You get to choose your adventure when it comes to journalism and the advice you accept from your care team!
Sources of nutrition information for people living with type 1 diabetes range from the scientific to personal experience. The intention is often stated as being a health resource or to feel like you’re getting chatted up by your best friend.
Something I encourage all people with diabetes to question when they scroll through information about nutrition is this: why does it seem like everyone is telling us to eat low-carb?
Here are 10 reasons why cutting carbs should be questioned rather than followed for the sake of joining the tribe:
1) We are people first with complex bodies and unique nutritional needs. Diabetes is not our whole being. It’s not a “bio-hack” to starve ourselves of nutrients, antioxidants, and phytochemicals, that have the power to protect our immune system. When we deplete our system of it’s preferred energy source, we open the door to illness and other health issues.
2)Did you know that our brain demands at least 20% of all the energy (calories) that we consume and it runs on glucose? The brain is responsible for processing loads of information, day and night. If we aren’t eating enough whole plant foods that provide glucose, we force our system to breakdown protein and fat to be used for energy. This might sound like a good idea and running entirely on a back-up generator can work for a while, but what do we do when suddenly our A1C starts rising along with LDL? Uh-OH. I guess eating lots of fat and meat isn’t ideal for preventive health.
3) Carbohydrates spare protein. If we don’t eat carbs, our body figures out how to make energy by breaking down amino acids. We don’t make muscle when we can’t recover and carbs are essential for recovery. There are thousands of pages of research on endurance athletes about this. I often think that healthcare providers could spend years reading all of this research and still tell people with diabetes to cut carbs. They think we’re ‘diabetics’ rather than human beings, I guess.
4) Research has made it very clear that low-carb dieting is restrictive, short-term, not fun, makes people crabby, and has a 6-12 month span in terms of weight loss, lowering A1C, and cholesterol. Aren’t we trying to live a happy life longer than 6-12 months of yo-yo dieting at a time? It’s important that we learn how to eat the foods that work for us, not against us.
5) Long-term, the method of nutrition that truly rules them all on the scale of preventing heart disease, kidney disease, cognitive decline, and reducing insulin resistance, is eating lots of plants that break down to fiber. I recommend a minimum of 30 grams per day for the ladies, and at least 40 grams per day for men.
6) Eating your daily needs in fiber does not necessarily mean eating high carb, so scrap the labels. Eat for YOUR body not to please the diabetes bloggers who love to throw labels around to trigger the algorithms to get your attention. We don’t automatically lower our A1C by choosing a restrictive diet. We improve our health by supporting every system from head to toe to colon. I see how incredibly frustrated people are who live by the numbers and low-carb eating often drives inconsistent outcomes and body shaming.
7) If you’re not eating carbs, what are you eating? There isn’t a drop of fiber in fat, meat, dairy, or eggs. If you’re eating low-carb, you will not get enough fiber. Being fiber deficient is the crux of nutrient deficiency; it’s why kids suffer from constipation and why cholesterol creeps up over time despite eating the way you were told to, which was probably to cut carbs. Eating a wide variety of plants is a colorful process of flavors and textures. What a bummer it would be to get talked into the idea that fruit is bad. Just look at it?! It’s gorgeous and FULL of compounds that beat back viruses.
8) MANY of my patients have told me that they were advised to eat 45 grams of carbs per meal, despite who they are. Ask me how I feel about dietitian training and I’ll tell you… For now, let me explain how void of critical thinking this advice is: an 80 year old woman who is 5 foot 1 inch and weights 110 lbs could probably get away with 135 grams of carbs per day to meet the needs of her physiology. Now, how would this apply to a 45 year old man who is 6 foot 3 inches, weighs 220 lbs and jogs 20 miles per week? (I hope your eyebrows are raised)
9) You are an individual with unique nutritional needs. Demand that you are treated this way by your healthcare team.
10) Vegetables are carbs and eating a wide range of whole plant foods is likely to decrease your medication needs. This is always overlooked information in classes that use the plate method and other means of avoiding individualized education. We have no reason to fear legumes that in my opinion, should be the most valued foods on the planet for their fiber and protein content. We have no reason to fear wild rice, farro, apples, berries, sweet potatoes, or any other food that is naturally low in fat and provides loads of nutrients that low-carb eating never will.
Final question: If everyone is cutting carbs, why is the planet getting sicker?
Why is insulin resistance increasing at a rapid rate (1 in 3 Americans have prediabetes)? If very few people are meeting their minimum fiber needs, don’t you think we should try doing the opposite of what we’ve been told to do for decades?
*I can back up everything I write and say with research. I busted out this blog so fast that I didn’t add them in but if you must have a citation, please email me and I’ll do my best to respond. However, I encourage you to do your own research and as you do, make sure the author’s do not work for the meat, egg, or dairy industry. If those industries paid for the research, they also paid for the outcome.