The underlying issues with many of these studies has to do with the economics of diabetes. Drug and medical equipment companies want to sell their products and go to great lengths to do so. Insurers want to pay for as little as possible and so they set rules. For example: only so many testing strips allowed in a month, or, you can have the insulin pump if you’re Type 1, but not the CGM.

All of this makes the expensive process of looking after your diabetes, totally impossible for some.

I know this is a whole big political issue about the economics of health care and I could write pages about it, but that’s not really the purpose of this post.

Into the bargain, the major diabetes organisations and educators are still not touting the benefits of a lower-carb diet, particularly for those people who are finding it difficult to manage diabetes. It’s getting better… certainly better than several years ago, but the medical community has a long catch-up to what some of us know works.

To have good control, you need a CGMS or lots of test strips, and often some expensive medication. Thankfully, many doctors are now realising that starting Type 2s on insulin much earlier, has boundless benefits. But for those who don’t many Type 2s are not only being given high carb diets, but are left in nowhere-land when their diabetes control is out the window.

To have better control, many people who don’t have good HbA1C results, could benefit from cutting their carbs to make their diabetes easier to control. How much you cut your carbs depends on what works for you.

I’m not saying that if you have diabetes, you can’t eat whatever you want. If you have appropriate medications and your BGL spikes after food are within your target range, and your HbA1C is under 7% (under 6.5% if possible) then by all means, enjoy!

If you can’t achieve this, then cutting carbs will definitely make your diabetes easier to manage.

Note, I’m not saying low-carb. That’s a choice, and low-carb – well, there’s no denying it, I do it sometimes, but it’s very restrictive. Really depends on how motivated you are.

You’ll see results by keeping your carbs under 120grams a day, 100grams if you can (better), 50-80grams if you can (best, but difficult for many), that’s with counting all vegetables – even the ones you were taught have no carbs (eg a green salad – it does have some carb, tomatoes have carbs etc).

Let me tell you that I’m the first one who can’t walk past a piece of scrumptious chocolate cake made with quality dark chocolate, adorned with triple cream. The problem is that I did it for years, totally unable to stop high BGLs (I wasn’t on insulin then and doctors were still insisting I had Type 2). And the tablets didn’t help – it was a prescribed dose no matter what I ate and they all made me feel sick and did horrid things to my belly .

I’m of the opinion that it’s so much easier to manage diabetes with insulin. I wouldn’t have said that before I mostly got over my needle-phobia.

I’ve been promoting a lower carb way of eating for more than 10 years. Sometimes I wasn’t motivated to do it, sometimes I was. And if I didn’t do it for one meal, I’d do it for another. Even now, I’m not doing it all the time. Yes, I do eat a piece of cake here and there, or have a packet of crisps. Everything in moderation, right? But my numbers have improved dramatically from the days that I wasn’t looking after myself because it was proving too difficult. Little did I know!

I also think that along with lower carb, the Paleo way of eating is a great way to go. Do some research! You might find something about it that appeals to you.

I think people forget that these total changes in diet are sometimes really difficult to do. Who says you have to do it all at once?

Start with one meal a day… or one meal every other day. When you see the benefits on your meter, it might motivate you to try 2 meals a day.

What’s better than having 3 BGL spikes a day for breakfast, lunch and dinner? Two spikes a day! What’s better than that? One spike a day! And better than that, NO spikes!

Take baby steps if you can’t take the really big ones.

If you’re someone who uses food as comfort or as a reward, if you don’t fix that problem, it’s going to be difficult for you to drastically change your diet. Or do you not care enough about yourself? Why? Find out! It’s truly worth fixing. It’s definitely fixable.

This is in many ways, a little gentle motivation for you, if you think you could benefit from lower blood sugars and think you can’t do it. You can, and you will… just give yourself permission to do it the way that suits you best.

Yet again, it’s usually a case of the medical community treating a conditon and forgetting the holistic approach. It’s easy for them to forget they are treating a person, not just a disease.

Speaking of research, which was the start of this post, do read some of Jenny’s other material particularly about diet and managing diabetes. Her web site, Blood Sugar 101, (different to her blogging site) is meant mainly for Type 2s, but much of it is in-depth info that applies to Type 1s as well.

As far as the research goes, every day it seems that yet another expert comes to a seemingly intelligent conclusion, but when you look deeper, the research is flawed in some way. If you’re ever reading a research paper, the first thing to find out is who funded it. Start from there and you’ll have some answers even before you get past the first paragraph.

I thought I knew a lot until I started the preparation for going on an insulin pump earlier this year. Since then, I can’t tell you how much more my poor brain has been filled with extra information. Every week it seems I learn something new. Whether it’s about managing the disease, research, reading other people’s experiences, it’s still learning.

My averages had been creeping up over the last couple of weeks. I can put it down to a number of things including another kilo on my already overweight frame (I still manage to just scrape in to the ‘overweight’ category with Body Mass Index (BMI)).

We had visitors and were eating out a lot, in places where whatever was on my plate was sometimes difficult to carb-guess. And the kicker was the extra exercise. Like some, I’m not textbook when it comes to exercise. I don’t do enough of it (knee needing replacement) so I go high during exercise – contrary to text book advice – and have to bolus more. More bolus = more insulin = more weight for me. Going high during all the walking we did meant extra insulin.

So, whatever the reason or combination of reasons for my averages going up, I felt I had to break the cycle. Three days last week, I did very-low-carb. This week, I’m doing lower-carb. It’s done the trick. Don’t take this as advice – it’s just my experience.

Under no circumstances did I want to increase my TDD of insulin, which would put on more weight. What I did, worked nicely for me. I’m back to carb-watch-eating and my numbers are way better. In the process, I also shed a couple of pounds, for which I’m very grateful. The extra weight seems to be super-glued to me, and getting it off is a battle.

In passing, my endo, a few weeks ago, told me not to worry about the extra weight, considering how well I’ve done since I went on an insulin pump. I didn’t think much of it at the time. My thoughts were of fashion and vanity.

In a twist of fate, I subsequently read about some latest studies which suggest that BMIs under 18 and over 30 are associated with a greater risk of death. What was apparently surprising to the researchers was that the overweight category BMI: 25 to 30, was NOT associated with any significant greater risk. And the most surprising was that the underweight category BMI <18, was.

We all thought that calorie restriction was the way to go. Apparently not. From what I’m reading, going into the twilight years with a little extra padding, isn’t all that bad. What is vitally important, is your fitness. If you are normal weight and not fit, you do worse than someone overweight and fit.

If you have the time, watch the video below. It outlines some of the latest research.

Obesity: Ten Things You Thought You Knew

So maybe my endo had seen these same studies.

That still doesn’t let me off the hook as far as off-the-hook fashion goes. And yeah, I’m not all that fit. I hope to change that.

Been saying the same thing it for years!!

Whether you’re Type 1 or Type 2 or anything in between, if you can’t keep your blood glucose within your target range most of the time, try cutting the carbs!

On lower carbs, diabetes is so much easier to control – on insulin and even more so, without insulin!

If you are on any medications for diabetes, please check with your doctor before embarking on any change of diet.

Primal Coconut Pancakes and Waffles (link to original, including video, which shows you how)
2 eggs
1/2c or 56g almond meal
1c or 68g shredded coconut, unsweetened, unsulphured
1 can or 400mL/g Coconut Milk
1/2t sea salt
1/2t baking powder
1/2t or 1g cinnamon (to taste)
vanilla, optional (to taste)

Nutritional Info
Servings Per Recipe: 8 (divide by 8 to get nutritional info for 1 pancake)

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 209.4
Total Fat: 19.7 g
Cholesterol: 46.8 mg
Sodium: 141.4 mg
Total Carbs: 6.1 g
Dietary Fiber: 2.2 g
Protein: 3.6 g

Could I eat less? For breakfast and lunch, definitely not. I eat like a bird. Should I cut down the 2 eggs to 1 egg for breakfast with a glass of water? Maybe I could.

For dinner – it’s a regular dinner (say 2 lamb chops, or 1 smallish steak) with salad and sometimes a small amount of carbs – eg a small potato or half a cup of rice, or half an ear of corn.

After dinner… now herein lies a problem, but not every night.

On what I’m eating, I should be losing weight. Instead, my body has decided to find calories where I’m sure there aren’t any.

Exercise is a huge problem for me. A geek-girl from way back, I much prefer to do almost anything else, including sitting at my computer. With a knee waiting for a replacement, and pain in other places from Lupus, exercise is a mild form of torture for me.

If there was a heated pool anywhere within a half hour’s drive from me, I’d be in it. There isn’t. I’m hopeful that in summer, I can go to the local pool (not heated) and get some exercise in. Other than that, I’m pretty stumped.

I’m also one of those whose blood glucose goes high during and after exercise. Then 4-6 hours later I’m having to watch for lows. Totally contrary to what the literature says – most say that you’ll go low during exercise. I do know of others like me. I’m still experimenting with all this… maybe a small carb snack and a raised bolus during exercise will tell my liver in no uncertain terms not to dump all that glucose.

Then again, that small carb snack and the extra insulin will probably cancel out any exercise I might do. Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.

Weight used to fall off me. I’d just think the word ‘diet’ and it would start falling off. Age, menopause, stress, diabetes and worst of all, insulin, has totally done me in. Heaving around all those extra kilos (including the extra 6 I started with), is not at all fun.

I can’t even lift 14 kg of anything but I’ve got to drag it around with me 24/7. Not fair!!!

I’ve put on 4kg since starting on an insulin pump last June 1st. Outrageous!!! My TDD (total daily dose) is about 3/4 of what it was on injections. I should have lost weight, right?. A few measly kilos at the very least. Not to be.

I know I’m not the only one struggling with this, but I do NOT want to go down the road of reducing my insulin, as tempting as that might be. With a great A1C on the pump, but not in the years before, I don’t want or need any more complications from diabetes.