Bonkin
Level 3 Valued Member
Hey everyone! I'm new to the forums and based on some of the stuff discussed in my Introduction Thread, I decided to collect the links, articles, and book recommendations here, so that I and others with diabetes and pre-diabetes can find everything in one place.
At heart, I'm a big fan of "Eat Less. Do More". I'm not trying to push any particular diet over others and am open minded and interested in what others are doing to come up with what will work for me over the long term. I hope you find what works for you too. As @Abdul Rasheed says below: "We can fix it! It is mostly diet." I think there's a LOT of wisdom in both of those sentences.
For now, I'll just collect things from my Intro Thread and will update as I learn more and others post in this thread to help collect things in a semi-organized fashion.
Books
Strong Medicine
I just finished the reading this today and in my opinion it does contain some strong medicine. As @TravisDirks mentioned in the post below, it teaches a lot more about the "why", which I found very educational. In particular, about how inflammation due to poor eating, stress, lack of fitness is thought to be primary with several diseases, including diabetes. This echoes my last discussion with my doctor, who explained his thoughts on inflammation, but I was too uninformed to really understand completely. After reading this book, I plan to have a more in-depth discussion about it on my next visit with him. While many of things, are "common sense" as @Steve Freides mentioned in his post below, the book also has some interesting things I hadn't thought of regarding blood glucose levels. In particular, rather than just checking blood glucose 2 hours after eating, the book proposes checking both at 1 hour and 2 hour post-meal to help you learn how much starch YOUR body tolerates at meals. For example, my recent testing indicated that when I eat my usual breakfast of two eggs and a piece of cheese on two pieces of wheat toast falls inside the parameters at 2 hours - it falls way outside the parameters at 1 hour. When I switched it up to the same contents in a single tortilla, I was inside the parameters at both 1 hour and 2 hours. I am continuing to try this protocol with other meals to increase my knowledge of how MY body deals with starch/sugar loads at meal times. YMMV, but I also highly recommend this book. Thanks for the recommendation, @TravisDirks !
Warrior Diet
I have not read this. But it was suggested by Abdul in my intro thread and it's on my reading list.
Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life
I have not read this. But it was suggest by Pavel Macek in this thread and it's on my reading list.
The 4-Hour Body
I just finished this today (10/16/16) and I really liked the chapters on the Slow Carb Diet. For me the big take away was adding more beans into my diet. While I really like how he dives head first into self testing to experiment on himself - by then end of the book I started getting tired of it. I also thought the book tried to cover way too much - I felt like was bouncing around a bit once I got past the diet part. While he covers a lot of good stuff, I put this book below Strong Medicine when talking about treating Diabetes with Diet.
Practical Paleo
I've not read this. Recommended by HenningB.
Carb Backloading
I've not read this. Recommended by kettlebelephant.
Articles and Links
Dietary carbohydrate restriction as the first approach in diabetes management: critical review and evidence base
Diabetes and Your Diet: The Low-Carb Debate
How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat
We're So Confused: The Problems With Food and Exercise Studies AKA You Can’t Trust What You Read About Nutrition
Super Juice Me! Documentary
Minding your Mitochondria
Other Good Stuff
At heart, I'm a big fan of "Eat Less. Do More". I'm not trying to push any particular diet over others and am open minded and interested in what others are doing to come up with what will work for me over the long term. I hope you find what works for you too. As @Abdul Rasheed says below: "We can fix it! It is mostly diet." I think there's a LOT of wisdom in both of those sentences.
For now, I'll just collect things from my Intro Thread and will update as I learn more and others post in this thread to help collect things in a semi-organized fashion.
Books
Strong Medicine
I just finished the reading this today and in my opinion it does contain some strong medicine. As @TravisDirks mentioned in the post below, it teaches a lot more about the "why", which I found very educational. In particular, about how inflammation due to poor eating, stress, lack of fitness is thought to be primary with several diseases, including diabetes. This echoes my last discussion with my doctor, who explained his thoughts on inflammation, but I was too uninformed to really understand completely. After reading this book, I plan to have a more in-depth discussion about it on my next visit with him. While many of things, are "common sense" as @Steve Freides mentioned in his post below, the book also has some interesting things I hadn't thought of regarding blood glucose levels. In particular, rather than just checking blood glucose 2 hours after eating, the book proposes checking both at 1 hour and 2 hour post-meal to help you learn how much starch YOUR body tolerates at meals. For example, my recent testing indicated that when I eat my usual breakfast of two eggs and a piece of cheese on two pieces of wheat toast falls inside the parameters at 2 hours - it falls way outside the parameters at 1 hour. When I switched it up to the same contents in a single tortilla, I was inside the parameters at both 1 hour and 2 hours. I am continuing to try this protocol with other meals to increase my knowledge of how MY body deals with starch/sugar loads at meal times. YMMV, but I also highly recommend this book. Thanks for the recommendation, @TravisDirks !
Warrior Diet
I have not read this. But it was suggested by Abdul in my intro thread and it's on my reading list.
Primal Body, Primal Mind: Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life
I have not read this. But it was suggest by Pavel Macek in this thread and it's on my reading list.
The 4-Hour Body
I just finished this today (10/16/16) and I really liked the chapters on the Slow Carb Diet. For me the big take away was adding more beans into my diet. While I really like how he dives head first into self testing to experiment on himself - by then end of the book I started getting tired of it. I also thought the book tried to cover way too much - I felt like was bouncing around a bit once I got past the diet part. While he covers a lot of good stuff, I put this book below Strong Medicine when talking about treating Diabetes with Diet.
Practical Paleo
I've not read this. Recommended by HenningB.
Carb Backloading
I've not read this. Recommended by kettlebelephant.
Articles and Links
Dietary carbohydrate restriction as the first approach in diabetes management: critical review and evidence base
Diabetes and Your Diet: The Low-Carb Debate
How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat
We're So Confused: The Problems With Food and Exercise Studies AKA You Can’t Trust What You Read About Nutrition
Super Juice Me! Documentary
Minding your Mitochondria
Other Good Stuff
On Diabetes: I'm assuming you have TypeII - That is your body is making plenty of insulin, but your receptors have become desensitized.
One Final note: Focus your energy on making permanent upgrades to your life (Start with the notion of lasting change) and on making the upgrades to your life permanent (Put daily effort into build and nurturing the new habits).
- As you seem to be well aware, your first line of defense is your diet. If you limit your consumption of insulin spiking foods (and food combinations) you can likely live without medication.
- Your strength training will also help, as it is a conscious activity you can use to "manually" open the cellular doors (that are missing the insulin signal to open) and let sugar out of your blood stream.
- If you severely limit you exposure on the scale of months you can probably regain some sensitivity to insulin and work your way back into the "pre-diabetic" range and perhaps better. See this paper: Dietary carbohydrate restriction as the first approach in diabetes management: critical review and evidence base.
- I also highly recommend the book Strong Medicine.
Just chiming in on the type 2 diabetic (or pre-diabetic) topic. I was diagnosed pre-diabetic (hba1c was 5.9) , after several months of strength training and reasonably strict diet my hba1c has come down to 5.2 last week. So it is doable. We can fix it. It is mostly diet. I am sure the exercise helps it along. Eat carb only as last resort. Stay away from sugar by all means. Follow perhaps a carb-free flavor of Warrior Diet for a few months.
Good on both of you! I've taken lately to having a carrot I chew on during the day whenever I'm hungry - works pretty well, would be easy to take to work, has a nice nutritional profile and, unlike lettuce, it has a little bit of sweetness to it that, at least for me, makes it work better in terms of being satisfied after eating it.
-S-
I don't have a dog in the diabetes diet fight, but here's an article I happened to read in this morning's New York Times, asserting that the evidence for low carb diets as an effective treatment for diabetes is weak (beyond the effects of losing weight on any diet):
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/health/type-2-diabetes-low-carb-diet.html?_r=0
Here's another tangentially related article about how the sugar industry influenced research connecting saturated fat and heart disease as a way of directing attention away from connections between sugar and heart disease:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html
I take any nutrition related research with a grain of salt...or whole grains...or fish oil...or...oh, never mind ;-).
You Can’t Trust What You Read About Nutrition
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/11/u...-problems-with-food-and-exercise-studies.html
Just to add to @Steve Freides's advice about a carrot as a snack - 1 carrot with 1 teaspoon on nutbutter (currently on almond, homemade with a tiny pinch of salt) is aa great filling snack. The nut butter adds a "meaty" element to the whole mix. Approved by at least 1 dietician I know who does a prediabetes clinic in an area with a very high prevelance of type 2 diabetes.
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