Healthy Diet.
High blood sugar is implicated
in almost every one of the chronic diseases of the typical older
American, including osteoporosis. More and more people
are getting diabetes as they age. Our bodies can't cope with the
amount of unnatural sugars in our diet.
I am a type 1, adult onset diabetic and I was on
a dozen different radical diets to try to prevent the chronic
results of the diabetes. One of them was
Dr Rosedale's diet which advocates eating fat and protein and
cutting out all carbs as completely as possible. I believed
it and followed it for a couple of years but I noticed I was not
only not feeling better, I was feeling worse.
So I switched to another
radical diet, 80-10-10 by Dr Graham. This one advocated all raw
fruits and some vegetables, mostly greens, to the total exclusion
of all else. No salt, condiments, fats, proteins, no teas
or drinks except water. Why do these diet people throw away the
baby with the bathwater? His theory about diabetes and osteoporosis
is that fat and all man-made sugars eaten together create those
diseases. It sounded logical enough to me to give it a good try.
The WHO actually supports Dr Graham on
the amount of fat and protein that is good for health, which is
about 10% and is found in most veggies and fruits. So that
shows that we, as Americans, are eating waaaay too much protein
and fat.
I did so well on that diet,
amazingly enough, that I adhered to it strictly through an entire
year. I actually stopped taking thyroid and adrenal drugs
because my system healed itself and started working well again.
And I lowered my insulin intake quite a bit. I liked it a lot
after I figured out which fruits I could enjoy day after day although
I did get a bit bored with it. But I was pretty skinny and my
family just wasn't happy with that.
So then I took into account the Abraham-Hicks work
on being the best that you can be. They
said that humans can eat anything that they believe is good for
them and thrive. Which actually makes a lot of sense. The
reason why Americans as a whole have been getting sicker is not
just the aisles full of junk food that weren't there 20 years
ago, but also the belief, while you are stuffing it down, that
it is REALLY BAD FOR YOU.
You have to know that all over the world people
are eating very different things and most of them are thriving.
I guess you could really BELIEVE that McDonalds is good for you
and then you'd be fine. But when there is a lot of evidence to
the contrary it is hard to believe that.
What you do is, eat whatever
you are craving but only if it makes you feel good after you eat
it as well as during the eating. So, instead of eating
for you taste buds alone, you notice how that food affects you,
half an hour, 3 hours, a day later. Do you feel lively and happy,
or plugged up and sated, ready for bed. Dr Graham says that most
cooked food takes more effort to digest than it returns to the
body in energy. I found that to be true.
On that basis, the fruit
and greens diet won hands down for all day, up until dinner.
For dinner I craved something warmer and more comforting. So I
have a green soup or a baked potato, even some fish sometimes.
Nothing radical really. When I crave radical sugar (usually for
emotional reasons) I eat a container of Ben and Jerry's in two
days and feel sick enough that I don't want to do it very often.
Since adding the extra stuff into my diet about 3 months ago (late
2009) I have slowly gained weight until I'm back to 125 lbs, the
weight I was for most of my life until I got diabetes.
Which pretty much proves for me that it is cooked food that puts
on the pounds. It's sure hard to gain weight on raw food.
But we all have our own metabolisms and that might not be true
for you.
One of the things that people
find it hardest to give up is bread, pastries, etc. We
are often allergic to grains and therefore crave them daily. Most
people who eat bread, eat it every day. In fact, if you take the
non-sweet eater's bread away, it would be like taking candy from
a sweet craver. Listen to them whine.
To test if you are allergic
to sugar or bread, all you have to do is not have any at all for
a day. See how you feel. Are you miserable? Then have some
on an empty stomach the next morning and see how you feel. If
you feel suddenly happier then you've just had a fix of your favorite
allergen. Stopping eating a food that is not an allergen for you
rarely makes you feel miserable.
So I'm not whole-heartedly recommending this diet
to everyone because it's not easy, especially if you don't live
in California. But I think that we can
all figure out a diet that makes us feel good and keeps us happy.
This seems to be mine. When I was hardcore with it I bothered
my family a lot because they couldn't feed me, but now I just
eat what I like when I visit and get back to normal when I get
back home.
What I do believe is that
everyone could benefit from eating foods which keep their pH in
balance and that is raw fruits and veggies. So we could
all add a few of those a day and just see how it feels.
Disclaimer: Nothing on this site is to be construed as medical advice. I am not a medical practitioner and have no ability to diagnose or treat disease. This site is intended for informational purposes only. Everyone should make their own health decisions after getting all the information they need.
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