Hard Truths (a nutrition-diabetes-dieting rant)

One of the things that was driven home to me during my trip was this:

Everybody in my bloodline, except for my grandmother and uncle, are overweight.

On my mom's side of the family there is a strong tendency towards heart disease and diabetes.

My brother and I, my mother before me are really subject to carbohydrate cravings, which is a factor in insulin resistance and diabetes. My brother, whom I love dearly, loves food that is rich in carbohydrate and fat, and he's on two medications for his cholesterol and is absolutely in the prediabetic phase. They know he's starting to plaque up in his arteries. His grandfather died of diabetic complications after two major strokes.

One of the saddest things I read that my mother wrote was how she started every day with the good intentions to stay on her diet, but she had this problem with bread. This was part of the syndrome that killed her.

There is hard truth here: with our tendencies, we cannot eat like people who don't have them. When you are pre-diabetic or diabetic, you cannot eat like other people. It's a handicap, like other disabilities, and if you still go on eating that way, it will make you fat and kill you.

There is no compromise. You either eat differently, or you get fat and get diabetes, heart disease, kidney trouble, chf and all the other problems that come from having metabolic syndrome.

It's impossible to have it both ways.

The ONLY way I cope is by restricting my carbs to small amounts. It's like binge drinking: if a binge drinker drinks too much too fast, they will drink until they pass out, because the alcohol takes over. A person with metabolic syndrome has to admit that carb rich foods are dangerous to them, and has to restrict them to levels (and perhaps kinds) that work with their body. No other choice except to be sick and fat.

Looking at foods on the glycemic index might help. But for me, it's strictly a matter of quantity. If I eat a sandwich at lunch, and eat some light chips, I will want to eat all afternoon. If I want to eat carbs in more than the amount of one slice of bread (say, 100 calories) I have to eat it at night.

What do I do if I get the afternoon hungries? I eat something protein rich, like non-fat, unsweetened yogurt (which I like the taste of) which seems to short-circuit the munchies. When I do eat carby foods during the day, I eat them in small amounts, like no more than 100-110 calories worth (I am particularly fond of Genisoy's Soy Chips for this). I avoid potatoes during the day, and only eat them with dinner.

At dinner time, I normally eat a carb portion of about 200 calories. I don't graze after dinner, and it's the largest meal of my day. This works for me.

I expect to eat something like this the rest of my life. The total calorie portions will change perhaps, but the concept, low amounts of carb at any one time, lots of fiber rich veggies and fruit, and avoiding things that rely on too much high fructose corn syrup will be the way I must eat.

I must eat this way, because I have a disability. I process carbohydrates in ways that are bad for my health. I don't want to live like that. I decided to stop fooling myself.

This is something that those of us with metabolic syndrome have to do, or suffer the consequences. There's really no middle ground.