From a meat-eating low-carb high-fat diabetes group:
Me: The buzzword “plant-based diet” is almost always a high-carb low-fat vegan diet! They have their own pages of “success stories” of individuals who swear they dropped hundreds of pounds and got off all diabetes meds and insulin and are living with a 4.x A1C. I’m in conversation with some of them, but they have yet to give me specifics!
SM: I’d be curious to know as well, Jacqueline, as I was on a non-processed, high-carb, low-fat, vegetarian regime for many years, and I just [got] sicker and sicker, until I developed diabetes.
That’s why I was dismayed when, to manage diabetes, I was recommended to follow the very diet that made me sick in the first place. My mind just couldn’t get around that concept. Over a year of vegetarian LCHF [low-carb high-fat] and I feel as strong and healthy as a lion. The impact of quitting carbohydrates was significantly greater than when I quit smoking, which gives a good measure of how damaging they were for me.TS: I feel bad ’cause when I was vegan I ate no oil as per Dr. Esselstyn and Rip Esselstyn, etc. A guy from my church kept saying he thought we really needed at least some oil and I kept saying no. Now I’m eating fat bombs and using butter in my coffee and having more olive oil on my salads than lettuce.
From a low-carb vegetarian group:
ZB: You can find study after study either confirming or denying just about any health claim these days, whether it’s LCHF or HCLF. So, I don’t listen to studies anymore. I just listen to what my body tells me when I eat certain foods. When I ate nuts and seeds, my body told me that I was developing heart problems, so I stopped eating nuts and seeds, and my palpitations went away. The high carb info doesn’t scare me. I used to be into Mcdougall, Greger, and all the others, but I have made my decision based upon the numbers that low carb is the only diet that gets my blood sugar under control. I came about this conclusion the hard way, because I really gave the high carb low fat diet a chance… I felt awful and my blood sugar skyrocketed out of control.
BS: My cholesterol got a lot better since I’ve been getting 60-70% of my calories from saturated fat (mostly butter and coconut oil). I think sugar and carbs have a greater effect on cholesterol than saturated fat. Last time I saw my doctor, I mentioned a low-carb diet and she said it’s not recommended but to make sure I just stick to low GI [gylcemic index] foods instead (giving me a leaflet to read). I tried that, and had horrendous blood sugars; for example, after eating a vegetarian bean chilli and small amount of basmati rice my blood sugar shot up to 18 (UK) or 324 (US) units. She also suggested I didn’t test my blood sugars on a regular basis but rely on my HbA1C! I’ll be seeing her next month and I’m not sure she is going to be happy that I haven’t continued with her dietary advice, and I’m also testing more often now to see what I can and can’t eat! I’m a bad patient so it seems! However, my levels are now in a normal range every time I test (between 4-8 or 72-144), when sticking to a ketogenic diet!
KC: I was vegan before I became Type 1. After diagnosis I pretty quickly went from trying Dr. Barnard’s diet to very low carb.
Me: How did Dr. Barnard’s diet affect you?
KC: It was not good. At that point I was just on Levemir twice a day, and wasn’t bolusing for meals. Breakfast would send my blood sugar into the 400s.LF: I just felt lousy on that diet. And I craved fat and it kept creeping in and causing weight gain. That was before diabetes. Once I went into DKA [diabetic ketoacidosis], I was encouraged in that direction–LFHC [low-fat high-carb], and couldn’t face it again.
MO: In Oct 2010 I had been trying to “cure” my diabetes with a plant-based diet and instead found myself going by ambulance to ICU for several days and a week’s stay in the hospital. I have kept to being vegetarian and would never go back. I just didn’t understand how I could not be losing weight.
RD: What worked for me in the past was cutting out flour and dairy completely, and going 70% raw vegan. No sweets, except for an occasional dairy-free ice cream, and a bit of raw local honey in my tea. Most protein comes from minimal beans (soy is best), soy milk, nuts/seeds, almond butter, and hemp seeds. Dark leafy greens and zucchini make up at least 60% of my day. Fake meats only once per week at most. I lost 30 pounds over 2 years just by doing that, and a bit of yoga, and I wasn’t even low-carb. I gained it all back plus 15 more over 3 years when I added flour, dairy, and sweets back into my diet, and by general overeating. I’m doing this again, but adding eggs and dairy because I need quick solutions to low-carb snacks. I’m already seeing results just by replacing carbs with green veggies.
JB: I lost 45 lbs. on a strict vegetarian diet consuming 2000-2200 calories a day (I tried to keep my consumption under 2400); 20-25% of my calories were from fat; I ate 5-6 small meals a day, and I did a combination of weightlifting and conditioning 6 days a week for exercise. I wasn’t eating a low-carb diet; I was following the ADA’s guidelines of 45-60 grams of net carbohydrates per meal, which I can’t follow anymore and maintain tight diabetes control.
BH: I tried doing high-carb low-fat vegan for ages and was on a McDougall FB group. There were many complaints of people’s hair falling out, skin problems, etc And then Dr McDougall himself fell over in a hotel room and broke several bones. That doesn’t seem like a sign of a super healthy diet. The high-carb diet fails to take into account that rural Chinese and the like who ate HCLF worked their arses off all day doing hard labor. Also my HbA1C levels have gone down since I reduced carbs.
MH: I’ve been diabetic for 30 yrs and stuggled with my weight and doctor would say, “It’s hard to lose weight when you take insulin,” but I started researching the low-carb high-fat diet and haven’t looked back with my a1c the lowest its ever been and dropped 27 kgs and only take one third of the insulin that i was taking so after all the years eating low-fat dairy and whole grains and steamed pototoes brown rice etc which is what the dieticians told me to eat and not to mention heart attack and cancer so the low fat doesnt work or eating carbs and my cholesterol was only 4.2 when i had the heart attack and now with full fat dairy and bacon eggs etc my cholesterol is 3.3 so no one will tell me to eat the carbs and have me believe that it’s the right way.
Internet
These are “success stories” that have been carefully screened to promote their respective programs. Read with that in mind.
High fat, low carb diets reverse type 2 diabetes in new program that bans sugar
http://www.examiner.com/article/high-fat-low-carb-diets-reverse-type-2-diabetes-new-program-that-bans-sugar
Low Carb Success Stories
http://www.carbsmart.com/category/success-stories
My Journey on Rosedale Health Plan – Diet
https://drrosedale.tenderapp.com/discussions/my-journey-on-rosedale-health-plan-diet/2-rosedale-health-plan-diet-my-journey#comment_36739081
Rosedale Health Plan Testimonials
http://drrosedale.com/testimonials#axzz3awbEORRw
Steven’s Success Story
Type 1, 12-year-old
http://dsolve.com/sucess-stories/64-success4
Your LCHF Success Stories
http://www.edify.net.au/lchf_weight_loss_success_stories.php
Adventist Vegetarian Diabetics 