considerate of all I consume.

8

PS: I think individuals vary regardless of maths and if I get a glucose spike reaction, I’ll get it from the bread and not form the beer.But that could also be effected by the time of day of the consumption. So long as I can “indulge” I’m sweet – but not glucose sweet.

9

Revise the food pyramid–agree! That will be a long time coming as the low fat, eat more grains trend prevails. Also agree that glycemic index is quite faulty.

I was a carb junkie. Like Kimberly, my addiction of choice was bread. I’d devour a loaf of bread, crusty bread, at one sitting. I preferred good bread over dessert. Couldn’t even begin to calculate how many carbs were in my former meals of huge bowls of pasta, with bread, of course! How I didn’t have a weight problem is a mystery. But, I did fall asleep after dinner, only to wake up to eat even more carbs before bed. I was also tired frequently. The cure–eat more carbs–eeek!

I’m T1 & have been eating very low carb for almost two years. Feel so much better eating protein, vegetables & berries. I’ve become a more creative cook as an additional bonus.

10

Yep it ticks a lot of boxes. I am annoyed that nutritional standards are so inflexible. When the discourse in regard to low carbohydrate comes up, the rhetoric prefers to caricature it as high protein and warn against ketosis. In point of fact, I’m eating more – selectively more – by also choosing to eat selectively less of certain foods. I’m not really "dieting’ so much as consciously excluding some foods from my diet. This means that my whole larder has moved from the pantry to the refrigerator as the stuff I put in my mouth is more alive – or very recently deceased. I also get to experience new culinary surprizes as I now no longer make up a meal with fill.

In my case my blood readings first settled at sixes and sevens mmol/L and I’m hoping to get down and stay below 6.9 with oral medication. As I lose more weight, and my general condition improves, this may be possible.

Nonetheless, I am flabbergasted as to how easy it has been to do this: that once I recognized, if not an addiction, at least a dependency on certain high carb foods (regardless of their GI rating), then I was on a brand new trip.

Of course this opens up a can of worms not only for diabetics who are the most vulnerable carb eaters in the population, but also for the whole human race esp in regard to the "diseases of civilisation’.

How is it that after decades of nutritional campaigns to roll back heart disease, by promoting whole grains, we are now being overcome by a pandemic of obesity and diabetes? Why is standard dieting always ruled by the yo yo effect?

Lack of exercise? Sure, that’s a factor – but there has to be more happening under the hood. While fast food deserves a lot of blame, is the causative factor due to fast food’s carbohydrate density or its fat content (and trans fats at that)?

While it seems deceptively simple to blame the human use of carbs I think it is nonethless a hypothesis that warrants intense research. Maybe the Paleo dieters have a undeniable POV?

Of course if the “healthy diet” is indeed a low carb one – imagine the consequences for food production!

11

Gerri sounds like we had a similar diet. Me too, Pasta with bread (plural actually!), big bowl of soup with bread(s), bready breakfasty, sandwich for lunch or something else with bread. Geez, bread, bread, bread, bread, bread. I have kind of had a love hate relationship with it - I know it is bad for me so I curse the guy who invented it but still love the stuff because it is comfort food. I often think about how the world would be different if certain foods/cooking methods had not been stumbled upon - I am sure our diets would be quite different! So might the food pyramid!

I think the more bread I started eating the more tried I got - but I loved the stuff so I didn’t really notice the co-relation. I had given up bread before in my life - no bread = my skin looked nicer. I am thankful to be one of those persons who can give something else and get rid of the cravings quickly. So, I don’t think about it so much anymore - although I still hate going past those freshly baked loafs at the store! I try to focus on how much better it is for me not to have all of that.

Funny how you mention about falling asleep - I didnt really always do that. But in the last few years before D, there were a few times were I just would get super sleepy -I think it was like an hour after eating and just sitting watching TV and would fall asleep without even realizing it. It was almost like narcolepsy - totally unlike me.I thought about that carbs might be the possible cause at the time but can’t remember now. I would be asleep for maybe an hour or too on the couch sitting straight up - which I can’t normally fall asleep like that! It was the strangest thing. Hasn’t happened to me in a while so I wonder if it was the all those carbs. I had a increase in the carbs the winter before I was diagnosed (2009) - I wonder if your body can hit a peek of some sorts. Too many carbs and it shuts down.

Dave, I think can think of many reasons why even though we have all these champaigns there are still problems. Esp. here in America. Most people are so over worked and stressed they are too tired to fix fresh meals - they spend all their time on other things not related to food that when you need to eat who has the energy or timet o do it. And that leads to the next thing, if you are too tired to cook who has the energy or time to exercise?

It is a vicious cycle. The American Lifestyle leads to overworked, overstressed and overworried people. Its exahusting. If people had the time and energy, I think many of them would try to eat fresher foods and exercise. People have no time to sit and enjoy life and when they do - who wants to spend it exercising and cooking?

It is sad but true. And yes, the fast food place don’t place but that was why they were invented. To further weaken the health of people, who are already fast on their way to burn out. People who just want the quick fix. It is kind of a weird dilemma in a way - all of these advances humankind has made to make our lives simplier are seen as good but they have kind of bad side effect. I think it is funny how these things are have supposed to make our lives easier but people are still busier than ever - so how did they help? To make us lazier and unhealthier.

I think not only the food pyramid needs to be changed but our lifestyles. It almost seems like we are the point of no return to me. I can’t see a lot of people being able to let go. I would be able too - but I think we have some of the big corporations to blame for keeping people in these cycles that they can’t get out of.

12

It occurred to me that the mental shift required both for diabetics and others is one from counting calories to counting carbs. But then it doesn’t seem to make physical sense: calorie counting is an in-and-out balance sheet that supposedly tells you how much energy you are using up relative to fuel intake. If you shift that requirement to carbohydrates there’s not the simple logic --and then suddenly most fats don’t get boogeyman status because they aren’t as intrinsically and proactively weight gainers as we are taught.

The tragedy is that legumes get a bad report – because they are carbohydrate dense – and many fruits.so the obvious advantages of eating plenty of fruit and legumes is undermined.

The other factor that kicks in, as you say Kimberley, is that carbs are convenience foods par excellence. We have had thousands of years to learn how to shortcut our preparation of them and import them into our diet in so many creative ways. Our whole cuisine – no matter your country of origin – rests on density of carb ingredients because they are such a rich energy source.

And as the Paleos say, without the grains – no Renaissance, no literature, no movies, no industry, no us in a way – as the grains underpin everything we are. They are our raison d’etre in a historical sense and millions have been butchered so that ownership of that particular food chain is guaranteed.

In a sense, a historical and evolutionary sense, diabetics are like the canary in the coal mine perhaps?

13

Dave, I like your expression, “I’m eating more – selectively more – by also choosing to eat selectively less of certain foods. I’m not really ‘dieting’ so much as consciously excluding some foods from my diet.”
“calorie counting is an in-and-out balance sheet that supposedly tells you how much energy you are using up relative to fuel intake.” This doesnot hold true for us Ds, esp T2. Diane Kress in her book “The Metabolism Miracle” says that for us Ds, this formula of cals in minus cals expended is the cals still remainig transformed to body fat etc.She calls this Metabolism Type B. She herself is D, is Regd. Dietician, is Cert Diab Educator and her metabolism plan of three stages is being used in many hospitals and she is in pvt. practice also. I have read the book and highly recommend the same. U may also visit her site http://themetabolismmiracle.com/default.aspx