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I went on a medically-supervised, very low calorie and low carb (keto) diet after being diagnosed with diabetes. A few months and about 50lbs in, I had no signs
by daeken 9y ago
I went on a medically-supervised, very low calorie and low carb (keto) diet after being diagnosed with diabetes. A few months and about 50lbs in, I had no signs of insulin resistance whatsoever, my A1C was down to completely normal values, and I was able to discontinue my medication entirely. That diagnosis, as hard as it was to hear, was one of the absolute best things to ever happen to me.
- dmix 9y agoWhat does a "medically supervised" diet entail? You visit the doctor on a frequent basis and do it under their guidance? Does this exist for non-diabetic patients? I recently had weight gain for the first time of my life after reaching 30yrs of age and always being underweight. I've been meaning to look into some diet-based approaches that would be supported by science, but Googling it has always been a deluge of pseudo-science.
- slazaro 9y ago> Does this exist for non-diabetic patients? I recently had weight gain for the first time of my life after reaching 30yrs of age and always being underweight. I've been meaning to look into some diet-based approaches that would be supported by science, but Googling it has always been a deluge of pseudo-science. The Keto diet(s) are pretty popular for weight loss and general health too. The subreddit [1] is pretty active and has lots of people vouching for it. I don't know how scientifically sound or safe it is, because I haven't researched it, but you might find some answers there. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/keto https://www.reddit.com/r/keto
- dghughes 9y agoI'd recommend /r/science for a more scholarly view instead of the r/keto subreddit which seems almost cult-like in its worship of the keto diet.
- ghostbrainalpha 9y agoDid you mean to recommend /r/ketoscience/ ? It's a great sub. The keto diet helped me lose about 30 pounds this year, and I was only fully committed to it about 20% of the time.
- mwilliaams 9y agoI have to be picky here. If only 20% of your overall diet this year was keto, then really whatever you were doing the other 80% of the time is 80% (in other words, way more) responsible.
- andrewflnr 9y agoThe other 80% is probably just what they were doing before they started the 20% of keto. I don't think that's what made the change.
- mwilliaams 9y agoIf that were so, then I would've expected them to say "helped me lose X pounds in ~2 months".
- ghostbrainalpha 9y agoI do strict Keto the first 6 days of the month, which is where I was getting the 20% from. The rest of the time, I do my normal diet of mostly fast food, too much candy, and no exercise. I might drink a little more water than I used to in this period, but no major changes. Sorry if there was a better way to phrase this.
- andrewflnr 9y agoYou're fine. I don't think it was actually that hard to figure out what you meant. :)
- agumonkey 9y agojust for the sake of warning, keto shows lots of results, but taps into a body mechanism that yields some form of withdrawal syndrom (keto flu IIRC)
- biohax2015 9y agoKetosis is the medical condition. It occurs when your body metabolizes fat for energy instead of glucose.
- sasas 9y ago.. which initially lasts days to a few weeks but the length can be shortened by fasting or supplementing with MCT oil or beta hydroxy buterate
- raarts 9y agoAnd taking some extra salt and water per day. 2 cups of broth does it for me. No more keto flu. Note that keto flu only occurs when your body is switching from carbs to fat, but disappears when your body is keto-adapted.
- throwaway05657 9y ago> always being underweight. What do you consider “underweight”? I’m 28, 5’8”, 100lbs (that’s 1m74cm 46kg). Is that what you mean by underweight? Also what is/was your diet like? How much exercise were/are you getting? Average caloric intake? what do you do for a living?
- nokcha 9y agoI don't know what diet daeken followed, but the Lancet article described the diet in the study as follows: "Weight loss was induced with a total diet replacement phase using a low energy formula diet (825–853 kcal/day; 59% carbohydrate, 13% fat, 26% protein, 2% fibre) for 3 months (extendable up to 5 months if wished by participant), followed by structured food reintroduction of 2–8 weeks (about 50% carbohydrate, 35% total fat, and 15% protein), and an ongoing structured programme with monthly visits for long-term weight loss maintenance."
- TYPE_FASTER 9y agoUsing the MyFitnessPal free iOS app has been helping me a lot. It gives you a calorie target, you enter everything you eat (and it has pretty much everything in its database), and it will help you get to a target weight. It will also help provide warnings about sugar, etc.
- hinkley 9y agoNot a doctor, but know some people with weight issues. My understanding is that you are using a diet plan that the literature warns as being dangerous, (for example losing more that three pounds a week in cases of morbid obeisity) and a doctor is monitoring your vitals and blood work to make sure you aren’t damaging your organs in the process. Essentially they are red-lining your weight loss. In the most drastic case I’ve ever heard of (second hand) you can actually check into a hospital and they will literally meter your food. If you have a proper metabolic dysfunction they will know because your calories in doesn’t match your weight loss and they can prove it.
- raarts 9y agoThere are many documented cases of obese people not eating at all for weeks or months. As long as particular basic needs are taken care of (water, vitamins, minerals), you can live off your own body fat. That's what it's there for. Of course, as you're running out of it, things go downhill fast.
- vijayr 9y agoCould you please share some details? What did you eat? Do you think it is possible to reverse it, even if the person was diabetic for a long time?
- lignux 9y agoFrom the article: > "A radical low-calorie diet can reverse type 2 diabetes, even six years into the disease, a new study has found."
- wang_li 9y agoThey may seem a little faddish sounding, but Joel Fuhrman has several books written for a popular audience on dietary interventions for a variety of health conditions, diabetes and heart disease among them. Eat for Life was his first book, and then he wrote The End of Diabetes. Both books lay out a fairly restrictive diet plan for improving health. His patients come of medications quite quickly and he provides anecdotal stories of several patients who have had long term conditions that were able to reverse the problems through diet.
- vijayr 9y agoNot faddish at all. I've read about fruitarians, people who eat only one food item at a time (mono meals) etc - all claim it worked for them. Thank you for the book recommendations, ordering two of them.
- geuis 9y agohttps://www.reddit.com/r/keto/ https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/
- monsieurbanana 9y agoI lost almost 80 lbs (and I'm only 5'5 on a good day) thanks to keto. I'm not saying it's a miracle diet, in the end if you lose weight it's because you're consuming less calories. What made keto work for me is that, because of it's very restrictive nature, I became acutely aware of everything I put in my mouth. I could have only 20g of carbs max per day, so I started reading in detail all the nutritional sheets on every food I bought. Of course, I also stopped buying basically all processed food. Not because they where high on calories or because they were unhealthy, just because they had carbs. It's been years since I went off keto, but I still read everything about the food I buy.
- arkitaip 9y agoBut what did you actually eat?
- Danihan 9y agoIs it really that hard to google "low carb foods" Generally people eat mostly fat if a keto diet is higher calorie. Since OPs was lower calorie it would be mostly vegetables and protein.
- EdgarVerona 9y agoFor me (lost 90 pounds, went from 10.5 A1C to 5 A1C), it was: - Removal of all beverages aside from water, unsugared coffee, tea - Removal of all rice, grains, potatoes, corn - Chicken, Pork, and Beef (in that order) became my primary food product. Sous Vide allowed for a more convenient method of food preparation that made it feasible for my schedule (throw it in in the morning, done when I get home from work) - Vegetables other than the ones above became my secondary source of food. - Don't care about fat, just about carb intake. My personal target goal was under 30 grams of carbs per day, which I was mostly able to adhere to. Now that I am stable under 6 A1C I have loosened it to about 45. - My caloric goal has been to stay under 1600 calories. I feel like all the other steps helped drop my A1C, but this alone was what made me actually lose the 90 pounds of weight itself.
- devmunchies 9y agoDo you know how your blood pressure or cholesterol changed as a result of this diet? You were basically on a high cholesterol diet, so I'm interested.
- raarts 9y agoGP describes the keto diet, which worked for me too. About the cholesterol, better read up on it. The hype about cholesterol has gone out of control. There are multiple types of it, and earlier research wasn't as conclusive as everybody thought. (Just like saturated fats by the way.) [1]: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate-Living/dp/0983490708 https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate-Living/d... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate-Performance/dp/0983490716 https://www.amazon.com/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate-Performa...
- throwaway0255 9y agoSame. Pre-diabetic and all kinds of other health issues started creeping up (obesity, GERD, really bad heartburn, sleep apnea, etc). Most doctors would've just had me take medications, wear a mask that would breathe for me while I slept, and put my bed at an angle so I could sleep through the heartburn/reflux. Started calorie restricting and eliminated grains and sugar from my diet almost entirely, and all pre-diabetic symptoms disappeared within a month or two. Zero GERD, zero heartburn, no longer obese, no more disturbed sleep, lots of energy. I think in most cases type 2 diabetes (and most symptoms associated with obesity, metabolic syndrome, etc) is a disease people inflict on themselves through poor diet. Particularly by eating refined carbohydrates (especially wheat and sugar) and being genetically predisposed to not metabolizing those very well. The food industry spends a lot of money skewing the research on this and pushing people toward exercise so they can wash their hands of it all, and they have the cooperation of the USDA (just look at that ridiculous pyramid ffs). So you kind of just have to explore this diet on your own through a lot of noise and people telling you you're wrong. In my case it was an outright cure for a lot of health problems, and it didn't take very long to confirm that either. I don't read public health journals or articles about nutrition anymore.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pascalxus 9y agoGreat Work! that's awesome you could change your diet to a healthy one. These days there's such a huge stigma against eating healthily and responsibly, especially from friends and family.
- throwaway0255 9y agoYeah, it’s bizarre. The topic of diet has a lot in common with religion. The research is so murky and poorly conducted and everything is a contradiction, so people have a tendency to just pick a “team” and form beliefs around that. Team Vegan, Team Vegetarian, Team Keto, Team Paleo. If you’re on a different team, you’re an attack on their dietary beliefs. If you’re on any team, you’re a pain in the ass to anyone who hasn’t picked a team yet. People also have a tendency to form part of their identity around how they eat. “I’m a ______.” So now you’re not just questioning their dietary beliefs, you’re casting judgment on their identity. So I get why people are so sensitive about it. And like politics and religion, I try to keep it to myself.
- X86BSD 9y agoImagine that. How much more evidence will it take before Dr. Atkins is given the credit he is due for his work on low carb, low sugar diets and obesity/diabetes? Seriously.
- superb_herb 9y agoI'm pretty sure my mother would rather die from her diabetes than eat a vegetable or give up her wine and chocolates. It's heartbreaking. And nothing I can do will change her diet.
- elhudy 9y agoI was under the impression that being in ketosis could be harmful to the organs of those with diabetes. Is this just a myth or were there medications that aided you?
- manu3000 9y agothe diet in the paper at 800cal/day is far from ketosis, so it seems one can enjoy the benefits of low cal without going to that extreme
- sjtgraham 9y agoKetosis has nothing to do with calories in. It's dictated by whether your body has glucose/glycogen available to run itself. If not, your cells start using fat directly and your liver produces ketones for the brain, which it uses with the remaining glucose in the blood.
- elhudy 9y agoThe person I was replying to specifically mentioned that they went on a keto diet.
- 9y ago
- EdgarVerona 9y agoThis happened to me as well. I was diagnosed about 5 years ago, and I thought for sure this was the beginning of a descent into my early death. But after about a week of moping, I got off my ass. I'm down about 90 pounds now, I've cut most of my sources of sugar and carbs, and I'm down to normal A1C values and off of medication. I also feel better than I ever have in my entire life. I wish that I could go back in time 20 years and tell my teenage self what was going to happen, and how he could turn it around so much earlier than I did, and with so much less effort and heartache along the way.
- aviv 9y agoType 2 diabetes like MANY other diseases are entirely reversible. It is sad that people are not being told this. Keto certainly is one way to achieve these results, with the preferred way being a 10 to 40-day water fast (no you will not die. In fact you will in many cases be extending your lifespan by several years). "But show me the clinical study" Yeah yeah, keep on saying that folks. You must realize universities and pharma companies have very little incentive to put this to the test, because the LAST thing they want is to admit water fast cures diseases they tell you will need to be medically treated for the rest of your life. "Modern science" when it comes to diseases such as T2D, Crohn's, IBS, arthritis, and many others is the biggest con in modern history.
- raarts 9y agoYou are using strong language and being downvoted, but there is plenty of research available on ketosis. Personally I think you are partly right too. Like the tobacco industry, which knew all to well about the damaging effects, but tried to cover it up, the food industry might well be doing something similar on sugar/carbs. (Anyone knows more examples?)
- brian_cunnie 9y agoWhat this article fails to mention is if the subjects need to remain on a restricted diet. I'm a type II diabetic (my A1C was 8.7 when diagnosed) who is technically "cured" (my A1C ranges between 5.8 and 6.0), but my doctor said to me, "Make no mistake, the minute you go back to eating the way you used to, all the symptoms will return." I don't take any medication, but I remain on my diet. And I never cheat. I don't practice calorie restriction, but I follow my doctor's and nutritionist's guidelines: I avoid the four horsemen of the diabetic apocalypse (bread, rice, potatoes, pasta), no desserts, no dried fruit or fruit juice. I dropped 10 lbs. when I changed my diet (I'm at 150 lbs. now), and I've never really felt the same sense of fullness as I did when I ate carbs. I'm mildly hungry all the time.
- kup0 9y agoI had the same problem (mildly hungry all the time) which is what caused me to stop the low-carb-ish restrictions. Thankfully I've kept most of the weight off (but still have a ton I need to lose). I've been debating how else to tackle this problem. So far calorie restriction seems to be a way I can decrease my intake across the board (including the four horsemen, which unfortunately are all foods I love) and start losing weight again. It's just become incredibly difficult to stick to any plan. My longest run was four months low carb.
- gaius 9y agoI avoid the four horsemen of the diabetic apocalypse (bread, rice, potatoes, pasta), no desserts, no dried fruit or fruit juice. When I was at school, we were taught, by full-time, qualified educational professionals, that if you were hungry you should bulk up your meals with these 4 because it's impossible to eat too much of them. I totally get the willpower argument but I am also aware there are many people who try to eat right who are simply acting on bad information from supposed authority figures.
- simonebrunozzi 9y agoCan you share more specifics of the diet you went through? e.g. calories, type of food, when you were having meals, etc?
- dtornabene 9y agocongrats and glad to hear it.
- fuzzfactor 9y agoCould be equally as helpful to move away from a nonideal diet as it is to move toward an ideal one.