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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