Tonight ITV 7.30pm diet and diabetes may very worth watching!

As long as they don’t tell us we are diabetic because we are fat. I never was until I started on insulin, always between 9 stone and 9.5 stones. I love the comment by David Mendosa (www.mendosa.com) why are we called diabetics. We are people with diabetes. If you have cancer you are not canceric, if you have heart disease you are not cardia…ic or whatever.

LOVE IT !!!!

Thanks Verano – will watch it.

Sunshine-girl – I agree about the insulin it really does pile on the weight. On our local regional programme about diabetes it only showed people who were very overweight when it is well known that there are lots of thin people like you and MIchael Mosley who have diabetes.

The very interesting thing was that on our regional programme in East Anglia several of the diabetes experts were really obese and they were talking about the importance of ‘diabetics’ losing weight. We were gobsmacked.

Krysia LOL, if anyone still says LOL. Ironic that the medics don’t take their own advice.

Oh wow – they actually spoke to Professor Taylor and two people who have done really well on BSD. I am so pleased you flagged this up Verano. It was so much better than the BBC effort.

It was really nice to see Professor Taylor speak. You can see how enthusiastic he is about his research and how it can reverse diabetes.

Maybe people will listen now

Just watched the program, going to give it a go

Well done – you won’t regret it. There is so much support on this forum – it is really great.

Welcome Birtles18 good luck with your journey.

If was an interesting program although I thought that if you didn’t know about the BSD you may not have picked up on it as the references were quite vague.

Two things that really hit home with me were to reverse diabetes you need to ‘Change the way you eat for life ‘ and also that this is very much a ‘Personal decision’ .

At the end of the day we could just keep taking the pills/injections and carry on as we were. WE have made the ‘Decision’ to make ourselves healthier. We should never lose sight of that and we should be proud and pat ourselves on the back for taking back control of our health and our bodies.

Verano,

That is exactly right and phrased in a better way than I ever could.

I believe that the ‘personal decision’ element is key and should be core in discussions with the medical profession, especially those who are doubting or are wedded to the “ooh, a problem, have a drug” mentality.

Yes Verano – we should be proud and pat ourselves on the back for taking back control of our health and our bodies.

It is very empowering to think that we have ultimate control over our health and that my local Tesco can put as many Krispy Kreme doughnut displays as it likes at the entrance of my local store but it still won’t persuade me to buy them.

It was very sad to see the man who rejected managing his diabetes with good food choices. I was going to type that it is harder to do it our way than just take the medication but I changed my mind. Trying to balance blood sugars with meal time insulin injections and blood sugar testing was a nightmare. Blood sugars were either too high or too low and trying to correct this would often send me on a roller coaster of very high and very low blood sugars. I am still finding packets of glucose tablets everywhere – in every bag I own, in every garment that has a pocket and in my car. I needed them to prevent hypo’s and wouldn’t leave the house without them.

Now I am secure in the knowledge that all I have to do is to avoid putting on weight and avoid the bad carbs and keep exercising. It is actually much easier than going down the medication route.

My Consultant on Monday confirmed that this way of eating was for life and that I am in remission. Any weight gain will put me back on insulin meds. That is why they are continuing to monitor me. So I won’t be deviating from BSD guidelines any day soon.

Me too – Another newbie – just doing all the research but this forum and all the positive comments about how this works is really making sense to me.

Yes Krysia when you have to take insulin it certainly doesn’t seem like the ‘easy’ way out! You have done so well!

You’re so right about changing ‘tastes’. I had to make three loaves of sandwiches yesterday and it never even occurred to me to eat the bread…. oh how far we have all come!!!!

I think that the BSD can be really difficult for many of the diabetics here because taking the medication is an ‘easy’ option compared to restricting your diet for ‘a life time’. Also, and I only speak for myself here, I find it even harder to keep motivated because, fortunately, I don’t have any symptoms!

JulesM, thanks and I’ll let you know about the ‘personal decision’ element bit after my review on Monday morning!!!!

Welcome Wellymitts and good luck on your journey!

Now people are being told it is all our fault, lifestyle, fat etc. Knew that would come into it, however, there is some truth in it as obesity is the number one problem in the UK (after heart disease – caused by obesity??). As the population becomes fatter there will be more diabetes diagnosed. That said, I was pleased to see the diet was very similar to ours although we are probably a bit stricter i.e. lentils are good but not often.

As for the man who dropped out, I had some sympathy with him. He said he couldn’t follow the diet when he went out and having had 2 weeks of eating out and about, yes it is hard to get people to understand. I even had a restaurant which states ‘tell us if you have any allergies or intolerances – our staff are trained to help’ served me garlic bread with my starter, which I gave to other guests. Then after saying NO CHIPS can I have salad instead, they brought me the chips in a bowl just in case I changed my mind!!!! Wait for my review on Tripadvisor. When we stopped at a massive service station eatery there was a row of food outlets like Subway, McD, Kentucky Fried, Chicago Pizza, Harry Ramsdens and more and my heart fell, I had to eat something. Then I saw M&S Simply Food, yeah lots of exciting salads. But it is hard as we all know. We are trying to change but society needs to do its bit too.

One thing I am happy about is that the BSD is now ‘out there’ and we should be seen as those people who are working hard to change things rather than the weirdo who doesn’t eat chips.

Hi sunshine-girl

I have a friend who just doesn’t eat potatoes or dairy, never has, and she doesn’t seem to have a problem when eating out! Maybe it’s a burger without bread that’s hard for them to understand ! And hey, who doesn’t eat chips ….. US!!!!

Eventually we will be seen as ‘normal’ … I hope! Although until we get ‘healthier’ eating chains it’s going to be difficult. I’m sure that I have seen a ‘healthy’ food outlet at a service station but may be the only one in the country!

To be fair most of us who are diagnosed with diabetes are overweight , you’re the exception that proves the rule. It would be interesting to know what percentage of diabetics are TOFI’s??

Verano, you will see from my post that I mentioned M&S Simply Food, which were simply wonderful, we just made sure there was one wherever we stopped so it was no problem. My sister in law lives near London and there is a diet fad there called no carbs after 6pm so most restaurants etc are used to it. I know I it is difficult for them to understand someone does not eat chips but I will tell them it is a digestive problem that can give me an upset stomach so I would prefer not to have the temptation there.

I had breakfast out yesterday – by chance I found a cafe that had set breakfasts, but also charged for the components separately (ie eggs poached or scrambled without toast automatically added) eggs and mushrooms were great – but I have no idea what they did with the spinach – fried it??! – so oily. V weird.
I also ate out in the evening too- I can thoroughly recommend cafe rouge salmon omelette with salad, although it did mean that I had about five eggs over the course of the day!

I haven’t tried it yet, still in the fridge, but Waitrose have started selling cauliflower mash – I know it is probably easy to make, but a good standby if it only needs zapping in the microwave.

I’ve just eaten the waitrose cauliflower mash – it was OK – a bit watery compared to mashed potato
Not sure whether that is cauliflower mash in general, waitrose’s cauliflower mash, or the fact that I should have used it by Thursday – I’d forgotten how long it had been in the fridge.
It was 4.3g of carb per 100g, and I had about half the pack, so 6.5g
I’d try it again – I will make my own too, to see if that has the same wateryness to it.

I had it with a lamb burger (striped form my new griddle pan) and a griddled tomato – tasty meal overall.
I am a bit concerned that cooking in my griddle pan is likely to trigger the smoke alarm because its so hot – but not so far!

Hi Frog

With cauliflower mash I put it in the oven for five minutes just to dry out and firm up a bit, as it can be a bit watery if you’re not careful.

Oh, that’s a good idea, I’ll try that with the other half packet, thanks JulesMaigret
I guess Microwaving more steams it, and wont reduce any water content

Hi Frog, when I first made cauli mash I did it very cheffy and pureed it. It tasted like cauli baby food, now I steam it and put it in a bowl (cant mash in my steamer) with a little butter, salt and pepper and just give it a bashing so it still has texture, rather like a lumpy mash. Much better. I also sometimes add some celeriac and a pinch of nutmeg. We are getting good at this.

Waitrose cauliflower mash cooked in the oven is AMAZING
totally different from microwaved – thanks for the suggestion JulesMaigret

Sunshine Girl – I will definitely try making my own at some point.
The Waitrose one was fairly smooth – and very buttery (although I didnt taste that at all yesterday). The nutrition details aren’t on the website, which is odd – I will check the amount of butter in it before I chuck the packet