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Comment by Sheila Fitz on November 9, 2010 at 4:30am

Psyllium capsules work for fiber. Our food budget is over the top because I follow Dr. B, my husband and I work out, and our teenagers are active. Then, I only buy pastured meat and eggs. I do eat vegetables, though. Last night, was Swiss Chard, and for lunch I ate a tiny bell pepper raw. I eat a lot of nuts and seeds. Even the FAGE yogurt is $2 a serving. I make 10 qts of soup at a time. It lasts 32 hours in my house. It used to be cheaper to make soup when I could add legumes and things like barley and rice. I'm shocked at the expense of groceries. I waste nothing....Do any of you weigh your carbs? I just bought a second hand freezer, so that should help me manage some of my food bill. I'm learning so much from this group. I had no idea that weather affected bg.

Comment by Gerri on November 9, 2010 at 2:16am

Nuts & seeds have a good bit of fiber. Flaxseeds are just about all fiber. Without veggies, grains, beans or fiber supplements, those are the only alternative sources I can think of.

Testing TSH, which is all most docs do, doesn't tell squat about thyroid function. Free T3 & free T4 levels are the tests needed.

$35 for 8 quarts of stew is inexpensive. Quite a few meals. Cooking & buying for one is tough. Fortunately, my husband pretty much eats what I eat. If he wants a pasta dish, for example, I don't eat the pasta & eat everything else that goes with it. I sub out half the amount of tomatoes in red sauces for roasted red peppers & you can't tell the difference to keep it low carb.

Comment by Zolar1 on November 9, 2010 at 1:46am

Yes, My last series of tests showed everything normal, except that I am insulin resistant.

Even my c-peptide was normal, albeit in the bottom end of the normal range.

I too like stews and soups. Campbells Tomato soup is my favorite soup.
Store bought stews are ok, but I prefer to make my own. Unfortunately, it costs me nearly $35 to make 8 quarts of stew.

My body was feeding off of fat reserves at first, then muscle.
My skin was all flabby and I looked like death warmed over.

Everyone still tells me that I need to gain more weight even though I weigh 142 pounds. My ideal weight is between 120 pounds and 150 pounds.
So, I am not fat. Nor skinny. I just look drained, tired.

I always eat breakfast, usually skip lunch, and eat supper/dinner.
I try not to eat after 6pm to keep my fasting blood sugars normal for the next morning.

As long as I don't sit on my butt (e.g. couch potato) or go to sleep after eating, my blood sugars are controllable.
If I sit or go to sleep, my blood sugars want to skyrocket. This happens even when I eat my pizza burgers.

I am just not allowed to eat and vegetate anymore.

Before I got insulin, there were only 2 foods that I could eat that instantly stopped and even reversed my rapid weight loss -
Double pepperoni pizza, entire large one's.
And bakery cheesecake (german style, real cheese, not the fake creamy New York style).

But pizza cost me $15 each, and cheesecakes were just over $6.00 each.
I would have to eat an entire cheesecake a day just to maintain my weight.

The rapid weight loss alarmed my doctors. At the rate I was losing weight, I would have been dead by the end of last August, 2010. I got my insulin one month before that termination date and restored my weight into the safe zone.
I was beginning to look like a concentration camp inmate.

My winter time food ratio is 1-2-3.
My warm weather ratio is 3-2-1.
Carbs, protein, fat.

Another problem is that have you ever bought 'food for one'?
You can't.

I had to toss out 1/2 of the food because I couldn't eat it, and buy foods that I could eat. My wife and son wanted variety, not necessarily healthy foods.

My food costs nearly tripled for those 9 months.

So, I need to eat cheaply, not healthy.

It's either that, or I starve. Insulin + carbs is the cheapest way for me to eat.

No insulin + no or low carbs is a recipe for disaster.

I am open to suggestions on how I can financially afford to follow Dr Bernsteins diet or one similar.

About eggs - I can only eat so much of them before I begin to feel ill. Maybe a food intolerance?

I do have a question.

Since I do not and will never eat veggies, how am I to get needed fiber without supplements or carbs like grains?

Comment by Gerri on November 9, 2010 at 1:18am

Agree that it takes planning & preparation to follow Dr. B's recommendations. That's the hard part. I skip lunch often. Eating a lot of protein is also expensive. I eat a lot of eggs & buy meat on sale to freeze.. I like stews & soups better than steak.

I was also hypoglycemic for most of my life. Strange, isn't it?

Wow, that's a lot of weight to drop in a night! Ever have your thyroid checked? You sound kind of hyperthyroid.

Comment by Zolar1 on November 9, 2010 at 1:16am

Onesaint: I investigated the 'Paleo diet' and the 'Neo diet'.

I usually follow the Neo diet in the warm weather and the paleo diet in the winter time.

When I was on the low carb diet, I dropped my a1c from 6.8 to 5.3 in 9 months, cut my cholesterol in half, lost 60 pounds of body weight, and baffled my endo.
The ONLY reason I got insulin is because I requested it. The summertime heat made my blood sugar management impossible.

Last year, my holidays were completely ruined. Nothing I could eat would keep my blood sugars normal. I felt like an outcast, and in reality, I was.

Last Christmas, I ate a tiny bit of food. Nothing much. I had to go outside in the cold, by myself, and pace briskly up and down the driveway trying to burn off the blood sugars, while every one of my family members were inside enjoying the holiday.

This made me determined to find a suitable solution, and I did.

I started out eating almost no carbs at all. 6-8g of carbs was all I could tolerate.
My nutty dietitian wanted me to eat 75g of carbs, 3x a day, with 2 fifteen gram carb snacks.

As soon as I got home, in the drawer it went. And I got online to find out what I could safely eat. I still get online, study, surf, and discover new things about this disease.

I learned enough to know how much I can get away with. What my limits are.
I don't stay at those limits.

If I don't eat carbs, I cannot consume enough calories to prevent my rapid weight loss. It seems that insulin and carbs stop the rapid progression to starvation.

Come this January, when it is really cold outside, I will be back on the low carb diet. With one exception.

I have a Milky Way candy bar in the freezer from last year.
As soon as I get 6+ inches of wet snow at one time. and nothing else interferes with my shoveling snow, I can eat that one candy bar.

Until then, it still remains in my freezer...

I was hoping to discover new ways that I can incorporate others experiences into my diet and lifestyle so I wouldn't have to take insulin, AND still maintain my lifestyle demands (including financial concerns).

If I am not welcome here, I will go. I don't want to upset anybody nor stay where I am not wanted.

If I offended anyone, please forgive me.

Thank you.

Comment by Zolar1 on November 9, 2010 at 12:54am

Thanks for the info Gerri.

In the winter time, I eat almost no carbs thus following in a way Dr Bernstein's diet plan.

However, my energy demands in the warm weather exceed what I can obtain from the low carb diet. Most times, I need sudden bursts of energy. This is where my need for carbs comes from.

My wintertime diet is usually one egg, perhaps a piece of sausage, 1/4 cup of nuts, an apple, and 2 pizza burgers. Max carbs about 30-50g if I eat the fruit, 10-20g if I don't.

My problem is that even in the winter time, I have trouble maintaining my weight. I can easily lose 3-5 pounds of body weight in a single night.

With carbs and low doses of insulin, I get both the weight maintenance and satisfy my high energy needs.

I am quite lucky though. At least I can choose what I want to eat much of the time.

I do not just eat like I used to. Soft drinks, bakery goods, and other junk foods I seldom consume. Many of my carbs come from bread and milk. Other carbs are from fruit.

When I said I could eat 1000g of carbs, this doesn't mean I do it all the time.
I plan on doing it this thanksgiving. I have the insulin and treadmill ready to go so I can burn them off as fast as the blood sugar wants to rise. 1/2 gallon of water and 45 minutes on a treadmill (3 deg incline, 3mph) burns the blood sugars of quite easily for me.

As I said before, one day I will need to follow the low carb diet stringently. But for the time being, I can learn more about it as well as maintain much of my lifestyle.

My personal life mandates that I eat cheap, not healthy. Carbs are the cheapest form of food you can buy.

Now, if I could win the lotto....

I really don't mind paying the piper for the opportunity to eat tasty foods.

I have found Dr Bernstein's diet or something similar to be quite beneficial for my health. But I do have limits. Eating low carbs just doesn't work with my lifestyle in the warmer weather. I am never home, can't take food with me, and must eat what is readily available while I drive. I am unable to change that lifestyle.

I am not here to put down anyone, or belittle this forum at all. I do learn from others, and share my experiences as well.

Please note: I do not, nor have I ever ate 'veggies'. This comes from severe abuse issues when I was quite young. So, in a way, without planning on it, I have followed dr bernstein's diet, except I consumed carbs in large quantities.
I used to be hypoglycemic most of my life as well and needed carbs.

I can still go hypo without meds if I am not careful. To the tune of a low of 43 that I measured. I may have been even lower than that but didn't know how low.

Even on a low carb diet, my blood sugars would be all over the place.
I guess I have a screwy metabolism.

Comment by Gerri on November 8, 2010 at 4:32pm

Like onesaint, I eat 30-35 carbs daily. Carbs are from veggies, nuts, nut flours, almond milk, protein powder. Not an all meat diet:) Don't bother buying Dr. B's recipe/diet book. Far more interesting recipes available at low carb recipe sites.

Comment by onesaint on November 8, 2010 at 4:02pm

If I were you, I would buy the book and read it (twice) before calling it an 'all meat' diet.

I eat roughly 30-35 carbs a day and by no means is the rest all meat. In fact I eat just as much protein as I did when I ate a high carb diet. The difference is I traded fat for carbs.

If you really are interested, HERE is a link to the book for 17.00 including shipping. Its used, but its the information your paying for.

Comment by Zolar1 on November 8, 2010 at 3:47pm

Ok, I understand your point of view. Thanks for the candor.

Comment by The Diabetic Welfare Queen on November 8, 2010 at 3:39pm

Our group is a little haven for people who are doing all they can to eat low carb (the ranges vary), and to get ideas for meals, and stay motivated. We are all on different regimens and we do not consider taking insulin or meds as the solution to eat all the carbs we want. We don't consider this way of eating a solution for a "rainy day" when we have further lost more control, but as actually a way to prevent us from further even losing more control, or getting into complications. I think... not to seem mean in any way... that one of the appeals of this group is that we don't have to be debating our diet with someone who follows a different diet in here, or listening to advice about eating more carbs and pairing more carbs with protein. If we wanted that, we wouldn't need a group, and we would just post everything on the main for everyone to come and argue it, and debate it... You could very well post high carb diet advice in here, but you won't find much reception for it, in my opinion. And I, personally, don't come in here for diet contrasts... Maybe others might disagree. *shrug*

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