Yeah certainly put things in perspective. I'd forgotten of that plant based diet crap. I still cringe to this day when I see the paleo bullshit as someone who cleaned up my act several years back. Protein is a necessary component and I remember cringing now with this reminder as a severe diabetic pumping themselves full of carbs--no wonder your leg got worse. As I said, my brother is a TYPE 1!!! diabetic who has had some serious issues and a car accident that took the rest of his kidney function. He eats an appropriate diet since that reality check and is a normal weight and no longer has these wild blood sugar swings and surprise even had his leg and hip that were shattered in that accident heal(BONE) except for a slight limp where he lost height in that complete break and the slow healing process after. I used to get pissed at my brother for drinking beer and liquor in his early 20's when he was mad at the world and you ate that...I'd forgotton about some of that. Great post wasp.
Thank you for your posts and your sentiments. You seem like a pretty kind person.
I don't expect anyone here to remember way back when I first started posting on the forums over at
www.drmcdougall.com and you guys cross-referenced me, and most of my posts over there are gone now anyway...but, let me tell you exactly how my left leg looked when I was close to 500 lbs.
The shin had a wound on it so bad that it actually looked like one of those oceanic trenches on a
bas relief map. It was about 4 inches long and two inches wide, and ran almost perfectly down the bone. This trench was surrounded by three silver-dollar sized wounds which were black as night. My big toe, second toe, and the areas on my foot behind them were nothing but open wounds and scar tissue. You could unwrap the gauze from this mess, and just watch the nasty discharge oozing its way out. Think Walking Dead, and you're just about there.
Jeanette had just lost her last job a few months prior, and so I was without Medicare since it had not yet been two years since I started on disability, and also without her insurance through that job. There was only one suggestion which made any sense, on top of the diet changes I had made which had already resulted in nearly 30 pounds gone, and that was to treat my wounds with coconut oil due to its antibiotic properties. The stuff worked almost miraculously well. Within six months, the trench/gash thing on my shin and its three orbiting nasty patches were almost totally gone, and the worst of the issues with my toes had even reversed.
My problem, despite what many here think, was not the diet itself. I was already off-the-charts diabetic before going McDougall. It was that way too much damage was already done, and the infection I had finally made its way down to my bones.
All I can tell you is that all carbs are not the same, and a starch-based diet is
not round-the-clock Wonder Bread and Ding Dongs. It is stuff like oatmeal with raisins, brown rice with veggies or beans, whole wheat pasta with a fat free marinara sauce, and other stuff like that. And the closer I come to following that plan perfectly, the
lower my blood sugar goes and the better I feel. Also, the less insulin I need to take (which I've only been on religiously since late last summer, by the way). Foods which are high in
refined carbs, high in fat, or both will cause my control to go out the window. These problem foods also include meat and dairy, which I've experimented with to a small degree recently, and I have the regular tracking of my glucose levels to back this assertion up. Trying to increase my level of physical activity through the whole-body arthritic pain I have is the only other way I have to get my sugar numbers down further. That is a challenge, but one I continue to try and conquer.
I think some people here make this automatic connection between the fact that I'm ultra-liberal, and these PETA militant vegan types. I'm not in that camp at all. I love animals, but I don't support many of PETA's weird tactics. I don't go around trying to act like a hippie (though being called one doesn't bother me at all). I've just adopted a certain eating style based upon a lot of evidence, just as I'm forced to reject the information from such sources as Weston-Price and the Atkins Foundation based upon the evidence.
