<p>I’ll second that. McH saw a dietician after his blood sugar report last year. I just bit my tongue through most of it…but I eventually broke down and engaged the woman in a bit of a puzzling debate of sorts.</p>
<p>Finally she just said that their “diabetic counseling” was designed for “most people” who would not give up convenience food, so you had to operate in ways they’d likely comply.</p>
<p>I wasn’t buying it. I left with the feeling that I honestly had amassed a better notion of nutrition in my years writing and reading than this “clinician” had. It was an eye-opener.</p>
<p>And I’d guess, despite my nutrition plan being very moderate, the proof was in the pudding so to speak…by mch’s next test he’d dropped from 126 to 106.</p>
<p>In other news, I learned some valuable tips about doing the hill with guests.
I’d thought I could get better at trekking on weekends despite having company if I invited them to walk my trail ith me. My results from early test tell me:
I hike way faster than I think I do, and most folks prefer to stroll
The zombie mosquitos will bite through clothes that have not been treated with permethrin
I need to buy extra face netting for guests (see number two ;)</p>
<p>Another story about diabetes and the so-called “experts” – H’s father was a Type I diabetic for 60+ years. D was always fascinated with everything her grandfather did related to his diabetes, and ended up doing a 3 year Science Research course in HS related to the disease. Her research turned up the fact that the Joslin Diabetes Center (based in Boston) gives out Joslin Medals to people who have lived with diabetes for 25, 50 or 75 years, or longer. She submitted all the application material and surprised her grandfather with the medal. (He didn’t know anything about the program.) ANYWAY, the people at Joslin then wanted him to come into Boston for an extended interview as part of gathering info on why some people have been able to live so successfully with diabetes. Since he had been legally blind for quite a while (macular degeneration, not related to diabetes), Joslin provided a car service from central Mass where they lived, and H’s mother and our D went with him. Joslin had said they would provide lunch since they’d be there for most of the day. WELL, lunch turned out to be a frozen Lean Cuisine meal. D was appalled that the renowned Joslin Clinic was offering that as a meal to a life-long diabetic. Most likely a major reason he had lived with diabetes as well as he did for as long as he did was because he was NOT eating like that! </p>
<p>kmc- I laughed. I think it is easy to forget that we have gained conditioning that a lot of others do not have. My D and son in law took his mother on a hike in our hilly park that they thought was rather tame, and they practically killed her! She’s put on a few, to put it kindly, and it was a warm but not horrible day. She had to stop after 20 minutes to eat a Clif bar for “energy”. They hiked 3 miles, and she ate a huge breakfast afterwards because “she earned it!” </p>
<p>I swam a few strokes yesterday- I think I’m going to be able to start swimming in a few days if I can figure out all the logistics. I’m most comfortable at my development’s wonderful 50 meter pool (even though it doesn’t have lane ropes) because the deck is concrete and there is much less of a slip hazard than on the tile at my gym pool. Also, with the long pool I don’t have to turn as much which is good since I’m not allowed to push off with a flip turn with the bad leg/hip. I am buoyant enough that even without a pull buoy I can swim without using my legs except for a little occasional flutter for balance. Trick is to find times when there aren’t 300 kids in the pool. There is an adult lap swim in the mornings, but it isn’t quite early enough for me to get to work on time. The getting to work on time might have to slip a couple of days a week. </p>
<p>My S has been having some calf issues when running - he’s a tennis player who has run recreationally but a little more often lately. I’ll have to recommend the foam roller. Anyone have a specific YouTube they recommend on how to use one? I used one for a short while at the gym for some side/hip pain I was having this past winter - that area was awkward to “roll” on, but calf might be easier.</p>
<p>First cottage trip of the year this weekend. Had a great 3 days of outside time. Simple gardening, morning beach runs, kayaking, extended doggie walks and plenty of lounging in a beach chair with a magazine. Ready to go back already! That beach running is not easy! Our beach varies ALOT - from packed sand (great) to squishy (HARD) and rocky (I don’t attempt to run on rocks! These areas are my built in breaks). Figure the beach running must be a harder workout for my legs. Great getting out on the kayak again - bliss! </p>
<p>I’m amazed I’m even still alive, given that I eat essentially zero breads, pasta, cereal, rice, oats, barley or any other grain and try to limit fruit to one 8 ounce serving a day (my dessert). I never eat low fat dairy. In fact, my dairy consumption consists exclusively of half n’ half (about 6 ounces per day) and full fat cheese. I haven’t eaten “heart healthy” canola oil in 18 months. I cook and eat exclusively with saturated fats (butter, lard, bacon fat, coconut oil) and olive oil.</p>
<p>If I went to a registered dietitian, I would be told to do the EXACT opposite of what has worked extremely well for me. I’m not saying that everyone should eat like I do. Clearly, some people do very well on calorie-restricted diets. On the other hand, looking at the population as a whole, the textbook dietitians eating recommendations have not worked very well.</p>
<p>BTW, here’s the list of current corporate sponsors of the Academy of Nutrition:</p>
<p>I love this one: The Coca-Cola Company Beverage Institute for Health & Wellness! Yeah, baby. Now, there’s a company that specializes in food/beverages for health and wellness.</p>
<p>Don’t kill your hiking partners! It is permanently etched in my mind the first time I walked down the steep hill to the old mill house at the river 1.5 miles from my house and then had to turn around and walk back up the hill, where I stopped halfway up, hands on my knees, bent over, panting like a dog, heart rate around 94% of my max.</p>
<p>As much as you walk your hill, you are going to be much better conditioned for that sort of stuff than the vast majority of your friends.</p>
<p>My dad had a complicated battle with cancer and type II diabetes - for many years prior to his cancer diagnosis he “managed” his meals by eating, you guessed it, Lean Cuisine. When it was clear treatments weren’t working and he had moved on to looking for a clinical trial, he started to eat more of what he wanted - real food - and he actually improved. I still am a big believer in Pollan’s Food Rules - namely, eat real food. </p>
<p>I had a big fridge/pantry clean out yesterday. I’ve slowly been weeding items from the pantry that we don’t need any longer and I’m about finished with it. Now I simply have to find a palatable substitute for milk. I have to say I don’t particularly care for Blue Diamond almond milk. I read the label and it honestly doesn’t sound that healthy and it certainly doesn’t taste good. I have to find something I can tolerate. </p>
<p>Spending the remainder of June and all of July at vacation home. Talked DH into working from here. Problem with a vacation place is that everyone you know wants to visit–especially when it’s on a beautiful island 30 miles out in the Atlantic.
First weekend guests left yesterday. I have managed to walk 2 miles each day and do a yoga class. I plan to go to gym this pm–first time in a week–and lift some weights on my own. My trainer helped me put together a cheat sheet. Lots of grilled fish for dinners, including bluefish and
striped bass.</p>
<p>iDad, do you think there should be a difference in diet based on age? An active guy in his 20s should be OK eating grains, pasta, etc. And as I read the recommendations, what they seem to be suggesting is that men should eat whole grains and brown rice instead of white flour products and white rice – that the idea is to push men away from processed grain products toward healthier grains. </p>
<p>Sure. Calories definitely have to go down with age. And, for most of us, insulin resistance increases with age, so carb consumption probably has to be lower at age 50 than at age 20. However, the increasing insulin resistance with age is likely caused by chronic long-term consumption of large amounts of carbs – especially sugar. So the Gatorade you drink at 20 is going to make it harder to keep a trim waistline when you turn 50.</p>
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<p>Here’s the problem. When you walk up and down the aisles of the grocery store, virtually none of the products touting “WHOLE GRAIN” are actually whole grain. What’s in a loaf of “whole grain” bread or a box of “whole grain” pasta is not whole grain. It’s grain than has been completely pulverized and is absolutely no different than a slice of Wonder Bread or a serving of regular pasta. A little bit of the outer shell of the grain has been ground up, too – to make it brown so it looks “healthy”. They don’t call it “heart healthy whole grain” for nothing, don’t ya know? It’s not “whole grain” in the real sense that there is undigestible husk that would take an hour to even start to break down in the intestine before the starch could be released. It’s pure simple starch. Spike blood sugar like crazy, just like white flour. If there’s any fiber left in it, it’s because they’ve added some – usually psyllium husk powder. The “whole grain” label in the grocery store is a FAKE HEALTH CLAIM. I doubt there are a dozen products in my grocery store that are really whole grain – and that might be a stretch. Good lord, the Honey Nut Cheerios I used to scarf down had the American Heart Association red check mark! </p>
<p>One of the problems with the nutrition public policy is that it hands the food industry FAKE HEALTH CLAIMS to sell their products. My favorite example is FAT FREE on the bag of Red Twizzlers. If it weren’t for the low-fat jihad in public policy, the candy makers wouldn’t be able to make a fake health claim for a bag of candy.</p>
<p>As for whole grains and so forth, why eat so much of it? These same dieticians recommend 60% of calories from carbs or 1200 calories a day (300 grams) for someone like me who eats about 2000 calories a day. Why? Where did that recommendation come from? What is the evidence that there is a health benefit for eating that much carbohydrate? They have to push “whole grain” because the underlying recommendation of heavy carb loading morning, noon, and night is flawed to start with. Unless you are running marathons, it’s very hard to metabolize those massive carb quantities. Throw in some insulin resistance so, insulin secretion goes through the roof to try to lower blood sugar after each carb load and you’ve got metabolic syndrome: visceral fat, pre-diabetes, elevated triglycerides, increased coronary risk, etc.</p>
<p>If the dieticians really wanted to help people struggling with weight gain, they should give the advice that even my grandmother knew worked: skip the pasta or the bread or the potatoes or the rice every once in a while. Before the dieticians got involved, those starchy foods were always known to be fattening. Now, we are told to load up on the fattening stuff and cut back on everything else. It’s pretty easy to see the results of that advice!</p>
<p>Carbs do me in – especially, it seems, white flour carbs. H disagrees with this, but I know what works for me in terms of taking off the pounds.</p>
<p>Treadmill this morning – 4.4 miles run/walk. </p>
<p>Even if one runs marathons in moderation, it is hard to metabolize all of those carbs! :)</p>
<p>I completely agree that “whole grains” is a good recommendation except it is really hard to follow it without thorough reading of each and every label since the typical grocery store “whole grains” products contain very little of the real stuff. So one solution would be to just cook whole grains from scratch such as buckwheat, barley, quinoa, etc.</p>
<p>Hello. I’m back from a very long weekend on a Gulf island. I walked a bunch of miles on the beach–very soft sand this time. We also spent a lot of time standing and jumping through waves in the bathwater temp ocean. So, I too have sore calves! And a bit of sunburn. DD harvested a coconut, and we scrounged other ingredients including spiced rum, raspberry vodka, and pineapple juice for some very tasty pina coladas. Ah, vacation treats like this get a person in trouble, so it’s back to the gym and healthier dietary fare tomorrow.</p>
<p>I too think that the way “whole grains” have been marketed and sold is a crime. Junk products with additives including a lot of not-so-whole whole grain carbs are pervasive. My weakness is “whole grain” goldfish. I can’t imagine they’re much better for me than the original! And my H buys them for me as a treat I cannot resist. Cooking true whole grain products takes time that many people don’t want to spend in the kitchen. Acquiring a taste for them has a learning curve, for sure.</p>
<p>Sabaray, I used an organic almond milk that was unsweetened but had vanilla for a flavoring … That was good, but then I found coconut milk, which makes my morning smoothies taste and smell so good. I don’t remember brand names unfortunately, but I do avoid the ones that are sweetened or that have too many extra ingredients.</p>
<p>And iDad, I love reading your conclusions. You make Jonathan Bailor and Chris Kresser sound like amateurs! </p>
<p>I am moving closer to as much organic and grass-fed meat as I can find. I had a grilled grass-fed pork chop on Sunday with grilled broccoli coated in olive oil and garlic. We had roasted potatoes, too, but I could not get enough if that pork chop and the just-right fat on it. It was as good as my vacation lobster dipped in butter, which next time I will make grass fed butter. I picked up my first organic farm summer share tonight of vegetables, some of which I am not familiar yet, but will be by the end of summer. (Swiss chard, fennel and beets …) on the grass-fed meat … The motivation is to avoid the proliferation of anti-biotics and hormones in those unusually puffy pieces of meat I find at the grocery store. For women, that could cause extra estrogen which means your body had extra excuses to add on or keep extra weight, and for men, extra estrogen could lead to moobs.</p>
<p>Nothing like a Florida sunburn, but I’ve actually got a little peeling on my arms from the sun I got in Bar Harbor. And, a definite Garmin tan line. When you live in NH, you take it whenever you can get it! Alas, not much on my face because I always hike in a hat.</p>
<p>I’d be a rice crispy treat after an hour or two in the Gulf Coast sun.</p>
<p>Don’t worry, idad, I did not end up killing the guest…the zombie mosquitos, however, showed no mercy.</p>
<p>Sabaray I personally don’t mind the unsweetened Silk almond milk…ymmv. Pacific brand is, I believe, organic.</p>
<p>And on allegedly whole wheat bread…I believe back in he south beach days I was given to understand that pumpernickel is perhaps the only valid bread option for those needing to dial back or prevent insulin resistance.</p>
<p>A friend of mine who owns an organic cafe is given to believe that spelt and “sprouted grains” are also better than most. I just don’t buy any of them…that solves my breadaholic tendencies just fine ;)</p>
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