Thirty six: let food be thy medicine

Tuesday:

I watched a Michael Mosley show last night (I'm doing his Blood Sugar Diet atm), the first episode of "Trust Me I'm a Doctor" where they look at widely held beliefs about health. They covered a few topics but the main one was about how to lower cholesterol and therefore heart disease. They talked to experts and did an experiment where they split some people with high cholesterol into three groups: one reduced saturated fats (animal fat, cheese, butter), one added oats every day, one added almonds every day. And Michael Mosley himself did all three! I think it was for three weeks. It was to see if diet was as effective as statins. The group reducing saturated fats and the group adding oats both had major improvements, cholesterol down around 9-13%. The almonds on average appeared to do nothing, but when they looked at individuals some had a big improvement but some got worse. So that one seemed to depend on the person. And MMs cholesterol was down by about 30% - so it seemed the three strategies stacked benefits! Pretty sure his at least was as effective as the statins he had been taking. Interesting that he has high cholesterol even though he is not at all overweight and presumably follows his own healthy Mediterranean diet plan.

There are online forums for the BSD diet I'm doing and some people (who have stuck to it better than I have) have had amazing results. Weight loss, but also reversing diabetes which is what the diet is designed to do. The received wisdom was that you can't reverse diabetes once you get past the pre-diabetes stage, and maybe that is true in the sense that if they went back to their old eating habits they would have the same high blood sugar problems, but on this diet they have normal blood sugars WITHOUT all the medication they had to take before. Diet is enough, if it's the right diet. Yet the authorities still tell diabetics and prediabetics to eat plenty of carbs, spread throughout the day, to keep blood sugar levels steady! And that diabetes is progressive and you'll have to go on more and more medications eventually. Well yes, if you keep eating lots of carbs! When I've stuck to the diet a bit longer and lost some more weight I'll have my blood sugar tested and see if it's helped me. I don't think that any diet is perfect for everyone, and I tend to be happier with some carbs in my diet, but so many people have improved their blood sugars I am trying to stick with it for the duration.

Another day of clean eating under my belt.

B: roast beef, cucumber, tea.
L: chicken, grapes.
S: Apple.
D: bolognaise with zoodles.
S: cashews.