Is This Progress?

Today I got an email from a doctor in Dr. Chan's office (who wrote to me in her absence) the following:

"I'm Dr. Douk, covering for Dr. Chan while she is out. Your thyroid test showed that your levothyroxine dose might be a little high for you now. I have reordered a new lower dose of your medicine for you and sent it to the pharmacy. We should check your thyroid level again in 6 weeks. If it is stable then, please have Dr. Chan refill your prescription with a larger quantity of pills."

That was a real surprise to me! I had thought that the lower number on my TSH lab test meant that my body was not getting enough thyroxine and that perhaps my dosage should be increased. But apparently it's just the opposite!

So now I pick up the new dosage. And wait 6 weeks.

Increasingly Disappointed with NEWSTART®

I've pretty much given up on NEWSTART® being any source of information on reversing diabetes. The admins of the NEWSTART® Insights Facebook group are totally clueless as to how to run a successful Facebook group and the members are just as ditzy. There was no mention of the supposedly scheduled conference call on the third Wednesday of June, no event created in the Facebook group, and no email as I've gotten in the past. Today I asked in the group if the conference call happened and if anyone attended, and someone answered, yes, it did, though the scheduled speaker didn't show up so "faithful Dr. Lukens filled in and answered questions."

I have totally given up on getting any success stories from any of the 194 members of the Facebook group. They are presumably mostly alumni from a NEWSTART® program, which includes the famous "Reversing Diabetes." The Weimar website promoting the reversing diabetes program claims that 50% of people who go through the program are successful in reversing diabetes and maintaining that status. Only 50%?!? Why is that? Does "applying the NEWSTART® principles" only work for 50% of the attendees? Or is the lifestyle so unsustainable that 50% of them just can't maintain it and give up? I suppose I'll never know the answer! However, I will not leave the group, though I don't have any more plans to post there—especially since the admins have changed the settings so that every new post has to be approved by an admin before it is made public!

Conversation on NEWSTART® Insights

Me: Tom, you said in a recent newsletter, "50% of type II diabetics who adopt the NEWSTART® Lifestyle are off their insulin and medications in as little as 18 days." I'm wondering about the other 50%. What challenges did they face that prevented their success, and what advice and encouragement would successful Reversing Diabetes alumni give to help them?

Tom: Jacqueline, alumni face many challenges upon departure, that is why the primary focus during the NEWSTART® Lifestyle program is setting a routine for everyday after graduation. In addition, many alumni take advantage of the ReStart program which offer discounts for returning to a portion of the program so they can focus on what need areas.

Me: Do you ever have anyone (after they go home) complain that their blood sugar goes higher (instead of lower) when they stop counting calories and carbs? If so, what advice would you give them?

Teri: We don't teach our guests to count calories or carbs, it isn't necessary. Once they've come off the SAD (Standard American Diet) and start making healthier food choices along with implementing the other Newstart principles, the body beautifully responds in turn. Anyone who does not continue with their healthy lifestyle choices will, of course, find their blood sugars creeping back up.

Me: I understand all that, Teri. My question was whether or not anyone ever complains that their blood sugars went up when they ate whole fruits, whole grains, and legumes with wild abandon. And, if the answer is no, then why are we not seeing more members of this group telling their success stories with reversing diabetes on a high-carb diet?

Ron: You've asked a very important and critical question and the answer is simple. Many people of the 50% you are asking about continue on their new life style and reverse this terrible disease. While others decide to go back to their old ways and don't want to talk about it. As far as more members not reporting success stories, they do not join groups or like we have on Facebook or other social media sights, or are just to busy.

Me: Yep, I guess they're too busy maintaining their NEWSTART® lifestyle to be bothered with sharing their successes. I suppose I would be, too, if I walked 5 miles a day. So what you're saying is that the 50% unsuccessful were not motivated to continue doing what they learned in the on-site seminar. I would think that the potential effects of out-of-control diabetes would be motivation enough!

Ron: I'm not saying that at all. Of the 50%, many continue on and are successful in reversing their diabetes, while others simply go back to their old life styles. I do agree that reversing diabetes, which I have done now for nearly 10 years, is motivation enough to keep one going.

NEWSTART® Insights Update

Three things have just happened with NEWSTART® Insights. The first was that the creator of the group and original admin, Spencer Freed, said he is getting off Facebook but he created a "fake" Spencer Freed account that he said could be used to contact him "only in this group." I'm not sure how that was supposed to work. Apparently Spencer Freed wasn't either, because his new "fake" account is not showing in the members list nor anywhere on Facebook for that matter. So I checked the admins list and only Tom Baril is listed as a group admin.

Then I noticed that the nice banner graphic Spencer had used for the group is missing. There is, instead, just a collection of random profile pics of group members (what a group header defaults to when there is no banner graphic). Very unattractive and unprofessional, in my opinion.

So I wrote a post asking what happened to the nice banner graphic, and I got an immediate message that my post had been "submitted for approval by the admin(s)." I suppose I should not have been surprised, as earlier I had suggested to Spencer that if they were concerned that someone would post something that was inappropriate they should change the settings so that all posts had to be approved by an admin. I guess someone finally figured out how to do it!

Hardly anyone is posting in the group now, possibly because the group description is very vague about the purpose of the group and what posts are acceptable and what posts are not. At least now people will know whether or not what they post is acceptable by whether or not an admin approves it!

Well, I must say I am very disappointed with the group. I initially was hoping I would find alumni who had succeeded in reversing their diabetes through this Weimar program (high-carb low-fat strict vegan diet) and were successful in maintaining this reversal over a long period of time. But out of the current 194 members, only two have come forward as having reversed diabetes through the NEWSTART® program.

Of the 3 "success stories" on the NEWSTART® website, they are all white males (one is possibly Latino), no women, no people of color. They were all extremely obese, had severe health problems and nearly at death's door, and had been eating a very unhealthy Standard American Diet (junk food, high-sugar, highly refined, etc.). No one was represented as being a more "normal" kind of diabetic, like the majority of Adventist Vegetarian Diabetics group members, who were trying to eat a reasonably healthy diet but just needed some tweaking!


Update [June 10,2015]: It looks like the header graphic is back. And a "new member" named Spencer Jonathan has been added and made an admin. In my opinion, they should have figured this out before they started making public changes to the group! Guess I can't expect Weimar people to be all that tech-savvy. *sigh*

Insulin Resistance and Weight Loss

Here's another thing that bugs me. When people are giving advice on how to improve your diabetes, one of the items is, "Lose weight." That makes about as much sense to me as some thoughtless person telling a mom to "make your kids behave"! As a mother, I learned early on there is no way on God's green earth that you can "make" your kids do anything that they do not do willingly, on their own accord. That is, unless you physically strap them down, tie them to a stationary object, or imprison them in a container. As a young mother, I was greatly disturbed by any "Sister White" quotes that said, "You must not allow your children to [you fill in the blanks]." How does she expect parents to "not allow" children to make a lot of noise, run in church, refuse to eat, etc. without physically restraining them? And then it's only for that moment. Until someone pointed out to me that what she meant was "you cannot give your children permission to..." whatever. And that made complete sense! If the child does "whatever" he/she is doing it without your permission, and then you deal with it.

But I digress.

Frequently, you'll see the advice, "exercise and lose weight," as being the answer to improving diabetes. Yes, I understand exercise, but "losing weight" is a result of doing something, not something you do. Unless you "lose weight" by having bariatric surgery. It would make more sense to say, "exercise, cut calories, and do whatever works for you to lose weight." You can't just lose weight by wishing it to be gone!

The same holds true for the advice to "decrease insulin resistance" (or "increase insulin sensitivity"). You can't just turn it down like turning the heat down on the stove. But when you try to find out how to decrease insulin resistance, there are as many ideas out there as there are people who write articles about it.

That being said, I will concede that the most frequent advice on how to decrease insulin resistance is exercise. And within that advice to "exercise" there's a wide spectrum, ranging from a leisure 30-minute walk 3 times a week to aggressive aerobic exercise, strength training, and muscle building on a daily basis. Until I have proof to the contrary, I will still maintain that the ideal goal—and mandatory for a diabetic—is the conventional 10,000 steps/day (aka 5 miles of walking).

The next piece of advice on how to decrease insulin resistance is—wait for it—to "lose weight." So we've come full circle to giving nebulous advice as the way to reach a nebulous goal.

The bottom line is that every person who wants to lose weight has to figure out what works forthem and their body. When I was a young woman, all I had to do was go on a diet of Sego or Slim-fast for a couple weeks and I'd lose 5 or 10 lbs. easily. Needless to say, that doesn't work for me any more! But it worked then on the same principle as what has always worked for me, and that is calorie-reduction. Only now it's calorie-reduction in combination with LCHF (low-carb high-fat). Less carb = fewer calories.

In short, my fantasy goal is to achieve an acceptable A1C level (which is for another post). My objectives for doing that are to (a) decrease insulin resistance and (b) lose weight (both nebulous without action steps). The action steps are to (a) walk daily toward a fantasy goal of 5 miles a day and (b) stick religiously to a 1200-calorie diet which is low in carbs and high in fat (well, as high as you can be under 1200 calories!).

And it's not just a diet but a way of life—a lifestyle. In other words, I don't stop walking 5 miles a day and eating 1200 calories or less when I reach my weight loss goal and A1C goal. The lifestyle will continue as long as I'm alive. That is, if I want to stay alive!

And that's my pea-brain thoughts for today.

Unfounded Fears?

You know what my current fear is? That if I don't take the recommended meds (statins, in this case), that the Dr. will refuse to order any more blood tests! Silly, I know, but it was just a thought that crossed my mind.

I'm afraid if I take time to walk 5 miles a day, I'll never have time to do anything else. Of course, if I don't walk that much, maybe I won't even live long enough to do anything else! My mother walked five miles a day during the last several years of her life, and she still died before she was 70. I'll be 70 in another 15 months.

There. I'm being honest.

I'm feeling suddenly slapped in the face with reality, just like when I was first officially diagnosed, 15 years ago. Only this time it's not just a gentle suggestion that I should take a leisurely stroll of 30 minutes 3 times a week, but a mandate that I walk a minimum of 5 miles (aka 10,000 steps) a day, every day, 7 days a week, if I don't want to die! And not just that I keep a bottle of water handy in case I get thirsty, but that I force myself to chug down 4 or 5 bottles (500 mL), total of 2 liters minimum.

Well, I can't do it in June or July. My life was already pre-planned to be consumed. But in August I can step it up a notch or two. Or a bunch of notches. That will be the crucial transition time, from 1500 steps/day to 10,000. A seemingly impossible feat!

Then I'll have a break over a long Labor Day weekend, not a break from walking or water, but a disconnect from phone, internet, and electricity. Paper only for 6 days. And walking. Always walking, the only device allowed being a pedometer.