Diabetes Viewpoints

An Easy Way Around The Math

III. The Balancing Act
What’s essentially wrong with the Atkins picture? The same thing that was wrong with the low-fat craze , the grapefruit diet and the Cabbage Soup diet: lack of balance. Any method of eating that goes so extremely in one direction or another is going to: 1) be extremely difficult to keep up, and 2) deprive your body of some essential substances that it also needs.

What I told my mom is that when you are a person with diabetes, striking a balance is everything. Unfortunately, this does mean that you’ll need to avoid those yummy but too-rich ALL-CARB meals, like granola with fruit and yogurt, or pasta with garlic bread followed by pudding. Mix it up a little instead! I do scrambled eggs with a little fruit and yogurt on the side, or meat accompanied by a slice of bread or two (not more!) followed by a little pudding. Just keep thinking about where you can swap out a protein for one of those high-carb choices.

One of my readers points out that we do owe a debt of gratitude to the Atkins Diet for shedding light on the relationship between carbohydrates and blood sugars. Before that, people with diabetes were given a standard “meal exchange plan,” which promoted a balanced diet, to be sure, but didn’t offer much help in figuring out insulin doses or keeping blood sugar levels steady.

The bottom line is that your body needs a little bit of everything. And eating should be enjoyable. And no special “low-something” label should give you license to binge on any kind of snack foods.

A good nutritionist can tell you a lot more about how to count carbs, of course. But what I have learned is that I cannot depend on anyone or any group, any book, paid program, or course to make me eat right. I have to do it MYSELF -– at every party, picnic, get-together, at every meal, and every moment when someone offers me food. If I deem it worthy of my efforts, I have to count its carb content (and dose for it). My weight has never been this stable, and I’m feeling amazingly healthy. There’s the silver lining for you, Mom!