Archive for 'Diabetes'

THE CARBOHYDRATE ADDICT’S DIET: ADJUSTING TO A NEW LIFESTYLE (JIMMY O’S STORY)

Posted on May 6, 2011, under Diabetes.

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Jimmy did construction work. At fifty-six he was an interesting mix of youth and age. His hair was light brown dappled with gray; his face was boyish, but pale and tense.
“My doctor says I’ve got to take off some weight. He’s been telling me for years, but now it’s serious.” He went on to talk about his high blood pressure, his backaches, and his father, who died at age fifty-eight. “I have to take off at least thirty pounds,” he said.
Jimmy had tried diets in the past but, he told us, “I couldn’t work on cucumber sandwiches or child-sized portions. I get too hungry. It just doesn’t feel like real food. It’s not enough for me.
“And I can’t carry a measuring cup and food scale with me to the twentieth floor of a construction job. Or those exchanges—they wanted me to eat one exchange of this and two exchanges of that. I can’t live like that. I don’t eat exchanges, I eat real food that gets all the exchanges mixed together. It got really ridiculous, trying to figure out exchanges while the guys are ordering sandwiches from the deli.”
Jimmy’s Carbohydrate Addict’s Test revealed he had only a Mild Addiction. We told him about the three-meal-a-day plan, two of them low in carbohydrates, the third the Reward Meal. We explained the insulin connection, too, and he nodded in agreement. He’d try it.
Jimmy was between jobs, so for the first two weeks of the diet he had little difficulty following it. In fact, he was losing weight almost too quickly, at a rate of about three pounds a week. But then he was called back to work.
“Now let’s see how the diet holds up on the job,” he said with a laugh.
It proved to be a difficult challenge. A basic part of Jimmy’s work, we learned, was an almost ritual approach to eating. Breakfast with the guys was first. Then after a couple of hours of work came coffee break. Then some more work and lunch. In the middle of the afternoon came another break. Then everybody went home for dinner.
The sum total of this eating-working schedule was five mealtimes daily. Not surprisingly, Jimmy didn’t do as well the first week back on the job.
“Breakfast is no problem,” he assured us. “Bacon and eggs I love and I don’t really mind giving up the bread.
“The morning coffee break, though, that’s tough. I don’t know exactly what to do. For the first couple of days I just had coffee, but then I started adding rolls toward the end of the week. Lunch is okay, I bring that from home.
“The real tough one is the coffee break in the afternoon. By then I’m tired and cold and hungry and the thought of just coffee when everyone else is eating is impossible.”
Even with his rule breaking, however, Jimmy lost three pounds. Still, from experience we knew we couldn’t let him eat carbohydrates as often as he wanted to: it would inevitably lead to an appetite rebound and the end of his weight loss.
Given his rapid weight loss, we recommended that Jimmy follow plan A. This would help avoid hyperinsulinemia but still suit his needs. We recommended the following: his breakfast would remain the same Low-Carbohydrate Meal, and we reminded him that he’d have to forgo the rolls that he had added to his morning coffee break. He agreed, he could manage that. Lunch was to be as usual, low-carbohydrate foods. But Plan A added a Low-Carbohydrate Snack.
Jimmy was now able to follow a plan that included a snack at afternoon break, like a chicken leg and dill pickle. Jimmy suggested celery stuffed with cream cheese, a favorite snack of his. We told him that was perfectly acceptable, too.
It worked. Breakfast and lunch remained his Low-Carbohydrate Meals, dinner his Reward Meal. At the midafternoon break, Jimmy had some meat or his cheese and celery snack.
On his next visit, Jimmy told us a story about his daily throwing away of the bread that came with the deli sandwich he had started ordering for that snack. “So help me,” he said, chuckling, “I swear the pigeons know I’m coming now and they head for the trash can nearest me.” His weight dropped steadily—but not too fast. He reached his desired weight loss of thirty-two pounds in less than four months. And, two years later, his yearly check-in revealed his weight was still level.
The Carbohydrate Addict’s Diet had worked well for him. “I’m thinner than I was in high school, and my blood pressure is like that of a kid. That’s it for me—for life.”
*35\236\2*

THE G.I. FACTOR: CAN THE G.I. FACTOR BE APPLIED TO REAL MEALS?

Posted on May 8, 2009, under Diabetes.

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Normally, real meals consist of a variety of foods. We can still apply the G.I. factor to these real meals even though the G.I. values are originally derived from testing single foods in isolation. Scientists have found that it is possible to predict the blood sugar rise for a meal based on several foods with different G.I. factors. The total carbohydrate content of the meal and the contribution of each food to the total carbohydrate must be known.

For example, say you have a breakfast based on orange juice, Weet-Bix with milk and a slice of toast with a thin scrape of margarine.

In the following table, you can see how the G.I. factor of the total meal has been calculated. This may look complicated. In practice, people don’t need to make these sorts of calculations at all. But dietitians and nutrition researchers sometimes have to. Many studies have shown a very close relationship between the predicted blood sugar response (as based on published G.I. factors of the relative effects of different foods and meals) and the actual observed blood sugar response.

*27\33\4*

THE G.I. FACTOR: THE GOOD NEWS

Posted on May 8, 2009, under Diabetes.

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Our research on the G.I. factor began in the 1980s when health authorities all over the world began to stress the importance of high carbohydrate diets. Until then dietary fat had grabbed all the media attention (and to some extent this is still true). But low-fat diets are ipso facto high in carbohydrate. The questions therefore became which type of carbohydrate:

? Is best for overall health?

? Can reduce our risk of diseases like heart disease or diabetes?

? Is best for weight control?

? Can optimise sports performance?

Our research since the early 1980s has contributed to the worldwide recognition that the rate of carbohydrate digestion in the gastrointestinal (digestive) tract has important implications for everybody.

Although the G.I. factor has been well described in scientific journals and nutrition text books over the past decade, this information was not available to the public until the release of the first edition of The G.I. Factor. We believed that it was time to spread the good news to a wider audience and to broadcast the fact that there are different types of carbohydrate that work in different ways.

The good news is that the G.I. factor provides an easier and more effective way to win the battle of the bulge and control fluctuations in blood sugar (glucose). People with diabetes or heart disease in the family, as well as serious athletes will welcome the news. For some people it will lift the great burden of guilt about eating.

In this revised edition of the book we give you all the details on the G.I. factor plus new recipes, more meal plans and the very latest findings including:

? The benefit of vinegar and lemon juice on G.I.

? Recent studies from Harvard University

? New G.I. figures for recently tested foods.

*3\33\4*

HOW CHILDREN FEEL ABOUT DIABETES

Posted on April 23, 2009, under Diabetes.

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It is sometimes hard to know how a child feels about his illness and how he sees diabetes and the way it affects him. Children are not always able to express their feelings and often they are not given the opportunity to do so anyway. Sometimes these worries and fears or misconceptions may not come out until years later, or may never be discussed. Often a child may feel awkward about talking about himself to older people, even to his parents.

On the other hand, it may be encouraging to hear the comments of intelligent teenagers who have diabetes, and know that most children with diabetes do in fact make a very good adjustment to their condition.

Tony, aged 14 years

‘My name is Anthony and I am 14.1 have had diabetes for 2 1/2 years.

The first sign of illness was one morning when I woke up early with a great urge to pass urine. I had gone through the day passing urine quite frequently. This was continued for a week and at the beginning of the second week Mum had arranged for the family doctor to see me. After examining me thoroughly and testing my urine, he said that I had an infected tooth and should visit the dentist immediately. Being scared of dentists, I didn’t arrange an appointment but later in that week I found myself drinking enormous amounts of water. After this I became weak and drowsy and at this stage I had lost a considerable amount of weight. For the first time I lost my appetite and at this stage I was quite dehydrated. Then I noticed that a vile smell had built up and anything I drank was soon brought up again. During the night I had very little rest and next morning I felt very ill. Mum had rung our doctor again and this time he diagnosed me as diabetic. I felt relieved in a way and confused in another way. I overheard a conversation about an ambulance having to come and escort me to the hospital. In the ambulance I felt excited. This excitement was soon ended when I was rolled away into a cubicle at casualty.

‘All of a sudden I felt scared: babies crying, parents quarrelling, doctors and nurses rushing about me. Blood was being taken from my fingers and I had to pass urine for other tests. I was all confused when finally I asked someone what was wrong with me. The answers were all the same, “Nothing that you should worry about”, they would say. Soon I was moved to a ward. There I had an intravenous put in. Being terrified of injections I asked some questions but they were in vain. Starting to feel better, I asked for something to eat. This was refused quite politely. I felt terrified when the time for my insulin injections came round for I had always dreaded injections all my life. Thirty hours later the intravenous was taken out and I was able to get on my feet again. I was given some food but found it wasn’t enough and when I complained, I was confronted by a dietitian.

‘After a tedious talk from one of the staff about a few complications of diabetes I was very discomforted for a while. I had become very solemn, losing interest in life, and bored. After a few days of this boredom I was taken with my parents down to the first floor of the hospital to my physician’s office. At first my doctor asked me to come in alone. He introduced himself and sat me down. The first question he asked was how I felt about being diabetic. Well, by this time, I had some knowledge about diabetes and its complications so I answered disheartedly, “It can’t be helped”.

‘By this time I had given quite an impression that I was depressed. He asked me what I felt and I replied, “I don’t know, actually”. I shouldn’t feel this way I know – millions of children have diabetes. Why should I feel any different? It is a normal healthy way of life. Besides most people won’t have to know. But why be ashamed of it? Family pride, loss of friends. All these questions and answers revolved around my mind and I felt numb all of a sudden, not physically but mentally. I also felt like crying. But why cry? What is that going to solve? Nothing, of course. Eventually I was asked to leave the room. As I walked out I felt hot and cold, happy and sad, strong and weak all at the same time. Suddenly I stopped pitying myself.

‘I was curious what the doctor was saying to my parents at first and I became more curious when my mother came out crying. This time I was asked to enter and join my parents. Doctor asked them how they felt. My mother replied, still sniffing, that it was a way of life and that they would have to accept it. My mother was stubborn and persisted that she believed there was a cure. Doctor explained that it would be wrong to believe that there was a cure. He also explained that it can be controlled and they have proved it on the same way as me on millions of other children in the world.’

*59/54/5*