Mediterranean Diet Better for Diabetes Than Low-Fat Meals: Study

Been saying the same thing it for years!!

Whether you’re Type 1 or Type 2 or anything in between, if you can’t keep your blood glucose within your target range most of the time, try cutting the carbs!

On lower carbs, diabetes is so much easier to control – on insulin and even more so, without insulin!

If you are on any medications for diabetes, please check with your doctor before embarking on any change of diet.

Here’s a recipe from Adam, a reader at Mark’s Daily Apple. The recipe looks interesting (haven’t tried it yet, but others have), and it’s low carb too! If you love coconut, try it! The recipe can also be made into waffles.

Primal Coconut Pancakes and Waffles (link to original, including video, which shows you how)
2 eggs
1/2c or 56g almond meal
1c or 68g shredded coconut, unsweetened, unsulphured
1 can or 400mL/g Coconut Milk
1/2t sea salt
1/2t baking powder
1/2t or 1g cinnamon (to taste)
vanilla, optional (to taste)

Nutritional Info
Servings Per Recipe: 8 (divide by 8 to get nutritional info for 1 pancake)

Amount Per Serving
Calories: 209.4
Total Fat: 19.7 g
Cholesterol: 46.8 mg
Sodium: 141.4 mg
Total Carbs: 6.1 g
Dietary Fiber: 2.2 g
Protein: 3.6 g

While I’m generally a lower-carber (not totally low carb, but breakfast and lunch, definitely), insulin has given me an extra 14kg since 2006. That’s not an insignificant amount of weight.

Could I eat less? For breakfast and lunch, definitely not. I eat like a bird. Should I cut down the 2 eggs to 1 egg for breakfast with a glass of water? Maybe I could.

For dinner – it’s a regular dinner (say 2 lamb chops, or 1 smallish steak) with salad and sometimes a small amount of carbs – eg a small potato or half a cup of rice, or half an ear of corn.

After dinner… now herein lies a problem, but not every night.

On what I’m eating, I should be losing weight. Instead, my body has decided to find calories where I’m sure there aren’t any.

Exercise is a huge problem for me. A geek-girl from way back, I much prefer to do almost anything else, including sitting at my computer. With a knee waiting for a replacement, and pain in other places from Lupus, exercise is a mild form of torture for me.

If there was a heated pool anywhere within a half hour’s drive from me, I’d be in it. There isn’t. I’m hopeful that in summer, I can go to the local pool (not heated) and get some exercise in. Other than that, I’m pretty stumped.

I’m also one of those whose blood glucose goes high during and after exercise. Then 4-6 hours later I’m having to watch for lows. Totally contrary to what the literature says – most say that you’ll go low during exercise. I do know of others like me. I’m still experimenting with all this… maybe a small carb snack and a raised bolus during exercise will tell my liver in no uncertain terms not to dump all that glucose.

Then again, that small carb snack and the extra insulin will probably cancel out any exercise I might do. Damned if I do, and damned if I don’t.

Weight used to fall off me. I’d just think the word ‘diet’ and it would start falling off. Age, menopause, stress, diabetes and worst of all, insulin, has totally done me in. Heaving around all those extra kilos (including the extra 6 I started with), is not at all fun.

I can’t even lift 14 kg of anything but I’ve got to drag it around with me 24/7. Not fair!!!

I’ve put on 4kg since starting on an insulin pump last June 1st. Outrageous!!! My TDD (total daily dose) is about 3/4 of what it was on injections. I should have lost weight, right?. A few measly kilos at the very least. Not to be.

I know I’m not the only one struggling with this, but I do NOT want to go down the road of reducing my insulin, as tempting as that might be. With a great A1C on the pump, but not in the years before, I don’t want or need any more complications from diabetes.