Low fat or Low carb - so confusing!

My 80 yr old FIL is Type 2 diabetic and has been for 20 odd years. He manages his condition brilliantly with insulin injections and diet (actually his kitchen is much better stocked than mine , thanks to his late wife's training!). I started going to medical appointments with him 3 yrs ago and have learned a lot helping him to manage his diabetes.

What amazed me was he didn't really know what foods contains carbohydrates, as his focus has always been on sugar because that's what he learned when he was first diagnosed. Even though he reads the monthly diabetic magazine from cover to cover, he could never relate to the information focused on carbohydrates, probably mainly because he doesn't like change. This all came to light last year when his consultant asked him to tweak some aspects of his diet, so together we've been looking at carbs in the food he buys. The traffic light food guidance labels have been great for him, but as a life long dieter I am now convinced that monitoring the amount of carbs is the best way to go. One tip I have picked up from reading the diabetic magazine is to try and find a good balance of carbs and protein.

The way I think about it is if I want to burn body fat, I need to eat less carbs than I need so my body will dip into my fat store, and including some protein with every meal will help my body burn energy more efficiently. Eating too much fat will slow down my weight loss, but eating some fat is not a bad thing - especially if it means I consume less chemical additives. No doubt I have simplified this too much so I can remember it!

I still tend to follow the Slimming World eating plan, but now take into account what I learned about carbs from a diabetic point of view.

PS Sorry for rambling!

It certainly works for me, I bought my dress for last week's wedding months ago and had to wear a shapewear undergarment with it back then. I haven't weighed myself lately so was very happy to find that I had packed the instrument of torture unnecessarily. I feel better, too. I know I shall want more carbs in the winter, but I am going to eat more carrots, squash and beans, rather than potatoes and flour and pasta. As in, rather than have soup with bread for lunch, which I often did in the winter, I shall bung in a handful of mixed beans. If I am going to have carbs I would rather they work hard for my calories.

Nearly everything has some carbs jingl. Much of the carbs in cheese comes from the milk which contains lactose which is milk sugar (most things with an 'ose' contain sugar.

But some stuff like potatoes, bread, rice, pasta, and flour based produce is laden with carbs PLUS people tend to eat these is large portions and some at every meal.

Don't worry too much about a bit of cheese. I eat a chunk every day for the calcium.

i think eggs are carb free but can't think of anything else

Yes I thought the cheese bit was strange. We eat quite a lot of it. Jacket potato not good I'm afraid and they are something that I do still miss a bit. We still have oats in our own muesli with full-fat yoghurt for brekkie and we are quite happy with things like baked courgettes (just as well this year) and mixed roast veg (without the spuds) as accompaniments to main meals.

I have cut down a lot on bread, but have replaced it at lunchtimes (the only time I would normally eat it) with jacket potato. I don't think that is allowable.

Also, it say cheese has carbohydrates apart from that from the fat. Bit puzzled about that.

I have stopped eating Weetabix for breakfast because I read somewhere that wheat turns straight to sugar in your insides. I now have an egg and some Ready Brek. (I think oats in moderation is ok)

I was the one who did the initial research, Anya, but OH is very committed and as he does about 80% of the cooking, that has been essential! He is furious that he didn't get better advice earlier on and wasted so much time. It was never about sugar or sweet things for him; he had to cut out the bread, pasta, fruit juice and rice to make the difference.
I can understand the resistance to low-carb from the food industry, but I don't get why it is so slow to catch on elsewhere.

Good news then Mamie and well done, as I suspect you've been the driving force in all that? We started this low carb for just that reason, DH has a history of type 2 in the family, and he had been warned he was prediabetic.

Recent tests confirm his risk is now minimal. But we'll continue until everything is completely fine, and of course (as you will know) this has to be a régime for life or blood sugars will start to creep up again. DH is also in the very early stages of vascular dementia, which is associated with diabetes. I can't see any signs of this progressing yet, which is hopeful.

My BiL, who is vastly overweight, asked for a copy of this 'diet' which I've written out and given him. Ironically his GP practice is Dr. Unwin and Dr Tobin (also mentioned) so there'll be no come back or feeling this is an unconventional or unhealthy diet, as they know better.

What a great article. So on a moderate fat, low-carb regime, at the end of the study the patients involved had blood sugar down, weight down, cholesterol down, BP down.
It sounds as if the combination of clear advice, diet sheets and support groups was very helpful.
We have found this way of eating has been easy to follow and has resulted in exactly the same outcomes as the ones above. My OH who was diagnosed as borderline type 2 over two years ago has been on this regime for 18 months. Yesterday he went to the doctor and she said, "the diabetes is no longer there".

Here is the Study

The only surprise....???? I know this GP as I used to live in Southport in days gone by! What a small world.

Another interesting article in diabetes.co.uk about low carb diet being really helpful and more with Type 2 diabetes

Dr. David Unwin publishes more evidence of low-carb diet benefits in The BMJ - look it up in

www.diabetes.co.uk

Agreed that is this is the only added sugar in the day, it would not be a problem. However, I think we all know that for many it is a spoon here, a spoon there, and spoon everywhere- especially with ready made foods. Most readymade curries contain quite a bit of sugar.

This is the reason I make my own porridge every morning, as I know excatly what goes in it - a few seeds and a little cinnamon sugar. And as said, plain yogurt with a small amount of jam I stir in. Much easier to keep tabs if you prepare your own foods.

I'd rather have the sugar in the yogurts than a sweetener though. So long as you don't have other 'added-sugar' things during the day, a dessert spoon isn't that much. And a yogurt does give you the calcium. (The jam thing is a good idea)

I remember loving Delrosa as a child and Farley's Rusks had far more sugar in them when I was a baby than now. Every adult visiting our house brought us sweets or gave us money to buy some. My sweet tooth started in my cot for sure, but my Mum wasn't doing anything different than all the other mothers around her.

Thank goodness for going out to play. Even as a young adult my weight was kept under control by all the sport and exercise I did. As my career developed, my time for sport and exercise dwindled and my weight crept up and up. Of course, I turned to food and snacks high in sugar as the stress of work increased.

I'm sure at some point in the future people will look back at sugar in a similar way as they do with cigarettes.

On another point, as a vegetarian I found out quite quickly that the way many food manufacturers make a lot of veggie food palatable is to include a lot of salt. Made me a label reader from early on.

The older I get the more I realise that health benefits of preparing meals from scratch. All I need to do is find a way to enjoy cooking!

very small spoon I meant.

and it starts very young- so many babies and toddlers are being fed foods which gets them hooked on sugar- but of course, many here have denied this again and again.

Some low fat yogurts contain 1 whole dessert spoon of sugar - I have written to Nestlé/Danone about this and they say this is what the public like. We now have plain yogurt with a very spoon of home-made jam for a bit of taste and sweetness.

Yes I thought that bit was interesting Alea. I think we will see a lot of "evidence" against low-carb diets emerging, basically because they don't make any money for the food industry.
There is no doubt in my mind that sugar in processed food is a major cause of the obesity crisis. Energy drinks, sugary drinks, low-fat (high sugar) foods; these are the real enemy imo.
As I said "follow the money".

I liked this para from the article Mamie quoted and I think it should be borne in mind when we are too ready to take so-called "scientific" results at face value.
A little knowledge is a dangerous thing – so much is artfully wrong with this study…..it’s unlikely to have happened by chance stupidity. This methodology is becoming common – comparing a ridiculously short-term isocalorific pseudo-low-carb (29%), to an ultra impossible low-fat (8%). It is becoming known that short-term ultra-low-fat (whilst ridiculous in real life), can generate the apparent effects that the experimenters are specifically mining for. Keeping the ‘low-carb’ not really low carb at all, enhances the errors, and tuning the timebase to be very short ensures no metabolic adjustment to allow benefit to accrue. The whole deceitful mess is massively magnified by eliminating the crucial hunger-driving factor from the equation. Yes, I suspect these guys know exactly what they are doing here; while it may not be direct remuneration into their personal bank accounts, the question of their funding is still pertinent. What is driving their deceit ?

DH's late grandfather used to like saying that the best dietary advice came from the music hall singer Marie Lloyd when she sang that "a little bit of what you fancy does you good"!

Thank you Mamie, very interesting.

I suppose the question would be if "eat less" or even "eat less move more" is a powerful enough response to the vested interests of the sugar and processed foods industries?
No problem with it as a message but it ain't working.
Follow the money.

Quoting from Mamie's article:

"The answer isn’t to mince around but rather to come up with a big, bold, simple, clear, emotionally compelling, truthful counternarrative that all (or at least most) of the stakeholders in the low carb and paleo world can get behind and then – in unison – rally around that counternarrative.

Enough with the circus. Enough with the Katzes of the world. They know no subtlety, so they shall get none in return.

To battle."

I can do that for them.

"Eat less".

If anyone is still interested in the original study, there is a pretty clear debunking of its use by "experts" and journalists here:
www.caloriegate.com/the-black-box/why-the-new-low-fat-beats-low-carb-study-is-a-clear-sign-of-the-apocalypse

#Gransnet.

Huge fun (pun intended) going through this bonkers surreal thread! Still fail to see what it was all about, where it was going and indeed why it caused such a stushie at all

Doh! Where did that letter I come from?!

Bakewell tart for me in a minute - delish!

Well, I at least some of us learned a new definition of a common word from this gun bun fight - silver lining and all that!