If you ask your doctor this question you'll probably get a shrug
of the shoulders and something like, "Just eat less and do some
exercise". And you know how well that works. Or you might be told, "Just
eat a low-fat diet with plenty of whole grains." Again this advice will
never reverse your diabetes. It's not your doctor's fault. They have so
much crammed into their curriculum, nutrition is not even taught at
many medical schools and when it is, it is usually only very cursory.
So which weight-loss diet do I recommend? Actually, I don't recommend you go on a weight loss diet at all. First there is the problem with "weight loss" and then there is the problem of a "diet".
The Problem with Weight Loss
Weight gain is a symptom of a problem and not the cause. If you want to cure any disease, do you think it I best to treat the symptoms or to correct the cause of the disease? Of course you want to correct the cause. Weight gain is the result of eating too much of the wrong food with too little exercise for years and years. Living this way makes you nutrient-depleted, inflamed, weak and fat. As a result, being overweight takes some 10-12 years off your life and reduces the quality of that life you do get to have. It's a serious problem.
But if all you do is lose the fat, you are still nutrient-depleted, inflamed and weak. In fact, some studies have shown that losing weight commonly does not make people live longer at all. It may come as a surprise but it has still not been conclusively shown that losing weight makes you live longer.
You see, you can be fat and unhealthy and you can also be skinny and unhealthy. The key problem here is the "unhealthy".
Don't Think About Losing Weight, Focus on Gaining Health
What you want really want to be healthier, right? So wouldn't it make sense to focus on getting more health rather than losing weight? Especially when the science is having trouble proving that losing weight actually makes you healthier.
It's all about living a healthful lifestyle. Then if it's healthful for you to lose weight, that is what your body will do. There is no need to force it to do something it does not want or is not ready for.
Being Fat Doesn't Cause Diabetes
Say a person is overweight and has Type 2. They go to a cosmetic surgeon and have their excess fat removed by liposuction. Does that mean they no longer have diabetes? In fact, No. It makes no difference - if it did, it might be a convenient treatment for diabetes but it makes no difference whatsoever. Clearly, the fat itself does not cause diabetes. Type 2 and weight gain are both the result of the same cause - carbohydrate excess and physical inactivity.
The solution? Focus on gaining health rather than losing weight. If the weight is unhealthy, it will come off in its own time.
The Problem with "Diets"
A "diet" is something that you go on... and then go off again. If you are going to truly and permanently reverse your diabetes and restore your good health, you cannot go on a temporary diet and then return to what you are doing. What you need to do is to make a permanent lifestyle change which involves changing what you are eating and changing what you are doing.
So I'll never ask you to go on a diet. Ever. And I'll never recommend you go on some vegetarianism in disguise. It's just not necessary to reverse diabetes. I won't give you some eating strategy that is weird or depends on some fake-food meal replacement and I won't leave you with carbohydrate cravings you can't endure. What you need is a thorough education on what foods cause diabetes, what foods heal diabetes and how to choose the right ones.
Why Low-Fat Is the Worst Diet for Diabetes
Today almost everyone believes that it is important to eat low-fat. It's the wrong way to eat for most people but it is a disaster for people with diabetes - type 1 or type 2. Why? Let me explain.
Food is made up of 3 macronutrients - protein, carbohydrate and fat - and lots of micronutrients like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants etc. It is the balance of the macronutrients that has the biggest effect on your blood glucose and insulin requirements. It is also the macronutrients that make up the bulk of the mass of your food (hence the name 'macronutrient').
The three macronutrients have different effects on your blood glucose depending on the proportion of each in any given meal. Each time you eat a meal, the food is absorbed into your blood stream leading to an increase in blood sugar which your body needs to deal with. Of course when you have diabetes, your body does not deal with it well so the less rise in blood glucose a meal causes the better.
Here are the rules:
1. Increasing the proportion of fat in a meal decreases the rise in blood glucose.
2. Increasing the proportion of carbs in a meal strongly increases the rise in blood glucose.
3. Increasing the proportion of protein in a meal has little effect on the rise in blood glucose.
So you can see that it's the fat and carbs that have the most effect on your blood glucose. To reduce your blood glucose you need to eat more fat and less carbs. But most diabetics are advised they should eat a low-fat diet. Well you've gotta eat something so when you eat low-fat, you are eating proportionately more protein and carbs. In other words, recommending a low-fat diet is the same as recommending a high-carb diet. This is madness! Type 2 is a carbohydrate-excess disease so why in the world would you recommend someone eat more carbohydrates?
It makes no sense at all and yet this is what most people are doing. Is it any wonder they can't reverse their diabetes? Is it any wonder we have a diabetes epidemic on our hands?
Don't Forget the Micronutrients
But it's not just the excess carbs. One of the other key reasons that the modern diet so predisposes us to getting diabetes is the lack of micronutrients. Just because they come in small amounts doesn't mean that micronutrients aren't important. It is essential that we get an abundance of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and essential fatty acids.
Being deficient in these micronutrients decreases the vigour and vitality of all your organs including your pancreas, liver, muscles and fat cells. It reduces your body's capacity to handle sugar even if it was not in excess and it reduces your body's capacity to heal.
And if that's not enough of a problem, the stress of diabetes in your body increases the demand for and further depletes the exact same nutrients that were deficient in the first place.
The main micronutrients that are found to be depleted in diabetics are chromium, pycnogenol, alpha-lipoic acid, vitamin D, magnesium, acetyl-L-carnitine, b vitamins, omega 3, zinc and fibre. I'll talk about each of these in more detail in a different article.
To restore the essential micronutrients, you need to switch to eating nutrient-dense foods so you can get as much of them as you can from your diet. Then you need to take supplements to help restore normal levels and accelerate your healing.
Which ones? It's all covered in the Diabetes Reversal Report.
So which weight-loss diet do I recommend? Actually, I don't recommend you go on a weight loss diet at all. First there is the problem with "weight loss" and then there is the problem of a "diet".
The Problem with Weight Loss
Weight gain is a symptom of a problem and not the cause. If you want to cure any disease, do you think it I best to treat the symptoms or to correct the cause of the disease? Of course you want to correct the cause. Weight gain is the result of eating too much of the wrong food with too little exercise for years and years. Living this way makes you nutrient-depleted, inflamed, weak and fat. As a result, being overweight takes some 10-12 years off your life and reduces the quality of that life you do get to have. It's a serious problem.
But if all you do is lose the fat, you are still nutrient-depleted, inflamed and weak. In fact, some studies have shown that losing weight commonly does not make people live longer at all. It may come as a surprise but it has still not been conclusively shown that losing weight makes you live longer.
You see, you can be fat and unhealthy and you can also be skinny and unhealthy. The key problem here is the "unhealthy".
Don't Think About Losing Weight, Focus on Gaining Health
What you want really want to be healthier, right? So wouldn't it make sense to focus on getting more health rather than losing weight? Especially when the science is having trouble proving that losing weight actually makes you healthier.
It's all about living a healthful lifestyle. Then if it's healthful for you to lose weight, that is what your body will do. There is no need to force it to do something it does not want or is not ready for.
Being Fat Doesn't Cause Diabetes
Say a person is overweight and has Type 2. They go to a cosmetic surgeon and have their excess fat removed by liposuction. Does that mean they no longer have diabetes? In fact, No. It makes no difference - if it did, it might be a convenient treatment for diabetes but it makes no difference whatsoever. Clearly, the fat itself does not cause diabetes. Type 2 and weight gain are both the result of the same cause - carbohydrate excess and physical inactivity.
The solution? Focus on gaining health rather than losing weight. If the weight is unhealthy, it will come off in its own time.
The Problem with "Diets"
A "diet" is something that you go on... and then go off again. If you are going to truly and permanently reverse your diabetes and restore your good health, you cannot go on a temporary diet and then return to what you are doing. What you need to do is to make a permanent lifestyle change which involves changing what you are eating and changing what you are doing.
So I'll never ask you to go on a diet. Ever. And I'll never recommend you go on some vegetarianism in disguise. It's just not necessary to reverse diabetes. I won't give you some eating strategy that is weird or depends on some fake-food meal replacement and I won't leave you with carbohydrate cravings you can't endure. What you need is a thorough education on what foods cause diabetes, what foods heal diabetes and how to choose the right ones.
Why Low-Fat Is the Worst Diet for Diabetes
Today almost everyone believes that it is important to eat low-fat. It's the wrong way to eat for most people but it is a disaster for people with diabetes - type 1 or type 2. Why? Let me explain.
Food is made up of 3 macronutrients - protein, carbohydrate and fat - and lots of micronutrients like vitamins, minerals, antioxidants etc. It is the balance of the macronutrients that has the biggest effect on your blood glucose and insulin requirements. It is also the macronutrients that make up the bulk of the mass of your food (hence the name 'macronutrient').
The three macronutrients have different effects on your blood glucose depending on the proportion of each in any given meal. Each time you eat a meal, the food is absorbed into your blood stream leading to an increase in blood sugar which your body needs to deal with. Of course when you have diabetes, your body does not deal with it well so the less rise in blood glucose a meal causes the better.
Here are the rules:
1. Increasing the proportion of fat in a meal decreases the rise in blood glucose.
2. Increasing the proportion of carbs in a meal strongly increases the rise in blood glucose.
3. Increasing the proportion of protein in a meal has little effect on the rise in blood glucose.
So you can see that it's the fat and carbs that have the most effect on your blood glucose. To reduce your blood glucose you need to eat more fat and less carbs. But most diabetics are advised they should eat a low-fat diet. Well you've gotta eat something so when you eat low-fat, you are eating proportionately more protein and carbs. In other words, recommending a low-fat diet is the same as recommending a high-carb diet. This is madness! Type 2 is a carbohydrate-excess disease so why in the world would you recommend someone eat more carbohydrates?
It makes no sense at all and yet this is what most people are doing. Is it any wonder they can't reverse their diabetes? Is it any wonder we have a diabetes epidemic on our hands?
Don't Forget the Micronutrients
But it's not just the excess carbs. One of the other key reasons that the modern diet so predisposes us to getting diabetes is the lack of micronutrients. Just because they come in small amounts doesn't mean that micronutrients aren't important. It is essential that we get an abundance of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and essential fatty acids.
Being deficient in these micronutrients decreases the vigour and vitality of all your organs including your pancreas, liver, muscles and fat cells. It reduces your body's capacity to handle sugar even if it was not in excess and it reduces your body's capacity to heal.
And if that's not enough of a problem, the stress of diabetes in your body increases the demand for and further depletes the exact same nutrients that were deficient in the first place.
The main micronutrients that are found to be depleted in diabetics are chromium, pycnogenol, alpha-lipoic acid, vitamin D, magnesium, acetyl-L-carnitine, b vitamins, omega 3, zinc and fibre. I'll talk about each of these in more detail in a different article.
To restore the essential micronutrients, you need to switch to eating nutrient-dense foods so you can get as much of them as you can from your diet. Then you need to take supplements to help restore normal levels and accelerate your healing.
Which ones? It's all covered in the Diabetes Reversal Report.
For a free exercise program designed specifically to help diabetics reverse their disease, go to http://optimalhealthworks.com/natural-cures/diabetes/easy-diabetes-exercise/.
Yours in Optimal Health,
Richard Sawyer.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Richard_SawyerYours in Optimal Health,
Richard Sawyer.
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