Diabetes Debate on Carbohydrates

  This week I am supposed to talk about more of the health benefits of saturated fat but that will happen next week. I am delaying it because I was side tracked by a debate that I watched on diabetes and carbohydrate intake. It is a debate between Hope Warsaw registered dietitian and Dr. Richard Bernstein. You can watch it yourself, http://youtu.be/3PZno7Nkuuw, make your own decision.
My two cents, the dietitian has it ALL wrong.

• The first words out of her mouth, “The research shows that low carb diets don’t work”.

Research shows that people do not stay on diets period. I have seen research, where compliance is far better on a low carbohydrate diet. Maybe she has not seen the studies but this is why you must rely on yourself and be your own best advocate.  

• “People simply can’t stay on low carb diets long-term.”

The doctor sitting next to you is just one living example of how an intelligent person with diabetes, or any medical condition involving blood sugar/insulin,  can be healthy and live without related diabetes complications when blood sugar and A1C levels are maintained within normal?

• “Eating a low carbohydrate is not a healthy way of eating. “

See my comment above. I will also share that when I calculated the menus for my book, The Stubborn Fat Fix (http://www.amazon.com/The-Stubborn-Fat-Fix-Metabolic/dp/159486828X), as carbs are added back into the nutrition plan, the nutrient density fell.

• “People with diabetes deserve to eat healthy and enjoy food?”

Yes, agreed. Deprivation is a mindset. Low carb foods are healthy and include some of the most tasty g-d-given foods on the Earth.  Who does not like lobster with butter or steak and sautéed spinach, guacamole???? People with diabetes also deserve to live; live without complications, live without hunger, live without the need for medication.

• She is correct that most people eat too much added sugar.

Where she misses the boat is: Most people who are overweight, have diabetes etc…eat too many “healthy” carbs like whole wheat bread or brown rice or any starch, grain or fruit. One hundred percent of those “healthy” carbohydrates converts into sugar.

•  “The vast majority of people with diabetes need medication.”

Yes absolutely if you follow what she says and the diet she recommends! Question Hope, how do you get good blood sugar control when you feed a diabetic the very things that spike blood sugar? Oh yes, the medication you are suggesting, there is a huge financial and quality of life burden that goes along with taking medication. While chasing high blood sugar with medication that lowers blood sugar, how do you fend off the hunger that accompanies the blood sugar low without getting into a tail spin?
This is a perfect example of how things go wrong. Why? I was in the same camp as most dietitians a long, long time ago. I was drinking the same “high carbohydrate Kool-Aid” that was so willingly poured from the conventional nutrition pitcher.
When you do not think for yourself and you think you have all the answers, you don’t! Until the day I started working for Dr. Atkins, I didn’t not question the establishment, I disseminated all the same fallacies.
When I saw the research supporting low carb diets, read the labels of what I used to suggest as healthy foods, and witnessed all the positive client results while eating low carb foods, there was no turning back. I was not going to bury my head in the sand because I wanted to believe that I was too good at what I did to ever be wrong or that there was simply no other way but my way to help people.
The only difference between Ms. Warsaw and myself is that I was able to keep my eyes and mind open. You cannot tell people carbs spike blood sugar and then recommend that half their calories should come from those very same foods. Well I guess you can and that is what the establishment does, but isn’t that counterintuitive?
Dr. Bernstein states it simply, “A diabetic needs normal blood sugar to escape the complications of diabetes!” The most direct and simple way to normalize blood sugar is a low carbohydrate diet.