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!