Discussion Board

CR = calorie restriction. Comes from the idea of CRON which is "calorie restriction with optimum nutrition". In all animal models tested (quite a few) if you restrict their calorie intake by some certain percentage below what they would normally eat free feeding, AND insure optimum intake of micro nutrients, the animals live much much longer and remain disease free with minimal signs of aging. There is a whole crew of humans experimenting with this on themselves, websites, forums etc. The MWL version of McDougall diet falls pretty much in there so long as you don't over eat.

Thank You! RAS

Pink, sorry I didn't answer your question. Sometimes I get lost on this group and neglect to go back over something. I am overweight having come down from obese and continue to lose but slowly. Despite being obese over the last twenty years, my fasting blood sugars are normal, no retinopathy or neuropathy and four years ago when I went for a blood panel, I think the HbA1c was somewhere in the 5's. As I lose weight I pick up exercise and currently exercise at least one and usually two hours per day. I am a gym member but also walk a lot. If I am very faithful to exercise my fasting sugars are in the 70's.

Unlike most on the group, I try to restrict calories to 1200 per day. I do not want to restrict calories much more than this. It is hard to know if I hit that mark because I eat a lot of soup. Today I am eating vegetable soup with crushed tomatoes and puree, lentils, oatmeal, onions, mushrooms, eggplant, savoy cabbage and cauliflower. And two ounces of clams in fourteen quarts of soup. (That is the size of one of my soup pots.)

No oils or fats.

I eat lots of beans, raw vegetable salads and cooked greens and other vegetables. I love potatoes. Right now my fridge isn't working so I am not cooking rice. Corn is the one thing I will only buy organic.

Donna, you are scaring me. Being vegetarian for twenty six years and still having by pass surgery and diabetes. Did you eat dairy or fats and oils?

Normally I wouldn't worry about this because after twenty years I have no complications (that I know of) and normal fasting sugars and Dr. McDougall doesn't seem concerned as he points out in his video on diabetes. I visit the diabetes support group on web md and they are all low carbers and insist that their sugars always stay under 140, even after meals. However, I believe there are only two low carbers on the group who control diabetes without meds. I have said that my fasting sugars are normal despite eating starches and no animal protein at each meal. They came after me with pitchforks and flaming torches.

Didi

Pink, sorry I didn't answer your question. Sometimes I get lost on this group and neglect to go back over something. I am overweight having come down from obese and continue to lose but slowly. Despite being obese over the last twenty years, my fasting blood sugars are normal, no retinopathy or neuropathy and four years ago when I went for a blood panel, I think the HbA1c was somewhere in the 5's. As I lose weight I pick up exercise and currently exercise at least one and usually two hours per day. I am a gym member but also walk a lot. If I am very faithful to exercise my fasting sugars are in the 70's.

Unlike most on the group, I try to restrict calories to 1200 per day. I do not want to restrict calories much more than this. It is hard to know if I hit that mark because I eat a lot of soup. Today I am eating vegetable soup with crushed tomatoes and puree, lentils, oatmeal, onions, mushrooms, eggplant, savoy cabbage and cauliflower. And two ounces of clams in fourteen quarts of soup. (That is the size of one of my soup pots.)

No oils or fats.

I eat lots of beans, raw vegetable salads and cooked greens and other vegetables. I love potatoes. Right now my fridge isn't working so I am not cooking rice. Corn is the one thing I will only buy organic.

Donna, you are scaring me. Being vegetarian for twenty six years and still having by pass surgery and diabetes. Did you eat dairy or fats and oils?

Normally I wouldn't worry about this because after twenty years I have no complications (that I know of) and normal fasting sugars and Dr. McDougall doesn't seem concerned as he points out in his video on diabetes. I visit the diabetes support group on web md and they are all low carbers and insist that their sugars always stay under 140, even after meals. However, I believe there are only two low carbers on the group who control diabetes without meds. I have said that my fasting sugars are normal despite eating starches and no animal protein at each meal. They came after me with pitchforks and flaming torches.

Didi

I'm no longer on Metformin and have fastings levels in the upper 80's, but am still at least 50 pounds overweight, have lost 57 in 5 months, and I do have some complications--proteinuria is elevated.

But I've noticed when I eat potatoes for a meal, an hour later, blood sugar levels will spike 140+. I've also noticed levels spiking when I don't eat a little nuts or seeds with a meal that's high in grain or root starch.

In my experience, that little bit of nut/seed protein/fat is helpful with blood sugar level--and when I say a little bit, I mean no more than half an oz. or about 3-4 walnut halves with the meal.

And if I still find my reading high, I hop on the exercise bike in front of the tv. for half an hour. Works!

didi, your numbers are great including the HA1c so don't worry! I quit dairy and eggs 16 years ago. did have some oil but less after reading McD.

in all my extended family there is diabetes but no heart problems. and they all eat SAD! so my blocked arteries was a puzzle but that's the way it was. if having the surgery gives me a few more years with my family then that is good.

Didi, it seems that an intake of 1,200 Kc daily would enable you to reach a low BMI unless you are extremely short! Do you normally eat 14 quarts of soup/day?

Best wishes as you fine tune what you are doing to reach your goals!

I use Sparkpeople.com to keep my food diary. It lets me see calories, fats, carbs, sugar, and nutrients.

For items like soup you can "group" the items, so you don't have to keep inputing each food item separately every time you have a bowl.

Stop the presses!! The experiments that prove that going over 140 causes damage were done in petri dishes?? Thanks, Kiki. This changes everything. The ORAC and similar tests, according to Dr. Greger, were done in petri dishes. Dr. Fuhrman uses these to determine the best anti oxidants and foods with the highest amount of phytochemicals. In the body they quite often work very differently. So I will start worrying about postprandial blood sugars going over 140 when there is some better proof of damage. I notice that most of those on the low carb diabetes group are taking meds, struggling with the magic 140 number and still having complications. I will stick to potatoes, corn, oatmeal and rice.

Pink, I do not eat 14 quarts of soup per day. I like to cook once and eat for several days. That much soup might last at least five days and I might eat a bowl for two or three meals per day. Or sometimes I freeze some. I do the same thing with salads. Cut up greens and raw vegetables and store them in a really large plastic container to eat over a couple of days.

Didi

Jellen, here is what I found a few years ago when trying out the Zone diet. Sears says eating a little fat with your starches will prevent the blood sugar from rising too high. I did this experiment myself and over several meals ate a starch along with some fat. Here is what I found: It is true that at one and two hours the blood sugar is lower--BUT I kept testing and at three and four hours, around the time I would be eating my next meal, the blood sugar had RISEN. What I believe happened was that the fat in the stomach slowed down the digestion of the starch so it took longer to leave the stomach. Therefore, the one and two hour readings were relatively low but the three, four and five hour readings were higher. I did not want my blood sugar to be high when I started my next meal. I would rather they reached their peak at one or two hours and then were nice and low before I started to eat again. I never tried this experiments with nuts and seeds, just the olive oil.

Didi

Didi, that's interesting. I've not tried with any oils either, and I only eat T. gr. flaxseed with breakfast and half oz. nuts/seeds with lunch salad and half oz. walnuts with supper steamed veggies. I seldom eat anything processed, cook everything from scratch, so I'm not getting any other fat contributions than what's in plant foods naturally.

The other thing I've discovered is that an all-starch meal or snack is much worse for blood sugars in my experience. Veggies are important.

So is progression to diabetes not some form of damage?

Geoffry, what is progression of diabetes? Twenty years ago I had neuropathy and it was relieved by wearing tightly laced sneakers, walking and wearing the tightly laced sneakers to bed at night. Now I have no neuropathy, wiggle my toes and have feeling in my feet. I have no retinopathy, cataracts, ARMD or glaucoma and just had my blood pressure taken at 123/70. I feel the systolic is really lower than this because the tech did not use a wide cuff and did not give me time to sit still for 10 minutes before taking the blood pressure. I have lost weight and my fasting blood sugars are between 75 and 85 and that is conservative because lots of mornings it is lower--in the high sixties or low seventies. I am on no meds and haven't been for almost twenty years.

Quite often my one hour test is lower than the two hour test. I don't know what this means. But, if I eat starches, the one or two hour test can be over 140. But maybe I am missing some signs of progression?

Didi

Just means going from not diabetic to diabetic. Must be either increasing insulin resistance, burning out beta cells, or combination of the two. No study or test will claim a guaranteed outcome, they are just predicting the odds, like Las Vegas. But if I am going to bet on my health I will put my money down with Jimmy the Greek every time.

But I am already diabetic. So I have to come up with something that shows that the diabetes is progressing. By progressing, I would say, your blood sugar gets higher and higher (my fasting number is getting lower), you need one med then two meds then your doc also puts you on insulin. I am on no meds. I do not know if there are doctors out there who would put someone on meds if their A1C keeps getting lower despite the fact that a one hour test would be over 140. Depending on the med, it seems someone in that case would have many episodes of very low blood sugar.

I am not saying that numbers over 140 may never be dangerous and lead to complications but I have not seen any convincing evidence that complications will occur if HbA1c is low and post prandials are over 140. Also, since most diabetics fall into the category of "I take my medicine so I don't have to worry about diet" or low carbing or low carbing plus meds, it is hard to know how someone on a low to zero added fat and no dairy, but high plant food diet with some starches is likely to react to occasional higher numbers.

Didi