The results made my Plant Based Diet Doctor lady ecstatic and surprised the heck out of me.
I’ve tried about every diet out there and have been disappointed every time.
Since June, I’ve lost about 20 lbs. Yeah, I know, big whoop, but the kicker is my blood sugar reading has dropped from 9.7 to 6.8 in the last three months.
I did it by eating tons of the much maligned CARBOHYDRATES like potatoes, corn, pasta, beans, barley, peas, some nuts and all kinds of veggies. I cut out meats, oil, eggs, dairy products and processed foods.
I tried to eat the foods that gave me the most bulk for the least number of calories. Was I 100% Plant Based? No. I’ve OCCASIONALLY had a good ol’ Whataburger, Costco hot dog or taco, but for the most part my diet has been the foods I’ve prepared. That included nothing that had a momma. The downside is that I had to hide stuff like broccoli and kale in smoothies. A Vitamix blender did the best job of that. My next purchase was an Instant Pot for cooking veggie soups stews and potatoes and such. YouTube is a great source for how-tos,recipes and menus.
My wife and I evaluated all kinds of dishes and assembled about a dozen of our favorite recipes went for it. We never felt deprived, always ate until we were satisfied and if we wanted a steak we’d have one. That might have hampered my progress a bit, but I don’t care. BTW, my wife is already planning on getting a new smaller sized wardrobe. She’s also glad I’ve taken over the cooking. < grin >
After struggling with my weight and diabetes for 30 years, this has given me a new lease on life.
Haven’t felt this good in years.
There are tons of information about Plant Based Diets out there. Go for it.

I’ve known people it’s work for bu it’s definitely not for me. There’s no one method that works for everyone. Glad you got results! My low carb diet has me down to 186 as of today. That’s 21 pounds in two months.

Not to be confused with the planet-based diet, which involves Uranus.

Were you able to reduce your insulin dosage?

quote:

Originally posted by Leemur: There’s no one method that works for everyone.

That's the truth.

quote:

Originally posted by Nickelsig229:
Were you able to reduce your insulin dosage?

Yes, I’ve gone from 100 units per day to none at all per day and the doctor says I can start cutting my other meds in half now.

Do a littl research, watch the Forks Over Knives video on Netflix, look at some data then decide if this approach to managing your weight or diabetes is for you.
As always, YMMV

Did you cut out sugar as a result? High Fructose Corn Syrup, etc?

If so, I'd expect that would lead to more benefits than eating all meat, all veggies, all cave-man style, or a different food group every day of the week.

Sugar is, without question, the devil.

No, not at all. I didn’t go out of my way to avoid sugar unless a food contained a high amount of it. I did use sugar free syrup on my pancakes and I’d still have a Snickers once in a while. Hey, a man can only stand so much healthy eating.

My goal was to get off my diabetes meds and the way to do that was to reduce my fat intake. As I understand it, sugar is not the real problem. Fat is the problem and nothing good started happening for me until I started avoiding all the extra fat.

Jeff Novick’s YouTube video clued me in on completely ignoring what was said on the food packaging and looking at the ingredients listed on the label.

For example: Pam cooking spray says it’s fat free even though the main ingredient is canola oil. When the serving size is less than 1/4 gram they are allowed to say it’s fat free. That’s BS! They then say there are over 700 servings in a can of the stuff.

I did all my sautéing and stir frying with 2 or 3 tablespoons of water. Along with that, I started using spices to replace whatever flavoring that might have been lost by not using oil. Let’s face it, fat makes things taste good.

When you avoid processed foods, you avoid a lot of salt, sugar and oil.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Not to be confused with the planet-based diet, which involves Uranus.

I almost peed on myself

Carbs are not the problem. Fats are not the problem. It’s both at the same time. My brother is doing keto. He started during cancer treatment for stage 4 kidney cancer. His blood chemistry improved, he’s considered cancer free at the moment. For people that don’t know, the prognosis for stage 4 kidney cancer is not good, but he did an experimental program and is doing well.
I tell you this because his doctors were impressed with how his overall health improved while under a brutal regimen for his cancer while doing keto.

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Not to be confused with the planet-based diet, which involves Uranus.

I almost peed on myself

I laughed out loud at that one myself.

Cows and Bison eat a lot of plantlife.

I eat a lot of Beef.

That should provide me with all the plant food I need !

Good for you. I had type 2 diabetes and reversed it to be normal by losing weight counting calories and eating lots of lean protein. The loss of visceral fat does wonders for the blood sugar and A1c. Whatever diet works for you is what you should do, but even losing 10% of your body weight will improve blood sugar. I am a proponent of being a healthy weight to stave off diabetes however that can be accomplished.

When I read the title of your post I was expecting that, as a result of your diet, all the bullets went into one hole. Seriously, congratulations on your progress and keep up the good work!

quote:

Originally posted by sig77:
Good for you. I had type 2 diabetes and reversed it to be normal by losing weight counting calories and eating lots of lean protein. The loss of visceral fat does wonders for the blood sugar and A1c. Whatever diet works for you is what you should do, but even losing 10% of your body weight will improve blood sugar. I am a proponent of being a healthy weight to stave off diabetes however that can be accomplished.

I’ve always lost weight on every diet I ever tried. The problem was being able to comfortably stay on them. When I went from 280 down to 220, it didn’t affect my blood sugar much. I’m down to 200 now and I can’t believe losing that last 20 lbs. made that much difference.
All my former doctor knew to do was flood me with insulin, stuff me with Metformin and tell me to cut back on the carbs.
After watching a lot of YouTube videos and doing a lot of reading, I decided to try the plant based diet against his advice. In the beginning, I probably was risking a lot to try it without the guidance of a plant based diet doctor, but there aren’t any around where I live.

Two of my friends had already lost their legs and eventually their lives to diabetes. My future was beginning to look pretty grim. That made me willing to try anything. Maybe my result was a fluke or an accident. I don’t know. What I do know is that once you get over a little learning curve this is the easiest diet I have ever tried to live on.

The key was losing all the weight and eating mostly whole foods not carbs vs. fat.

One thing to be wary of are people’s motives for recommending one diet vs. another. All can claim success and have plenty of “experts” supporting them.

If you are going plant bas d make sure you find a way to get the essential ammino acids and fatty acids you need. Fat is the building bock of all our hormones.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
Not to be confused with the planet-based diet, which involves Uranus.

That's pretty darned funny right there.

I went to a plant based diet about 18 months ago, and I'll never go back. I was not particularly heavy or unhealthy before, but eating plant-based has made a huge difference in how I feel, and raised my energy levels to an amazing degree. My blood work went from good to ridiculously good. The transition to eating plant based took some effort, but it was mostly to learn about foods that I wasn't particularly familiar with. I've never felt deprived in terms of the taste of the food I eat now. In fact, I don't think I've ever eaten food this satisfying. Forks over Knives is a good starting point for anyone who is interested.

quote:

Originally posted by smithnsig:
Carbs are not the problem. Fats are not the problem. It’s both at the same time. My brother is doing keto. He started during cancer treatment for stage 4 kidney cancer. His blood chemistry improved, he’s considered cancer free at the moment. For people that don’t know, the prognosis for stage 4 kidney cancer is not good, but he did an experimental program and is doing well.
I tell you this because his doctors were impressed with how his overall health improved while under a brutal regimen for his cancer while doing keto.

The keto diet came to mind as I read the OP and its effectiveness.

So are you saying it's one or the other? I was thinking of doing both and lose weight at twice the rate.

But seriously, why one or the other? You certain it's not the total calories consumed?

I limit my carb intake to 25g' a day.

I've lost almost 80 pounds. It will be 2 years in February.

quote:

Originally posted by Leemur:
... There’s no one method that works for everyone. ...

If you mean because you won't do it then, yeah. If you give it an honest 6 week shot then I'd take the bet that it works for everyone.

No meat, no dairy, no oils and no sugar (other than what's in the whole fruit you eat, no juice) works.