Personal Thoughts about Diabetes and Carbs.

[This is another non-investing related post]

I lost count of the number of times where my well-meaning advices went to deaf ears. Consider this: none of the advice I dispense, if accepted and practiced, would benefit me in any form.

Again, if you are a normal human, or you are suffering from type 2 and pre-diabetes. Please. Please listen to what I have to say.

As an Asian, the following is commonly utter when someone tells you that you are on a low-carb diet.

"You can't have so many meals without rice. You will die!"

"How would you have energy if you don't have rice (or any other forms of complex carbs, for the matter)"

If you are not suffering from type-1 diabetes, where the pancreas is no longer producing insulin, please give this blog post a serious thought. I am writing this as my mum register another incredible high glucose reading of 20. A normal human should have 4-6. My mum had ignored my advices since she was only type-2 diabetes. Now... it is too late.

Prolonged high glucose levels in your blood causes blindness, heart attack, stroke and kidney failure. Think of your blood as being overly thick, like a sugar syrup. Blood vessels are incredibly narrow in your retina, and your ability to recover from open wounds reduce dramatically when you have diabetes. That give rise to infections, which subsequently can lead to amputations.

High glucose levels in your blood is a result of ineffective or not enough insulin in your blood. Insulin, is a chemical produced by your body to allow glucose to be adsorbed into your muscle cells to produce energy.

So how does glucose get into your blood? Mainly through carbohydrates. That include rice (any kind, brown or white), noodle, bread, potatoes, yam, etc. Anything that you thought of as a rice subsitute during war years, is a carbohydrate.

Would you die if you do not have rice/bread for your meals? No.

Because otherwise, there is no chance the cavemen could have evolved into the modern man today. Through the miracles of agriculture, we are able to support perhaps a larger population than we are supposed to. But the modern man body is not meant to process so many carbs.

You make the conscious choice of ingesting carbs. The carbs go into your body and get process into glucose, which is transported around your body by your blood stream. Insulin helps adsorb the glucose into your cells to produce energy.

So if your glucose level is high, yes, it could be because your insulin is not effective, or not enough. But why blame the worker when the workload could be simply too high? Isn't it easier to stop ingesting so much carbohydrates?

Too much insulin promotes fat storage around your belly. I know this because I suffer from this. I have slim arms but a very large belly.

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If you are struggling to pay for an expensive lifestyle, it is not your income that is the problem. it is your lifestyle.

The food that you put into your mouth, is the lifestyle. Your source of income, is the insulin. Your financial well being is your body. Why bet on your pancreas to produce those insulin, day in, day out?

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I have no disillusions that a low-carb diet is definitely more expensive. But there are alternatives. You can have that cai-png without the rice.

You can have that teh-c without the sugar.

You can live without all that carbs.  

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I have lost about 2kg and felt a little slimmer around the waist since I started on this again a week ago. There are significantly less uric acid crystals deposited on the sole of my feet. I know this because I went for my foot reflexology session yesterday, and I could tell the difference. It was night and day.

The food pyramid is a lie.