Am I heading towards diabetes with this diet?
My dad died from untreated diabetes last year (stroke/thrombosis), and it really frightened me because I know I am also at risk. I used to live on takeaways, get ZERO excersize and guzzle sugary drinks and snacks non stop. My dad never took the risk of diabetes seriously, so neither did I.
When he died I made a big effort to turn my life around, I lost two stone just by cutting out the take aways and walking a bit. I still had the occasional chocolate bars, take aways and alcohol however up until a couple of months ago.
In the last couple of months, in an effort to lose another two stone I’ve started a fairly strict 1,000 calroie per day diet. I initially tried to cut out all sugars from my diet (including fruit) but found this too difficult so I gave in and reintroduced fruit and honey.
At the moment my everyday diet is as follows:
Breakfast – either no added sugar museli with skimmed milk OR fruit with yoghurt and 1 tablespoon of honey
Snacks – One or two plums or pears
Lunch – Small portion of meat and salad, or maybe something like beans on toast
Dinner – Small portion of meat and salad or vegetables, and for desert a zero fat zero sugar yoghurt with 1-2 teaspoon of honey.
I drink either water or green tea (sometimes coffee – no sugar), and very occasionally naturally cloudy apple juice. I have 1-2 glasses of wine every friday evening, other than that no alcohol. I don’t have any fizzy drinks and certainly no diet drinks (because of the aspartame).
So I do still have sugar but its either from fruit or honey – I know both fruit and honey are high in sugar, it’s just not refined sugar. So does this still put me at risk of developing diabetes? And if I keep this diet up, will I be safe from diabetes?
Your father presumably had type 2 diabetes which comes on in later life? In case you don’t know the difference I will explain – In the pancreas are the islets of langerhans which produce insulin to process the sugar you eat – its a supply and demand system – when working properly the islets of langerhans produce exactly the right amount of insulin to deal with however much sugar you have eaten quickly. With type one diabetes this system does not work at all and the person will need insulin injections and a carefully worked out amount of sugar. With type 2 diabetes the supply and demand mechanism wears out. You may well have inherited the tendency to wear out the mechanism early but you have done the right thing to protect it. If you were eating loads of sugar and then none and then loads again your insulin production would veer all over the place and wear out more quickly – by stabilising sugar and losing weight you are not putting it under too much stress.
If you do develop diabetes however type 2 diabetes is much less serious and is usually controlled by diet – a similar diet to the one you have set out. You do need sugar and cutting it out completely will not help you – I am not sure if you realise there is sugar in all carbohydrates? The thing to do now is to eat healthily generally and avoid big intakes of sugar in food or alcohol – we should all do this. Have the occasional treat but in moderation. If you start to develop diabetes you will know by becoming very thirsty and sweaty after meals and feeling groggy and tired before them. You will smell a sweet smell on your skin and a smell of pear drops in your urine. (This smell is also produced by losing weight so don’t panic if you smell that now)
Here is a good link – follow it now but also allow yourself the odd treat.
http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Diabetes-type2/Pages/Diet.aspx
admin on August 18th 2010 in Diabetes Fruits and Vegetables