LMAO
Judith, you and me are going to get a reputation at the docs.
I know that lots of folk just accept a doctors opinion as fact, if more disputed it we possibly wouldn’t be stuck in the rut that we are in.
In fact I suspect that a doctors words get much more undivided attention than a teachers ever does.

I think I already have a rep with the docs, Bill. It was the consultant i didn’t take any notice of after he told me I was disabled for life (I wasn’t standing for that – hence the horse riding with a full cast on my leg) and that I needed to lose a lot of weight. I was 8 and a half stones (5’4) and he had an enormous beer belly. He said it absolutely seriously ! One of the young doctors with him popped back in my room and said he couldn’t believe what he had just said to me.

My doctors are very good and I do listen to them – they discuss and listen to you. I think your doctor (hopefully ) wants to find out more from you. Your results speak for themselves. You might soon be the cause of advice to diabetics changing in your practice. I hope so.

There must be an element of the attitudes we have in everyone on these forums or they wouldn’t be trying this.

Really looking forward to what happens on the 30th 🙂

Hi Charlie,

As I understand it, the C-Pep test shows if you’re actually still producing insulin, so yes I would have thought your doctor would find it useful 🙂

hope this helps

TP

Thanks TP!

*waves* to Bill & Judith.

Like you I’ve had some ‘interesting’ conversations with doctors. One told me he believed in ‘early, aggressive intervention’ with diabetics – Metformin, BP meds and statins. Explained I can’t take statins and the only ready I saw for Metformin was I would be able to get free prescriptions (at that time I still paid). He was a locum, who taught at medical school!

Now it seems to be nurses I have these conversations with😳. Living in a village, there’s the one surgery but no regular GP, mostly staffed by locums.

Most likely a flag on my records – trouble maker. He he.

Lynne, that’s a bit hard – only one surgery and no regular GP. It’s worrying that someone teaching at medical school is informing medical students to intervene aggressively with meds! 🙁

Well hat’s off to trouble makers – what other way will changes happen?? 🙂

Lynne keep on causing trouble
I don’t understand why, when the original research was conducted by someone as eminent as Professor Taylor, more of the profession aren’t taking an interest
I’m really lucky in that I have both nurses and doctors at my surgery who do take an interest, yes I was given the usual meds at first, but they do seem open to this new lifestyle and I’ll make goddam sure they hear about my future progress.
If Doc Mosely comes back to the UK us 3 and others from this forum should really make an effort to be in the audience and let people know what is really happening now, every day, in real life. Not some half assed theory but genuine experiences.

I will, Bill.

Sometimes when I’ve mentioned the BSD, Dr Mosely and Prof Taylor to medics I’ve seen their eyes glaze over and one actually shrugged as if to say ‘so what, no idea who that is!’ Obviously don’t keep up!

I’m with you – you, Judith and me (and everyone else of here who could and wished to), not only in the audience but with placards and/or leaflets outside, making our voices heard.

Naysayers may say our evidence is only anecdotal, not scientifically proved, but those of us keeping records can show those as evidence and our results speak for themselves.

The ‘experts’ would probably say they need a long-term randomised clinical trial, with a large number of participants to see if it is beneficial and not harmful. I think my response would be to ask if it is ethical to take that line as so many diabetics are already following the BSD and showing great improvement in their blood results, as well as weight loss and other benefits. Would it be ethical to deprive other diabetics of the opportunity to improve not only their diabetes, but also their general health? Oh, I forgot – the drug companies and their profits😱.

*off to put soapbox away*

Glad you stuck that on the end Lynne
To me the foremost question in their minds would be, Is it ethical to deprive the drug and weight loss companies of the blood money they’ve been rolling in for years on the back of this horrible disease

A friend of mine told me a few years ago about her son’s then partner – a GP – who said diabetics would bankrupt the NHS. My response was to put me in a locked room with him for a while and I’d sort him out!

With the post code lottery re testing supplies there is a conspiracy theory in some quarters that ‘they’ are trying to get rid of us to save money.

Well, their wish is being granted – just not how they thought. 😃

Just think – smaller profits for drug companies, the huge slimming organisations losing members (and profits), and all those manufacturers of ‘slimming’ low-fat foods and diet meals also losing profits. Imagine – food shops full of healthy food, full fat with taste rather than sugar. 😃 Cheaper to buy healthy rather than junk food! And bring back cooking lessons in schools, cooking from scratch rather than microwaving ready meals. Or am I looking for an unobtainable Utopia?

No it’s not unobtainable Lynne
We are the people and we have the ultimate power over the lot of them – voting with our feet.
A sharp loss of profits will quickly realign their thinking.
Someone should have told Mr Osbourne about this, to send a £3.60 diet book to every diabetic in the country would cost far far less than the price of drugs and treatment.

Lynne, in response to your post, I just want to say: right-on sister! Power to the people! I wish for the same sort of revolution here in the U.S.!

Bill and lynne I think we should all be quoting MLK ‘I have a dream…’
What a good idea re the book, Bill, I bet Doc mosley would let him have them at near cost for that purpose! You should contact MM’s team and pass on your idea!
I think Bill is also right that the slimming companies and food companies will use this to their advantage – freezers and chillers full of BSD ready meals etc.

Hi Boog23. Greetings from this side of the pond.

Just think, you could be one of those starting this revolution in the good old US of A when folk see your progress.

I’ll be interested to see how our American cousins do on this – I’ve spent some time there and can think of some challenges, but also some positives.

My friend in Texas asked me to send her the book and she was really keen. But last time we spoke, she said she’d tried it, but didn’t get her carbs low enough and can’t give up her diet yogurts! Mind you, she used to eat two frozen diet meals at a time because one wasn’t enough. Even worrying about her husband’s health can’t influence her to change.

I’ve visited towns where it was almost impossible to buy healthy, fresh food and everything at the diner was deep fried.

But I’ve also visited Whole Foods Market and grocery stores with shelves full of lovely fresh vegetables and fruit as well as all the meat, fish, poultry and cheese. The choice and quality never ceases to amaze me.

Many of the motels I’ve stayed at offer breakfast, but it’s almost always carbs or carbs with the occasional egg. And the portion sizes if I eat out are huge.

So I wish you and all my American brothers and sisters well, and look forward to hearing your progress.

Remember – the revolution could start with you 😃

Hi Lynne

I think the BSD will be a big hit here when word gets out. The official release date is March 22-I suspect that Dr. Mosly will begin doing radio and television interviews about it and then it will blow up. I hope and pray I can be an example to folks here of what this diet can accomplish as the U.S. is sorely in need of a solution.

You are right about the challenges in the U.S., especially with the food system. ‘On the road’, as you have discovered, it is very difficult to find the healthiest of foods-It takes some planning and effort. The breakfasts at most motels and hotels are indeed simple carb heavy, ie; cheap. Texas, as well as the rest of the south is especially bad. The east and west coast,s much better.

I have friends that pack their own food for a trip of several days. That seems like a lot of work to me as I have to admit that I am essentially, at least to this point, pretty lazy when it comes to food preparation. But I think I may have to get over that soon. You and so many others on this forum inspire me to do better.

thank you for the well wishes,
be well and stay great

Hi Boog23.

I know some folk in the US have asked for copies of the book from the UK, so there is already some awareness.

‘On the road’, if all else fails a visit to the Golden Arches (or similar) can provide some kind of protein, just leave the carbs – no pancakes and syrup 😱. My friend’s husband caused chaos in the Arches, asking for a sausage and egg biscuit without the biscuit. He eventually settled for it as it came and just left the biscuit! Boiled eggs and cheese can travel well and don’t take much preparation. Just avoid ‘all you can eat’ buffets!

Stay in touch, we look forward to hearing your progress.

Hi Captainlynne
I literally saw that on my docs records -‘non compliant’ !
They took it off after I said I’d seen it.
Are we supposed to behave like good children and not question anything??!!
Penny

My current GP wrote on a recent blood test request “eshews statins”. I should think so…I have a cardiac calcium score of zero!

She’s filling in for my regular doctor who is a lot more supportive and off having a baby…but basically, no GP I have seen has much clue about the connection between food and insulin hence BGL, they are obsessed with BGL and can’t get beyond that. Its infuriating. And patients are accused of not working hard at getting healthy or losing weight!

I had one professor in charge of a diabetes clinic thump the desk and growl “a calorie is a calorie” in response to me telling him I respond differently to carbohydrate and other food groups. I’ve given up on them and only attend for my tests, so I have the information to keep on working from.

Matrika, that’s shocking! If that is the way a prof thinks then there is a hell of a way to go! 🙁

Hi matrika
What idiots some clever people can be. It’s not like there aren’t dozens of books about on this subject. I’ve had a book for about 15 years about sugar and the rise of diabetes . The graphs of sugar produced and diabetes diagnosed are Identical.
You’re right to ignore and avoid those people.
Penny

You tell em Bill!
Penny👍🏽

Hello everyone, I have just joined and started my VLC diet today, having been diagnosed as a type 2 on Christmas eve. I was so disappointed with the response from my GP a couple of days ago it almost made me not want to try this at all. I do feel very much alone and hope that I can glean all the information I need from this site. I read Michael Mosely’s book before I started and am tentatively very hopeful about reversing my diabetes.

Penny, thank you. 🙂

Charliebee…unfortunately being insulin resistant can happen when you are very slim…I became aware I was insulin resistant when I had an extremely healthy BMI and was very willowy 20 years ago and was as fit as a fiddle (on the outside), exercised daily in a gym etc etc.
I tried very hard to do something about it when I got the diagnosis of hyper-hypoglycaemic, returned to Australia from Asia where I was living for a few decades and consulted health professionals who were supposed to be the top in their field in Australia…they were published and famous for advising low glycaemic index eating.

I was given what I now know to be bad advice about what to do about it from these very eminent medicos and followed the advice to the letter…and became type 2 diabetic.

The best thing you can do is to continue to monitor your carb intake because carbs stimulate insulin fast and if you follow some sort of intermittent fasting whether it be full or partial fasting, that is the only way I know of to control insulin resistance. Ensuring that you get the fat out of your liver and pancreas is pretty important too. Because I have strong insulin resistance, that is something I do over and over again. I take psyllium, sustained release vitamin C and concentrated lecithin for a few weeks of every few months, nowadays at the same time as very low carbs or broth fasting.

There is no treatment except dietary for insulin resistance, hence the pharmaceutical companies and the medical establishment do not focus on it and instead are obsessed with blood sugar levels as a diagnostic and that is what they are
“treating”. It is actually backwards…the original problem and source of the weight gain that leads to the type 2 diagnosis is the insulin.

Too much protein also stimulates insulin.
Sorry to be a downer.
Getting to a healthy weight is just the beginning! 🙂

Mollytopmarx…You are right to be taking resonsibility for your own health as difficult as that is to acknowledge and do. Perhaps I was too slow to undertand this, I was somewhat blinded by the authority of doctorsand trusted them. Unfortunately, I have discovered that my doctors were not reading as much as I was, they don’t have time and they were unable to engage intelligently with the points I was trying to make re food…if you wish to address your type 2 diabetes, you really do have to become very well informed because at least in Australia, it is difficult to find a doctor who actually knows what they are talking about in this area of medicine. My own faith and trust in my GP was completely blown out of the water when she misdiagnosed my IBS for diverticulitis, unnecessarily prescribed heavy antibiotics and left me with an antibiotic resistant infection that I didn’t need and certainly didn’t deserve and have spent most of the last year getting rid of. It has a high mortality rate, so it actually could have kiled me. The diabetes is slower. Now, I really get it…I am responsible for anything I put in my mouth..not the doctor not the pharmacist. I have weaned myself off all my medications (with medical supervision) and I intend to only take medications if it is a genuinely life threatening emergency. Everything else…my food is my medicine these days.

Most GPs assumption is you will need insulin down the track ifg you are type II diabetic…and that is wrong…most newly diagnosed type 2 diabetics have floods of insulin…that is why they are overweight…we just need decent information and more research into the sources and causes instead of the darn symptoms.

And it is about time type 2 diabetes was renamed…the name seems to be causing some confusion for some doctors re the trajectory of this….whatever you call it.

Hi mollytopmaex
You will not feel alone for long! We re all here to help.
Penny

Welcome to the forums Mollytop, I’m sorry you had that response from your GP. It is early days and a lot will not have heard of it. Follow the diet, shout for support or advice, there are lots of lovely friendly people ready to help. Keep a record of your weight, BMI, measurements (with a tape) and show them to hour GP on your next visit – and every visit after! I find it useful to create an excel spreadsheet which I update every day, then you can just print it off every time you visit.
Keep posting so we can hear all about your progress! 🙂

Thank you to Matrika, hashimoto, and pmshrink for your support and advice. I’m not a fan of my local G.P. surgery at the moment because when I was told that I am diabetic, over the phone, on Christmas eve I was told that I had been borderline on my two previous tests. For some reason they decided not to tell me at the time. Very strange and frustrating as I feel I lost the chance to nip it in the bud. I was told I would have to go on Metformin, but, because I had heard of people reversing their diabetes I just refused. You are so right, Matrika, we are all responsible for what we put in our mouths and I can’t even say that I had an eating disorder as such, I just love food, the wrong food. Like so many people I was in love with carbs and sugar. I am very touched to find I am not alone in this. Not very used to forums and how they work which is why I haven’t replied before now. I found your replies in my junk mail and was so pleased to find them. I hope you are all doing well. This is my third day and am finding it pretty ok so far.

Hi Mollytopmarx, it is really good that you can reverse it now. I’m so glad you found the diet at this early stage. Now you have tried the forums please keep posting – whether it be successes or failures we will be right there with you 🙂

Thank you, hashimoto, five days in and feeling very well. Weight loss seems to have ground to a halt, not cheating at all, so hope that it is just a glitch. I will keep on, will get no help from my G.P. so I feel I have no choice but to carry on whatever happens. I am very appreciative of your support, believe me.

Molly

Hi molly, are you keeping carbs below 50g a day? If you are following the guidelines it may be retained fluid and you will get a drop in your weight quite quickly. I think measuring round your waist is a good indicator. Also, you could buy some ketostix to check you are burning fat 🙂

Hi Mollytopmarx,
that must be so frustrating for you. I thank heaven that my GP’s are very supportive and, as it turned out yesterday, willing to listen to their patients, which of course should always be the case.

Hi hashimoto, again helping me out 🙂 I have to admit I don’t know what ketostix are. I guess it’s something you test your urine with(?) I am pretty low carb – perhaps too low, I have 1 1/2 ounces porridge for breakfast and one shake at tea time. Otherwise, I am pretty low carb – protein and salad or vegetables (not starchy veggies). I’m not getting enough fat for Atkins, I’m just sticking as well as I can to the 800 calories really. Ooops, just realised you mean my fat lol, what a nana!!!

Also, thank you for your support Bill, very ecouraging.

Molly

Hi Hashimoto,

A technical question on the carbohydrate ration – which I see has just come up on this thread.
I searched the book but could not find the figure, but you have helpfully come up with 50g. If that’s from the BSD book, I wonder if you could advise me the page number.

However, I imagine a simple figure isn’t the whole picture – I suppose it’s more acceptable to eat 50g of lentils, than of white rice, differing so greatly on the Glyceamic index.
Am I right in assuming that it’s really the Glycaemic Loading which is the critical figure?
It’s all on pp 88/90 but MM stops short of giving a daily loading as it’s all “a bit complicated”.

During the 8 weeks we kept it simple by using the dinner recipes from the book and ate obviously good choices for other meals. Now we’re branching out into other recipes it would be good to know how to calculate what is a sensible daily ration/loading.
Can you or anyone else help?

Incidentally, the “Carbs & Cals” App is quite useful – you can make up different ingredients into a meal and it totals up the carbs, cals, protein, fat etc.

And, Mollytopmarx, I share your current frustration with the scales. However, I know it’s really just a matter of time. Trouble is, we all like to set deadlines – I’m an inveterate graph man, I currently have about 5 graphs on the go for this (final?) spasm of weight loss. It takes me about 20mins to fill them all in when I lose a pound. 🙂

Final bit – went to the eye hospital today for my monthly test/jab and BP was reduced to 115/69 – they said that was “very good but I don’t want to go much lower”. Better see my quack. (Incidentally, isn’t it hard not to preach? – I must have told about 3 or 4 people about the BSD – all seemed very interested and wanted the name of the book.)

Hi stringbreaker, I’m not an expert on the 50g of carbs or under. I am going on what Cherrianne has said. She is a district nurse and diabetic so she has a much better understanding of it all than me. I have only just started googling carbs in various foods and it is quite surprising. Meat and fish have no carbs but quarter of a cucumber has 2.7g!! I’m starting to collate a fact sheet with the foods I eat most often. I’m sure some of the others will give you much more help on this than I can.
I know what you mean about preaching!!! A friend has just left with my BSD book as she and her daughter are interested.
Very good news for you at the hospital. My blood pressure dipped a lot for a while but now it has settled.
🙂

Hi Molly, ketostix are indicator sticks, and yes, you test your urine, if you are fat burning the indicator will turn anywhere from rosy pink to purple. The colour chart is on the side of the tub. You can order them online or get them from a pharmacy 🙂

Thanks for the info hashi – if I can find out any more I’ll post it. Might even try the “contact us” on the website it we don’t get very far on our own.

John

It would be good to have a thread for carb and calorie content of common foods 🙂

Hi Stringbreaker
The figure of 50g comes from diet doctor.com, an interesting website on low carb diets.
Re the white rice/ lentils etc. Yes, the GL is the thing, but you don’t really need to go into that if you just avoid the obvious ones like white rice , bread, pasta, sugar.
If you’re sticking to 50 g you will get that much from other sources anyway.
Penny

Thanks Penny – I’ll have a shufti

John

I’m starting my 8 week diet on Monday. I went to see my GP today – I was slightly nervous about the reception I would get but hoped that I would get some support. I was right to be nervous. All I received was a homily about “we doctors” not being in favour of faddy crash dieting, especially when people taking them up expected “us hard-working GPs” to monitor their progress and health weekly. I’m feeling too disappointed to recount the last part of the conversation.

I told him that I was going to do it anyway for me as I wanted to take responsibility for my health rather than relying on pills. I could see that I wasn’t going to get any help or even moral support so am going to go it alone. And that includes making sensible decisions about tapering down Metformin from my current 4x50g tabs a day and closely monitoring what happens. He said he’ll see me again in about 3 months if I’ve managed to lose any weight. That was encouraging – I wonder why he became a doctor?

Steve T I’m sorry you had such a discouraging reaction from your GP. You will show him the error of his way when he sees you in 3 months time. You will be slimmer, healthier and hopefully reducing your metformin by then. Look at Bill1954 ! That is all the. Inspiration you need to begin this journey. The forums are full of helpful friendly people who will support you and just shout if you want any advice, there is always someone somewhere in the world who is awake and ready to help.

I cant help noticing it is april fools day. I think your GP is the April Fool lol

Welcome to the forums 🙂

Steve take a look at my results in the over the 800 line thread.
That’s what a GP should be acting like, TBH yours is a disgrace. Next time you see him just ask him how much his practise would save if all the T2D patients could reverse the disease.
The best way to shut him up is to do the full 8 weeks and then go back with your weight and sugar results. I found that handing over a copy of the notes printed from this site and handed over at the start of the conversation helped.

Hi Steve
That is such a disgraceful attitude.
That doctor is paid a fortune to come out with that sort of Rubbish.
Be assured you are not alone- we are all here to support you. Good luck on Monday.
Penny

I’ve just scanned the first page of replies to this thread- ‘ How will my GP react?’.
Firstly, I feel saddened by the nervous tone in the question, which reflects the old fashioned, patriarchal service that a lot of people are still clearly receiving from our so called ‘modern NHS’. I too am a nurse, and expect more from my GP. Any government paper will always wax lyrical about care being ‘patient focused’ and patients being ’empowered’, but sadly, reading this thread, it seems not. There are glimpses of good practice tho; in the BSD book, a reference was made to one of the guys in the case studies being an ‘expert patient’.
Sadly, our GPs have been tied to ‘targets’ for BP, cholesterol and Blood sugar levels for years, and a lot of them seem to have lost sight of the notion of patient empowerment at all!
Saying this, any GOOD GP would applaud their patient for taking responsibility for their health and well being and would support them. Same for practice nurses. I know a few practice nurses they get allocated a mere 7 minutes per patient, often with no lunch break!
My take on it all is this; This is YOUR life, your body and don’t worry about what your GP may or may not think. Go right in there, tell them what you’re doing, that it’s fully evidence based and that you want their support (and monitoring) to safely wean from whatever medication you are on. If they don’t want to do this, change your GP- I did, and get a great service now. It’s so worth it. Good luck!

Hi mummytummy, it’s great to have you on board as a more experienced voice.
Your take on things is absolutely they way I regard the situation too, fortunately I have a supportive GP but many haven’t.
Some won’t even pay their patients the coutesy of hearing them out. I’d be voting with my feet.

Just posted this link in another thread, I think it says it all
theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/01/drugs-pharma-doctors-patients

Well said, mummytummy 🙂

Steve, I’m so sorry your GP was an asshole. Next time you go, make him eat his words!

In the meantime there’s tons of support and advice here 🙂

Ha ha Newlife, at least I only called someone’s doctor a ‘plonker’ on this website!! But you’re right!! 🙂

Thanks Bill1954, great article! I was a clinical research nurse for 5 years, not in the Pharmaceutical industry, but in the NHS; so I know all too well how powerful the big pharma companies are.
What I liked about the BSD book is MMs reference to not just one or two clinical trials, but the evidence base as a whole.

Newlife, that made me laugh 😂😂😂

Another way of looking at that is ……sometimes, when you visit your GP and they aren’t listening to you, you’re dealing with a great big EGO!

Hee hee, tell it like it is 🙂

I do have a lot of sympathy for GPs, I’m in the medical profession myself, they are under tremendous time pressures and they have very high stress levels. But that kind of attitude towards someone who is taking responsibility for their own health (rather than wanting a magic pill which doesn’t exist) is unacceptable.