Today I was in the grocery checkout line and there was a little booklet called "Diabetic Cooking". I didn't pick it up, but on the cover was depicted a slice of bread, a strawberry, and some kind of spreadable substance.

I just wanted to throw something.

Yeah, I've seen those too. Or my favourites...the ones with the big piece of chocolate cake or muffins!

strawberries: 1/2 cup=5 g net carbs
bread: low carb bread?
spread: who knows?
Eddie

The ADA has always included bread in its dietary recommendations. I've spoken at great length to 3 people I know with type 2 diabetes about the benefits of low carbing, including heath and weight. And you know how many of them tried it? Zero. I think an LC lifestyle for diabetics would work only if the ADA was ruled by the Taliban. Most people are very resistant to the idea. People here are highly motivated and most people are not. So what can you do? You try to get them to control their BG levels eating the things they are going to eat anyway. Most diabetics do not follow any type of recommendations except they start drinking diet coke instead of regular.

Finally !! For the first time, the ADA recommendations make sense to me. Thanks, Susan, I think you are on to something.

/smile

I don't think the ADA can influence people much in any aspect of their care. Most people listen to their doctors for about 24 hours. The biggest influence on our lives is our peer groups and families. We are genetically programmed to emulate them.

Most of the people adopt LC eating because they want to lose weight, pure and simple. They want to look good to conform to society's standard of beauty and health. This WOE is not going to be widely adopted until society as a whole starts moving in that direction. For a lot of people, it is a lot easier to take a pill than be different from everyone else.

You are probably right but seems to me the ADA and AHA diets could very well be a part of terrosim manifesting itself in subtle ways to destroy the Great Satan.

/smile

P.S. and yes this is a joke friends..., I think

The current ADA diet is just over the top in carbs. I started on the one from the 1970s and it was reasonable at that time. I had lots of fat and meat exchanges and used only 1 starch exchange per meal. When I was put on MDI in the early 80s, my doctor advocated 2% milk for hypos instead of juice. Sugar was not allowed at all. I was very motivated and really tried to stick with it. I don't think a lot of people are, I'm sorry to say.

Before I found LC, I was about ready to give up; it was my "last option" at the time. In discussion with most people re: LC, they look at you in abject horror when you try to tell them that an apple a day isn't something I can eat. I, and I think many people are brought up with the constant reminder of the healthful aspects of fruit and are considerably "propagandized" into thinking that eating fats clogs arteries and causes one to gain weight (due to the caloric punch). In other words, these things make sense to most people, and most people learned them at a young age.

LC is to many, counterintuitive and is not programmed into us. The fact that it works wonderfully for CVD indicators and weight loss and diabetics in general is often lost on most people because they already know the answer... (the old adage - don't bother me with the facts, I already have my mind made up). Hitler once said - give me a child until he is 9 (or maybe it was 12) and there will be a bit of him that is a Nazi for the rest of his life. I think that LC is up against similar hurdles in that the opposite is so ingrained in many of us.

Just my 2 cents YMMV,
/smile

What were your experiences on the current ADA diet?

I primarily followed the AHA diet - low fat, etc as I thought my biggest problem was my heart... as I continued to gain weight --> insulin resistance became more of a problem... as my BG's maintained around 300 for the most part... I became more depressed and always tired (thinking it was the heart issue). I was only on oral meds for the diabetes (my internist is a real "cracker-jack")... it was my cardiologist that first mentioned IR to me... and my need to control BG's much better. Neither doctor really mentioned a way other than insulin. No one said "cut your carbs"

For some reason... fate, coincidence, god?... there was a copy of Atkins Diabetes Revolution around the house. I picked it up and read it cover to cover and began a self imposed "induction phase" (Feb 15) - 20 g CHO/d. My BG's went down 150 units (to about 150) by the fifth day... two days later I went to my internist and asked for different meds to get my BG's lower - he looked at my early Feb A1C (>10%) and put me on Lantus.

I think that since I so crashed my BG's from 300 to around 100 in about two weeks (even experiencing hypos on the glipizide), my vision was blurry for another few weeks and I was concerned I was losing it. I read somewhere that it would probably clear up and it did over the coming weeks.

The really incredible thing - and the reason I am ADDICTED to LC - is that the black cloud of depression just left and I also had a sense of renewed energy. So it was Atkins that led me to this forum (end of February 2008) and it was this forum that led me to Bernstein's book and it was Berstein that led me to the importance of normalization... and that I didn't have to stick the damn needle in my thigh...

/smile

Which reminds me... anyone want a free AHA Cookbook?... if I haven''t already thrown it away.

/smile

P.S. I found 2 - Choices for a Healthy Heart and the AHA Cookbook, 5th Edition - They are NOT LC, btw...

No, thanks, I have 4 or 5 diabetes cookbooks. I have managed to adapt some of the recipes for LC.

I think that it's very true that most diabetics aren't motivated to change. The pill route just seems easy and convienient to them. My doctor is constantly amazed by my motivation to achieve better BG and stay away from medications. However, he is the first to say that I"m probably in the 1% category of his patients who are. He always tells me that he wishes more patients were like me!

But if more patients were like you, he might not have as many patients.

I have a family history of diabetes and a personal history of gestational diabetes. It's very likely I'd end up with Type II myself if I were eating the SAD or a "healthy low fat AHA" diet. Even before I started LC, I looked up the "recomended diet for diabetics" and started following that, and taking cinnamon daily, because I knew I was headed for that point.

I wonder if most of the people who are able to stay motivated enough to control diabetes with diet alone, and want to avoid meds, are the same people who manage to avoid a diabetes diagnosis in the first place (either by eating well enough to never develop it, or to keep it diet controlled and the dr never things to order a GTT.)