Unstuffed Banana Peppers

Unstuffed Banana Peppers

I like a little spice in my life, but don't like food that is so spicy that I need a fire extinguisher! Banana peppers are a great option for those on a low carb diet who want some mildly spicy food.  When our local CSA gave us banana peppers, I came up with this delicious creation that I will make again and again!  Enjoy!

Ingredients:
8 small to medium banana peppers, sliced into small pieces
1 pound cooked ground beef
4 oz softened cream cheese
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup no-sugar-added spaghetti sauce
1/4 cup parmesan cheese
1/4 cup almond flour

Mix all ingredients into a baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. I separated this into 4 servings when it was done and it was perfect for lunch! This would also make a great dinner too!

Low Carb No-Guilt Brownies

Low Carb No-Guilt Brownies

I have tried several different low-carb chocolate cake and brownie recipes, and this one is by far my favorite!  It's not too sweet but yet has plenty of flavor.  It's the perfect treat to satisfy your chocolate cravings while producing no feelings of guilt, and no high blood sugars!  These were easy to make, and will become something I make weekly in our house.  My youngest daughter even devoured it, and she is tough to please when it comes to low-carb recipes.  Hope you enjoy this one as much as my family and I did!

Ingredients:

1 cup almond flour

1/2 cup swerve sweetener

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp cocoa powder

3 eggs

1 stick butter, melted

1/2 cup Lily's chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all ingredients except Lily's chocolate chips in a mixing bowl.  One all ingredients are mixed and a fluffy mixture has formed, mix Lily's chocolate chips into the mixture with a spoon.  Transfer mix to an 8x8 baking pan and bake for approx 30 minutes.  After cooling, I cut the brownies into 12 servings.  Enjoy!

Zucchini Chips

Zucchini Chips

Having a craving for potato chips that are high in carbs and processed junk?  Zucchini chips are a great alternative and help to satisfy the cravings for potato chips without sending your blood sugar on a spike.  All you need is a food dehydrator.  These can be prepared the night before, placed in the food dehydrator, and by morning you will have these delicious treats!

Slice the zucchini thin, a mandolin slicer is a great tool for this.  Then lay out all the zucchini on the food dehydrator trays.  Brush each slide with olive oil, then sprinkle with a mixture of parmesan cheese with some garlic salt mixed in.  Place in food dehydrator at 135 degrees.  Cook times will vary, but for mine it took approximately 12 hours to come out perfect and crispy like potato chips (my food dehydrator typically takes longer than most recipes call for).  This is a simple way to make a great alternative to those chips you may be craving, and you don't have to worry about any blood sugar spikes or other negative effects to your body by eating potato chips.  These are addicting though, just to warn you!  They are delicious!  Enjoy!

What Do I Eat While on Vacation?

What Do I Eat While on Vacation?

At home, you do not have to limit yourself to certain food choices since just about anything can be made low-carb using the right ingredients. However, it can get a little bit tricky when you are away from home. Restaurants, themeparks and hotels are full of sugar and carbs. You may ask why not just eat whatever you want on vacation? A few days of eating sugar and carbs is fine, right? Let me explain what happens when I eat carbs, my sugar spikes high after a meal no matter what insulin dose I would take to cover those carbs. So even if I would eat a meal with so-called "good carbs" like whole grains, my 1-hour post prandial reading would go to 200 or higher, because insulin that is injected through a pump or syringe does not work the same as a human pancreas. Dr. Bernstein explains this in his book, but essentially what happens is your blood sugar spikes after eating until the dose of insulin hits you, then it goes lower. This would put me on a rollercoaster ride with my blood sugars, making me feel extremely tired, thirsty, and irritable. I want to be full of energy on vacation, so I chose not to eat the carbs. I can eat at just about any restaurant, I just have to make the right food choices. Sometimes I bring some of my own food or condiments from home to help out. Here's a guide of what I ate for a day while away on vacation to help you make the right food choices for optimal blood sugars and feeling your best while away from home.

Breakfast

You can't go wrong with bacon, eggs, and sausage! Any breakfast place would have these options, like the buffet breakfast at our hotel. Omelets are a good choice too with vegetables and cheese. This plate was delicious and keep me full of energy all morning.

Lunch

Salads are always a safe choice, just be careful of a few things. Of course, you want to leave out any fries or croutons. Go easy on the tomatoes as well since their carbohydrate count is higher. A few baby tomatoes doesn't spike my blood sugar, but too many will. Another important thing is to watch the dressing. The safest option for salad dressing is red wine vinegar and olive oil. Many places offer this option. However, some offer balsamic vinegar instead of red wine vinegar. Stay away from balsamic vinegar! It contains 5 grams of carbohydate per 1 teaspoon, and if you put lots on your salad, you easily just added 30 carbs to your salad just with dressing. If a restaurant doesn't have red wine vinegar and olive oil, I order blue cheese or ranch, full-fat versions of course. Sure, these processed dressings have man-made fats which are not good for you, but they only have 1-2 grams of carbohydrate per serving. If I have to chose between carbs and man-made fats, I will choose the man-made fats and have normal blood sugars for the day and eat natural good fats at home. This chicken salad with blue cheese dressing was delicious and kept my blood sugars steady all afternoon. 

Dinner

Meats such as chicken, steak, pork, or fish are always great choices. Restaurants always want to serve these dishes with high-carb side dishes. I always substitute a vegetable and put lots of butter on them. One thing to be careful about is the sauce or marinade the meat is covered with. Lots of traditional sauces and marinades are packed with sugar. I love ordering ribs without the barbecue sauce and bring my own little plastic container of Walden Farms barbecue sauce to add. I always carry a mini-backpack with my blood meter and supplies, so an extra small container is nothing to carry! You could also ask to hold the sauce and add butter or sour cream to your meat if you don't carry barbeque sauce with you like I do! This meal was delicious and like the others, kept my continuous glucose monitor at a flat line of stable blood sugars. 

For snacks, I usually pack my own almonds, sessme seeds, or pumpkin seeds. You could also prepare some low-carb treats at home and bring them along. It does take some planning, but maintaining a low-carb diet is something completely possible while on vacation.  Thanks for reading this and hope it will help to guide you into the right food choices while away from home!  

Pancakes, Pancakes, Pancakes!

Pancakes, Pancakes, Pancakes!!

One of my favorite things to eat before starting the LCHF (low carb high fat) diet was pancakes with syrup.  Of course, it shot my blood sugar up to 400 and we all know what damage that does to the body.  One of the many great things about the LCHF diet is that anything can be made using the right ingredients.  Recently, I found a pancake syrup at the store that does not contain any carbs and does not raise my blood sugar at all.  The brand name is Walden Farms and they make different flavors of syrup, and it actually tastes great!  After stocking up on this syrup, I made lots and lots of pancakes!  There are three main ways to make pancakes that comply with the LCHF diet.  I explored all three methods and of course taste tested them all.  Below I'll explain the three methods and let you know which pancakes I thought tasted the best.

1. The Cream Cheese and Eggs Method

This recipe uses the main ingredients of cream cheese and eggs.  For the recipe, visit I Breathe I'm Hungry.  You can add different flavorings such as vanilla extract, cinnamon, or even cocoa powder to your pancakes.  The batter is pretty thin and it makes thin pancakes, so if you like your pancakes thin, this may be the recipe for you.  I thought they tasted great and came pretty close to what regular pancakes would taste like.

2.  The Coconut Flour Method

This was the first time I have ever tried making anything with coconut flour.  If you have never tried it, know that a little bit goes a long way.  I used a mere 2 tbsp of coconut flour for this recipe and it fluffs up so much that it really takes over.  The other thing about coconut flour is the texture of it.  It's very sandy, so if you are someone who is sensitive to textures, this may bother you.  Unlike the first pancake recipe, this recipe makes very thick pancakes.  You'll see in the top picture that the batter was very thick and almost the consistency of dough.  I spread it out in the pan with a fork to make a pancake shape and to flatten it more.  I thought the pancakes were delicious and did not mind the sandy texture, in fact I kind of liked it after the first couple of bites.  Find the recipe at No Pain No Grain.  I cut the recipe into a quarter and made that for just one meal.  

3.  The Almond Flour Method

Last, I tried the almond flour method of making LCHF pancakes.  I have to say, I saved the best for last!  I think this method made the pancakes that were closest to traditional pancakes I used to eat.   Everything from the ease of making, to the consistency of the batter, to the taste of the pancakes was very similar to traditional pancakes.  Like the other recipes, you could get creative and add your own flavors such as vanilla extract, cinnamon, or cocoa powder, and those are just a few of the options.  Get the recipe from Wellness Mama.  I also cut this recipe into a quarter for one meal.


So if you thought that the LCHF diet is restrictive and does not allow you to eat the foods you love, this is just one of the many examples that regular foods can be made low carb.  Just two pancakes and a glass of almond milk kept me full of energy all morning and I never felt hungry.  Eating all three of these types of pancakes also kept my blood sugar within normal range.  Below is a picture of what my Dexcom showed after eating the almond flour pancakes at 7:30 a.m.  Now go enjoy those pancakes and good health!

Eggplant Chips

Eggplant Chips

Ingredients:

1 Eggplant (or if you are like me, you make 2 or 3 at a time!)

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp dried oregano

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1 cup mozzarella cheese

1/2 olive oil

Note:  these amounts are approximate, the amount will change depending on how large your eggplant is and how many you make at a time

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Slice eggplant into rounds.  Place on baking pan and brush with olive oil.  I allow a good amount of olive oil to soak into each slice of eggplant.  Then in a bowl, mix together parmesan cheese, basil, oregano, and garlic powder.  Sprinkle on top of eggplant slices and spread out so that it creates its own thin layer on top.  Below is a picture to show what the sprinkled layer on top will look like:

Now place into oven and allow to cook approx. 15 minutes on this side, until the sprinkled layer has completely melted and looks like this:

Now, using a fork, flip each slice of eggplant over to the other side.  Now, on the new tops, sprinkle mozzarella cheese.  Mine look like this before cooking:

Place back into oven and cook for another 15 minutes approximately, until the cheese starts to brown.  They are delicious and make a great side dish for a meal!   As far as carb information for eggplant, 1 cup of eggplant equals 5 total carbs or 2.5 net carbs.  Enjoy!  

Great Online Sources for LCHF Diet Information

Great Online Sources for LCHF diet information

Sources for great information on the LCHF diet. I hope these sites and YouTube videos will help to guide you in learning information about the LCHF diet and how it can benefit you.  The majority of these sites and presentations are written by medical professionals, and others are people living with diabetes who are sharing their success stories.

First and foremost, the most complete collection of information about the diet and how to integrate your diabetes treatment plan along with the diet for the achievement of normal blood sugars is the book entitled:

Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution: The Complete Guide to Achieving Normal Blood Sugars by Richard K. Bernstein, M.D.

Dr. Bernstein also has several YouTube videos in a series called Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes University:  A Video Guide to Normal Blood Sugars

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuJ11OJynsvHMsN48LG18Ag

A great beginner’s guide the the LCHF diet

http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf

Excellent website from dietician Franziska Spritzler, RD, CDE

http://www.lowcarbdietitian.com

Website complete with LCHF information including a “How to Start” page

http://www.ditchthecarbs.com

Excellent website and blog from cardiologist William Davis, M.D.

http://www.wheatbellyblog.com

Facebook page from Kelley Pounds, an RN and diabetes educator who embraces the LCHF lifestyle

https://www.facebook.com/TheLowCarbRN

Keto Nurses Blog from Barbara Tracy, MSN, APRN and Jenni Gallagher, MSN, APRN

https://ketonurses.wordpress.com

YouTube video “My Healthy Type 1 Son” by Lisa Scherger  - excellent presentation from the mother of a type 1 teenage son who is following the LCHF diet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtiduHZdbUg

YouTube video:  Dr. Troy Stapleton - 'LCHF to manage Diabetes'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI5l6NqVYw0

Another great YouTube video by Dr. Troy Stapleton – “I Manage My Type 1 Diabetes By Eating LCHF”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TR8rc_AF6XU

YouTube video: Prof. Tim Noakes - 'Medical aspects of the low carbohydrate lifestyle'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fL5-9ZxamXc

YouTube video:  ABC Catalyst - Low Carb Diet: Fat or Fiction? – an excellent documentary on the LCHF diet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNUh7P3TrAE

Spaghetti Squash Macaroni and Cheese

Ingredients:

1 spaghetti squash

1/4 cup parmesan cheese

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

4 oz cream cheese, softened

3 Tbsp butter, melted

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Cut spaghetti squash in half lengthwise and heat in the oven at 400 degrees for approx 35 minutes until completely softened and easy to pull "noodles" apart.  Scrape out seeds in the middle and discard.  Then scrape out the spaghetti squash "noodles" across the width of the spaghetti squash as shown below.  Place spaghetti squash "noodles" in a baking dish. Sprinkle top with parmesan cheese.  Add heavy whipping cream, softened cream cheese, melted butter and shredded cheese to dish and mix all ingredients together.  Bake covered at 400 for 20 minutes, then uncover and cook for another 20 minutes.  I made this dish and brought it to my family's Thanksgiving dinner, not telling anyone that it was low carb.  Certain members of my family can be picky eaters, but they all raved about how good this was and were surprised to hear that it is low carb!  This is one of my favorite dishes!  Enjoy!  

Approx carb count on this is 8 carbs per serving.  This particular recipe usually makes 4 servings for me, but if you have a larger spaghetti squash it can be 6 servings.  Just know that 1 cup spaghetti squash is approx 7 carbs.  The rest of the ingredients add trivial amount of carbs (cheese, cream cheese).  

Above is what the spaghetti squash "noodles" will look like.

And the finished product!  Delicious! 

A Day of Eating Low Carb High Fat Style

If you are new to the idea of the low carb high fat diet, you probably have lots of questions about what to actually eat in a day.  What do I eat if I am avoiding sugars, fruits, starchy vegetables and grains?  There is plenty left!  As you can tell, I like vegetables a lot, so many of my sides for my meals use vegetables as a base.  There are also low carb bread recipes out there, low carb deserts, and pretty much anything can be made low carb.  It is definitely some work doing all the cooking, but for me, doing cooking is a lot better than developing diabetes complications and all the hassle that would be!  I like to cook several batches of things and refrigerate or freeze leftovers to save on the workload.  I only cook 2-3 days per week, and cooking extra and saving food for later really helps with that.  Here is an example of all the things I ate for my meals today, along with how to make them.  I hope this will help to give you ideas about meal-planning.  

Breakfast

This is my favorite breakfast.  I eat this pretty much every day just because I love it and it's so easy to make.  I have two eggs cooked in 1 tbsp of coconut oil, add in sliced avocado, then top with shredded cheese.  I drink a cup of unsweetened almond milk and a cup of coffee with heavy whipping cream and some Sweet Leaf drops to sweeten it.  

Lunch

For lunch today I had some chicken wings which I roast in the oven after coating them with either olive oil or butter and sprinkle them with parmesan cheese, garlic powder, and sometimes spices like rosemary.  Along with the chicken wings, I ate a cup of my low carb cauliflower soup.  I like to eat chicken wings for lunch a lot along with either a soup or side that I make, but sometimes I make recipes that can be my entire lunch like low carb zucchini lasagna.  

Dinner

For dinner, I always start with a salad. I mix in lettuce, green peppers, green onions (small amount), cucumbers, carrots (small amount), and cheese.  I top with red wine vinegar and oil for dressing.  Tonight I cooked a whole chicken in my rotisserie by coating the chicken with olive oil and paprika and letting it cook while I did other things.   I had eggplant chips for my side   I always drink coffee for dinner too, using the same heavy whipping cream and Sweet Leaf sweetener as for breakfast.  

Snack

Although many people who eat low carb high fat do not eat a snack before bedtime, I do like to have one before bed on most nights.  If I am not hungry, I do not eat.  I listen to my body.  I usually just have a small snack like this one, almond milk and 1/4 cup of ranch-flavored sunflower seeds.  Sometimes I have a low carb high fat dessert for snack like fat bombs or chocolate mousse.  These are really only a few of the options, there are many, many more!

I hope this helped to give you an idea of what my eating is like on a daily basis.  Like I said, these are only a few of the things I eat regularly and I like to change things up and have lots of variety (except breakfast, that is just my favorite!).  I hope to add more posts like this on different days and stay tuned as I share more recipes and information on my personal experience on the low carb high fat lifestyle.  If you have any ideas on what you would like to see, I'd love to hear from you!  You can always send me messages through my Facebook page Low Carb Heather.  Thanks for reading!

Low Carb Brussel Sprouts Gratin

Ingredients:

12 oz brussel sprouts, cut in half and steamed

3 slices bacon, cooked and sliced into small pieces

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

1 sandwich bag of pork rinds

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

Cut brussel sprouts in half and steam until tender.  Cook bacon until crispy and cut into small pieces.  Add brussel sprouts, bacon pieces, heavy whipping cream and cheddar cheese into small casserole dish and mix all together.  Take a sandwich-sized plastic bag and fill it with pork rinds.  Crush until they look like breadcrumbs.  Combine with 1/2 cup parmesan cheese and sprinkle on top of the dish to cover like breadcrumb topping.  Bake at 400 degrees for approximately 30-40 minutes.  

I separated the dish I made into 4 servings, which each contain approximately 5 carbs.   This is a great side dish for dinner to go along with chicken, turkey, steak, ect.  Happy eating! 

Low Carb Cauliflower Crockpot Soup

Ingredients:

1 head cauliflower - cut into small pieces, uncooked
1 green pepper - diced
1 small yellow onion - diced
1 clove minced garlic
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
3 tbsp butter
1 cup heavy whipping cream
4 slices bacon
pepper to taste
2 tsp parsley

Cook bacon on stovetop until crisp. Slice into small pieces and add all ingredients into crockpot. I took the cauliflower and put it into my ninja food processor, chopping it up really fine and taking the work of chopping out for me. This is the best part, take the grease from the bacon and add that to the crockpot as well! Cook on low for 6 hours. 

This meal could also be kept in the freezer, so make extra and freeze some for later! 

Carb count per 1 cup serving of soup = approx 10 grams. This soup is very filling and satisfying, so you don't need much! I eat this for dinner with chicken or any other type of meat. Happy eating!

Low Carb Zucchini Lasagna

Ingredients:
1lb ground beef
2 pounds grated zucchini
1tsp dried oregano
1tsp dried basil
3 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup ricotta cheese (full fat)
2 cups mozzarella cheese
1 cup marinara sauce (I use Aldi's Simply Nature brand, it has 5 net carbs per 1/2 cup and has no added sugar)

Brown ground beef in a pan, I don't use any oil to cook it in as I use the 20% fat ground beef and it cooks well in its own fat.

Grate zucchini and place in a glass 9x13 pan, top with ground beef, then mix in oregano, basil, olive oil, marinara sauce, parmesan cheese and ricotta cheese. I literally just mix all the ingredients all together in the dish to make a casserole-like dish. Then top with mozzerella cheese. Bake at 400 degrees for about an hour. I cover it with foil for the first 30 minutes, then uncover to let the cheese become brown and crispy. 

Carb count per serving (makes 6 servings) = 8 grams

Happy eating!

This would also be a great meal to freeze and save for later, so make 2 trays and freeze one! I am a huge fan of making extras and freezing them to save time!

Introduction

Hello and thanks for visiting my page.  My name is Heather and I have been a Type 1 Diabetic since age 12.  I am now in my 30s, married with two daughters.  From the time that I was diagnosed, I knew I wanted to take good care of myself and control my blood sugars the best that I could to avoid complications down the road.  I did everything that my doctors told me to do.  I started out on multiple daily injections, and learned how to eat using the exchange system.  I had so many protein exchanges, a dairy exchange, a fruit exchange, vegetable exchange, and so many starch exchanges with each meal.  Even with the new carb counting system, I still pretty much stuck to eating a balanced diet like I was originally taught.  My control was "great" according to my doctors, with A1C's in the 7's and 8's.  In 2003 I got my first insulin pump.  The reason that I got my insulin pump was because over the course of one summer, I had 5 seizures related to low blood sugars.  I have always had problems with low blood sugars.  The pump eliminated my low blood sugars in the middle of the night and I was able to adjust my insulin rates much better using the pump.  Using the pump, my A1c's dropped into the 5's and 6's.  I even had a 4.6 during my first pregnancy.  However, I was not in great control of my blood sugars even then.  The reason that my A1c's were so low is that I was still having frequent low blood sugars.  In fact, my blood sugars were all over the place, up and down all day like a roller coaster.  Still, through all that, I managed to have two healthy babies with uncomplicated pregnancies, work on a busy floor as a nurse, and ran my first half marathon in 2011.  

In early 2014, my A1c's were creeping back up into the 7's.  I cried in my doctor's office when they told me my results.  Still, with an A1c of 7.1, I was having frequent low blood sugars.  Anyone that I worked with at the time can tell you that I was running into our kitchen to drink juice at least 4 times in a 12-hour shift.  At home, all I wanted to do was play with my kids in the yard.  I couldn't do that for very long, however, because I always had to stop to go eat because of a low blood sugar.  I was adjusting my rates on my insulin pump to try to avoid all these lows and doing everything my doctor told me.  I felt like such a loser of a mom, having to tell my kids that I couldn't play kickball with them because my sugar was low.  In the meantime, I had joined a diabetes support group online, hoping to find tips and tricks that other people were using to gain control of their blood sugars.  The only people that I could find who truly felt they had excellent control were the people that were eating a diet low in carbs and high in fat.  I read about their experiences for about 3 months, thinking that these people were crazy and they were going to have really high cholesterol levels and clog all their arteries from eating all that fat.  Still, they were always posting pictures of their continuous glucose monitors with flatlines of normal blood sugars all day long.  They were posting the results of their lipid panels which were excellent.  I thought about how deprived they must all feel, not eating any grains or starches.  

Finally, I decided I was not in control doing what I was being told to do.  I had nothing to lose by trying this low carb high fat diet.  I was due to have my cholesterol checked in September of 2014, so I figured in June I would start this diet and see how my cholesterol levels were in September. If they were elevated, I would go back to my old diabetic diet that I was taught.  I eliminated all grains like bread, pasta, corn, and rice.  I eliminated all starchy vegetables.  I eliminated all fruit and all milk.  All these foods caused my blood sugar to rise requiring me to take large doses of insulin.  These large insulin doses covered my meals, but in turn, later made my blood sugars go low.  So what is left to eat, you ask, after eliminating all the major food groups in the American diet?  Tons!  I make macaroni and cheese using spaghetti squash, adding lots of fat to it like heavy whipping cream and cream cheese.  I make lasagna out of zucchini.  I make cheesy omelets with avocados.  I make eggplant chips, one of my favorites.  There are so many low-carb recipes out there that possibilities are endless. 

In the first two weeks of this diet, all I craved were Cheerios, and I don't even normally eat Cheerios.  I went through the keto-flu that I heard about.  What happened is that my body was getting used to burning fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates.  This is not dangerous.  Fat actually used to be the number one fuel source for people back before civilization and the creation of all these foods with grains and carbohydrates in them.  I was able to cut the amount of insulin I was taking in half.  Most importantly, I was no longer having low blood sugars.  Since I was only getting 1 or 2 units of insulin to cover the small amount of carbohydrates I was eating, that's all the active insulin that was in my system.  I was able to go out and play kickball in the yard with my kids for hours, or even go for a 2-mile run next do my daughter while she rode her bike next to me.  I saw firsthand that low blood sugars are not caused by a lack of carbs, but by having too much insulin.  And yes, I finally saw that flatline of normal blood sugars all day long on my Dexcom!  

In September I had my cholesterol levels checked.  My doctor could not stop raving about how great my cholesterol levels were! Who ever would have thought that eating tons of fat would make your cholesterol levels so perfect?  In addition, I noticed many other changes in my body over the 3-month trail period of this diet.  I no longer had joint pain that I used to suffer with all the time.  I stopped taking my medication for dry eyes, since my eyes were actually starting to water from taking it.  I had my yearly diabetic eye exam and my doctor told me that my eyes looked great.  My energy level soared.  I lost 12 pounds, and took my body fat percentage from 28% to 20%.  My A1C went from 7.1 to 6.1.  I finally had control over my diabetes and my life!

II will continue this low-carb journey for the rest of my life.  I feel amazing.  My doctor says that obviously it is working for me, so keep doing what I am doing.  More and more research is coming out all the time that show the benefits of LCHF diets for diabetics and that increasing fat intake does not lead to increased risk for cardiovascular events.  I am on board with all the new research. I personally have all the research results that I need through seeing what these changes did to me.  I did an experiment on my body for 3 months and took a risk.  In the end this has been the best decision I ever made in my life.  Thank you for sharing this journey with me!

For more information about the LCHF diet to control diabetes, see my list of great online resources http://lowcarbheather.blogspot.com/2015/02/great-online-sources-for-lchf-diet.html

Please also visit my Facebook page, Low Carb Heather!  Thanks!