The Carbohydrate Wars, Part 2; a Lab Rat of one.

In my first post from this front I was thinking seriously about which side to join first. Three sides are available, the ADA and its 45-65% carbohydrate recommendation (high carb), Dr. Bernstein’s diet for diabetics (low carb) and Dr. Miller’s glycemic Index for diabetics (right carb.)

I’m siding with Dr. Miller and “The New Glucose Revolution” for now.

My reasoning is partly guesswork, since like so many other objects of study the reality on the ground is extremely confused. But the fog of war was parted for me, just a bit, on reading this particular graf from Dr. Miller’s book.

“What we eat plays an important role, too. Specifically eating too much fat,especially saturated fat, and too little carbohydrates can increase your insulin resistance.”

One of the hardest parts for me to grasp, before reading this sentence, is how I got it. I have no family history, I’m not overweight and I was already exercising three hours a week for years before being diagnosed. I had none of the traditional risk factors.

But my diet was horrible.

By the standards laid down in Dr. Miller’s book I was bound to get the Big D purely on the basis of diet, since I used to eat almost nothing but saturated fat in the form of low carb meals. Worse, I tended to ignore eating all day until I finally had one huge high fat low carb meal just before bed. Since her book has the first clue I’ve found as to why I got it in the first place, my best guess is to join that side first and see what happens.

Of course the ‘seeing what happens’ part is a bit tricky too (and what isn’t with this stuff.) Obviously if there was a magic pill out there everybody would take it and be done. We’d only have the one variable to test. But to manage diabetes takes a combined campaign of diet, exercise, and maybe supplements. This means I’m going to become a Lab Rat of One, with all the perils such anecdotal data may provide.

I have to start somewhere, so I’m going to do the GI diet, choose a reasonable set of supplements and add an hour to my exercise routine. Even if, as I hope, it works and my BG gets under control, it still begs the question as to which change was most responsible for any positive effects? Or was it the combination? Would another combination work as well for me? Better? And will what works for me work as well for others who may, in fact, have gotten the big D under completely different circumstances? I’m not even entirely certain, at this point, if my diabetes is based on insulin resistance or a faulty pancreas although it certainly appears to be the former.

The only way, it appears, to move forward is to test. So for the rest of this week, the last in April 2008, I’m going to stick with my 50% carb diet (until the refrigerator is cleaned out) and test BG very often to get a better baseline. Then I’ll go on the new program until my next A1C test in late June, while testing often again just before then. In June then I should have a better idea as to how well it all works, assuming the lab rat survives the experiment.