My editor made this comment in the margin of one of my
columns recently, and it occurred to me she had made (as usual) a really cogent
observation. The full comment was, “I suppose that making people think about food
choices is the key, but VLC = not so much thinking. That’s a real plus for me.”
It’s all the more interesting since neither she nor her husband is diabetic;
but besides being a great editor/collaborator, she really knows about healthy
eating and good nutrition.
Of
course, “making people think about food choices IS the key” to healthy
eating whether you’re diabetic (or pre-diabetic) or not. I am coming
increasingly to think it is also the way everyone
should eat…in part because it is the way we all used to eat. We were healthier
as a population before the advent of manufactured and processed foods. That’s a
fact.
But I
also know that what turns many people off about VLC is the prospect of numbers
and counting carbohydrates. If it’s not counting calories, it’s counting carbs
and fat and protein. I admit, I used to do it compulsively (which is my
nature), but it’s not necessary.
That’s my editor’s point. And the point of many other experts in VLC who
recognize and accept that many people have an aversion to obsessing over
numbers. Well, it’s not necessary to do
that. (Am I repeating myself?) All you have to do to adopt this Way of
Eating is to understand the basic principles and then adhere to them. Not much thinking.
Strict
adherence is a daunting prospect to some, but with an open mind (and strict adherence) you will quickly
learn that hunger will not be a
driver of non-adherence. You will not
be hungry if you adhere strictly to the
basic principles. It’s that simple. It may take a few days (maybe a little
longer for some), but your hunger will
disappear. Your hormones will take over. They will detect that since you’re not
eating carbs, there must be none
available. (Your hormones don’t know about your stash.) Hormones operate
entirely within the milieu intérieur – inside the body. Admittedly, my eyes at times betray me when they
see food, but that’s another biological imperative that we can to control with
our will (and a little trickery), if
we’re not hungry. Our body has
many drivers/actuators of survival, hormones being just one. Sight and smell
are others.
Your
hormones are acutely attuned to what you put in your mouth for energy. If you only
eat a few carbs, your body uses those, with protein and fat first, and then it
will use your body’s stored carbs (glycogen) for energy, then the fat you ate (that
usually accompanies protein). And then, if you don’t eat too much fat and
protein, it will use your body fat for
energy. Voila! Bingo! You’re losing body fat and all you had to do was eat
VLC. (Note: if you don’t eat some protein 2 or 3 times a day, your body will
use your muscle for energy too, so be sure to eat a small amount of protein 2
or 3 times a day.
So, “not
so much thinking” works, so long as you know what a carbohydrate food is and
which foods have more and which have fewer. There is a learning curve to that,
but it doesn’t require so much thinking. It just requires strict adherence. I started on Atkins Induction and stayed on it
for 9 months, losing 60 pounds. Notice I didn’t mention that Atkins Induction
is 20 net grams of carbohydrate a day. You don’t need to know that. You just
need to strictly eat just what Atkins Induction says you can eat. They (and
many other sites) have lots of helpful lists of foods you can eat, and what foods
you can’t eat.
And if
you want to succeed, please don’t give yourself a “holiday” or day off. I don’t
mean, nor do I expect, that you won’t cheat. I do. I just mean don’t plan to do it. (You won’t feel deprived, especially if you’re not
hungry, and you have more energy, and you feel better, and you’re losing weight and your lab tests keep improving. Just
don’t think that you can succeed if you only do this VLC 5 or 6 days a week. It
won’t work. You can’t fool your body. It’ll think you found your stash, and
everything is now hunky dory. It will stop burning your body fat and start
saving it, and banking more, for the next “famine.” It’s doesn’t know we now live
in a world of plenty, a veritable cornucopia of abundant and readily available food.
And the
trigger for this new “hunky dory” hormonal message will be that silly Reese’s
Cup you picked up on the checkout line. “Eye candy.” It will trigger a glucose and then an insulin response, which
means it will shut down your fat burning metabolism and restart the glucose
burning metabolism that causes the pancreas to secrete and pump insulin to
carry the sugar energy (glucose) to your cells. I repeat: Fat. Burning. Stops. And
your body, thinking the cornucopia is flowing again, will ask for more “sugar.”
Your hormones will send you hunger, “feed me” signals, relentlessly craving
more “sugar.”
Of
course, the simplest, easiest and quickest sugars to digest are the liquid
ones, and then the ones that have already been pre-digested by processing. And
these are the very ones that have been damaged in the manufacturing process. So,
as my editor/collaborator says, “making people think about food choices” is
what we need to do. Please tell us how we are doing.
As I write this (in
January), The Nutrition Debate has just passed the 50,000 page views mark, with
40,000 of those in the last year. We’d like to know what you like about this
blog and what you don’t. What would you like me to write about going forward?
And what would you like me to write about less? Do you open and read the
hyperlinks provided? Who are your favorite writers/bloggers? Do you read this
column in Google Translate? Did you know it is available in 77 languages? And
finally, are you a type 2 diabetic, or prediabetic, or just someone interested
in healthy eating and the nutrition debate?
Cheating in the common sense has not appealed to me since I started VLC a few years ago. The smell of sugar offends me, especially when it's in over-manufactured "food." I would rather smell the cat box than a box of sugary cereal. This is a very handy thing, I'd have to hold my nose to eat a HoHo. If I do cheat, it's during apple season. Honey Crisp apples are heavenly. I only buy 2 at a time, and only eat half of one a day. That's all I need.
ReplyDeleteI'm a T2 diabetic, I like most everything you write because it is an affirmation that I'm staying on the right track, even when it seems things aren't working for me. VLC has kept my blood sugar down, and kept me healthy, but I don't lose weight on it anymore. Sigh.
You're lucky, Jan. I could do without potatoes, although I loved them roasted around a leg of lamb and served with gravy. I never ate bread at home, but I liked it in a restaurant. I ate rice with Chinese food, but can't eat either now. The corn starch in the hot and sour soup and/or the main dish will add 4 pounds (of water) overnight and stop ketosis dead! And I love(d) ice cream. So, there are lots of things I miss. So, it is very handy indeed to be turned off by things we shouldn't do.
DeleteWhen I am in ketosis, I am not hungry and my insulin sensitivity increases. When I cheat (I finished an open bag of corn chips last night from a party we had 10 days ago), my blood sugar skyrockets (fbg = 130 this morning), and it will take 3 or 4 days to get back to normal (80-100) even if I eat 10-15g of carbs a DAY!)
So, it is a constant battle for me. A see-saw. I know there are those who can do better than I, and many who don't do as well. That's just the way it is. I accept that. I can only strive to do better.