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Saturday, April 21, 2012

My Experience being a Diabetic with the Ketogenic Diet

 Prior to being diagnosed with diabetes I was 80lbs, I was quite thin, I had a `good` looking body in that aspect. Then from being diagnosed with type 1 I started to inject insulin when I rapidly gained 40lbs in about a 4 month span. Why did this happen? Because the lack of insulin that my body was producing was not allowing the body to gather the carbohydrates that I was taking in and transfer them into the cells so that they can use up the energy within the glucose. What happens here is that sinec the body is not getting sugar in the form of glucose by body started to eat the fat away from me causing me to be quite thin, and from the perspective of `looks` there was nothing wrong with me, but what was in fact happening was that my liver was breaking down my fats in my body to allow an energy production to happen. This was causing ketones to flow through my blood in excess which cause keto acidosis which makes the blood toxic to all the organs that it flows to, which is the entire body.

I was incredibly thirsty in this time, I would drink a litre of juice (not knowing I had diabetes, I thought that was fine) within a half hour then piss it out immediately because my body was attempting to get rid of the ketones within the blood stream. It is a problem when the body needs more water than normal because that entail that it is trying to get rid of something in the body through flushing it out. Drinking more water is not the solution to working with ketones, because the build up of ketones is the issue, not the fact that the body needs to flush it out. And the build up of ketones is from the burning of fats, because the body’s primary source for energy is glucose…there is a reason for the pancreas to exist, if we only needed to burn fats then why would we need the pancreas to allow glucose to enter the cells, and why not just use fats predominantly?, so when it has to resort to is secondary source for creating energy there are consequences involved with doing so, that being the creation of ketones causing the blood to become toxic and the body to require more fluids to assist in removing the toxicity. Understand that keto acidosis is an excess build up of ketones in the blood stream, the body does burn fats as well, but burning too much fats is extremely detrimental to the physical body through the toxicity that is produced.

Yesterday I worked with the ketogenic diet to find out if it will be assisting for me as a diabetic. Diabetic keto acidosis is when there is too much glucose in the blood stream through lack of insulin causing the body to burn fats, and then creating ketones. This happens predominantly when the blood sugar is high, so I made sure that I did my morning and evening injection so that I had my base rate of insulin to counteract the natural elevation in the blood sugar throughout the day, without the injection of carbs. I made sure that I covered this point because being too high would be detrimental to my health. I ate fruit periodically throughout the day when I would go low to keep my blood sugar to where it needs to be. Throughout the day I was exactly where I needed to be, there was not a reading that I was above 8, but that does not mean that it was `good`. With the injection in the morning and the physical activity that I did throughout the day and eating small amounts of carbs, I went low periodically. Before I went to sleep I checked my blood sugar and it was at 4.0 so I ate a banana because 4.0 is on the verge of being low. When I would normally eat carbs throughout the day eating a piece of fruit like this should have at least put me up to 6.0. I woke up to being 2.7 which means that my body used up all the sugars in the banana plus some to get what it needed.

It is best to not demonize one thing and glorify another, there is a reason for the organs in the body and they all have their uses, so if an organ is removed from the equation through diet it is going to have consequences on the body which may show up later down the road or with immediacy. Best to investigate the best balance between each category of food before one says that it is this way or that way, not using information but testing it through self.



8 comments:

  1. Thanks for this post Paul!

    What do you typically eat during the day to provide you with a consistent but not oversupply of carbs?

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    1. Porridge or toast to begin the day and for lunch a sandwich with some fruit, then I start to reduce carbs throughout the evening. I stay away from heavy carbs like potatoes and rice in the evening.

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  2. Thanks for sharing Paul! Let Bernard know that the link to this blog is missing on the 'Demonizing sugar' video!

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  3. Hi, my name is Ilija, I just watched the video with Bernard and I want to give you something I recently found on the Internet. I think that will help your body and return it to normal condition.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevia

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    Replies
    1. This only seems to be a natural sweetener. Sugar is not necessarily the issue. The immune system attacked the pancreas because of the heavy production of insulin, in relation to the foods that I was eating when I was younger. So sugar substitutes are not the answer that will restore the pancreas to normal production.

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    2. This only seems to be a natural sweetener. Sugar is not necessarily the issue. The immune system attacked the pancreas because of the heavy production of insulin, in relation to the foods that I was eating when I was younger. So sugar substitutes are not the answer that will restore the pancreas to normal production.

      Delete
  4. http://www.jewishhospitalcincinnati.com/cholesterol/Research/insulin_resistance.html

    Investigate this book
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/36290410/3/Introduction

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  5. Thanks Paul, for being the 'lab rat' - lol. Really though - thanks for sharing!

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