A friend of
40+ years, who used to follow my blog, thenutritiondebate.com, recently emailed me to
ask, “Does the Vedda Blood Sugar Remedy have any credibility?” I’d never heard
of Vedda before so I looked it up. It’s a Sri-Lanka herbal product and diet
program that’s being promoted here (in the U. S.) in a new book.
The website Contra Health Scam says the Vedda Blood Sugar
Remedy is a scam. Quoting from their conclusion, “Vedda Blood Sugar Remedy is nothing but a well-produced
scam, complete with paid actors, stock photos, stock videos, twisted scientific
studies and outright lies.” So, I sent the link to my friend and suggested
instead that he look up the Virta Health program (note the clever name
similarity?) for managing his weight and blood sugar.
My friend
thanked me and later emailed me, “The Keto rage sure evidences your research! The weight
loss results are phenomenal. This is totally counter to the food
pyramid we grew up with, or Michelle Obama’s new school she tried
to promote.” I replied, “Yes, that’s all true,” and asked if he would like
to be added back to my distribution list.” He replied, “Yes, I am definitely
still struggling to get to my goal weight. Thanks.”
Later, while working in the garden I got
to thinking about this “conversation.” I found it very depressing. I’ve been
proselytizing about how to manage weight and blood sugar for about ten years
and have written almost 500 columns (472 published with this one), and even my
long-time friends (and my own wife!) pay no attention to me. How frustrating is
that? So, I told my wife about the conversation and she said, “You have no
bona fides.”
I understood what she meant, of course.
I’m not a medical doctor or “certified diabetes educator.” But, with
exasperation, I replied, I have personally lost 170 pounds (and maintained most
of the loss) BY DIET ALONE, WITHOUT EXERCISE, AND WITHOUT HUNGER. Not
only that but I HAVE TURNED MY DIABETES HEALTH AROUND, FROM A PROGRESSIVELY
WORSENING DISEASE TO THE POINT WHERE, FROM A CLINICAL STANDPOINT, I AM “CURED,”
AND IN COMPLETE REMISSION.
In addition, my lipid (cholesterol)
profile is also completely reversed, I’m no longer on a statin, my blood
pressure is “normal” (with meds), and my “chronic systemic inflammation”
non-existent (hsCRP ≤1.0). I am so full of energy and so much healthier and
happier than I was 18 years ago WHEN MY DOCTOR FIRST SUGGESTED I TRY A VERY LOW
CARB DIET to lose weight. He didn’t call it LCHF or Keto, but that is what is
was and IT WORKS!
So, perhaps, you’re thinking, my personal
example only works for me. “You’re
not like other people,” my wife says – until your long-time friend reads about
“the Keto rage” with “weight loss results [that] are phenomenal.” And then you realize that it’s “totally counter to the food
pyramid we grew up with,” the one our
government has been promoting for more than half a century – a “food pyramid”
that is completely turned upside down. Completely wrong!
My wife said I should be grateful that my
friend has come back into the fold. I said I was, but still, I was stunned at
the resistance of some people…by which I mean most people, not
my friend in particular…to rational change. We just don’t want to change, until
perhaps we reach a tipping point in our personal life. For me it was the shock of learning, when I weighed myself on a commercial
scale, that I weighed 375 pounds. My doctor’s scale
only went to 350. I thought I was going to die. I looked around and I didn’t
see any really fat, old people. I didn’t want to die.
What will it take for you? What
combination of fear, courage, and a glimmer of a chance that changing your diet
could save your life? That it might be easy to lose weight and improve all the
markers associated with morbidity and death?
What will it take for you to realize you
became overweight because of what you ate? To realize the way to reverse
that condition is to change what you eat – to eat in a
way “totally counter to the
food pyramid we all grew up with,” that we’ve been following our whole lives. I food pyramid that got us
into this mess in the first place. Think about it. If that’s what it takes,
then maybe you’ll become a follower too, and we can grow old together…
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