Re: Better control

x-no-archive: yes

Alan S wrote:

Whether he is doing anything incorrectly only time will tell. There
are certainly things he could do worse, and I fully understand his
fear of blindness as a strong motivator. That is also my motivator.

Why did you assert that he's not doing things correctly? The man is doing something very proactive for his health and everyone is jumping on him for his "deficient" diet which is anything plus.

I've certainly tried to encourage him to be more relaxed and flexible, but in a support group of proactive diabetics, it's so very disheartening to see freedom so many of you feel to openly condemn his practices.


For reference here is the way of eating he advised:

I eat meat, water, eggs, fish, broccoli, cauliflower, iceberg lettuce, romaine lettuce, green peppers, a little vinegar, a little olive oil, a little yogurt, and a little cottage cheese.

He advised or is doing for himself?


This seems to me to be a balanced diet. I also take a multiple vitamin and extra minerals.

Define "balanced." I think you get as many definitions as people you ask. A truly "balanced" diet would be 33/33/33/ and a third carbs/protein/fat and we could all kiss our kidneys and eyesight goodbye.


I agree with Julie on this one. Adding some colours, or more
specifically, widening his range of vegetables should be possible for
him and would add significant benefits.

That's not what Julie said; she opined incorrectly that his diet was deficient in vitamin C. Julie lists her food choices as pretzels, pasta and apple sauce, so you'll forgive Michael if he ignores her expertise?

Quentin is the better person
to answer this question, because I never recall all the technical data
and terminology on flavonoids and the other subtle variations that
different vegetables add to our nutrition and the way they interact.

I'm sure Michael's diet could be improved, as could yours or mine. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. One way we know that is that people are able to live healthy lives on protein and fat alone, but not those other foods alone.

As I read his posts and some others here over the years I slowly
modified my menu as various specific micronutrients were discussed.
Because I am not an expert on the subject I realised that the simplest
way to be sure I didn't miss some of those was to have a little of
everything regularly. Allied to that I didn't want to eat foods that
spiked me so even though the new food or fruit may have benefits I
still tested them as I added them. I had to be particularly careful
with fruit, but I found I could add a piece of fruit daily if I ate in
half-portions.

Over the years I noted some specific foods that Quentin - and others -
discussed and I tested them to include them in my diet when I could.
Some seasonally, like strawberries and blueberries (although I also
use frozen ones) and some regularly, like yellow capsicum, onions,
cooked tomato, "pink" fish and seafood like salmon and prawns, beef
for vitamin B, oily fish, yoghurt and many others. Some years back I
wrote on the way my own vegetable choices changed here:
http://loraldiabetes.blogspot.com/2006/11/vegetables.html

I recall that one of the triggers for that change was Kate's list of
"free veggies", which is still available in the diabetic talk archive
here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071229231006/www.diabetic-talk.org/freeveggies.htm
Thanks for that Kate.

I commend that list to Michael as a starting point. I also highly
recommend that he purchase Quentin's book "Nutrition for Blokes" which
he will find available here: http://www.phlaunt.com/quentin/

As to whether Michael is doing anything incorrectly in nutrition
terms, he could run his daily menu through one of the many nutrition
programmes to see if any vital nutrients are missing; almost certainly
his multivitamin isn't covering them all. If he finds something is
missing I suggest this as a good place to start searching for a food
to add rather than buying another supplement:
http://www.ars.usda.gov/Services/docs.htm?docid=17477

I am of the firm belief that it is better, if possible, to obtain my
nutrition needs from a food rather than a pill when possible. Two
specific examples that I recall being discussed here are Vitamin B and
calcium, both of which are much less effective taken as supplements.
So I eat beef and silver-beet (Swiss chard) and eat cheese (young
cheeses, Quentin:-) and make yoghurt. Again, I learned that here but
you would have to refer to the authors of those posts for the details.
My main qualm is the extremely limited list of vegetables in his menu,
but without portion sizes it's hard to comment more.

Someone mentioned Bill, a past poster with a limited diet. Michael's
comment on eyes reminded me of Chris J who also used an extremely
limited diet to drop his A1c dramatically in a very short time and had
a resulting serious eye problem. However, I accept that it may not be
relevant because I don't think Michael started from a high A1c.
Unfortunately, like you, Chris J used x-no archive so it's difficult
to refer back to that rather alarming occasion. But I'm sure some here
will recall it.

Sorry if that's a bit rambling and isn't a direct answer to your
question, but those are my reasons.

Incidentally, this also answers Kurt's response that all we advise
here is "eat to your meter". I learned far more than that over the
years from the good people on this group.

So what you've done here is exactly what I've told Michael to ignore; rate his diet against your own personal habits, and preferences and beliefs.

Fact is, he's anxious the way Chris J was and is focusing on the bg and obsessing a bit, but has expressed nothing BUT eagerness to eat more of the foods you all keep telling him he's deficient in, but he doesn't want to eat "low spike" the way YOU choose to, he wants to eat "no spike" which bodes best of any other way in terms of longevity, from my reading.

I can see encouraging Michael to relax. To announce to everyone that what he's doing is "incorrect" or wrong is not constructive nor accurate.

Susan
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: 15 best diet tips
    ... Experts share their top tips for weight loss success. ... Everyone knows the keys to losing weight: Eat less and exercise more. ... Best Diet Tip No. 1: Drink plenty of water or other calorie-free beverages. ... food to fill it comfortably," says Mays. ...
    (sci.med.nutrition)
  • Re: 15 best diet tips
    ... Experts share their top tips for weight loss success. ... Everyone knows the keys to losing weight: Eat less and exercise more. ... Best Diet Tip No. 1: Drink plenty of water or other calorie-free ... food," says chef Laura Pansiero, RD. ...
    (sci.med.nutrition)
  • Re: B 12 shot? I have lack of energy whole life
    ... Been trying to eat a lower carb diet because diabetes runs in my ... any "diet" foods are processed food products that contain ... I take vitamin c tablets. ...
    (sci.med.nutrition)
  • Re: Diet and human evolution
    ... to eat is a thorny one but not one I want ... what diet is best suited for the ... true that physically and physiologically we have mainly herbivore ... that grind the food thoroughly enough to break up plant cells. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Raw or cooked, which is more nutritious
    ... >> nutrition if cooked because the things good for us are converted into a ... >> concluding remark, eat a wide range of many fruits and vegetables, raw ... >> the food we eat is but a small fraction even with the best preservation ... >> attempts with each kind of food and cooking or not is irrelevant. ...
    (sci.med.nutrition)