Category Archives: Diabetes

How many calories in that?

One of the options my diabetic consultant offered me recently he described forebodingly at first as “massive lifestyle change”, which didn’t sound very appealing. He went on to say that it might not be that bad and recommended I get hold of a book called The Fast Diet but briefly explained about some research that had been done on restricted calorie diets – often known as fasting – and some follow up research that looked at intermittent fasting.

The Fast Diet, or the 5:2 diet as it is also known, is an approach that involves “fasting”, or more accurately, have a very reduced calorie intake, on two days out of every week. The remaining days you eat as normal. This seems like a very interesting idea to me, as it’s something I think I could do.

I’ve read the book now and it raises some interesting points. I have to admit to taking some of it with a pinch of salt, but overall it seems reasonably credible. So I decided I would give it a go, and today was my first attempt at a fast-day – probably not the best choice as Thursday is usually my “takeaway” day when I treat myself to a Chinese or an Indian or maybe even a kebab!

The majority of the day was actually fine, I wasn’t particularly bothered about eating. I went shopping late in the afternoon and rather than a specific recipe in mind I decided I would just buy a few things, keeping in mind what I had read, and see how well or how badly more likely I could do just by intuition.

Some smoked salmon, cherry tomatoes, green beans, garlic and a big red chilli with just a little soy sauce went into the oven whilst I worked out how many calories I’d managed to put in the dish.

To my surprise it came out at 331 calories – which is almost exactly what the book suggests for an evening meal – around 350, with the remaining 250 coming from a light breakfast. It was quite nice too. So, I’ve allowed myself a couple of little snacks, bringing my total up to just under 500 calories.

All in all, I’m pretty pleased for my first attempt.

When choice comes as a surprise

Today I had a meeting with my diabetic consultant – Colin, as he introduced himself. It was the first time we had met and he struck me as possibly the coolest, most laid back doctor I’ve met.

I was expecting a pretty short conversation, the gist of which I anticipated would be “we need to start you on insulin”. I knew I’d gone about as far as I could with oral medications.

Instead, he offered me 4 choices, gave me the pros and cons of each and suggested I do some research, have a think about what I want to do, then e-mail him when I’ve decided. Talk about surprised!

One of the options, which he described as “massive lifestyle change” might actually be possible through something called the “Fast Diet”, he recommended a book, which I’ve already ordered. It sounds fascinating and oddly enough it’s something I think I could do. More to follow…