Intro
Two years ago I was diagnosed as diabetic, this came as a shock.
World wide this disease is pretty much rampant, I had no idea that I had joined more than 422 million suffers.
Its a major cause of heart attacks, strokes, blindness and liver disease, causing more than a million deaths each year as a direct result.
The global cost of treatment to slow this epidemic down is in excess of $800,000,000 ( eight hundred billion US dollars) per year.
Upon diagnosis I read everything I could on the subject. There was of course the written information , the glossy leaflets given to me at the doctors surgery. (These were all sponsored on some way or another ) . I took on-line classes, primarily ones by the open university. I searched the internet for anything which sounded credible. I learnt that what I had considered a healthy lifestyle was based on evidence which was little more than opinion .
In response to this new information I changed my lifestyle.Two year later my doctor has declared that I’m cured and has asked how I did it without medication. I explained that its no secret and that hundreds of people like me have done it and are doing it by living a genuinely healthy life style. ( Not the one we have become accustomed to thinking of as healthy.)
It turns out that type 2 diabetes ( the type I have) is an extreme form of carbohydrate intolerance. Its estimated that one in 3 people in some form or another have an intolerance to carbs. If you are putting on a little extra weight. you find it difficult to loose weight, you are feeling sluggish , suffer from intestinal bloating, lack concentration or are tired and you cant shake it off you may be in this group. Its vastly undiagnosed .
Before I was diagnosed I thought I was healthy! I walked 4 miles with a beautiful black Labrador everyday, ( 10,000 steps, ) I ate masses of fruit and veg, far more than the recommended 5 portions per day. I made my own bread from the healthiest organic spelt flour. I brewed my own beer from hops I’d grown. I played tennis and I was moderate in most things . Most doctors would say I lived a very healthy life style. It was a shock to find out all this was not enough. Learning to unlearn is not an easy thing to do. My plan is to share some of these tips , thoughts , recipes and some how to’s I’ve found actual work for me . This isn’t academic belief its things I’ve tried and tested. I’ll give links to help you do your own research.
Once I considered myself as. a “foodie”. Now I now enjoy food in ways which are richer and tastier. Now I want to enjoy every mouthful, now I want food my body can assimilate without it being poison.
Below are a few links ...and the artwork is mine..... more later......
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs312/en/
http://www.foodreactions.org/intolerance/carbohydrate/index.html
https://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/carbohydrate+intolerance
http://www.wholebodyhealth.org/health-article/carbohydrate-intolerance-a-deadly-disease/
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs40273-015-0268-9
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/diabetes-cost-825-billion-a year/