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    • More than 26 million Americans suffer from diabetes. That's 10 times the number from just 50 years ago. But even with diets filled with sugar and soaring obesity rates, there is hope. Some people are reversing their Type II diabetes, getting off their medications, and feeling great.

      This report focuses on Type II diabetes, which represents 90 to 95 percent of all diabetes cases.
      Like millions of Americans, Janet Huffstetler felt diabetes was ruining her life. Then she changed her diet."I will tell you I have never felt so good," she said. "I think having my body free of sugar and carbs and processed chemicals has made such a difference in how I approach everything. I am just an entirely different person." It's a far cry from the fear she felt eight years ago when doctors first diagnosed her with diabetes. She had seen what the disease did to her uncle. "He ended up on full dialysis and blind," she recalled. "He also had coronary bypass surgery. They had started talking about amputation, but he died." Diabetes is when you have too much sugar in your bloodstream. The standard treatment is largely medication.

      More Meds, More Problems

      Huffstetler's first doctor put her on medication that led to weight gain and depression. "[It] kind of made me feel sluggish, it made me dizzy, it made me lethargic," she recalled. "It was very hard to get motivated to do anything I should have been doing, more exercise and everything." Daily life became a series of finger sticks, constantly monitoring her blood sugar levels. "I was doing it four times a day, and they would tell you 'You have to do it on this side, so you can do it on that side the next time.' And your fingers became very sore," she said. "And I work at a computer and it's not fun." Believing there had to be a better way, she changed doctors. "I came home and Googled and Dr. Westman's name kept coming up. And I was fortunate enough to get in to see him within a month, which, I must have called and gotten an immediate cancellation," she said.

      Diet-Only Approach
      That appointment sent her to the nationally recognized Duke Lifestyle Medicine Clinic led by Dr. Eric Westman. He helped reverse Huffstetler's diabetes through his diet-only approach.
      "Diabetes and obesity is complicated," Westman explained. "There are lots of factors that are involved, but most experts agree that it's the foods and the beverages that people eat that are the major cause for diabetes and obesity in the U.S., and so that should be the major focus of treatment." Instead of treating the sugar in his patients' blood with medicine, Westman instructs them to eliminate their sugar intake.
      Westman said he gets diabetes patients who are unhappy with the treatment they've received thus far. "I took someone off 180 units of insulin for their diabetes in two days. And this is not unusual," he told CBN News. "This individual was on diabetes medicine, injectable insulin, for 10 years. And just by changing the foods that person no longer needs insulin in two days."

      "And that's because the insulin was treating the sugar in the foods that the person was eating," he continued. "In that case the individual was drinking two liters of sugar-sweetened beverage every day and taking insulin to treat the sugar-sweetened beverage. "Now this could be sweet tea in the South, orange juice in the North, any beverage that has sugar in it, this was raising the blood sugar," Westman explained.
      "And the doctor, the clinical doctors, put him on insulin without addressing the food component, the cause from the foods," he said. "I instructed him to take away all the sugars, the starches in the foods and in the drinks. He never needed insulin again. It's pretty amazing." Westman said his program is tremendously successful for the patients who do it.

      A Success Story
      Susan Hollowell did it and went from spending $400 a month on diabetes drugs down to zero.
      "I was insulin-dependent, five injections a day," she recalled. "The third day of my diet my blood sugar dropped to 150 and I asked Dr. Westman, 'What should I do about my insulin?' I didn't want to go over. And he said, 'Get off of it.'"
      Three months later she was 20 pounds lighter and had more energy than before.

      "I wasn't involved in any clubs or organizations, didn't want to go to church very often, and now that's not the case," she said
      Managing Sugar Withdrawals Westman admitted it's not easy for some people to give up sugar.
      "There's a feed-forward, a drive that comes from eating sugar, that eating sugar makes you want to eat more sugar," he explained, his patients use artificial sweeteners to manage their withdrawal symptoms. Huffstetler remembers how she did it.

      "When I first started, the little individual sugar-free Jello things, I would come and put whip cream on it; it would take care of the sweet," Huffstetler recalled "Now I was so amazed with this program," she said. "After a while you don't crave those things any more. You don't want it. When I have family dinners I have to really work on thinking about dessert for Thanksgiving or whatever because my mind just doesn't go there anymore."

      In addition to sugar, Westman's diabetes diet also limits starches, like bread, pasta, and rice, because they also raise your blood sugar, Butter and Oil, It's All Good!

      Surprisingly, the diet allows patients to eat fats: the unsaturated kind like olive oil and avocados, and saturated fat like coconut oil and butter.

      Although this diet might sound revolutionary, it's actually a throw-back. If you notice, old medical textbooks dating back to the years before insulin was discovered, advised physicians to put their diabetic patients on a low carbohydrate, high fat diet." Westman tells his patients not to worry about eating saturated fat because he says the latest science reveals it does not cause heart disease.
      "So now we're in a phase of education, trying to get the word out about the cholesterol in the blood and the arteries and all that, do not get adversely affected by a high fat diet," he said. So to avoid diabetes, or reverse it, put the brakes on sugar and starch. It's not always easy but well worth the effort.

      Be wise enough to walk away from the nonsense around you! :thumbup:

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Wise Old Owl ().

    • I've been finding dried, sprouted lentils in grocery stores lately. Bring em to a boil, cover, take off heat, and let rest 5 mins. Is that the perfect hiker ingredient? Mix with some rehydrated onions and peppers, instant brown rice, parsley, cumin, olive oil, maybe some sun-dried tomatoes and Louisiana Hot Sauce ....

      truroots.com/something-else/sp…een-lentils-basic-recipe/

      This same company makes sprouted quinoa which cooks much faster than regular.

      I know some folks sprout beans on the trail ... Might be worth looking into.
      -
      L.Dog
      AT 2000 Mile LASHer '12-'15
    • socks wrote:

      LIhikers wrote:

      Speaking of shopping at the grocery store, can anybody find anything but tuna or salmon in the foil packets?
      I used to be able to find chicken, and had even heard rooms about ground beef, but no more.
      haven't been able to find chicken either, been keeping an eye out for a while now.


      The only chicken pouch is about 10 ounces of chicken which is probably overkill. Wal-Mart sells the ground beef on line.
      Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
      Dr. Seuss Cof123
    • The Chicken retorts are disappearing off Walmart's shelves


      I had an idea - they have frozen premade potato hash browns. They appear to fit in the Ti pan & its loaded with starches and oil. Crumble it in and heat it up... add bacon bits...

      Would that be worthy?
      Be wise enough to walk away from the nonsense around you! :thumbup:

      The post was edited 1 time, last by Wise Old Owl ().

    • I never (almost) use the flavor packets that come with Ramen noodles.
      Instead I use the cup-o-soup that comes in the paper packages, about 6 to a box.
      More flavor and less sodium.
      In fact there have been a couple of times I didn't use the noodles either.
      Instead I bought a pound of spaghetti and broke the noodles into thirds and packaged them in zip lock baggies.
    • I've been seeing pouched chicken at Walmart and food city in east tn. It's a 7oz pack so be hungry if you're going to add it to something. It's usually hidden on the top shelf. I don't remember the brand but I'll grab one at the store next time and see if they're any good.
    • Tangent wrote:

      I've been seeing pouched chicken at Walmart and food city in east tn. It's a 7oz pack so be hungry if you're going to add it to something. It's usually hidden on the top shelf. I don't remember the brand but I'll grab one at the store next time and see if they're any good.


      Sounds like Tyson. I get two kinds - grilled and plain.
      I am human and I need to be loved - just like everybody else does
    • I loaded up on hiker food today at Walmart. I bought 6.4 oz tuna in water, 7 oz Tyson chicken, 7 oz Tyson grilled chicken, 2.5 oz Spam singles, and Idahoan mashed potatoes and hash browns. I did not see any beef in pouches.

      I hope to be hiking near Springer soon. Maybe I will yoyo the approach trail and see a little bit of the BMT.
      I am human and I need to be loved - just like everybody else does
    • Tangent wrote:

      I've been seeing pouched chicken at Walmart and food city in east tn. It's a 7oz pack so be hungry if you're going to add it to something. It's usually hidden on the top shelf. I don't remember the brand but I'll grab one at the store next time and see if they're any good.


      Tyson...

      as for the beef crumbles its a recognized brand outside the country... I find it at dollar stores and Walmart
      [IMG:http://i.walmartimages.com/i/p/00/03/90/00/86/0003900086056_500X500.jpg]
      Be wise enough to walk away from the nonsense around you! :thumbup:
    • Tangent wrote:

      I've been seeing pouched chicken at Walmart and food city in east tn. It's a 7oz pack so be hungry if you're going to add it to something. It's usually hidden on the top shelf. I don't remember the brand but I'll grab one at the store next time and see if they're any good.

      [IMG:http://www.sweetsuekitchens.com:8080/images/Products/SS-Premium-Chicken-Breast-98-Fat-Free-pouch.jpg]

      This is one I've used and found pretty tasty. According to their web site, it's available in both 3 oz and 7 oz foil packets, but I've only ever seen it in the 3 oz size ...
      -
      L.Dog
      AT 2000 Mile LASHer '12-'15
    • Astro wrote:

      LDog wrote:


      The day after a bear got my bag at Hog Pen Gap, a section hiker leaving the trail offered me a bag of Sweet Sue's chicken. It made a pretty good chili that night

      How did the bear get your food bag?

      Three of us pulled into that little campsite just S of Hog Pen Gap. Two others were already there. We could only find one decent branch, and it was really too low to do a PCT hang, so we all tied our lines off to trees. Three others tied their's off to an uphill tree, I tied mine off to a down hill tree.

      The next morning I got up pre-dawn. It was foggy as I headed over to get my bag. About halfway there, I heard a crashing thru the woods. I looked up at our branch, saw three bags hanging, and one wasn't mine. I scanned down the hill and saw two reflections that had to be the bear's eyes about 25 yds away. I backed away, went back to my tent, and waited till light to go look for the damage.

      My bear bag line had obviously just been swiped by it's claws. I figured the bear came up the hill, found my line and was grabbing it as I came around the corner. I found the bag down where I saw the reflections. It was ripped open. It ate all the peanut butter, chugged the bottle of olive oil, ripped open the tuna pouch, and ate every package of Emergen-C. It didn't touch the spices, herbs, bags of grains, dehydrated beans and veggies, or the pipe tobacco I had.

      The next night we stayed at Low Gap Shelter. That's where I got the bag-o-chicken. Must have been 50 hikers there. The story was already going around about me losing my bag. I was hanging my bag from a high branch PCT style, and a couple of folks came up to ask me how I did it, then they taught a few more, and they taught a few more ... There was learning
      Images
      • 2012-03-25 06.51.31-1.jpg

        238.79 kB, 800×596, viewed 451 times
      -
      L.Dog
      AT 2000 Mile LASHer '12-'15
    • Astro wrote:

      OzJacko wrote:

      Shoulda slept with it. A bad hang is worse than no hang.

      Of course this is probably easier to determine after the fact.


      After this I slept with it more often than not. In Maine and New Hampshire chipmunks shimmied down my line and chewed into the bag. I stopped hanging it and slept with it all the time. In Shenandoah I hung it cause the critters are all just a little too acclimated to and fearless of us. I'll probably hang it thru NJ where I hear the bears are also more of a nuisance ...
      -
      L.Dog
      AT 2000 Mile LASHer '12-'15
    • The key to Bear Bags is they have to be waterproof and therefore the scent from the food cannot escape. It's well worth the extra weight. Bear have poor eyesight compared to us but their nose can detect food from 2 miles away (several studies). I have watched bears in SNP walk right under my bag when all they had to do was stand up and swipe. They never knew it was there. I also keep the bag away from open or cooking food to keep the outside scent free. Bears unlike humans are easy to figure out.
    • Actually I would prefer mostpeople to use stench food bags. Not only is it massively entertaining but it makes my bag even safer. Remember you put your stench bag directly into your pack. When I use a shelter you are protecting my pack from mice. The old saying is that I don't have to run faster than the bear, only faster than you.
    • max.patch wrote:

      hikerboy wrote:

      bears can smell through "odor proof bags"

      i think "odor proof bags" are kinda like filtering water from a spring directly as it comes out from the source. makes ya feel good but doesn't really accomplish anything.

      Heh ... Like filtering water, then treating with chemicals on the AT.
      -
      L.Dog
      AT 2000 Mile LASHer '12-'15

      The post was edited 2 times, last by LDog ().

    • OzJacko wrote:

      Nup. No meat.


      Add a meat - hotdogs, sausages, beef crumbles.... in fact.


      I would add semi cooked chicken micro cut into crumbles and soaked in a soy sauce and thrown on a drier.... But I cant recommend it to others... I have no problem with it so long as its consumed within the week and a half...

      Hey how about starting a new thread and discuss what worked for you and what didn't?
      Be wise enough to walk away from the nonsense around you! :thumbup: