(Versión en español: pinchar aquí)

Our friend «ariovisto» is a type 2 diabetic and has been kind enough to share his experience with the LCHF diet on a blog comment, in response to Tere:

• he is losing weight (10kg in just over two months)
• his cholesterol and triglycerides have returned to normal ranges
• his HbA1c is currently 5.7
• he has now have better control of hypoglycaemias

I reproduce below his comment.

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Hi Tere.

I’m glad to try to help with the question you ask me, although here there are more meticulous and experienced people than me. I can offer my experience of almost 20 years of struggle with my diabetes. I started just with pills, I went through insulin and recently the same doctor changed me to incretin – after specific immunological tests for tolerance of this new product – acknowledging that insulin not only ceases to be effective but also causes you to gain weight, and you end up as fat as a pig (said by the doctor who prescribed it to me, after the failure of metformin, glimepiride and diet combination). I’ve tried all the dietsyou can find in all the refectories of all the religious orders in the world: you start the so called «classical or orthodox» diets with high hopes, but you end up with more hunger and discouragement than Oliver Twist’s fork. My wife can give cooking lessons to famous cooks, at least at juggling with food and patience.
The diet defended by Vicente in this blog, is equally valid for a diabetic, for a jazz trumpeter or for a seller of relics in Cairo, and it is just as he says. No wheat, no pasta, no potatoes: reducing carbohydrates as much as you can – and there is much that one can do if he really tries – not abusing fruits and not being afraid of fats, the healthy fats. With this diet YOU ARE NOT HUNGRY, and you don’t just lose weight (94.2 to 84.1Kg, ten kilos – 22 pounds – in a little longer than two months in my case) but also good and bad cholesterol levels return to normal, almost by magic, triglycerides stay again in the normal range, uric acid is controlled and hemoglobin A1c stays in the boundary (currently I have 5.7 (39), after having more than 8 (64) before foi gras, sausages and butter were making jealous the celery tribe). Moreover, and I am finishing this message, I had often hypoglycaemia with scary levels, 40 (2.2) and 30 (1.7) blood glucose, but with this diet glucose is almost always above 65 (3.6). You eat a couple of nuts and pork rinds (the real ones) and your glucose doesn’t go down, thus avoiding eating half a box of cookies, which is what I used to do before every time I had hypoglucemia.
This diet might be boring sometimes – eating a fried egg and two strips of bacon without bread sounds cruel – but you’ll see you get used to it, like you get used to everything else in life. And just a word about those who warn you about your kidney and liver: that is envy or ignorance.
Try it: start looking at the labels of everything you buy, learning all the available options or ask Vicente. I am sure he will be glad to help.
Really, it is worth a try!

Pd.- All data expressed in this commentary is drawn from my own experience and from my own blood.

You should keep your doctor informed and make him control you.