Today, I’m mad. Angry. Pissed. Ticked. I want to punch something. The other day was a bad day where I didn’t feel well and was grumpy. I re-read this post and felt better. My last post was about feeling lucky and I still feel that way, but today I’m mad.
When I was
diagnosed in 2005 I didn’t receive any direction or assistance or
encouragement. That lack of attention to
the seriousness of diabetes led me to believe that I could continue eating in a
way that wasn’t really good for me. I
went about figuring out how I could continue to eat some of my favorite foods
and still control my diabetes, when in reality I should have let them go from
the beginning and start to find healthier options.
I have
always advocated for slow change, especially when it’s someone whose diet has
been filled with a high percentage of processed carbohydrates. I still feel that this is the best approach
but I’m beginning to think that we’re moving too slowly. Lately I’ve come to the conclusion that the
mainstream medical society hasn’t been doing those of us with type 2 diabetes a
service by coddling us and encouraging us to continue to eat foods that contain
higher amounts of carbohydrates. The
idea of a “healthy diet” is under scrutiny and some doctors are now admitting
that they’ve been wrong for several decades.
which I highly recommend you do.
“The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of
obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague
in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences.”
“(We) have simply
followed the recommended mainstream diet that is low in fat and high in
polyunsaturated fats and carbohydrates, not knowing we were causing
repeated injury to our blood vessels. This repeated injury creates chronic
inflammation leading to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and obesity.”
“What you can do
is choose whole foods your grandmother served and not those your mom
turned to as grocery store aisles filled with manufactured foods. By
eliminating inflammatory foods and adding essential nutrients from fresh
unprocessed food, you will reverse years of damage in your arteries and
throughout your body from consuming the typical American diet.”
I’m lucky because
my diabetes was apparently caught before my insulin resistance was very
high. I could still get away with eating
higher amounts of carbs without medication and not see glucose spikes…for a while. Now, not so much. I feel cheated! By sticking my head in the sand, with the
help of my “team”, I merely delayed the inevitable: I must drastically lower my
carb intake in order to control my diabetes.
Let me rephrase that: I must cut out most carbs and replace them with non-starchy
vegetables, beans and nuts. My body just
can’t handle carbohydrates any longer.
Sigh.
This brings up a
subject that I’ve been grappling with for some time now: Is it better for a
PWD, T2 to cut out carbs in order to control glucose, or should we just take
more medicine? I’ll just betcha if I
asked a dietician or CDE I would be told to up my medication. In fact, I had a reply to a comment I made in
a forum from someone who claimed to be a dietician who said that if I couldn’t
even eat a sandwich without seeing a bg spike then I needed to take more
medicine. But is that really the best answer?
Is the almighty whole grain really that important?
I need to clarify which
carbs I’m removing from my food plan.
I’m not talking about a box of macaroni and cheese; that stuff went out
the door a long time ago. No, I’m
talking about whole wheat bread, cereal (even oatmeal and high fiber options)
and some fruit. I occasionally eat small
quantities of pasta and couscous. This
adjustment has taken a long time for me to achieve (and I still “blow it” on
occasion). I think that the slow change
has made it easier for me to accept that I can’t just eat whatever I want but
now I’m wondering if this change in food plan shouldn’t have happened
sooner. Someone should have slapped me
up the side of the head and made me realize that I needed to make major changes
right away instead of basically being told to “watch what I eat and move more”.
I’m
mad. I’m indignant for all of us who are
dealing with type 2 diabetes. We’re
vilified in the media for being fat and lazy when we aren’t much different from
anyone else. We’re told, even by the
medical profession, that we can control our diabetes if we “simply” make some
changes to our diet and increase our exercise, and yet, we are encouraged by those
same medical professionals to continue to eat higher amounts of whole grains
even if our meters tell us otherwise. If
our blood glucose numbers don’t go down, or continue to rise, we’re accused of
cheating, of being non-compliant. We’re
told that diabetes is a progressive disease, but would it progress as quickly
if we dramatically changed our carb intake early on?
I’m
pissed. I want to shout from the rooftop
so that people will listen, but they won’t.
I can’t fight the mainstream thinking.
We are being sold a bill of goods by well-intentioned people who just
might be wrong. I feel as if my
generation has been a huge science experiment that went horribly wrong. We’re fatter and sicker because we ate a low
fat diet filled with processed foods which are supposed to be “safe”. When are we going to wake up?