Monday, January 13, 2020

Retrospective #331: Dear Max: Don’t Eat Oatmeal for breakfast!

(Note: This is a Universal Fill-in Form. Just change the name of the person and the carb food as appropriate.)
I know you’re busy, Max, but…your health is at stake, so pay attention: You’re Pre-Diabetic, and in all likelihood, you’re will become a full-blown Type 2, unless you change what you eat. TYPE 2 DIABETES IS A DIETARY DISEASE.
Doctors treat Type 2 Diabetes by treating the symptom: high blood sugar. They give you vapid advice (lip service, really) to undertake “lifestyle changes,” like “eat less and exercise more,” to lose weight! Then, they treat your symptom (high blood sugar) with meds. They follow up by monitoring your blood sugars at intervals to see that they are “well controlled,” by very poor Diabetic Association standards, and, when they are not, they will add medications.
Their response, to treat you with more meds (too little, too late, and all wrong!), will only result in wearing out your pancreas, the organ that makes insulin in your body. And when your pancreas doesn’t work anymore, you will have to inject insulin. And you will probably die from one of the macrovascular or microvascular complications of the disease.
Doctors should advise you to “treat” the cause of Type 2 Diabetes: Insulin Resistance (IR). But the dietary advice you will probably get from a medical doctor is likely to be just plain wrong. If you follow it, you do so at your own risk. For example, eating a “balanced” diet contains much too high a level of carbs and will result in your diabetes worsening.
They will also treat your disease to much too lax a standard. They will regard your blood sugar as “well controlled” at a level where it is doing you harm, and your diabetes is worsening. Eating carbs raises blood sugars. To repeat, if you don’t change what you eat, your Type 2 Diabetes will progress, with increased risk for all the attendant complications.
Insulin Resistance means that insulin receptors in your cells are refusing to open to take up the glucose that is being transported by insulin in your blood. Glucose is a fuel that your body makes from digesting carbs. Result: your blood sugar rises. Solution: eat fewer – many fewer, carbs. There is no (zero) nutritional requirement for carbs? And your IR means you are becoming, or have become, Carbohydrate Intolerant. Insulin Resistance = Carbohydrate Intolerance.
Your body needs some glucose (but NOT carbs).  Some glucose – a very small amount – is so essential to the body that the body has multiple ways to make glucose from protein and fat. And your body does need both protein and fat, and that is what you have to eat if you want to treat the cause of your Pre-Diabetes. Repeat: Eat mostly protein and fat.
Hunger is the principal (but not the only) biological driver of eating. It is both intrinsic and autonomic. Your conscious will pales by comparison. You are a slave to your hunger – especially if you are carb dependent. If you eat carbs at every meal, and in-between meals at snacks, your body will become dependent on them, thinking that since carbs are readily available, you can depend on them as an easy and quick source of energy. Of course, in today’s world, carbs are abundant year-round, and ubiquitous. They are a quick and easy and cheap source of energy today, 24/7/365.
Physiologically, when your body becomes dependent on carbs, your body blocks access to an alternate and totally complete source of fuel that everyone has: stored body fat. Your body can’t access your dense stored energy source because, in the Insulin Resistant person, an elevated insulin, accompanying the glucose still circulating in your blood, prevents energy from body fat from contributing to the body’s steady energy requirement (homeostasis). As a Pre-Diabetic, because of your Insulin Resistance, both your blood glucose and your blood insulin are continuously elevated.
Translation: soon after the carbs you last ate are digested, your body tells you that you are hungry again! It tells you to eat more. SOLUTION: After an overnight fast, just eat protein and fat for breakfast. “No” carbs. That means: no juice, no cereal, no yogurt, or bread or jelly. You will feel full. After a few days, your body adjusts and you will never be hungry again at breakfast or in mid-morning. If you continue with protein and fat for lunch (no carbs), you will not eat again until cocktail time. And if you eat a small supper of mostly protein and fat, with a serving of low-carb veggies, you will not have to eat again until breakfast. Within days your fasting blood sugars will drop back into the “normal” range, and after a few months your A1c’s will too. And your doctor will be happy because you lost weight.

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