Grocery Shopping or starvation amongst plenty

Before diabetes, I could hang out in a grocery store for hours because I love to eat. Now, I'm in and out in about thirty minutes and that's a weeks worth up shopping. I use to wander the aisles savoring the possibilities with all the possible combinations. There was just so so much and decisions that excluded one thing or another almost seemed punitive.
I've obviously had a change of heart. Now I roll in the store and for the most part all I see are piles of sugar. I grab my green veggies and never even look at the fruits - sugar. The bread section is next and I wouldn't even bother to go through here if the deli wasn't on the other side instead I cruise through healthy breads - sugar, multiwheat breads - sugar, organic, fresh baked bread - sugar, flatbread - sugar, unleavened bread - sugar, spelt wheat bread - sugar. It's packaged in different ways, with different claims on them with various shapes but all I'm seeing are piles of white sugar sitting there.
They didn't always look this way but I've got a meter now and it colors my world. Once the meter has marked a food "sugar", it turns white and granular and I back away from it like its a nasty beast temporarily slumbering. I slink passed the now deadly pasta, rice, and noodles and give a fond but fleeting glance at the couscous as it sits seductively in its box.
Okay, that's bad but at least, it's expected. What really kills me is that I can't even buy dressing without finding sugar in it. The truth is about the only thing they don't add sugar to, that I know for sure, is toilet paper. If you know different please keep it to yourself. Life is hard enough as it is

The obesity epidemic or what's up with all the fat people.

Most likely, if you're reading this, you're diabetic and you're overweight. You might have tried diets and lost a little bit or a lot but you probably gained it back and have pretty much learned to live with it. This isn't all that unusual unfortunately. We are in an unprecedented epidemic of obesity with rising diabetes.

The usual prescription is for more exercise and cutting the calories. The basic prescription has at its base the biblical idea of gluttony and sloth. If you are fat, you feel shame. I'm going to row against the tide on this one with something called "common sense".

I will start with the single principle that all humans are animals and that the basic principles of being a living being applies to all living beings. The idea I wish to bring forth from here has to do with eating and this idea is this: animals eat because they are hungry and they stop eating when they are not.

Now you could bring up various animal experiments about fat mice and rats and how they will eat long after they are so fat that they can't stand and other bizarre displays but I didn't mention obesity. I only said that:animals eat because they are hungry and they stop eating when they are not. I didn't mention obesity because I don't think it's relevant to the discussion. Obesity, I have come to believe, is a symptom and not a cause.

If obesity is not a cause but a symptom, what's the cause? Hunger! Yep, hunger. I'm putting forth the proposition that we are in the midst of famine.

My youngest boy is exhibit A. He was a poor college student who went to school in his hometown so he was able to scrounge food from family and friends. His typical procedure was to arrive for dinner and then try to eat - forever. He would sit and eat until he was full and then, not knowing where his next meal was coming from, would continue to try and put food away. It was horrible to watch. He would slowly chew with a mild revulsion on his face then swallow. No matter how hard he tried, he could never seem to get beyond a few fork fulls before he had to give up.

This isn't news. Eating after you're full is very hard and the thought of doing it over and over again makes you feel green. Try it. You can't do it. But you might say that you've seen people overeat all the time. Once again, stick with the idea. I didn't say people don't overeat. I said that it is nearly impossible to eat, if you aren't hungry.

I am exhibit B. For the last thirty years, I have been a bike rider. What ever I had to do, I would try to do it on a bike. I would put somewhere between four thousand and five thousand miles a year on a bike. I ate carbs like crazy in order to do this because carbo loading was the thing to do when you were putting in a lot of physical exertion. My reputation for absolute gluttony is based on this. I was never fat but I could eat plate after plate of food. I ate until my stomach was full and then ate some more but I remained hungry. This was my life. I couldn't stop eating because I was famished.

You can't diet, if you're hungry. It will only make you hungrier. You can't excercise when you're hungry because your body cuts back on motion. You can, however, grow fat because there really isn't a connection between appetite and obesity.

I hear the experts talk about empty calories, large portions and too many snacks but rats, no matter the density or type of calories, would stop eating. Hunger is basic and at a level far below regard.

Stole this from Peter of HyperLipid

Here

Now I'll say it again: we eat because we are hungry not out of some lascivious need. What we are seeing now is hunger, one that isn't slacked by eating. Something has gone wrong with our diet and we are now hungry at a level that causes us to eat in search of a satiation which we can't achieve.

Mike

Western Diet Implicated in African American Diabetes

PUT THE SODA DOWN, NOW!

Okay, now that I've got your attention, I want to tell you why. Diabetes has a very large footprint in the African American community and researchers have been looking for the reason why. Here I have a novel paper that says that it is genetic and that we are the victims of the FDA food pyramid. To put it concisely, people of African descent have a problem with processing carbohydrates at a genetic level. This may very well be the cause of a good deal of the metabolic problems noted in African Americans.

Stable Patterns of Gene Expression Regulating Carbohydrate Metabolism Determined by Geographic Ancestry

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0008183#pone.0008183-Lindquist1

Individuals of African descent in the United States suffer disproportionately from diseases with a metabolic etiology (obesity, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes), and from the pathological consequences of these disorders (hypertension and cardiovascular disease)...

...Differences in expression of several carbohydrate metabolism genes suggest both genetic and transcriptional mechanisms contribute to these patterns and may play a role in exacerbating the disproportionate levels of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease observed in Americans with African ancestry.

The KPD's I've spoken to all have lamented their problems with post prandial spikes. This specifically refers to the hour after a person has taken their first bite of a meal. This blood sugar should never go over 140. A normal blood sugar doesn't and there is a very good reason why. Research has shown this is the point where damage begins to occur throughout the body.

This link is to "Blood Sugar 101": http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14045678.php . It is run by Janet (Jenny) Ruel and any time you spend there will be profitable if you're really interested in the ins and outs of diabetes.

If you have a genetic problem handling carbohydrates and have the added problem of being Ketosis Prone this combination will eventually move you into hyperglycemia and / or DKA. The eating of carbs will force your blood sugar up which will create glucostoxicity. This is glucose poisoning. Beta cells in the pancreases of KPD's are very sensitive to this and will slowly shutdown. The more carbs ingested the worse the condition will come and god help you, if you drink soda or juice to try to slack your thirst because they are almost pure carbs and filled with High Porn Corn.

The truth is there is almost no average American meal that will not push your blood sugar beyond the 140 mark. I can't handle better than 20 grams of carbs at any setting and those carbs need to be very complex to keep me from spiking my blood sugar. Even the supposedly healthy diet is problematic here. Whole grains, potatoes, brown rice, apples, bananas, oranges and pastas are just a few things that I have to avoid.

This doesn't match what you would get from a dietitian but you have to recognize that most of the research has been done on Europeans and the minority communities have not been factored into this. Some might claim this is racism but it more neglect than anything. We, much like the LADA and MODY community, must look after ourselves here. I've got one more piece of the puzzle that I want to put out and then I can really lay this out in a logical fashion.

Mike

Carbohydrates and diabetes

I didn't know about the civil war until I became diabetic. No, not the war of northern aggression, I mean the one between diabetics and the American Diabetic Association. It has several aspects but the one I'm concerned with now is ADA carbohydrate recommendations.

They recommend a high carbohydrate - low fat diet. The problem is most diabetics can't handle carbs. It makes your blood sugar shoot up. The ADA response was to promote medications that would keep the blood sugar down even while you were pushing it up with carbs. Their recommendation comes to about 200 grams of carbs a day. I can't handle more than 20 at any given meal but I'm a KPD and we are very poor handlers of carbs. This is something I'm going to show you later but for now we'll just stick with carbs and anyones diet.

This link is to Gary Taubes, who, if you know any physics, ripped the heart out of "cold fusion". He is probably the most respected science writer in the English language. He has reluctantly become the point man in the diabetic's war with the ADA. He has challenged the accepted dogma with clear good science and, if there is a god, will probably get the Nobel Prize for Medicine some day. The book that this talk is based on is called: Good Calories, Bad Calories. The book is rough but worthwhile sledding and should be force fed to all diabetics as soon as they are diagnosed.

I believe he's correct but I think it is more important that all diabetics learn to trust their meters, even if the meters can have a 20% error rate. I ate to my meter and found that virtually everything I was told by my well intending diabetes educator was wrong. I believed my meter and followed it to a Low Carb - High Fat diet. My triglycerides dropped by 100, my HDL's rose fifty percent and my A1c dropped to 5.2. I had to resist all that I was told to get there. It was in my search to find some scientific backing for my results that I fell across Mr. Taubes. He got everything that I was looking for. Listen for yourself - http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4362041487661765149#

Mike