Chareva’s birthday was Sunday, so her parents came down for the weekend to celebrate with us and get their first look at the farm. Her dad is one of those “Tim the Toolman” types who can build pretty much anything he puts his mind to, so he had some good suggestions on ways to fix up the house without spending a fortune. (He even built a riding train around his property near Chicago — the girls love it. You can read about his train here. )
Sunday evening we all went to P.F. Chang’s for the big birthday dinner. I tend to let my hair down (so to speak) when we go to ethnic restaurants, so I had two egg rolls, one fried crab wonton, and about half of the little cup of white rice the waitress brought with my sesame chicken. It didn’t appear to be a major carb load, but an hour after dinner, I felt that buzz that I’ve come to recognize as the result of high blood sugar.
So I got out my meter and tested … 219 mg/dl. Yikes. I waited an hour and then tested again to get a two-hour postprandial reading … still pretty high at 169.
I know some people would see those results and immediately declare that my blood sugar went high and stayed high because my low-carb diet has made me intolerant to carbs, but I’m not so sure. When I tested my one-hour reaction, both girls decided they wanted to know what their blood sugars were as well. So after they successfully talked themselves out of the fear of having their fingers pricked, I tested their blood-sugar levels. Sara’s was 189 mg/dl. Alana’s was 176.
We don’t feed them sugar or flour at home, but their diets are nowhere near as low-carb as mine. They like berries and full-fat yogurt for breakfast. They usually take an apple or a banana in their lunches. Chareva often serves sweet potatoes or squash with dinner, which they eat even when I don’t. I don’t think it’s likely we’ve induced an intolerance to carbohydrates in them. I think it’s more likely some people just don’t handle refined carbohydrates very well, period.
I also suspect intolerance to carbohydrates is largely genetic. When I first started testing my blood sugar a couple of years ago, Chareva’s sister Susan happened to be visiting. When I grumbled about a small serving of pasta pushing my glucose up to 174 mg/dl an hour after eating it, Susan wanted to see what her glucose level was. She’d eaten a bigger serving of pasta than I had plus a potato, but her one-hour glucose reading was only 112 mg/dl. No wonder she (like Chareva) is naturally lean. Those foods don’t spike her blood sugar.
But they definitely spike mine … and that’s why I rarely eat them anymore.
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A serving of pasta and a baked potato? Geeesh!!!
Just FYI, you can get meters/strips cheaper. I use a Bayer Contour for occasional checks and I can get 50 strips on Amazon.com or eBay for about $18-25 (50 cents each or less), and often see new meters of that type on eBay for almost nothing. Just make sure that the seller (in th case of eBay) lists the expiration date and that it’s not yesterday!
I’m with Zachary – if I eat several ounces of chocolate, my blood sugar doesn’t get above 115, but if I eat anything with wheat, it goes way high, and I get that buzz and wooziness, and have to go take a nap. At this point, I just don’t eat any kind of grain based food, and very rarely eat chocolate.
If the chocolate is sweetened with sugar, the sugar is roughly half glucose and half fructose. Fructose is processed in the liver, so you won’t see much of a rise in your blood sugar from that half. Starch, by contrast, is all glucose.
Me and my dad stopped eating sugar and carbs about a month ago +, before the lc my dad took about 4 pills a day for his sugar and still it was about 100+. He told me last week that he took off 2 of his pills so takes only 2 a day now and still his blood is about 80-90, sometimes it get down to 60 so he eats a fruit to take it up a bit.
I talked to a friend of my dad that have diabetic . Once he had a blood sugar of 1200!!! Now he is attached to an insulin pump on his belt all the time.
He told me that he doesn’t eat a so much carbs a or sugar.
So I wondered if there is a situation the lc diet is too late?
Any way I told him to see fathead. Also told a lot of guys from my cross fit gym to see the movie. Of course I had to start crossfit after 15 years at a regular gym when I started a lc diet because I just have too much energy that the gym is not enough any more.
Thanks Tom your movie changed my life after seeing your movie. And I always considered my self as a healthy guy after not eating gluten for two years and training for more then 15years. But now I feel like “after” picture and not “before”, if you know what I mean.
Adi
I appreciate the word-of-mouth marketing.
Yes, thanks for your ‘study’ Tom!
I don’t need to test re blood sugar – I can feel the sugar spike physically within an hour of eating starches/wheat – a cookie or piece of cake would take about 20 minutes to hit!
Or should I say I can feel the ‘fall’ from the spike? That is what strikes me the most when I fool around with trying different things. When I stay on plan and eat what I darned well know I should, all is well. Any deviation into cookie-land, or toast-and-honey land – well ‘the fall’ says it all.
I can remember when I’d walk into the nursing home to visit my mother who had dementia, the first thing she would say is “I’m hungry” The care givers always told me she did not know what she was saying because sometimes she would have just eaten a meal. Now, God help me, I know better – she WAS hungry eating all the starch she was fed. And for snacks they always had cookies!!!! I should have supplemented her diet with as much fat as I could get her to eat – but you know how it goes – one can only do so much – and bucking the nursing home system is not easy….they used to look at me like I was nuts when I suggested they give her more fat!!!
Anyway on a happier note, good for you that you are working so hard for your family and still have time for us!!
My dad’s in a nursing home as well, and according to my mom the meals are nearly all starch. Maybe they just want the old people falling asleep in their chairs.
I have had good results with the Relion meter from Walmart. Mine cost $9. The strips are 36 cents each if you buy a hundred. My lab glucose readings and my meter readings (taken immediately after blood draw at the lab) have always come fairly close to each other, so I find it pretty accurate. If you get a unreasonable result, redo your test as sometimes a reading can be way off. I’ve had three different kinds of meters, and they were all that way. At 36 cents a strip, it’s not so expensive to do more tests if you feel your reading is off. Be sure to wash your hands before testing.
I wonder why children became hyper after eating sugar while adults go into stupor? Often I feel nothing when my sugar spikes, the highest one hour reading was 275 after a pasta meal + fruit. However it goes back to norm in 2 hours each time. I try to avoid carbs not because of sugar concern , just in order to keep my lost 35 lb to stay lost. In 6 month I plan to be registered in the National Weight Loss Registry. It is probably stupid and wain, but it was my illusive goal for 3 years. I think I started to make my comments on your blog, Tom, with weight loss of 26 lb, then after your post about IF I decided to make it my New Year resolution. Well. it worked. When I try to be more liberal with rice and potatoes, my weight starts to come back. We are all different, but I think for majority of people is more realistic to cut out carbs than to eat something tasteless, besides, what is a carbohydrate is easily define, while Low Reward food is very subjective.
I think kids get hyper while their blood sugar is rising, and adults fall into a stupor as the blood sugar falls. What we’ve noticed when our girls consume sugar is that they go hyper, then get cranky later — probably as the blood sugar falls.
Tom, I think you’d benefit from re-doing your “China Study” at home.
More specifically, cook one of your typical hi-protein/fat meal (like steak and buttered vegetables) and try and eat that half cup of white rice, and then test your glucose levels.
For one, the egg roll wrappers and sesame chicken sauce undoubtedly had flour in it, and most likely HFCS too (not to mention MSG – any chinese restaurant that does not specifically state they don’t use MSG in their food, definitely do).
Was it really the rice? Or the combination of sugars and wheat flour present in your meal?
I only suggest this because after being very low carb for over 4 years, based on the blogging of of Dr. Kurt Harris, I experimented with adding white jasmine rice and potatoes back into my diet (always eaten with larger portions of fat & protein) and I my blood glucose readings barely changed — still under 100.
YMMV, but I think you might benefit from figuring out whether it really was the rice or not.
That would be a worthwhile experiment.
I know I should get a glucose test meter–both for myself and for my husband. We do eat LCHF now, but he still insists on a potato or sweet potato now and then and the only thing that might convince him that that is a bad idea (if it is) is a high BG reading afterwards. I just haven’t gotten a round tuit yet.
I love most ethnic food, but don’t indulge often any more. I do “have” to eat Indian every once in a while, though. I grew up on it and miss it a lot, even on LCHF. It would be interesting to check out my BG afterward, but I usually do not feel hungry again for hours and hours after a good Indian meal, possibly because my favorite part is the coconut chutney and I eat a lot of it. I do worry about Indian restaurants having switched to vegetable oil and such, but oh well. I only go about once every couple of months now. If I cook Indian at home, I use only “safe” ingredients and use cauliflower “rice” now, but I don’t do it often as my husband never developed a taste for it.
Your husband may be fine with a potato or sweet potato now and then. Some of us get big ol’ glucose spikes from those foods, but others don’t. In my own experiment, I found that a sweet potato doesn’t give me nearly the glucose spike that a white potato does.
My two sons eat one bag of M&Ms and two liters of Pepsi, respectively after work. yet they both have 5% and 8% body fat, respectively.
I guess it helps that their grandfather on their mother’s side won more than 50 games in the majors, his wife led her high school team to the state championship and their mother was a professional ballerina before yours truly stole her heart and married her.
The bottom line is that some people are blessed to handle a lot of carbs. i am one of the cursed ones but with LC eating, I don’t really mind (I have no choice).
To me it’s eat right and be healthy and slim or eat wrong and be fat and sick.
In one of the Protein Power books, Drs. Eades & Eades wrote that about 25% of the population are resistant to becoming insulin resistant. They’re the ones who tend to be naturally lean.
Remember Vilhjalmur Stefansson? The guy who went to live with the Inuit for 5 years and ate only caribou, seal, and fish? They tested him after a year on his meat/water diet after he came back. They found that when he went back to eating carbs, his blood sugar would spike way over 200. It’s sort of common knowledge these days that it takes about 3 days of high carb eating before a non-diabetic will stop spiking his blood sugar.
I’m the same way, rice will skyrocket my blood sugar. I had thai food one day and 8 hours after my blood sugar was 180.
Don’t forget about the “chinese food” effect that Dr. Bernstein talks about in his book. I can’t remember the exact mechanism but eating a ton of food even if its low carb can raise blood sugar.
Do you think that you can alter your long term insulin response by eating low carb? After a period of time do you think you can become more carb intolerant? I hope not!!
I am currently reading a book I found in the local library called “$29 Billion reasons to lie about Cholesterol” by Justin Smith 2009. Basically it backs up all that you have said in your movie – he also has a section on grains. I’m only two chapters in and am astounded that the world is still falling for this cholesterol/low fat/high carb argument. I recommend this book to anyone who wants a more easy to understand version of this complex subject.
I haven’t read the book, but I’ve heard him interviewed.
I wonder if MSG would affect blood sugar. Do you know if they use MSG at PF Chang?
It’s funny what people think. I was admonished on a LC forum once for being too “carnivore” and not eating many carbs at all (I’m typically below 30 ECC per day, and often less than 10). I was told, “You don’t want your body to become intolerant of carbs, you know.”
Uh, yeah. I do. And in fact, it naturally IS intolerant of carbs.
Better grab a drink … you don’t want to become intolerant of alcohol.
A serving of pasta and a baked potato? Geeesh!!!
Me and my dad stopped eating sugar and carbs about a month ago +, before the lc my dad took about 4 pills a day for his sugar and still it was about 100+. He told me last week that he took off 2 of his pills so takes only 2 a day now and still his blood is about 80-90, sometimes it get down to 60 so he eats a fruit to take it up a bit.
I talked to a friend of my dad that have diabetic . Once he had a blood sugar of 1200!!! Now he is attached to an insulin pump on his belt all the time.
He told me that he doesn’t eat a so much carbs a or sugar.
So I wondered if there is a situation the lc diet is too late?
Any way I told him to see fathead. Also told a lot of guys from my cross fit gym to see the movie. Of course I had to start crossfit after 15 years at a regular gym when I started a lc diet because I just have too much energy that the gym is not enough any more.
Thanks Tom your movie changed my life after seeing your movie. And I always considered my self as a healthy guy after not eating gluten for two years and training for more then 15years. But now I feel like “after” picture and not “before”, if you know what I mean.
Adi
I appreciate the word-of-mouth marketing.
“And if I keep instigating hypoglycemic incidents as a result of my overactive insulin production, my adrenal system is going to completely give out as well.”
My late brother had Addison’s Disease; i.e., his adrenal glands were shot. Most of our family has poor blood sugar control; plus, he was given a lot of cortisone for a misdiagnosed skin disorder. (A shot of cortisone can spike your blood sugar by hundreds of points. If only I’d known ten years ago what I know now.) He died a long, painful death. My aunt has had episodes of hypoglycemia where she became lost in the small town where she’s lived for years, and lacked the presence of mind to eat a piece of candy. So yes, if you believe you have hypoglycemia and adrenaline rushes, a BG meter is well worth the $15 investment, and a special diet is worth the effort.
I wonder why children became hyper after eating sugar while adults go into stupor? Often I feel nothing when my sugar spikes, the highest one hour reading was 275 after a pasta meal + fruit. However it goes back to norm in 2 hours each time. I try to avoid carbs not because of sugar concern , just in order to keep my lost 35 lb to stay lost. In 6 month I plan to be registered in the National Weight Loss Registry. It is probably stupid and wain, but it was my illusive goal for 3 years. I think I started to make my comments on your blog, Tom, with weight loss of 26 lb, then after your post about IF I decided to make it my New Year resolution. Well. it worked. When I try to be more liberal with rice and potatoes, my weight starts to come back. We are all different, but I think for majority of people is more realistic to cut out carbs than to eat something tasteless, besides, what is a carbohydrate is easily define, while Low Reward food is very subjective.
I think kids get hyper while their blood sugar is rising, and adults fall into a stupor as the blood sugar falls. What we’ve noticed when our girls consume sugar is that they go hyper, then get cranky later — probably as the blood sugar falls.
I ate only salad at a Thai restaurant last month, with filet mignon cubes and their little cup of dressing. I felt fine, but my body swelled up a bit for a couple of days afterward. I ate no rice, and no other carbs but the lettuce. I’m sure they had soy sauce in the dressing, which I think I’m sensitive to. I eat dark chocolate with impunity, so it wasn’t the sugar, I don’t think.
This weekend, I’m to eat at Chile’s. I’m off to find their menu online so I can figure out what I can have.
I had a decent steak and salad at a Chile’s awhile back.
I wish that I had been given or advised to buy a blood glucose meter years before I was slapped with the Type 2 label. I think that understanding how foods affect your blood sugar is the best thing you can do to start getting your diet under control. Prices are low enough now that anyone who has a family history of diabetes should be picking one up and learning the joys of finger-sticking.
My two sons eat one bag of M&Ms and two liters of Pepsi, respectively after work. yet they both have 5% and 8% body fat, respectively.
I guess it helps that their grandfather on their mother’s side won more than 50 games in the majors, his wife led her high school team to the state championship and their mother was a professional ballerina before yours truly stole her heart and married her.
The bottom line is that some people are blessed to handle a lot of carbs. i am one of the cursed ones but with LC eating, I don’t really mind (I have no choice).
To me it’s eat right and be healthy and slim or eat wrong and be fat and sick.
In one of the Protein Power books, Drs. Eades & Eades wrote that about 25% of the population are resistant to becoming insulin resistant. They’re the ones who tend to be naturally lean.
Remember Vilhjalmur Stefansson? The guy who went to live with the Inuit for 5 years and ate only caribou, seal, and fish? They tested him after a year on his meat/water diet after he came back. They found that when he went back to eating carbs, his blood sugar would spike way over 200. It’s sort of common knowledge these days that it takes about 3 days of high carb eating before a non-diabetic will stop spiking his blood sugar.
I’m the same way, rice will skyrocket my blood sugar. I had thai food one day and 8 hours after my blood sugar was 180.
Don’t forget about the “chinese food” effect that Dr. Bernstein talks about in his book. I can’t remember the exact mechanism but eating a ton of food even if its low carb can raise blood sugar.
I’m the same as LCNana, but I have noticed one big difference. If I eat something sweet, than sit and work at my computer, I can really feel the sugar spike (and eventually the crash). If I eat something sweet and go for a walk within 5-10 minutes of eating, I don’t feel the surge (or just a slight one). It would be interesting to see the differences in my blood glucose in the two different scenarios….sit vs exercise…may have to buy one….are you sure you don’t have stock in the Blood Glucose reader manufacturers? 🙂
I didn’t have the financial acumen to invest in those companies before recommending their products.
“And if I keep instigating hypoglycemic incidents as a result of my overactive insulin production, my adrenal system is going to completely give out as well.”
My late brother had Addison’s Disease; i.e., his adrenal glands were shot. Most of our family has poor blood sugar control; plus, he was given a lot of cortisone for a misdiagnosed skin disorder. (A shot of cortisone can spike your blood sugar by hundreds of points. If only I’d known ten years ago what I know now.) He died a long, painful death. My aunt has had episodes of hypoglycemia where she became lost in the small town where she’s lived for years, and lacked the presence of mind to eat a piece of candy. So yes, if you believe you have hypoglycemia and adrenaline rushes, a BG meter is well worth the $15 investment, and a special diet is worth the effort.
I ate only salad at a Thai restaurant last month, with filet mignon cubes and their little cup of dressing. I felt fine, but my body swelled up a bit for a couple of days afterward. I ate no rice, and no other carbs but the lettuce. I’m sure they had soy sauce in the dressing, which I think I’m sensitive to. I eat dark chocolate with impunity, so it wasn’t the sugar, I don’t think.
This weekend, I’m to eat at Chile’s. I’m off to find their menu online so I can figure out what I can have.
I had a decent steak and salad at a Chile’s awhile back.
I’m the same as LCNana, but I have noticed one big difference. If I eat something sweet, than sit and work at my computer, I can really feel the sugar spike (and eventually the crash). If I eat something sweet and go for a walk within 5-10 minutes of eating, I don’t feel the surge (or just a slight one). It would be interesting to see the differences in my blood glucose in the two different scenarios….sit vs exercise…may have to buy one….are you sure you don’t have stock in the Blood Glucose reader manufacturers? 🙂
I didn’t have the financial acumen to invest in those companies before recommending their products.
Never saw a Chinese restaurant where the sauces were NOT full of sugar. I usually go for duck and vegetables or, if it’s a buffet, meat, fish, seafood and veges. And I always give the sauces – except for soya sauce – a very wide berth. Come to that I give most Chinese/Asian restaurants a very wide berth because most of them are simply crap. Out of the freezer into the microwave – I am not willing to lay down my money for a “meal” that could be prepared by a trained monkey.
Sugar consumption is (or at least was) quite low in China, so those sauces have likely been formulated for American tastebuds.
For me, it’s the kind of rice or the preparation method that makes all the difference.
I’m one of those slim guys who can gain 5 pounds – after bingeing for two months.
Since I stopped eating grains, I’ve started noticing that even my ultra-speedy metabolism has stopped “accepting” certain things.
If I soak the buckwheat I want to make a pancake from for at least 6 hours, everything stays normal. If I stay below that threshold – or even use freshly ground flour – I get a reaction that resembles the one you get after downing two or three espresso in quick succession…
Same with rice: If I use parboiled rice, nothing happens, but a mere teaspoon of risotto rice – whose starch content is similar to that of Asian sticky rice – and it’s Espresso time!
I’ve had to ban Chinese from my diet totally. I use to go out to lunch about twice a week to a Chinese restaurant around the corner. About an hour after I can back to work I would catch myself falling asleep at my desk. It hasn’t happened since I cut out the sugars and switched to a low carb diet.
I don’t believe this nonsense about becoming sensitive to carbohydrates because of LC. The people pushing this theory have the cart and the horse mixed up again. We were already sensitive to carbs, so the modern diet made us fat. Then we went on diet after diet that increased our insulin resistance. Now, the only diet that we can be healthy on is low in carbs thanks to the 300-400 grams of daily carb intake (which we were told we NEEDED all our lives) beating the hell out of our pancreases for 30 years!
On the food sensitivities thing, I’ve found that the combination of food I eat has a massive impact on my blood sugar. I love potatoes, and so it was really hard for me to give them up when I went low-carb. But, I did some experimenting and found that while a potato by itself or with non-starchy vegetables will spike my blood glucose up around 200mg/dl, if I paired it with a decent helping of protein, my BG topped out around 120 and fell back to my normal 85 very quickly, and with no snack cravings.
Having a glucose meter in the house is really a great tool to use for yourself, and for other people who come around. We have a regular game night at my house, and friends tend to bring take-away dinner since we eat “weird” food. Having my carb-addicted friend test her blood and actually see what her diet was doing to her was a real turning point for her.
I agree; some of us don’t handle carbs well, period.
Never saw a Chinese restaurant where the sauces were NOT full of sugar. I usually go for duck and vegetables or, if it’s a buffet, meat, fish, seafood and veges. And I always give the sauces – except for soya sauce – a very wide berth. Come to that I give most Chinese/Asian restaurants a very wide berth because most of them are simply crap. Out of the freezer into the microwave – I am not willing to lay down my money for a “meal” that could be prepared by a trained monkey.
Sugar consumption is (or at least was) quite low in China, so those sauces have likely been formulated for American tastebuds.
Erica, about 35 years ago, I popped into a Chinese restaurant in New York City, and enjoyed a tasty lunch. I felt my face swelling before I left the table. It felt like my face was enormous. I was sure I looked awful! But when I went to the restroom to check in the mirror, I saw no swelling. I subsequently had the sensation after eating in other oriental restaurants and finally deduced it was an MSG reaction. I’m not denying anyone’s experiences with the carbs here. I’m just suggesting there might be an additional factor with Chinese food.
For me, it’s the kind of rice or the preparation method that makes all the difference.
I’m one of those slim guys who can gain 5 pounds – after bingeing for two months.
Since I stopped eating grains, I’ve started noticing that even my ultra-speedy metabolism has stopped “accepting” certain things.
If I soak the buckwheat I want to make a pancake from for at least 6 hours, everything stays normal. If I stay below that threshold – or even use freshly ground flour – I get a reaction that resembles the one you get after downing two or three espresso in quick succession…
Same with rice: If I use parboiled rice, nothing happens, but a mere teaspoon of risotto rice – whose starch content is similar to that of Asian sticky rice – and it’s Espresso time!
I’ve had to ban Chinese from my diet totally. I use to go out to lunch about twice a week to a Chinese restaurant around the corner. About an hour after I can back to work I would catch myself falling asleep at my desk. It hasn’t happened since I cut out the sugars and switched to a low carb diet.
Thank you for your suggestion many posts ago to test your own glucose. I picked up a True2go kit on Amazon for about $7 and the test strips run about $10 for a pack of 50. I’ve been using one for over a month to track my fasting and postpastrial levels and I get fairly consistent readings. I’ve been tracking my readings on glucosebuddy.com to see overall trends and averages.
Sticking with low carb, I can keep a very narrow range between 85 and 90 throughout the day. I’ve also been able to determine that a cup of white rice is not a great choice for me but a 4 oz. baked potato is fine. That’s really good to know since it give me an option to safely satisfy on occasional carb craving.
Always a good idea to check your own reactions. A potato sends my glucose skyward.
I’ve been experiencing some constipation over the last couple of weeks and have been using diabetic candy to ease it (maltitol). It seems to be the only thing that works, but I tried stepping up my fiber until the situation resolves, so I incorporated oatmeal into my diet, at the expense of other carbs to keep my carb count the same. Almost all night last night, for several hours, I experienced an elevated resting heart rate. Didn’t need to do a test with any kind of a meter. I love watching “The Mentalist” but the show doesn’t get my heart rate up that much!
Regarding eating out, I am taking a series of small business work shops at our county college. One of the group is planning on opening up a mobile vending truck. Her goal is organic, naturally prepared foods. Yes, she is planning on juices, etc., but also has her sights on low carb alternatives and Paleo food. I told her about the limitations that I have as a low carb dieter when eating out, and she is totally up to date on the trend.
It would be nice to have more paleo food available when eating out.
I don’t believe this nonsense about becoming sensitive to carbohydrates because of LC. The people pushing this theory have the cart and the horse mixed up again. We were already sensitive to carbs, so the modern diet made us fat. Then we went on diet after diet that increased our insulin resistance. Now, the only diet that we can be healthy on is low in carbs thanks to the 300-400 grams of daily carb intake (which we were told we NEEDED all our lives) beating the hell out of our pancreases for 30 years!
On the food sensitivities thing, I’ve found that the combination of food I eat has a massive impact on my blood sugar. I love potatoes, and so it was really hard for me to give them up when I went low-carb. But, I did some experimenting and found that while a potato by itself or with non-starchy vegetables will spike my blood glucose up around 200mg/dl, if I paired it with a decent helping of protein, my BG topped out around 120 and fell back to my normal 85 very quickly, and with no snack cravings.
Having a glucose meter in the house is really a great tool to use for yourself, and for other people who come around. We have a regular game night at my house, and friends tend to bring take-away dinner since we eat “weird” food. Having my carb-addicted friend test her blood and actually see what her diet was doing to her was a real turning point for her.
I agree; some of us don’t handle carbs well, period.
Erica, about 35 years ago, I popped into a Chinese restaurant in New York City, and enjoyed a tasty lunch. I felt my face swelling before I left the table. It felt like my face was enormous. I was sure I looked awful! But when I went to the restroom to check in the mirror, I saw no swelling. I subsequently had the sensation after eating in other oriental restaurants and finally deduced it was an MSG reaction. I’m not denying anyone’s experiences with the carbs here. I’m just suggesting there might be an additional factor with Chinese food.
I just googled the $29 billion reasons to lie about cholesterol book. The FIRST link that came up was Pfizer–understanding Cholesterol. Wonder how many keywords they had to buy from Google to keep the book from the top slot.
Nice try Pfizer! I found the book anyway and ordered it. 🙂
Oh, lord …
Firebird, may I suggest checking for dehydration? I found that if I am at all dehydrated, I problems with constipation as well. Pinch or pressure tests are easy enough. If your body is well-hydrated, then if you pinch the skin on the back of your hand or press down on your arm, then release, your skin will bounce back almost immediately.
I respond by drinking a lot of water with a nutrient rich, sugar-free sports drink (called Rebound) and eating lots of cauliflower and coleslaw. The fat from the sour cream I put with my cauliflower and the mayo in the coleslaw, along with the extra water, help with the clogging but don’t cause the kind of discomfort I get if I use a laxative or eat grains. I am of the entirely unscientific and personal opinion that whatever fiber I may get from grains is not balanced out by the inherent stickiness of the starchy food.
Thank you for your suggestion many posts ago to test your own glucose. I picked up a True2go kit on Amazon for about $7 and the test strips run about $10 for a pack of 50. I’ve been using one for over a month to track my fasting and postpastrial levels and I get fairly consistent readings. I’ve been tracking my readings on glucosebuddy.com to see overall trends and averages.
Sticking with low carb, I can keep a very narrow range between 85 and 90 throughout the day. I’ve also been able to determine that a cup of white rice is not a great choice for me but a 4 oz. baked potato is fine. That’s really good to know since it give me an option to safely satisfy on occasional carb craving.
Always a good idea to check your own reactions. A potato sends my glucose skyward.
I’ve been experiencing some constipation over the last couple of weeks and have been using diabetic candy to ease it (maltitol). It seems to be the only thing that works, but I tried stepping up my fiber until the situation resolves, so I incorporated oatmeal into my diet, at the expense of other carbs to keep my carb count the same. Almost all night last night, for several hours, I experienced an elevated resting heart rate. Didn’t need to do a test with any kind of a meter. I love watching “The Mentalist” but the show doesn’t get my heart rate up that much!
Regarding eating out, I am taking a series of small business work shops at our county college. One of the group is planning on opening up a mobile vending truck. Her goal is organic, naturally prepared foods. Yes, she is planning on juices, etc., but also has her sights on low carb alternatives and Paleo food. I told her about the limitations that I have as a low carb dieter when eating out, and she is totally up to date on the trend.
It would be nice to have more paleo food available when eating out.
I just googled the $29 billion reasons to lie about cholesterol book. The FIRST link that came up was Pfizer–understanding Cholesterol. Wonder how many keywords they had to buy from Google to keep the book from the top slot.
Nice try Pfizer! I found the book anyway and ordered it. 🙂
Oh, lord …
Firebird, may I suggest checking for dehydration? I found that if I am at all dehydrated, I problems with constipation as well. Pinch or pressure tests are easy enough. If your body is well-hydrated, then if you pinch the skin on the back of your hand or press down on your arm, then release, your skin will bounce back almost immediately.
I respond by drinking a lot of water with a nutrient rich, sugar-free sports drink (called Rebound) and eating lots of cauliflower and coleslaw. The fat from the sour cream I put with my cauliflower and the mayo in the coleslaw, along with the extra water, help with the clogging but don’t cause the kind of discomfort I get if I use a laxative or eat grains. I am of the entirely unscientific and personal opinion that whatever fiber I may get from grains is not balanced out by the inherent stickiness of the starchy food.
I have similar experiences to Andrea–carb-laden foods block me up something fierce. I get all my fiber from vegetables, nuts, and seeds like flaxseed. I also have problems with dehydration–but it’s not because I don’t drink enough water. Plain water just makes me bloated, and I can’t drink sugar water now like I used to.
If I have problems, I find that some hot tea with coconut oil in it will usually fix me right up–just don’t drink too much too fast or you’ll get the scoots.
I’ve been experimenting the past two weeks with giving up caffeine (switching to herbal tea etc.) It’s been interesting, but I’ve gotten some effects on some *cough* female problems *cough* already so I’m going to keep it up and see if next month is even better.
I have similar experiences to Andrea–carb-laden foods block me up something fierce. I get all my fiber from vegetables, nuts, and seeds like flaxseed. I also have problems with dehydration–but it’s not because I don’t drink enough water. Plain water just makes me bloated, and I can’t drink sugar water now like I used to.
If I have problems, I find that some hot tea with coconut oil in it will usually fix me right up–just don’t drink too much too fast or you’ll get the scoots.
I’ve been experimenting the past two weeks with giving up caffeine (switching to herbal tea etc.) It’s been interesting, but I’ve gotten some effects on some *cough* female problems *cough* already so I’m going to keep it up and see if next month is even better.
What ethnic background is Chareva and her family? Could that also play a role in why both her and her sister are so resistant to at least some forms of carbs? Be an interesting experiment to see if all of her family, not just immeditate siblings and parents, but cousin, aunts, and uncles are similarly blessed.
Oh yes, and does she show any wheat resistance, too?
They’re half-sisters. Their dad’s ethnicity is Russian Jewish, probably some Middle Eastern roots going way back, judging by the facial features. Both of the moms are Northern European mixed.
Chareva doesn’t get the bad reactions to wheat that I do, but skips it most of the time anyway.
Firebird, you also may be deficient in magnesium. Magnesium deficiency can cause constipation. Do you have muscle cramps? That’s another sign.
Because the body doesn’t retain fluid on a low-carb food plan, you can lose magnesium through urination. Taking a diuretic or sweating a lot (from exercise) can also deplete magnesium. I think I remember another commenter on this site mentioning she has taken a magnesium supplement since becoming a low-carb eater.
Drs. Phinney and Volek discuss this in “The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living.” They caution against magnesium supplementation for people who have kidney problems. Dr. Mildred’s Seelig’s book on magnesium is also an excellent resource.
What ethnic background is Chareva and her family? Could that also play a role in why both her and her sister are so resistant to at least some forms of carbs? Be an interesting experiment to see if all of her family, not just immeditate siblings and parents, but cousin, aunts, and uncles are similarly blessed.
Oh yes, and does she show any wheat resistance, too?
They’re half-sisters. Their dad’s ethnicity is Russian Jewish, probably some Middle Eastern roots going way back, judging by the facial features. Both of the moms are Northern European mixed.
Chareva doesn’t get the bad reactions to wheat that I do, but skips it most of the time anyway.