I've not been able to fit everything in at one sitting so Part 1 is the understanding behind what I call my modified food intake plan. Part 2 will deal with how that understanding translates to my what I actually eat.
I'm not a fan of the 'diet'. Over my life I have seen many friends and acquaintances try various sensible and/or non sensical 'diets' and I certainly haven't been inspired by any of them. None of them showed long term success, though some may have had short term results.
My 'modified food intake plan' was 'fairly simple'
Eat less carbohydrate more often
The idea being to reduce my carbohydrate intake, and to spread my carbohydrate intake more evenly over the day.
Where I came from
So instead of having the below which I think is a realistic representation of a general eating plan (though if you cut it in half you can see it's still excessive)
90grams of carbohydrate for breakfast.
(a bowl of cereal with milk and a couple of slices of toast with jam with a cup of coffee)
100grams of carbohydrate for lunch.
(a round of sandwiches followed by a piece of slice and a cup tea)
70grams of carbohydrate for afternoon tea
(some biscuits and a cup of coffee)
170grams of carbohydrate for dinner
(spaghetti bolognaise with garlic bread followed by Apple pie, custard and ice-cream)
TOTAL 430 grams of Carbohydrate (my current recommended is 120 grams daily)
Where I was encouraged to go
I was instead encouraged to try to limit my three main meals to a maximum of 30grams of carbohydrate
and to have a 10 to 15 grams of carbohydrate snack mid morning, mid afternoon, and for supper.
I was also encouraged to limit my daily carbohydrate intake to a maximum of 120 grams of carbohydrate.
On top of this….. 45minutes of physically demanding exercise per day.
(bearing in mind my pancreas is already suffering…. for someone who hasn't reached this stage, a much lighter exercise load is still good, so please don't be put off by that 45 minutes)
My simple understanding of why
Now I'm not a medical person, but in trying to make sense of this for myself this is how I understood my situation.
The pancreas is busy processing carbohydrate (a group that includes sugar but is not limited to sugar) breaking it down so my body can use/deal with it.
If I am exercising, in the process of exercising I use carbohydrates thus reducing the work load of the poor pancreas.
If I eat less carbohydrate keeping my intake closer to what my body can actually use, that takes the pressure of my pancreas giving it a lighter workload which hopefully might allow it to recover somewhat, or at least not deteriorate any further.
Spreading that carbohydrate intake more evenly across the day allows the pancreas to work lighter at a more even rate, rather than big bursts of activity (hard work for the pancreas) followed by periods of relative inactivity.
From my understanding too much inactivity is not a good thing for the pancreas when it is in decline as it gets harder for it to 'switch back on' after those periods of inactivity. This is another good reason to eat small amounts of carbohydrate more regularly, to refrain from long periods without food, and to resist the urge to choose a 'no carb' diet.
A worthwhile exercise prior to Part 2
It's a fairly simple exercise to start reading labels on food products. Packaging in Australia is required to show Carbohydrates…. Total per serve (serving size will be listed at the top of the chart) and total per 100grams. Try going to your pantry and checking out some of your favourites.
I think thats enough info for one day. I know its heavy going, but some understanding of this stuff really helped me to get my head around why I eat what I eat and made it much easier for me to follow the plan.
I promise Part 2 tomorrow (if at all possible)
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