Evaluation week 13

Hi everyone

Thanks for coming back and also to carefix and Karen (Chocfish) for their comments and feedback on last weeks post.

I'm going to spare you the flowery introduction I had planned for this week and just point you straight in the direction of my latest find. Apparently conceived in the eighties by Dr Barry Sears the Zone diet just about embodies everything I've learned so far about controlling type 2 diabetes. I'll put the links at the end of the post.

As for me I've had another extremely successful week on the diet and I've been getting in some moderate exercise every day. The big news is that I haven't actually needed any insulin most days, although my bg has been a little higher than I'd like, it's staying within a reasonably narrow range and not spiking at all over 11 post prandial or otherwise. When I have taken some insulin it's been absolutely minimal at between 2 and 4 units. I'm still taking the metformin though. I've also lost weight this week - nearly 4lbs! YEY!! My tummy also feels a lot flatter although I haven't measured my waist to see if I've lost any inches yet.

I'm still working on the diet and keep adjusting it to see what happens. I am working towards a totally individualised plan for myself. At the moment I totally avoid pasta, rice and bread (although I will include the odd pitta bread). Carbs come from lots of veggies including potatoes and fruit, oatcakes and rye crispbread. Protein - mainly things like sprouted seeds/beans, pulses, tofu, quorn and occasionally a little cheese, fish or chicken.

This must sound extreme but I haven't made these changes overnight. Before I started on insulin last June I was feeling so ill that I was wondering if I could continue working in my current teaching job. I realised that I couldn't continue being a passive recipient of health care that was just trying to treat my symptoms often with varying degrees of success. When I started taking insulin, it brought my bg sufficiently under control for me to feel well enough to start tackling matters.

The first thing I did was to stop drinking alcohol on a regular basis in August 06. Looking back I realise how much of a strain that bottle of wine I looked forward to drinking all week was having on my already overworked liver at the weekend. Far from giving me some stress relief it was actually making me feel worse on just about every level. I don't miss it at all. I'm much more lively at social occasions and actually enjoy them more and far from envying others having a drink I think omg I'm glad that's not me!! Did I used to look like that after a couple of drinks?

I then gave up tea, coffee, (and bread for a few months) in October. Although I've never been a big meat eater, meat only went out altogether in January.

The result of all these changes in conjunction with taking "the cure" is that I have been able to reduce my insulin requirements from 14 units to the absolute minimum - if I need to inject at all. I now have energy again - not quite as good as twenty years ago but definitely 1000% better than I felt this time last year. It's just sooooo worth the effort.

I'm still wrestling with the fasting bg issue. It's still always too high averaging at around 10. I've got several ideas one of them being to increase the amount of fish oil. mmmmm

Anway I'm going to leave it at that for this week. Thanks for taking an interest. Please feel free to leave a comment.

Here's the link to an explanation of the zone diet http://www.weight-loss-institute.com/zone_diet.htm

Next have a scroll at the archives on Dr Sears website - just a warning though - it's all very American. If you look around at some of the other pages you'll see that the diet is heavily marketed selling all the usual products like zone bars etc etc Some of the articles however are very interesting.

Here's the link to the archive http://www.drsears.com/searcharchives.member

I've also jus found this link if you're interested in the "dawn phenomenon"

http://forum.lowcarber.org/archive/index.php/t-96273.html

Carol