Your truly ancient ancestors didn’t even eat potatoes (they are a New World import). Middle Easterners ate wheat before anyone else did; most people in Europe ate roots, leaves, bulbs, meat, seeds, nuts, a little grain (what they could find – which was not a lot – no spacious wheat fields!) that they mashed up and must have cooked after fire was discovered.
In Eastern Europe, they ate a lot of onions and cabbage. Neither one of those is high carb, but a head of cabbage is large enough to fill you up!!! LOL!
They also kept sheep, pigs and goats in the same house where they lived – there was a shelf, and the family slept on the shelf, and the animals were below. Then there was a space for a fire in the rest of the room. (I saw a re-creation of this kind of longhouse when I visited Poland). It is possible that they got milk from the animals – cheese is a favorite in Eastern Europe.
So your idea of sauerkraut is not so far-fetched! However, you should probably eat a wider variety of vegetables – they’re available, so why not? Just avoid the high-carb ones like peas and corn. Beans are also high-carb, but they have fiber, and apparently consist of “resistant starch” so they don’t digest so quickly. I don’t know if Bernstein has them on his list.
Also be sure to get plenty of protein – it truly does fill you up and quiets the hunger pangs, which are the greatest enemy of a Type 2!
Bernstein uses small amounts of insulin because he is a Type 1, and not insulin-resistant. You apparently are, so you can’t compare yourself to him. Insulin resistance is genetic, and you just happened to be born that way – don’t beat yourself up for it!
Metformin may indeed be helpful if you have a wild liver, and exercise never hurts, but don’t overdo it so much that you end up in pain the next day. Take it slow and easy and build up gradually.
I’m wishing you the best of luck, and hope to hear about your progress!
Well, it’s actually a very imprecise term. How long do you have to go without injections in order to die? If someone is producing no insulin of their own, it could be hours to DKA. Others, who produce a little, but not enough to live on, can go days, or weeks without insulin before they go into DKA. And Type 2’s who stop their insulin may go months with their BGs creeping up, and go into HHS (Hyperglycemic Hyperosmolar Syndrome), and die just the same. (Mortality rate is greater than for DKA)
So what’s “insulin dependent?”
According to the standards of using A1c for diagnosis of diabetes, the cut-off is 6.5. So using that standard, your wife does not have diabetes. And since she is not injecting, she is certainly not insulin-dependent, except on her own internally produced insulin!
If she can keep her A1c in that range without any medication, she is certainly producing enough insulin. She may or may not be insulin-resistant, but that is another story.
Her doc is smart to keep an eye on it, but I don’t think it’s time to worry yet.
Typically T2s will not DKA because the insulin they are producing prevents it. Usually they will go into a hyperosmolar hyperglycemic state (HHS - there are several names for it). In cases of HHS it is not unusual to present with BG in the 1000+ range (mg/dl). T1s rarely present with HHS because they DKA prior to getting the BG levels that high.
The only way Type 1’s will go into HHS is if there is something else wrong with them, and they are faithfully injecting insulin multiple times, and they still cannot get their BG down. As you said, it is very rare.
Usually it goes along with not eating, it’s not “just” skipping shots… it’s an actual eating disorder.
I just read that definition. This is slightly off topic but it says Type 1 which “usually occurs in childhood and adolescence.” Hmm… it’s actually about 50% on either side of 18 years old. Update please Merriam-Webster 
I don’t understand how anybody who has ever been in DKA would ever intentionally do anything that they know would make them go DKA again.
It was the scariest experience in my entire life. Just thinking about all the tubes makes me feel ill.
Of course the pre-DKA weight loss was fab but I’d rather be a walking and talking, even slightly padded, than a thin corpse!
The eating disorder plus the diabetes treatment disorder makes it actually repulsive to take a shot. If you read Holly’s blogs (there are several Hollys – she’s the one with a long-shot picture of her with someone else), you can see how mentally disordered she is. She’s definitely STRUGGLING with it – intellectually she knows she needs the insulin, but her disordered mind keeps telling her she is fat, and not to take insulin, because it will make her fatter. There is no intellectual reasoning with this kind of disorder – DKA is the least of it – her thinking is so disordered, she actually needs serious medical help, including hospitalization. I think there are medications for it, but I’m not sure. Unless this kind of disorder is dealt with, early death is the rule, regardless of whether the person has diabetes or not. I’m remembering Karen Carpenter of the luscious voice who was a popular singer in the 70’s and who died way too young of anorexia. Plus Isabelle Caro, a French model who was even photographed in a campaign to fight anorexia, but who recently died of it at the age of 28.
Natalie; I love that term, ‘Type Weird!’ Haven’t heard it before, and I just might appropriate it! That should give me some raised eyebrows!
Chaplain ET
Sure, go ahead and use it! It at least acknowledges that there are more than 5 forms of diabetes (Type 1, Type 2, MODY, LADA and gestational). My particular form of diabetes certainly does not fit in the boxes, and I’m sure I’m not the only one!
Been that done that but in 4-6 hrs with Flu (actually influesia-not virus which most take as Flu) was in intsesive care for a week Its kicked my ■■■ bigtime kicked my ■■■ I was floored and couldnt believe it one bit I was in ketoacidosis that fast…and I had mayby 12-14 times being Type I for now 25 years