Anyone else have issues with low carb diets?

South Beach includes many vegetables from day one and most fruits and whole grains after 2 weeks. I really don't consider South Beach a "low carb" diet.

It's not a diet it is literally the way we are supposed to eat. Even compare it to the food pyramid (not that I put much faith in that though lol).

South Beach includes many vegetables from day one and most fruits and whole grains after 2 weeks. I really don't consider South Beach a "low carb" diet.

It's not a diet it is literally the way we are supposed to eat. Even compare it to the food pyramid (not that I put much faith in that though lol).

That is not *at all* the way I am supposed to eat. I am definitely supposed to eat plenty of carbs.

general - also, there's a great video on youtube.com if you type in "how to become diabetic in 6 hours" that explains dietary fat's role in insulin sensitivity that I think you should watch. in your case, it's not just carbs, but fat and glycemic indexes too - but since your body is still producing insulin, the best thing you can do to increase the sensitivity to the insulin you're producing is to exercise - good luck!

Force-feeding fat and then refined carbs, like Dr. Delgado did in the video, is pretty unnatural in my book. He consumes all that bread and pizza crust, showing pictures of white potatoes and then blames triglyceride rise on the olive oil? Should one really think that it's the body's instantaneous level of triglycerides that is correlated with heart problems? I always had the impression that the correlation held for long-standing triglyceride levels, and he plainly said his levels would go down within a few hours. He surely knows that eating always raises triglycerides. That’s why lipid panels are ordered AFTER an 8-hour fast.

Fats do indeed increase triglycerides – but only if triglycerides are measured after eating. They then descend rapidly - which Delgado experienced.

In contrast, carbohydrates can increase triglyceride levels many times higher, increasing levels to 300, 400, 500 mg/dl or more, even occasionally in the thousands, after weeks to months of carbohydrate-excess. But carbohydrate excess leads not just to after-eating high triglycerides, but high triglycerides all the time.

After demonstrating a perfectly normal rise in triglycerides after swallowing olive oil, Delgado continues his demonstration by chowing down on a big sandwich and some pizza. Lots more fat, of course, but now he’s also consuming a huge helping of refined flour. When he checks his blood levels awhile later, his triglycerides are up again, and so is his blood glucose level. His conclusion is sleight-of-hand. Glucose levels rose due to the heavy carbs - the rise was delayed due to the heavy fat. In diabetic circles, this is know as the "pizza effect" If he wanted to prove fat spikes blood sugar, he could’ve simply shown a glucose reading after the olive oil. But instead he guzzles olive oil, stuffs himself with white flour and then measures his glucose. His conclusion is sleight-of-hand.

As far as the glycemic index goes, I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Jenny Brand-Miller, but the Glycemic Index that she helped pioneer, like all such indices, is based on statistical averages. Individual reactions to foods, whether you have diabetes or not, can vary quite widely from those averages.

Nutritional guides on products are similar in that they can help the diabetic decide what MAY be a good food portion size for them to test. However, the acid test is that individual's meter at the peak timing after ingestion. If that result is good - great, a new item for the menu at that time of day has been discovered. But if not, trust the meter in preference to a label or a GI index. The Glycemic Index is derived by feeding 10 non-diabetic test subjects 100 grams of a particular food and then averaging out their increase in blood sugar. They use 10 because the results ARE variable. So even without diabetes you could be at the high or low end of the GI range for a certain food. And just because you are at the high end for say rice, does not mean that you might be at the low end for, say, apples. Add to that that we rarely eat a food by itself--and when you combine carbs with protein and fat and fibers in differing amounts, that affects just how much and how quickly your blood glucose will be affected. So at best the Glycemic Index can only be a rough guide, as a starting point but not a given fact.



I am diabetic. I eat a low-carb diet (less than 20% of calories) When I dropped grains, my own triglycerides dropped even with an marked increase in fat consumption (from 20% to 50%), as did my total cholesterol. In addition, my A1c dropped from 7.3 to 5.5. I determine the carb level I can handle based on what my meter says. The truly useful Glycemic Index is the personal one that you develop on your own with your meter, which tells you how your bg level responds say to 360 g of rice vs.. 30 g of pasta vs.. 30 g of bread or potatoes. Yours will be different than mine, although of course I haven't come up with a detailed personal index, but more like a general estimate of how much of each food I can eat and stay in range. I hope this type of individualization is being stressed in your CDE courses.

Virulently anti-fat proponents are every bit as dangerous as virulently anti-carb proponents.

Darn nice way to open a good troll post. Grats

I love it when uninformed people mouth off about other people's eating habits. Read the books and understand what each of these plans are before posting. If you wish to have some sort of educational discourse, don't ask more uninformed individuals to comment on it. Everybody has an opinion, but that doesn't mean it has value.

I would never have a diet or a religion that did not allow me to eat everything delicious under the sun.

You've already demonstrated that haven't researched many of these eating styles. Wrong about South Beach, paleo/primal, how the brain functions, lack of understanding ketosis/ketoacidosis... I don't much feel like going on, it bores me, and I have research to attend to. be proud. Look at how many people you trolled today. Nicely done.