This is another follow-up to a story about an obese co-worker of mine that demonstrates horrible eating habits, a very sedentary lifestyle, and recently found out she has type 2 diabetes.
You can keep up with everything so far on these posts:
- More fun Co-Worker Stories!!
- Co-Worker Update: More Follies in Fat Land
- Co-Worker Update: Diabetes sets in
The reason for this update is to tell you about her habits since she found out the bad news.
They haven’t changed.
Yesterday, she told me that she is really tired lately, and feels very weak due to her diabetes medication. She is taking pills that reduce the amount of glucose the liver produces in an effort to control her hyperglycemia.
Her doctor doubled her dosage after her last visit because her blood sugar levels had not decreased AT ALL since her diagnosis, and since she began “treatment”.
I put “treatment” in quotations because anything less than a very healthy plant based diet, coupled with a regular exercise regiment, I believe is a poor alternative. Now, I understand that an improved lifestyle aided by medication can perhaps save a person’s life that is in imminent danger of kidney failure or heart failure, but many studies have shown that most people that adopt a much improved lifestyle can reduce or stop taking their medication altogether in a relatively short amount of time. Even a small percentage of weight loss can improve insulin sensitivity, especially if some of that fat is visceral, which can be lost due to exercise.
Some ways of eating as a part of an improved lifestyle include a Mediterranean diet, and a vegetarian diet. Both of which can prevent type 2 diabetes, and even reduce complications once diagnosed.
The main reason a vegetarian diet would help is because it is low in fat, and low in cholesterol.
Too bad she told me she gained 100 pounds when she tried being a vegetarian.
The following is an excerpt from a book I am reading called The China Study:
James Anderson, M.D., is one of the most prominent scientists studying diet and diabetes today, garnering dramatic results using dietary means alone. One of his studies examined the effects of a high-fiber, high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet on twenty-five Type 1 diabetics and twenty-five Type 2 diabetics in a hospital setting. None of his fifty patients were overweight and all of them were taking insulin shots to control their blood sugar levels.
His experimental diet consisted mostly of whole plant foods and the equivalent of only a cold cut or two of meat a day. He put his patients on the conservative, American-style diet recommended by the American Diabetes Association for one week and then switched them over to the experimental “veggie” diet for three weeks. He measured their blood sugar levels, cholesterol levels, weight and medication requirements. The results were impressive.
Type 1 diabetics cannot produce insulin. It is difficult to imagine any dietary change that might aid their predicament. But after just three weeks, the Type 1 diabetic patients were able to lower their insulin medication by an average of 40%! Their blood sugar profiles improved dramatically. Just as importantly, their cholesterol levels dropped by 30%! Remember, one of the dangers of being diabetic is the secondary outcomes, heart disease and stroke. Lowering risk factors for those secondary outcomes by improving the cholesterol profile is almost as important as treating high blood sugar.
Type 2 diabetics, unlike Type 1, are more “treatable” because they haven’t incurred such extensive damage to their pancreas. So when Anderson’s Type 2 patients ate the high-fiber, low-fat diet, the results were even more impressive. Of the twenty five Type 2 patients, twenty-four were able to discontinue their insulin medication! Let me say that again. All but one person were able to discontinue their insulin medication in a matter of weeks!
One man had a twenty-one year history of diabetes and was taking thirty-five units of insulin a day. After three weeks of intensive dietary treatment, his insulin dosage dropped to eight units a day. After eight weeks at home, his need for insulin shots vanished.
Go ahead and read those last two paragraphs again if you need to. Although this study was small, the setting was very controlled, which hindered any flaws in the results. And 100% of the Type 2 patients were able to discontinue their meds. That is pretty incredible.
Since my co-worker found out she has diabetes, she has ordered the following meals for dinner:
- Medium pizza with sausage and pepperoni.
- Shrimp and scallop fried rice with curry sauce + a bowl of miso soup.
The best worst one so far…
- Philly cheesesteak sandwich with hot peppers, sweet peppers, mushrooms, and a side of fries… AND A SIX INCH PEPPERONI PIZZA.
(Yes, that was all for one meal)
Either one of two things are happening here:
- She needs to find a new doctor and nutritionist because they are not stressing enough the importance of a controlled diet coupled with regular exercise.
- She IS being told of the importance of proper diet and exercise, however she has no willpower, is lying to herself, and will follow the same fate as her mother.
Either way, odds are (because she once told me she laughed when her doctor told her she needed to lose weight) she has undermined the importance of her diet in her mind, and has adopted a belief that she cannot change her fate…
…that she is not responsible and her actions mean nothing.
It’s sad to witness her slowly killing herself. Unfortunately, because of the stigmas of discussing personal choices in our society – especially with regards to weight (and because I don’t know her well enough) – I cannot say anything to her.
Wow!
I would like to say that your co-worker’s story is hard to believe, but it isn’t.
Hopefully, something shakes her out of the mindset that she is in.
It sure as heck isn’t going to be her doctor.
My mum was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes about a year ago (around the same time she found out she had cancer). Needless to say a diabetes diagnosis on top of a cancer diagnosis is pretty devastating.
In hindsight it’s hard to imagine we didn’t see it. Although mum had always eaten reasonably healthy (vegetarian) as she got older she did not reduce her portions and her weight increase and she started drinking 1.5 L bottles of grapefruit soda 2-3 times a day.
Fast forward a year. Mum is over 65, she hasn’t changed her diet with the exception of one thing. She ditched the soda. All water and natural juices now. She also began Tai-Chi (trust me, Tai-Chi, not too hard for ANYONE). By ditching the soda she was off her diabetes meds within weeks of leaving the hospital (post-cancer surgery). She’s been without meds and in a good blood-sugar range and is officially no longer post diabetic.
I credit part of this to her doctors, here in Canada she had to attend a diabetic ‘clinic’ which is a support group for those newly diagnosed where they always stressed that the medications were a pale comparison to what people could do for themselves with diet and exercise. I can’t stress it enough, she did not have to turn her life upside down to be able to ditch the diabetes.
hey you guys.. i kno there’s a lot of free programs that claim to help u drop the pounds in days..but those never work..thats why they’re free..if something is good and works, why make it free..if you are serious about losing weight, check out my blog and you decide for yourself
http://dinesh06.blogspot.com/
An ENTIRE medium pizza for a meal? The idea of that makes my stomach hurt. I know I eat too much pizza at times, but I don’t think I’ve ever consumed that much in a meal.
I hope her situation improves.
That’s awesome Beagle!
Crazy how much effect a little moderate activity and ditching a couple of things in your diet can have.
Brit, strange eh? One time when she ordered a cheesesteak w/ fries (she gets that usually) I saw her in the kitchen eating some microwaveable Mac-N-Cheese… maybe 30 minutes before the food would have been delivered.
That is so sad! I just don’t understand how someone can keep up such bad habits after such a diagnosis. I wonder why she doesn’t change… human behavior is defininately strange.
FAT HATE BINGO!
That is sad. Funny how sometimes docs will just throw meds at a patient and not say anything about lifestyle. My mom-in-law has high blood pressure (really high) and the doc just gave her meds. She is overweight and does not eat well at all. Doc said nothing about eating better and exercising. crazy. My wife and I have tried to encourage her (in a nice way) to change her habits but she thinks meds are all she needs.
Hope something bad doesn’t happen before she realizes she can do a lot more than just take pills. Thanks for the post.
I generally try not to come across as a conspiracy theory nut, and I realize that things like this (see below) can sound that way, but this conspiracy theory is really winning me over.
I’m really beginning to believe that doctors are increasingly on the payroll, or heavily influenced by big pharma. There is a pill for everything today. My mother and mother-in-law 5 years ago were in similar physical condition, neither of which I would describe as very healthy.
Mum is 10 years older that MIL, then there’s mum’s story above and her doctor tells her to eat right and exercise, she does and now she looks healthy, she’s incredibly active in the community and very happy.
MIL’s doctor has her on a steady diet of pills, for no one really knows what series of ailments they change so fast. We can’t even convince her to use a chiropractor instead of her pain pills. She looks easily 10 years older than my Mum, she’s consistently depressed and this just seems to drive her to the doctor for more pills!
It drives me NUTS that we seem to accept that little tablets will fix our lives instead of looking to our own actions and behaviour.
Great site! I agree with everything you have to say. I am a strong believer that lifestyle is EVERYTHING when it comes to health- physical, mental, or otherwise.
I feel bad for your coworker. I have someone in my family like that. It’s so frustrating to watch them eschew common knowledge in favor of their own whims.
But HOW ON EARTH did she gain 100 pounds on a vegetarian diet? Was she actually consuming vegetables, or just cheese and olive oil smoothies?
I’d like to think she’s simply ignorant, but even that’s no excuse in this day and age when a person can educate themselves about almost anything.
Peace.
beaglesmuggler:
Doctors have been getting kickbacks from drug companies for years, it’s not your imagination. Better living through chemicals. And god forbid you have to see more than one doctor for different ailments. (my mother had several she saw for heart problems, and various other problems) They don’t communicate with eachother, so they don’t know what other medications you might be on, and rarely ask. They just throw more pills at you, regardless of drug interactions.
[...] Previous Updates [...]
[...] November 20, 2008 by McBloggenstein [previous updates] [...]
[...] talked before about how people with Diabetes can stop taking their medication with proper [...]
You work? Only dumb people work you know? Maybe if you were smarter in the past and more willpowered, and disciplined, you wouldn’t be working for someone else. You know if you were really “the man” you would be part of the “investing class” of this country. If you or your silly parents would have invested just 5 thousand of saved money into Wal-Mart in the 1980s you would have about 5 million today meaning you would be RICH and you could have all those healthy meals prepared for you. Obviously all that work will cause you having less money and opportunities compared to Wal-Mart owners meaning your probably killing yourself when it’s all about the choices you made in the past. if you just knew more about asset allocation you would have bought stock in Wal-Mart back in the 80s but you were too stupid spending your money and working to see the handwriting on the wall. That’s what happens when people like you are uneducated and don’t know how to handle money. You could have also bought futures on oil and sold them a few months back and MADE A FORTUNE but you were obviously not making the right choices. I guess until you wise up you will just have to continue to work for someone else :/
Your only response to this post is to make fun of me because I have a job and don’t work for myself?
Good work. Clearly, YOU are the big man.
By the way, a little constructive criticism… Your website looks terrible. It looks like you spent 5 minutes on it. Why would people want to invest money with you?
Since I make money off it I don’t care and it’s not mine I help a friend with it and I get paid adsense money. I am not a big man my comment was to get you too see how easy it is to judge other people depending on your CURRENT SITUATION. If I was filthy rich it would be really easy for me to make comments about how stupid you are see my point?
You assume that financial gain is the best determinant for how smart a person is?
I understand your point that it is easy to judge someone else when you are in a better situation. Ease of judgment because of my situation says nothing against the validity of the points I make about other people’s bad habits destroying themselves.
The easiest thing for a person to do that doesn’t want to address an issue that is brought up is to attack and analyze the person that made the point.
[...] to be one of the people that was also shocked at my previous co-worker’s eating habits, which she had those habits despite her obesity and new-found diabetes. She was my [...]
Her story of gaining 100 lbs. after going “vegetarian” reminds me of this so-called vegetarian girl I went to college with. She had to be close to 200 lbs. I went on a camping trip with her once and discovered that her main source of food was stuff like Doritos and brownies, no actual vegetables to be found. There is sooooo much stuff you can carb out on to chunk yourself up while avoiding meat.
Also, my brother has Type I diabetes. He is always disgusted and amazed by Type II people who could basically cure themselves if they chose to, while he exercises probably 15 hours a week or more and will never be free of daily insulin injections no matter how healthy he is otherwise.
I know exactly how I gained 20 lbs as a vegetarian : High sugar baked beans too much bread and those morning star farms fake foods. I actually eat more veg on low carb
What a bigoted article about diabetes. Fat isn’t the only thing that contributes to it – have you ever heard of heredity? There are many things that contribute to it. Perhaps you should be more concerned about your own lifestyle than your co-worker’s lifestyle and get off of your skinny-ass high-horse. That narrow-mined article could have been written only be a skinny twit who doesn’t know the first thing about diabetes or what it is like to have it.