Living in Diabetes Denial

I was diagnosed with type II diabetes in December, 2002, eight and a half years ago. I immediately lost some weight, but when I saw there was no immediate health problems, I slipped back into my old ways.  This probably happened some time during the summer of 2003.

Beginning in 2005, for whatever reason, I lost a lot of weight on Weight Watchers and my blood sugars went down dramatically. In fact, I stopped taking medicine. (Note, however, my lipid profiles only improved somewhat; my overall score was low, but my LDL was high, my HDL was low, and my triglycerides were quite high). Then, since Weight Watchers is what Gary Taubes called a "semi-starvation" diet, when I quit starving myself, my weight came back on and my diabetes came back with a vengeance. I followed WW religiously from November, 2005 until May 2007. Then I regressed and gained back much of the weight I lost. I just pretended I didn't have type II diabetes and ate what I wanted to eat, without concern about the effects it was having on my body. I guess you could say, I was in deep denial. By May 2008, my blood sugars were terrible again.

During June, 2010, I had an episode of reactive arthritis, which was treated with Prednisone and my blood sugar readings rocketed from the already high range (180-190) to the stratospheric (350 to 450). At this point, I had to start injecting insulin to try to counter the effects of Prednisone. I visited my physician during the fall of 2010 and she put me on a regimen of slow acting and fast acting injectable insulin. This was the beginning of my exit from denial, but I was still partially in denial.

Of course, I was hanging around the 300 to 310 weight range and felt fat, tired, and awful. I was having trouble sleeping and had no energy most of the time. Doing normal tasks, like walking, was getting harder and I started to come to the realization that I would die. I started reading about the complications of type II diabetes and it is not pretty.

In desperation, I started Weight Watchers again in January, 2011. But after four weeks of strict adherence to the program, I had only lost 0.8 pounds, not my normal WW experience. At first, I thought it was the new WW program, so I tried reverting to the old WW program.  That didn't work, either. Then I read a blog entry on Instapundit.com that changed my life. The author, Glenn Reynolds, linked to the book, Why We Get Fat by Gary Taubes. I downloaded it on a Saturday, February 12, and finished listening to it by the next day. I realized I was not losing weight on WW because of the insulin I was injecting. I now understood, thanks to Taubes' book, that if I wanted to have any hope of losing weight again, I had to get off insulin, and the low carb lifestyle Taubes described seemed like it would do the trick. So I started low carbing on February 14, 2011.

It did. That's why I have started this blog, to share with others who are struggling with weight or diabetes the method that has proven extraordinarily successful for me. I am no longer in diabetes denial; I am off injectable insulin and back on Metformin. I will be weaning myself from that as soon as I lose another 30 pounds or so. My blood pressure fell substantially, within a few days, and my blood sugars are now near normal. My new low carb lifestyle has very literally saved my life.

Now when I know about friends or acquaintances who are diagnosed with type II diabetes, but who are in deep denial, I want to reach out to them and tell them there is hope, that they can control the disease and lead a mostly normal life. A low carb diet is the key. Yes, it requires sacrifice, but it is worth it. But I also realize they must get past denial. The earlier it is treated, the better, before the pancreas is too compromised.

My plea: get out of denial and start dealing with your type II diabetes.

10% Goal Reached

I dropped 3.4 pounds this past week, bringing my total weight loss to 30 pounds in 11 weeks, for an average of 2.73 pounds per week.  Follow my weight loss progress online with this chart.

This weight loss also marks a fairly significant milestone for me.  As of today, I have dropped 10% of my body weight.  When I was following Weight Watchers, that was a big deal.  And it is a milestone, a road mark on my way to better health.  But the health benefits WW claimed would be mine by losing 10% of my body fat started appearing long ago, almost immediately after starting the low carb regime.  My blood sugars stabilized after only three or four days and have been rapidly declining since.  I got off of injectable insulin after only a couple of weeks and my blood pressure went down quite rapidly as well.  Better yet, my energy level has increased, constant hunger has disappeared, and I have been sleeping much better.  So while dropping 10% is significant, the health benefits of following a low carb diet happened almost immediately.

I am very grateful that Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit.com linked to an article about weight loss by Gary Taubes, which led me to pick up his book, Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It.  That book has very literally saved my life.

Why am I doing this?

Twice in my life, I have lost 100 pounds, both times using Weight Watchers.  I was even a leader at Weight Watchers meetings for about a year.  And within two to three years, I gained my weight back.  Now, approaching 50, I have become concerned about my health and determined to make one final attempt at becoming lean.  I am a type II diabetic who recently had to switch to insulin shots and my third try at Weight Watchers was a complete bust.  I was 100% honest on the new program for four weeks, but only lost 0.8 pounds in that time, not my normal experience.  Something wasn't working.  At first, I blamed the new Weight Watchers program.  But one day, I was reading www.instapundit.com, and the author, Glenn Reynolds, linked to a book by Gary Taubes, called Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It.  I downloaded the book from Audible.com and listened to it one weekend.


This book changed my life.  I was converted, completely, as my weight loss biography mirrored the failed attempts detailed in Taubes' book.  I had considered myself weak-willed, gluttonous, and slothful for failing at keeping weight off, but then I learned why I had failed:  too many carbs and too much insulin in my system.  It's too complicated to explain how that works, just read Gary Taubes' book if you are interested.  It is short and interesting.  But a low carb lifestyle boils down to this:  avoid most carbohydrates and eat a lot more saturated fat and protein.  Eat as much meat, poultry, and fish as you like (but stop when you are full), and consume fat, including the saturated fat in animal products.  Eat small quantities of leafy green vegetables (and a few other vegetables) but avoid most carbohydrates:  flour, sugar, starchy vegetables like potatoes and rice, and anything made with those ingredients.  I am striving to live on fewer than 20 carbs a day.  Bye bye bread. Hello bacon, eggs, and steak.

My wife and I went on a business trip to Las Vegas, and without telling her, I decided to begin my very low carb journey.  When she found out about my decision, she was not happy.  We fought a lot about what, and why, I was eating and I kept insisting she read the book.  She finally did, and saw the light, too.  Now she is not heavy at all, but has seen the value of the very low carb lifestyle.

Now I am three weeks into my journey.  My blood sugars have stabilized, I am reducing the amount of insulin I am injecting by more than half, and my blood pressure has gone down.  Oh, and in three weeks, I have dropped 13 pounds.  And I am no longer hungry.  On Weight Watchers, I was hungry all the time.  Gary Taubes calls WW a "semi-starvation" diet, and it was.  That is why I failed, and why most people who do semi-starvation diets fail to keep the weight off.  But protein makes you feel full, and keeps you full.  It helps me to not obsess about food.  Prior to embracing my inner carnivore, I could hardly make it past 9:30 a.m. without eating something else, despite eating (what I thought was) a healthy and hearty Weight Watchers approved breakfast.

I was going to die of a heart attack on my previous high carb, low fat diet, but I won't now.  For those of you who still believe saturated fat causes heart attacks, look at the empirical research before you comment.  Hint:  there is none.  Here is a piece of medical research to chew on if you still think I am crazy:  http://www.ajcn.org/content/86/2/276.full.  If you cannot trudge through the turgid and dense academic prose, skip directly to the summary at the end of the article.  "LCD" stands for "low carb diet" and CVD stands for "cardio-vascular disease."