I am constant in the loop of hearing news regarding low carb and high fat diets. I read it and either love it or hate it – there is no in between. I hate it when people tell me it is BS and I love it when I hear people share their good stories from changing their diet to a LCHF diet.
I wanted to share with you all a letter that was sent to Dr. Dahlqvist (a true fighter in Sweden when it comes to LCHF and its benefits). The letter was written in Swedish so please forgive me if the translation is not perfect.
I am a woman, 59 years and have had Type 1 diabetes since 1992. I used insulin shots at the very beginning but my blood sugar level would shift from 2.5 – 25 throughout the day which made me feel very sick even though I was living my life according to all health restrictions provided to me. Eight years ago I received an insulin pump instead and it made my life a little easier caused it seemed to improve the worse insulin fluctuations. But with the years I seemed to be getting more and more issues related to my health.
Head aches, joint pain, back pain and hip pain that made it hard for me to stand up and even sit down. It was very hard to put on my socks and even harder to take care of my feet. I was not able to angle my legs so I could reach my feet. I was able to squat but was not able to pull myself up from that position. Sore muscles, high blood pressure, heart palpitations, rash, tinnitus, tired, tired, tired. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and they increased my insulin dosage and I received more and more medications. I was sent to different specialists without getting any answers to what was causing this. One thing I didn’t have was high cholesterol but my doctor thought I should take statins with the purpose of preventing it to go up, if that would ever be the case. Medications and being tired completely wiped out my desire and ability to have a sex life and I became more and more sad and confused over my body letting me down the way it did.
I worked but not full time and I was fighting to get a disability check so I could stay home because I barley managed to keep myself awake during the days and the work I did became less and less qualitative work. When I got home every night I was like an old used up rag and fell asleep right after dinner that my husband made sure I ate. I woke up every night too after a few hours and was never able to go back to sleep because my heart would beat hard and without a steady beat. I never got my disability but stayed home a week here and there anyway because I just couldn’t do it.
My joint pain came and went but every time it came I went to the doctor to get help. I was convinced that I had rheumatism even though I had been to several doctors and taken tests that all came out negative. This time when I went to the doctor my hands were very swollen. I off course had spoke to all my doctors about my diabetes and I feel that they all listened at my story but never attempted to do anything about it except a note to go see someone else, even a physiatrist.
That day at the doctors’ office I met a doctor that red through my full journal and looked at my hands and said: “My dear friend, I can’t help you with this; you have an inflammation in your joints and it is one of the side effects of having diabetes. I can give you some pain relief and anti inflammatory for some it but that would only be temporarily relief. You just have to learn to live with it”.
I went home that day and was very confused. I am a much disciplined person and have always tried to follow the guidelines of being healthy and stay healthy, so I didn’t understand what more I could do. I hit rock bottom that day and I was home sick for a few days. At the same time I needed to fill my prescription for my three different kind of blood pressure lowering medication, but I never had the energy to go and get them.
After a few days I went and I sat down by the computer and googled “diabetes, inflammation” and was able to find things to read about what I had on multiple pages. On one of those pages I almost felt like someone was writing about me. I finally found Dr. Dahlqvist’s blog and I started to read and became more and more shocked about what I red. I was thinking to myself that this will either break or help me, it was my last chance. I can’t get any worse than this. I ordered a book with LCHF recipes and Dr. Dahlqvist’s book about health and weight management [a good substitute for English readers is: Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes]. I started to read and went for it. This was February 2009. I stopped right away with taking my statins and the blood pressure lowering medicines I still hadn’t picked up so I stayed off them too.
Three weeks later one of my grand children came to visit, little dear Jacob, 2 years: I found myself sitting on the floor playing with him and I stood up without even thinking about it… but right after I just remembered “but I can’t do that”.
One week later my husband noticed that I was still awake when his TV show started. I was usually asleep long before then but I slowly started to stay awake longer and longer and my joint and body pain started to move away. I wasn’t that much over weight but probably 10-12 kg too much (22-26 lbs). My weight started to come off an in May the same year I had lost 10 kg (22 lbs) and felt really healthy. Everything I mentioned above was gone. I have some traces of the inflammation I had on my hands as they are now very bumpy but all that pain is gone. I am reacting much better to stress and have gotten much better skin and nails and my stomach works perfectly; just to mention a few of the good side effects I have seen from changing my diet to LCHF. I also went on my yearly diabetes check up in May and I was very curious on my blood tests, what would they be this time.
Everything was good. My HbA1c was 6.0 – something it has never been during my whole diabetic life. Everything was good and my doctor did not understand a thing. The only thing that was not good was my cholesterol and my doctor actually thought it was a disaster. He told me very demanding to start taking my statins again but these days I am a very bad patient. I have realized that LCHF was my rescue and gave me a chance to live a life with quality.
When I later started to feel a desire to have sex again my husband went on the same diet as I was on. He has now also lost a few pounds and is smoother in his joints and muscles along with feeling more energetic, even though he did not have any major issues before.
To me this is like a miracle even though it should be obvious that this is the method that is the right method.
My diabetes doctor does not believe any of this even though he has seen my drastic changes that cannot be mistaken.
I often get the chance to talk about the LCHF way of life when people I meet see a positive change in me and want to know more.
I work full time without any problems, I am fully devoted to my grand children, I have a creative spare time and have the energy to swim and go for walks on a regular basis. I have lowered my insulin with 1/3 and I never take any meal insulin when I eat foods that do not raise my blood sugar levels. The basic dose I get from the pump is enough even though I am only getting 2/3 of what I used to get. Everything has become a happy upwards spiral…
This story points out yet again that foods we eat can be killing us or help us – we just have to learn what food does what.
LCHF – what to eat
LCHF – how it works
I believe this type of diet can work wonders depending on your body chemistry! Have you ever read The Blood Type Diet book? This book says that the typically prescribed high carb, low fat diet can actually make a number of high cholesterol/high blood pressure patients worse - it all depends on their body chemistry. I'm not 100% sure I'm on board with the whole blood type theory, but Jillian Michaels says something similar in her book, Master Your Metabolism. She focuses on the concept of "high, low and balanced oxidizers" and each really needs to eat different foods to optimize their metabolism. I am a balanced oxidizer based on her quiz and that means I really need a mixture of carbs, protein and fat at every meal - which is really true for me. If I eat all proteins I feel sick and out of balance as with all carbs.
ReplyDeleteHi Robin,
ReplyDeleteI haven't red the book about the Blood Type Diet - but I have heared about it. I don't know too much about the science behind it so I am afraid to make a statement on that. But if I think about it for a second I would say that it is too simple to say that if you have one blood type you are going to do best on a certain diet - it is more related to glucose and insulin levels I would say (the blood type theory would then also say that you are more inclined to get diabetes with a certain blood type, and I am not sure if this is the case). But regardless; it is absolutley true that a person with high blood pressure and high cholesterol will get even worse from a high carb and low fat diet. This is because of the way the carbs works in our bodies. It is all described very easily in my "LCHF - how it works" (but it is once again connected to the glucose and insulin and not blood type).
Going from a high carb diet to a "no" carb diet is off course going to feel a bit uncomfortable at first because your body is going through a detox to get rid of all those bad omega-6 and other inflammations. So feeling bad in the beginning is just related to the cleanse of the body, just like it is when quitting anything else that is harming your body.
Even though I would say NO carbs there is always carbs somewhere. For example I still drink milk, eat greek yogurt, fruit (sometimes) and veggies. They all contain carbs...
Some people might need the carbs more than others, or might handle the carbs better than others I should say. Women after menapause, overweight people, and sick people should try to stay away from carbs as much as they can in order to see improvements on their conditions. So you are right that different people need different diets (but I don't think it is connected to blood type, just life situation).
Over all I think a low carb diet is better for everyones' immune system and over all health. A meal with some meat, a creamy sause and some veggies is a perfect mix!
What many people forget is the importance of fat. We cannot survive without the fat... yet people are so afraid of it...