Bumbling Raw is Still Better than SAD

Hi,

I went to see my doctor four days ago and was surprised when she showed me from the results of my last round of tests taken a few weeks ago, that my A1c has gone down another tenth to 5.3. She said this was excellent. But when they measured my blood sugar at about 11:45 a.m. (I had had nothing to eat since the night before) my blood glucose level was 147. I was shocked that it was so high. But as I thought back on what I had eaten the day before I realized it had to be the bread. My addicted self had been eating Ezekial bread, again. I always chose the one with the light orange label which says it is "low glycemic" which made it OK in my fuzzy mind. The problem is that I was eating two and sometimes three sandwiches in a day, and the day before I had gone to the doctor I had had a three-sandwich day.

Since then, I have been reading "The No-Grain Diet" by Dr. Joseph Mercola and threw out the last loaf that I had in the freezer and also the left over portion of the loaf I had been eating from. I cannot eat bread. Period. If you have been following my blog, you know this is the same thing happening all over again. I am in the process of getting real with myself. I measured my blood sugar this morning before having breakfast and it was 127 which is much improved from Tuesday but not where it should be yet. Improvements are good, no matter how small.

I am beginning to see that where I struggle is in my mind and in what I allow for myself to eat. In "The No-Grain Diet" Dr. Mercola mentions the "Carbohydrate Addict" program that was started years ago by the Hellers and he says the only problem with the program they worked up is that they allow a small amount of fast carbs once a day and that is the downfall of a real addict. Like me. That is exactly where I had gotten the notion that I could have one a day -- from that program. I actually thought I needed one a day.

Please know, that I am grateful to the Heller's for what I learned from reading their books and web site, and from reading about their own experiences and how they lost weight and kept it off all those years. If the program works for you, then, please do that program. I am just saying that I got a notion from that program that my "magical thinking" turned into permission to eat one bread, or one potato, or one candy bar, per day and it would not hurt me. Wrong. It hurts me by opening the flood gate. This is not their problem and they did not cause it. This is my problem and I caused it. It is the rebel in me. I always want to do things my own way and my way lead me over the cliff. I'm not doing that anymore. If I can help it. With the Lord's help I will gain victory over this.

Today I just finished listening to an interview with Morgan Spurlock where he talks about the raw food program in relation to diabetes. Morgan Spurlock is the guy who did the "Supersize Me" documentary a few years ago. If you are not familiar with it you may want to look it up and watch it. It is a truly amazing documentary. Morgan decided he wanted to see what the effects of eating at a fast food restaurant that offers super size portions would be on his own body. For 30 days he ate every meal at these fast food restaurants and if they offered to "super size" it then he had to say "yes" and eat all the food. If they did not offer to "super size" then he ate the regular portions. From what I recall at the end of the 30 days he was in very bad shape from eating burgers and fries and soft drinks on a daily basis. He had put on weight, but I think what got most affected in him was his liver. He became quite ill which is where the documentary ended. Well, the video I just watched tells about how he and his wife corrected the problem through an eight week raw food "detox."  You can watch the new video at: http://www.rawfor30days.com/VideoSeries/   You will have to give them your name and e-mail address to see it, but that is no big deal, in my mind -- they are just keeping statistics. The video is worth seeing.

Note: the streaming video on my equipment kept pausing which I find annoying -- so I let it play with all the pauses and then when it is finished I played it once more. The second time through there are no pauses because it has downloaded on your machine by then which makes it much easier to watch. If anyone knows a better way, I'd appreciate hearing about it.

I spent yesterday with a friend and we visited one of her dearly beloved friends who lives in Winder, GA. The drive was nice and I enjoyed meeting her friend a lot. During the course of the conversation it became apparent that her friend is a diabetic. I shared about how excess sugar in the blood displaces oxygen creating poor circulation. She seemed amazed to find out these few facts concerning this process and I realized through further conversation that she was not really clear on what actually causes diabetes. I had glanced at her ankles which were very red and dotted with dark spots and realized that her diabetes is not under good control. At one point my friend said she wanted to have her blood sugar checked and her friend got out her meter and checked it for her. We were all amazed that she was up to 197 and had just eaten a rather healthy looking meal that she had brought with her. She struggles with Celiac disease and is under a doctor's care and said she was going to report this to her doctor whom she is visiting on Monday. I was glad to hear that.

But I am concerned for her friend. I would like to get some information to her so I'll contact my friend and get her address and print out some stuff and send it to her. I will also get her phone number and call and talk to her, too. It is amazing to me that so few diabetics are getting good information about the disease and how to reverse it. I've been looking around at Amazon and checking out the many books which claim to show you how to reverse diabetes. The information is out there, but I guess you have to know where to look to find it. And you have to be not afraid to, perhaps, go against your doctor's or dietitian's belief systems, too.

As far as I can tell, lots of doctors still believe that the way to deal with diabetes is with drugs -- even though it is so very obvious that a person is what they eat. If you eat a lot of sugar, your blood sugar will become high. If you eat a lot of foods that turn to sugar in the blood, then your blood sugar is going to be high, and you will begin to suffer the consequences. Drugs may be a temporary help but I just don't see them being a long term solution.

Do you ever recall hearing that some diabetic person that you personally know has been taking their meds and eventually had to increase their meds because they were not helping at the lower dose anymore? Did the person doing what their doctor told them to do ever actually recover from the disease? Does anyone you know actually believe diabetes can disappear for any reason? Meds do not solve the problem, and in fact, depending on them only maintains the current problem and does nothing to turn the disease and its many complications around. It is almost like a "drug only" approach lulls the participant into wrong attitudes. The one type I diabetic that I personally knew used to plan on how much candy and junk she could eat and give herself an insulin shot calculated to fix her sugar levels, just so she could purposely eat junk. If that is not lulled in the wrong direction....

The "drug only" approach, while continuing to eat the wrong kinds of foods only prolongs the inevitable dangerous consequences. And it is flabbergasting to me that the official diabetes diets that doctors put their patients on, are simply small variations of the same old standard American diet. Did you ever stop to think that the magazines on the racks in the grocery store that deal with diabetes always have some sort of luscious dessert on the cover and promise to show you how to make this decadent dessert the "diabetic way?" Did that ever seem wrong to you? It always did to me. It just caters to the addiction, in my mind, and prolongs the agony.

I recall when my old doctor told me I was a pre-diabetic and sent me to a registered dietitian for help in changing my diet, that I was far from impressed with what I got there. First off, the dietitican, herself, whom I had been told was a real expert who had been teaching diet and nutrition for years and was very trustworthy, was about seventy five pounds over weight. I kept hearing her words and looking at her and wondering what was wrong with this picture. I had mentioned "low carb" and she strongly recommended that was a wrong approach. She showed me funky little plastic foods (1/2 cup portions of rice, and cooked broccoli, etc.) as she talked about reduced portions and what to combine and I kept looking at her girth. I asked if she ate this way, and she said she did eat the way she was teaching others to eat. So I realized that if I wanted to end up looking like her, I should follow her plan. Um. I don't think so. I already knew there was a better way, because I secretly knew I was still a "pre-diabetic" rather than a full blown diabetic because of my adventures in low carb eating.


My new doctor, while maintaining some of the characteristics of my previous doctors, advocates a real change in diet. She is the one who has recommended the raw program to me, and though I struggle with it, I am, I think, getting things realigned. The reduction in A1c is proof. I am now farther from type II diabetes than I was when I started -- and that even by my bumbling attempts at doing the right things, I am still headed in a better direction than I was. This is proof, in my mind, that even small changes in the right direction are better than small changes in the wrong direction. I believe Raw is the right direction.

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment below and I will publish and respond to all valuable information, stories, and good intentions. Let others know what you think.

Take care.

--Be back soon, Lord willing,

Marcia