Things I think – Diet and Nutrition Edition

Initial post: So as not to clutter up the main page, here is a side page for what I am thinking about nutrition and diet at the moment. Stream of consciousness. Runs new to old but did not start when I started getting interested in the topic, so older stuff is less sequential

First though briefly about me and what I eat (or don’t eat). I am diagnosed T2D. I was on a high dose of Metformin and recently also Victoza. I changed my diet on or about January 15, 2019. I now adhere to the following:

1. No sugars.
2. No rice, grains or starchy vegetables.
3. No processed foods.
4. No seed oils.
5. Time restricted eating. Most days I follow 20:4 or OMAD. In other words, I eat when I come home from work in the evening. Other that that I don’t eat.
6. Recently – switching / thinking about switching to lower saturated fats. Less dairy and less red meat.
7. Alcohol – none since I started this. Not saying I won’t resume but have not.

Here is what this has done for me:

1. Stopped all T2D meds within three weeks of starting.
2. At physical just one month in, A1C was down by 0.4 and lipids had improved.
3. At about two months in stopped BP med. BP remains in normal range.
4. Down about 18 pounds at the two month mark. Rate has slowed, as expected.

Ok so here is what I think about all this. As noted, new stuff on top [but separate updates at the bottom also] but I added a lot at the two month mark that is in no particular order.

1. New study from NIH: if you eat processed foods you will eat more compared to eating real foods. Lesson: eat real foods.
2. I have yet to encounter anyone who really has any interest in changing what they eat. This despite weight and other health problems. This informs me somewhat on why it took me so long to have my “aha moment” about all this.
3. I recently saw a man talking (not to me) about his poor health interfering with his ability to work. Diabetes he said. I really wanted to say something to him. Diet! What is the right thing to do there? I don’t know.
4. Fasting is easier than you’d think once you are off the carb addiction. Your body switches to burning fat, and most of us have plenty of that.
5. Eating whole foods and not buying meds is cheaper than eating processed foods and buying meds, especially with fasting.
6. Fasting is free.
7. Why does the government promulgate rules about a “healthy diet” when that diet is unhealthy for someone with T2D given that over half the population has T2D or is in a pre-T2D state? If T2D weren’t blamed on lifestyle then we’d be amazed at the mobilization of resources to combat it.
8. It is odd to me that there seen to be two main “sides” in the diet wars. There is the Keto/LCHF camp and there are the vegans. Both agree the Standard American Diet is bad. Really they agree on a lot of things as far as what not to eat. They just disagree with what to replace it with.
9. I routinely see doctors and scientists cherry pick the good studies or the good parts of a particular study to fit their narrative. So unless you have access to the study (sometimes I do) and can understand it (sometimes I do) it is hard to know what to believe.

UPDATE – May 23, 2019

1. Four months in – have adhered to diet. Decided not to avoid grass fed beef but am recently emphasizing more fatty fish. Had a brief spell where drank alcohol consistently but stopped that after about a week. Did not feel good when did that.
2. Fasting insulin levels at the 4-month mark are half what they were at the 1-month mark. HOMA-IR score of 2.0.
3. Basic lipid panel is all good though HDL could be higher.. In normal but not “optimal” range.
4. Inflammation markers still high so this is a focus.
5. On a CGM, daily averages of BG range from 101-104 and follow what I understand to be the normal pattern of falling throughout the day. For me the fall recently starts about noon.
6. Interesting because recent A1C was 6.3. This suggests a recent breakthrough. THat matches up with the next item.
7. After plateauing for a long time around 216 pounds have started to lose weight again. Today was 214.2.

October 2, 2019 update: After a sustained period of weight loss, I experimented to see if alcohol, specifically spirits, could be reintroduced without major impact. I think the evidence proves the negative. What suckered me in is that my blood sugars did not initially seem to be impacted, though over time they were. However, my weight loss stalled and reversed by about ten pounds. What’s worse, it kept going up even after I stopped alcohol, when I was otherwise adherent to my dietary plan. Then I got some labs and my insulin was far higher than it had been. I was actually pretty proud of how I had reduced it from double-digits down to a HOMA-IR score of 0.7. Well now it was HOMA-IR around 7. But the good news is that my sugars seem to have returned to their prior pattern, and a bit of weight has started to come off again. I expect the insulin levels have decreased.

My two cents: EVERYONE should have their insulin levels tested. Even if your blood sugars are “normal” (and “normal” does not mean good; it means in line with other people), it may be only because your body is producing extra insulin to keep the blood sugars in line. It is a sign of illness that doctors simply do not test for.