I Hate Being Lied To: Highlights From Diabetes Boot Camp

2015, The day I went to the VA Emergency Room with killing pains in the upper-right quadrant of the abdomen was a game-changing day.  Yet, it also marked the day that doctors started lying to me.  I was diagnosed with three things, gallstones, obesity, and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.  Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, also known as metabolic-associated fatty liver disease, is excessive fat build-up in the liver without another clear cause, such as alcohol use. There are two types; non-alcoholic fatty liver and non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, with the latter including liver inflammation. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is less dangerous than NASH and usually does not progress to NASH or liver cirrhosis.  Essentially, my liver was having problems policing itself and had developed fattiness, not alcohol-related.

2021, a clinical pharmacist in charge of teaching diabetes at the El Paso VA Medical Center, holds a “boot camp” for veterans to help them understand and better handle diabetes.  I spent 30-minutes with Dr. T. getting the low-down on diabetes and getting questions answered.  I hate being lied to, and I hate not being able to get simple questions answered.  Today’s diabetes class changed my understanding, and I have just scratched the diet/diabetes topic.

Let me be clear right here; I am not an authority on these topics.  I am not a medical professional, and sources outside my own research have provided all medical information.  I am still learning on these topics and am simply describing my experiences.  If the same issues spark your interest, may this information help and support you and your doctor’s path moving forward.

Obesity

Obesity is the amount of fat carried on a person, above a specific level, as determined by the health and activity of the person.  Please note, no single person is identical in where their fat vs. health into obesity levels are.  I have met people who look overweight, but they are not unhealthy because of how their body works.  Whereas, I have met skinny people with very little fat on their bodies who were exceedingly unhealthy.  Thus, calling all heavy people “fat” and “obese” is the first set of lies and misconceptions we must learn and unlearn when discussing obesity, diabetes, and diet.

Obesity, and the linked diseases to obesity, is also a misnomer and a horrible series of lies.  Diabetes is considered a disease; obesity has just now (2018 or so) been changed from a symptom to a disease.  Want to hear something to blow your mind; both descriptions are 100% wrong!  Obesity is a consequence of being addicted to foods.  Diabetes is a consequence of having the addiction overcome the body’s natural defenses and cause independent problems.

Diet

I am not advocating any diet/weight-loss plan, nor am I using this term to describe specific foods in a health regime; in using the term diet, I am discussing the foods we eat.  The foods we eat form our diet, and our diets are killing us.

If you are around 40-years of age, you grew up with the food pyramid, as detailed by the Food and Drug Administration, as a way to select healthy foods and improve your diet.  You were taught that grains, especially whole grains, were essential for your diet and should be the bulk of what you eat daily.  You have been carefully trained and programmed that dairy, especially drinking Milk, is extremely important to a growing body.  You have been instructed that calories in, plus exercise, is the path to weight loss and healthy living.  You have been taught that salt is bad, sugar is good in moderation, and that there are pills to correct the issues if you are having problems.  Would you believe a single voice that told you those are all lies; I wouldn’t, but the researchers continue to affirm the truth of these things if you desire to learn.

Today, I finally learned just how bad these lies are, and my “cherub-like” demeanor has been brutally beaten by reality.  Since 2015, I have been told these lies multiple times, specifically to reduce the problems I am experiencing from a lifetime of eating the food pyramid!  Nothing is more dangerous than an honest person lied to, and the government needs to fear this consequence.  Salt is good in moderation, as established by your blood work.  Drinking Milk is bad for the body.  Sugar is worse for the body than dairy!

Let’s talk about historical facts for a moment.  You will not find this discussed in your history books, but I promise the history is 100% accurate, and the Internet has sources for what I am about to declare.  The East India Company, a powerful trading company from England, wanted to increase sales of sugar cane and offered what is essentially bribes to farmers to feed their animals sugar cane.  The animals quickly developed sores, open wounds, and a host of health problems, leading to death.  When this experiment failed, the focus was pushed back to sugar crystallization, which began injecting crystallized sugar into people’s diets worldwide.  Who eventually had the same problems as the animals eating raw sugar cane, only the length of time between consumption to health problems was longer, and thus more easily overlooked as the cause.

Research using fMRIs has shown that sugar and heroin have the same effects on the brain, opening the same receptors and releasing the same feel-good chemicals into the body.  Worse, the addiction between sugar and heroin is very close chronologically.  Two weeks is the upper limit to reach to begin changing the body’s dependence to both, which means that it takes roughly two weeks after the last hit to start the addiction recovery process.  The only difference between heroin and sugar, sugar does not come with a stigma and legal problems that heroin carries.

Diabetes

In simple terms, diabetes is the overproduction of insulin in the body until the pancreas cannot keep up and begins to fail.  If you have a Gastrointestinal problem, the levels of insulin in the body are the cause.  The powerful pancreas is directly tied to a person’s health.

Carbohydrates are the problem; carbohydrates (carbs) are comfort foods and always contain higher sugar levels.  Carbs make it very difficult to break the sugar addiction and stop the pancreas from not hitting the proper amount of insulin in the body to digest foods.  I have always preferred brown rice to white rice, beans and legumes, whole grains, and I love making my own bread.  Yet, these foods especially are why my pancreas is overworking, and I have gastrointestinal issues and diabetes.  The nine-grain cereal I love any time of the day to consume is hurting me, but for my whole life, I have been told that nine-grain, whole grain cereal cannot hurt you.

Cave Man Foods

The following were suggested to me as foods to focus on eating, cutting my meals from three to two per day, and I have a follow-up in two weeks with Dr. T.  Dr. T. called these foods “Cave Man Foods” as they are closer to what cavemen ate, and they did not have diabetes.  I include these foods as a permanent record, not as health advice.  Please consult your physician and your body for what is best for you.

• • • Eggs
    • Cheese
    • Avocados
    • All types of leafy green stuff (I knew they would stick these nasty things in somewhere.)
    • Non-Starchy Vegetables
      • • Cucumbers
        • Colored peppers
        • The greenest lettuce to be found, Romaine is best provided it is GREEN! If your lettuce is white, RUN AWAY, THROW IT AWAY.
        • Spinach
        • Cabbage – Oh, I love Red and Green Cabbage with brats!
        • Broccoli
        • Radishes
        • Fresh Tomatoes – If your tomatoes are processed, look at the added sugar content, and be amazed at how sodas have less sugar than spaghetti sauce. But sodas get a bad rap, and spaghetti sauce gets a pass.
        • Asparagus – I love red/purple asparagus, can never find it, but I prefer red/purple to green.
        • Mushrooms – Oh, I have a great recipe for stuffed mushroom caps for the grill!
    • Raw nuts, but any non-sugar added nuts are good.
    • All berries.
    • Coffee and Tea, no sugar – Frankly, I drink neither, for I hate the taste of green/black/white/etc. Teas and I have finally kicked the coffee habit.
    • Drink Water! As a firefighter, as a person who has suffered three major heat stress injuries, I am a huge proponent of drinking water.
    • Meat – Any type.
    • Avoid – Bread, Rice, and Pasta

What I found unique on this list is the missing fruits, watermelon, peaches, pears, apples, oranges, pineapples, etc., and Dr. T. claimed this was because of the need to pump the body full of insulin to digest the fruits.  If the goal is to heal from diabetes and be free of the drugs, shots, needles, etc., the body needs to be weaned from sugars to allow the pancreas to heal and the insulin levels and liver functions to return to normal.  As the pancreas heals and liver functions rise, the intestines will see a marked change in healthy bacterial populations without needing to add bacteria to your foods.  Have you seen the amount of added sugar in yogurt?  The bacteria are killed by sugar, but to eat yogurt, you get a considerable amount of sugar; tell me, does this make sense to you?

References

Gundry, S. R. (2017). The plant paradox: The hidden dangers in “Healthy” Foods that cause disease and weight gain. HarperCollins.

Taubes, G. (2008). Good calories, bad calories: Fats, carbs, and the controversial science of diet and health. Anchor.

Taubes, G. (2011). Why we get fat and what to do about it. Anchor.

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.