Some experiences from elder


(Rossi Luo) #41

I just want to let everyone know my mom’s progress, she still doesn’t accept keto diet yet… Daily, I sent a video introducing the benefit of keto diet to her, many of the videos are from doctors, she still doesn’t believe! She is really obstinate.
Her kidney has already had problem, because she already has edema on her eyes and legs.
Her eyes had had a surgery last year because she can’t see things clearly, and I told her that’s caused by diabetics, but she says that was cataract…
I will keep trying, she is my mom, I won’t give up


#42

I wouldn’t believe doctors either… But I would try out realistic sounding things and listen to my body… She shouldn’t just accept the current state! Our woe matters extremely much!

Be strong :frowning:
Can’t she do steps towards the right direction…? It’s a huge jump to do keto and some people don’t like their own health and life enough to do it. I did it more gradually myself but I had no noticeable health problems, that’s true. So I took it very easy, I don’t try hard if I don’t need to. But everyone should put in effort if there are serious health concerns. IMO. I don’t know why people don’t do that…


(Jane) #43

I started keto when I was 58 - turned 64 2 months ago. I was pre-diabetic and no longer.

I can give 2 examples of elders. My dad will be 90 in December and has been diabetic for over 20 years, controlling with oral meds. As usual his doc kept increasing his meds until he was on the verge of moving to injected insulin.

I had tried to talk to him about going low carb but he ignored me. When his doctor suggested keeping his carbs under 100 (not keto but low carb) he was all in and tracked religiously. His blood sugars are under control, no insulin needed and his meds have been reduced.

My neighbor is in her early 70;s with diabetes about 10 years. Same story - gradually increasing her med dosage and may need insulin soon. Her son is keto and me and my husband are keto. She is addicted to carbs and whines about giving them up all the time. I invited them over for a low carb meal and her husband enjoyed it immensely - meat, zoodles sauteed in butter and curry powder, can’t remember what else, but my best recipes! Her comment on the meal? Whining that she missed bread. I don’t talk about it or comment on her diet. I tried my best by example and that is all I can do.

So, back to my dad - he wouldn’t listen to me because I am “not a doctor” and that generation is convinced they are God when it comes to medical advice. They don’t realize most don’t know squat about diet and nutrition.

She also doesn’t have to go full keto to help her diabetes. My dad started out under 100, which is way lower that a typical diet. Over time he has reduced it further as he got used to fewer and fewer carbs.

Does she eat sugar? That would be the first place to cut out. Then maybe cut out rice and pasta? My husand still eats bread but he buys this tiny half-loaf and each slice is only 11 net carbs because of the fiber. It has lots of seeds so nice and crunchy too.


(Jane) #44

The Obesity Code was an eye opener for me and pissed me off at all the bad dietary advice I had over the years from so-called “experts”. Especially the small 5 meal/day - worst advice EVER!!! Unless they want to stay in business by keeping you fat.

I wish my Mom had lived long enough to go keto - probably would have saved her life and she would have gladly joined me if I was doing it with her. But her opinions of medical doctors was low due to her bad experiences. She was “wired differently” and didn’t respond to meds like most people and of course they thought she was exaggerating or making things up when she described her reactions.

Good luck with your mom - I suspect she is like my neighbor and doesn’t want to give up her comfort-food carbs, even though it is causing most of her health problems.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #45

That’s where I started. I watched Dr. Lustig’s lecture, “Sugar: The Bitter Truth,” and something motivated me to through out all the sweet things in the house. I decided not to worry about the rest of the carbs I was eating, but I felt so good without sugar, that it took only a few weeks to decide to go fully keto.

But I think sugar is like any other addiction, in that you have to realise that you are powerless over it and need to quit.


#46

My first step was quitting added sugar, starches (all legumes but a little green peas) and I pretty much stopped buying very processed food but it was a big step, even if ridiculously easy for me.

Added sugar should be the first to go (at least minimalized). It’s clearly bad, doesn’t give us any good nutrients, super easy to replace for many of us… Well yep, we should stop buying zillion things as food industry put it into everything, the items where it’s minimal may stay though.
I am very much against added sugar, with reason. Even my health-conscious high-carber SO avoids it since ages, it was as easy for him as for me. He eats sweets all the time and lots of sugar, just natural ones. Still way better than eating added sugar galore, maybe all of us agree about it…

I have no experience with added sugar addicts, maybe it’s harder for them.

By the way, even my huge bread lover SO could give up bread for years (he ate white rice instead, maybe not the best swap… he has no problem with gluten) so it’s so odd to me that some people consider it impossible. Bread can be nice, yeah but if we value health and that demands less carbs from us, why is it that impossible even without TRYING to do it for a day?!
We are so lucky to love our health… It helps tremendously.


(Jane) #47

You don’t understand the power of addiction and how slowly the problems develop with diabetes. If it was sudden and severe I think it would be easier. She has given up all carbs for more than a day, but I bet she hasn’t gone a full week w/o caving in.

They had us over for dinner the other night (meat and low carb veggies) and handed me a sugar-free dessert and told me how many carbs it had LOL. I could manage it as it was less than 10. Usually there are other neighbors and they serve full-sugar desserts and I just don’t eat any of it and don’t care! No matter how much I smile and tell them it doesn’t bother me (it really doesn’t) they don’t believe me because they cannot imagine life w/o sugar.

I cannot imagine a life where I struggled with my weight and my joints ached, but you have to stick with it longer than a week to see the benefits. Never going back to SAD.


#48

I am very sure I have an addictive personality… But I lose temptation very quickly if I consider something bad for me. Usually.

And I am pretty sure many people (as I read the same story ZILLION times, it’s very common) just don’t want to try, they easily may have a smaller addiction than many of us who did the jump. They just don’t care.

I am pretty sure I could give up coffee if I believed it’s not good for me. That is my strongest addiction by far. Still not a “proper” one as there are no withdrawal symptoms, at least not physical ones, I totally can miss it occasionally…

I went low-carb 12-13 years ago, I don’t remember the first week but it was pretty easy I think. I don’t do hard things if I can help it :slight_smile: But I wanted to do it, I was determined, it’s key for me. It seems to me many people don’t even entertain the idea, they just want pills and not putting in effort.
Sure, many are addicts and struggle and they may cave in quickly. But very many don’t even TRY. Maybe it wouldn’t even be so hard but they resist the idea.

I was merely addicted to sweets so giving up sugar wasn’t any effort or sacrifice I think, maybe the tiny bit where I just stopped buying processed sugary things but I wanted that and it made my life way simpler and more enjoyable, looking at all the things I don’t need in supermarkets, felt so nice! Good for me.

(I didn’t do this every day of the year, I have my rebellious freedom lover inner self who go crazy sometimes and I don’t have the power to resist but I still did a big step. And I was healthy enough to afford it more than people with diabetes. I would have trained even more diligently with worse health. Health is my top priority and it seems it’s not so obvious it should be for everyone. It’s very strange to me.)


(Jane) #49

Not trying to argue with you as you are you, but you are making blanket statements about other people that don’t match my experience.

They DO want to try and they DO care but because the addiction is so strong and doctors here in the US keep pushing “healthy carbs” they want to believe that lie instead of their diet causing their health problems and easy to justify when you have the backing of the medical community. Criminal and sad in my book, but not up to me.


#50

No, I am very sure than a big part of the many millions is like I wrote. I don’t say all of them are like that, obviously not.
And it’s very well known that people depend on medicine instead of taking steps. Humans are often like that. Not all of us, obviously and thankfully. But too many. And it’s sad.

I didn’t talk about people who try but fail. I fail every day in various ways myself.
But too many people really don’t even try.

So we talk about two very different groups of people.


(Rossi Luo) #51

No, my mom didn’t eat sugar. Thanks for your information about your dad, it’s quite encouraging that people with diabetes can also live over 90!! I will tell my mom about the story of your dad to encourage her.

My mom doesn’t eat sugar, and she has had insulin injection almost every lunch and dinner every day for more than around 10 years!!! And now she has metformin every day together with insulin injection. I hate the doctor who suggested her to inject insulin at very early stage!!! Many of the doctors receive bribery from the medicine sellers here in China!! I believe that’s why the doctor suggested my mom to inject insulin at that very early stage!!!

My mom’s current situation is:

  1. She doesn’t eat sugar for years. She has no addiction to that.
  2. She ate rice/noodles as main food every meal, and since last year, she started to try to eat other coarse grains instead of rice. But she still ate rice/noodles maybe once a day, but she had reduced the amount of rice/noodles.
  3. Her gallbladder was removed 20 years ago when I was a youngster. As she said the doctor told her that her gallbladder had stones.

And I am hoping she can fully follow keto rather than just lower the carbs amount, because her situation is at a bad stage, and only full keto may help her. Because as we know that, only in ketosis, we can control the amount of carbs easily. If she is still in carbs mode, that will be very hard for her to control the amount of carbs.


(Rossi Luo) #52

My mom has just sent me her testing report made in hospital last August, could you please help take a look? Many thanks. I don’t know much about the C-peptide.
The testing is: in the morning, after fasting 12+ hours without water, then my mom was asked to eat 50g mantou (a food made of flour, I don’t know why the hospital didn’t use glucose liquid), then measure my mom’s blood after 1,2,3 hours, and the result is below.
And the doctor told my mom that, as a diabetes more than 20 years, her fasting blood sugar is not bad, is that true?

Time Blood Sugar Blood C-Peptide Blood C-Peptide Normal Range
12 hours fasting without water 12.83 mmol/L (230.94 mg/dl)
1 hour after meal (50 g food made of pure flour) 14.43 mmol/L (259.74 mg/dl) 526.9 pmol/L (0.527 nmol/L) 367 pmol/L ~ 1767 pmol/L (0.367 nmol/L ~ 1.77 nmol/L)
2 hours after meal (50 g food made of pure flour) 17.94 mmol/L (322.92 mg/dl) 688.6 pmol/L (0.689 nmol/L) 400 pmol/L ~ 1267 pmol/L (0.4 nmol/L ~ 1.27 nmol/L)
3 hours after meal (50 g food made of pure flour) 23.16 mmol/L (416.88 mg/dl) 894.99 pmol/L (0.895 nmol/L) 113 pmol/L ~ 683 pmol/L (0.113 nmol/L ~ 0.683 nmol/L)

(Doug) #53

No. Above ~6.1 mmol/L or 110 mg/dl, the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin are dying off faster than the body can replace them. Your mom is over twice that.


#54

I didn’t experience that at all. It was very easy for me to eat about 80g net carbs a day. I didn’t want more, it was plenty… I did it through just cutting out the highest-carb items, food groups from my life. It was ridiculously easy and natural. I couldn’t do high-carb anymore and keto isn’t something I can do for long (it’s easier near carnivore but not just below my ketosis carb limit, the carbs interfere) but low-carb was easy. I think it’s too carby for me for longer term but it was several years ago I left it as my default woe for even lower carb.

Obviously our comfortable carb intake range is individual. Some people can do keto easily but if they stray, they end up eating high-carb for a while again. But many people finds low-carb, way above ketosis carb limit very pleasant and easy and even helpful. It was great for me for years but had to go lower eventually. Ketosis wasn’t enough but finally I ended up low enough and it changed me mentally regarding food. It was very needed.

Even if someone needs very low-carb but it’s a big jump, they can reach it gradually. Not everyone can go cold turkey, it may be super hard, physically and mentally as well. And taking some steps into the right direction is better than not taking any.


(Jane) #55

I didn’t realize you lived in China. You have an uphill battle then.

Not surprised she doesn’t eat sugar. Before COVID I travelled to China several times (Boxing and Zibo) and never saw sugar and hardly any dairy. I ate at the company cafeteria for lunch and my Chinese colleagues couldn’t believe I didn’t want rice or noodles or steamed buns with my lunch and I know they thought I was strange. But probably wrote it off to being a foreigner LOL.

The protein portions were small so I filled up on veggies.


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #56

If those are your mother’s glucose and C-peptide levels with medication, she is not in great shape. (C-peptide is an indicator of insulin-resistance, by the way.) I imagine she also has a great deal of systemic inflammation.

Not sure if I mentioned this already, but there are some researchers who believe that the industrial seed oils (soybean, cottonseed, canola, safflower, sunflower, corn, etc.) are at least partly to blame for insulin resistance, and there is even more evidence that they promote inflammation. So your mother uses a lot of oils, and if you could persuade her to switch from using oils to animal fats (butter/ghee, bacon grease, lard, tallow) to cook with, it might help, at least a little bit. Good luck!


(Rossi Luo) #57

Finally, on Saturday, my mum started to reduce rice and noodles significantly, that’s an important step, thanks everyone, you have saved a life. Mum told me that on Saturday dinner, she ate only about 50g rice with some greens, but on Sunday morning, her fasting blood sugar was too low at 4.4, and she experienced dizzy and vomiting, I told her that it’s because she didn’t eat enough fat to supplement energy.
She still couldn’t accept to increase the amount of fat, as worrying her cholesterol, I need more time to persuade her about this…
But whatever, she started to measure her blood sugar, and she knows her blood sugar is very bad, that’s a very important step forward!!! Thank you all!!

Boxing and Zibo are in the north of China, and I am in the south of China, next time if you come to China again, please let me know, I will take you to have a keto Chinese meal :grinning:!!! I am at Zhuhai which is close to Hongkong and Macau.


(Doug) #58

If she injects insulin and/or takes certain oral medications for diabetes, a diet much lower in carbohydrates usually will mean less medication is required. “Too low blood sugar” can result from not reducing medication in this circumstance. Substituting fat for carbohydrates in her diet is perfect, but her medications, if any, should be altered accordingly.

Excellent! :slightly_smiling_face: I hope she stays with this long enough to see and feel the benefits herself.

I’m not a doctor, and I don’t know all of your mother’s situation, but in general, 4.4 mmol/L or 80 mg/dl really is not “low.” That’s usually a really nice level.


(Edith) #59

(I am not a doctor) I don’t think is was not enough fat causing the dizziness and vomiting. It could be that her medication is titrated for her usual amount of carbs and because she ate less carbs, her medication level was too high? Is it possible to have a doctor on board to help her lower her medication as she lowers her carbs?


(Rossi Luo) #60

Thanks for your remind! Yes, I had told her if she decreased carbs intake, she should reduce medication and measure her blood sugar to see if the medication is enough.