To think too few people understand the role of insulin with regards to weight loss?

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So I am an advocate of low carb but I know plenty of people who have used slimming world, or weight watchers or any other diet to lose weight. I have seen though people being really negative regards low carb diets and I don't get it.

When you understand how your body deals with different nutrients it because clear that all diets need to lower insulin. How you do this is up to you but ultimately all weight loss diets do it.

When insulin is elevated then you can't burn much fat and instead rely on mostly burning sugar from your diet. If you want to burn mostly fat from your fat cells your insulin needs to be lowered.

People say eat less move more without understanding that for someone who is insulin resistant this is really hard. The body cells stop responding to insulin so stop taking up sugar from the blood. This effectively means the cells feel like they are 'starving' as they can't get enough sugar and this drives hunger signals. It also makes the person feel lethargic and lacking in energy, so exercise is harder.

You can reduce insulin levels by fasting, reducing carbs in the diet, reducing consumption of refined carbohydrates, cutting calories etc but the key is your insulin.

Looks like chicken is ok. Yay!

@Mad1988 slightly afraid to ask this but have you read the book 'Why We Eat too much' by Andrew jenkinson? You are clearly very well informed and I would welcome your opinion.

What he says about insulin is different from the model discussed in the article and would (I think) need a longer time frame to test. He suggests that insulin prevents the body knowing how much leptin it has, so it doesn't know how fat it is and can't adjust metabolism accordingly.

Is that plausible or is it crazy?

As a diabetic, I’m pretty pissed at the amount of imbeciles that think telling me “eat less, move more” is what I need to hear.

My parent, my uncle (parents sibling) my grandparent and grandparents siblings all being diabetic really didn’t help.

would you tell someone missing a limb it’s their fault!

If they did something stupid that lost them the limb then yes, if they were born with it obviously not. You unfortunately have a genetic predisposition to having diabetes but that doesn't mean you can't manage it better through diet and exercise.

I take most of my carbs from fruit and veg. My treat food is a pepper sauce with a steak. The steak is carb free and high protein but if I add the sauce it will be just over 6 gms of carb which I would count in my daily allowance so maybe skip the raspberries for pudding or have a boiled egg for lunch which again is carb free. I rarely eat bread now but if I do I opt for a low GI one and will again skip something else that day so I don’t go over my carb total. I always eat a no sugar probiotic yogurt each day which is just under 9 gms of carb as they are good for gut health plus a small plum which are packed with antioxidants which is around 4 gms of carb and these are easy things to drop if I have had bread or a couple of spoonfuls of brown rice.

Would people on here mind popping a quick summary of what they generally eat in a day? Sort of inspired by your latest post ProudBoomer (hope you don’t mind!) I’m trying to eat much more fruit and veg daily, to boost my fibre intake, and trying to cut out gluten, as it doesn’t make me feel great.

I can kick off - atm I’m trying to eat something like the below:
breakfast: yoghurt with berries, porridge oats, nuts or seeds and maybe an apple or banana, or poached/scrambled eggs with spinach or a bit of cheese

lunch: normally leftovers from dinner (e.g. sweet potato, chickpea and spinach curry with quinoa, roast chicken and veg tray bake); rice box with beans or chicken from somewhere like Leon

dinner: roast chicken with roast veg; fish with veg and quinoa; veggie shepherds pie. Yoghurt, sometimes frozen, with berries and dark chocolate for dessert; or a bit of chocolate for dessert.

Me - Hot water with lemon juice and lemon zest.
OH - full fat Greek yoghurt with berries and nuts

Lunch - one thick slice of granary sourdough, avocado, feta
OH - scrambled eggs made with butter and full fat milk, feta, half an avocado, tomatoes

Mid afternoon snack
Me - thin slice of sourdough with peanut butter
OH - half an apple with peanut butter

Dinner - vegetable curry with paneer or lentils, served with crème fraiche

I am low glycaemic, OH is low carb

At weekend’s I will have a pastry and some red wine.

we also do at least half an hour of intensive exercise six days a week, usually it’s closer to an hour.

I was a size 16-18 with high blood pressure, now I’m an 8-10 with normal blood pressure.

But what are you trying to achieve there @FourForYouGlenCocoYouGoGlenCoco? What you're eating isn't especially low carb, which is where the insulin 'control' will come from.

A typical day for me would be something like this:

Breakfast - sometimes nothing, if I'm not hungry. If I am, then some full fat Greek yoghurt (10% fat). Occasionally scrambled eggs.

Lunch - usually leftovers from the previous day's supper, or a cheese omelette, or a sandwich made with very low carb bread.

Dinner - here are some of my favourites:

• salmon fillet marinated in sesame or olive oil, with lemon juice and garlic
• Spanish chicken, made with chicken thighs, chorizo, black olives, onion, garlic, chilli and tinned tomatoes
• chilli (no beans), with extra mushrooms, with grated cheese and yoghurt on top
• cauliflower cheese (sauce made with cream and cheese - not a roux/flour-based sauce)
• aubergine and courgettes, layered with a tomato and garlic sauce, with fresh basil, mozzarella and Parmesan
• high meat content/low carb sausages, baked with peppers, cauliflower, shallots, courgette (and sometimes halloumi)
• meatballs (home-made, no breadcrumbs or any other filler), with a chilli and garlic tomato sauce

I use konjac/shirataki noodles if I'm having a stir-fry, or cauliflower rice.

Other vegetable sides:

• leeks, pan-fried with a sliced red pepper
• fennel, par-boiled, then slowly caramelised in a frying pan with lots of butter, and a squeeze of lemon juice at the end
• roasted cauliflower, lots of olive oil, and ground cumin
• roasted tenderstem broccoli and shallots, lots of olive oil and well-seasoned with Maldon sea salt
• griddled Hispi/sweetheart cabbage
• braised white cabbage, with onion and lemon
• braised red cabbage, with onion and apple cider vinegar
• butterhead lettuce salad, with a red or white wine vinegar vinaigrette
• celeriac and leek mash (a great topping for fish pie or shepherd's pie)
• swede or celeriac 'chips'

is that enough to go on?!

You unfortunately have a genetic predisposition to having diabetes but that doesn't mean you can't manage it better through diet and exercise

You can't manage type 1 through diet and exercise. You know that, right?

Well done for your weight loss and lowering your blood pressure @Worldgonecrazy, that’s amazing!! Most of my relatives (parents, aunts, uncles) all have high blood pressure, and I’m really worried about getting it. It’s so positive to hear you can actually reverse it (or maybe avoid it) through eating well and exercising.

I’m not aiming to eat low carb@BIWI, but am just trying to make sure I have a varied and healthy diet, and was looking for some inspiration, so thought I’d ask here.

Also your meal options sound delicious @BIWI! Very helpful recipe inspiration, thank you 😊 are there any particular recipe books, sites or places you go to for new recipe/meal ideas?

I have loads of cookery books! But most of what I cook is now from low carb recipe books (or my own head .

Because I am a low carber, I'm pretty used to adapting recipes so they suit my way of eating.

If you want more (low carb) inspiration, go and check out the Low Carb Bootcamp topic here - there are several recipe threads there, organised by food type. (i.e. meat/chicken/veg etc)

Where does it say she's type one?

You can't manage type 1 through diet and exercise. You know that, right?

to start, she doesn’t say she’s type 1.

second, while you can’t manage type 1 though diet and exercise, you can manage your weight through diet and exercise, even if you’re T1. And you can make a difference to how well you control your T1 with diet.