weight loss programs that are good for aspies?

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What finally worked for me was actually a *high* carb diet . . . but high in particular types of carbs, mainly fresh, raw, ripe fruit. The more fresh fruit (and low to very low fat) I ate, the better my diabetes got. I have to avoid grains entirely and all animal products as my joints start hurting if I start eating meat or dairy.

Wondering whether you might be/are able to eat grass-fed ( rather than grain-fed ) meat? ( lamb, free-range duck, grass-fed beef, etc ), and fish?

And I read recently that one reason people with diabetes, and some other auto-immune system diseases, often don't tolerate meat is because of the damage done to the pancreas, ( incl. bile salts production, etc ) by diabetic and/or other autoimmune-system reactions,

and that it is their digestion of fats which has been compromised and needs healing. St John's Wort bitters, and coconut oil among other things, are supposed to help restore fat digestion.

And also wondering how long you have been on an almost exclusively fruit and dairy/yoghurt diet?

Or do you eat eggs, nuts and seeds, aswell?

And what about carrots, potatoes, similarly carbo-rich veg?

PS. One reason that your diabetes may have got so much better, despite all the fruit,

is probably because you have eliminated one of the most frequently and profoundly allergenic foods; gluten, which studies are increasingly showing causes autoimmune-system damage to many different organs, including the pancreas, thyroid, etc.

Type 1 diabetes is an auto-immune disorder. Type 2 diabetes (which is what I had) is not. I do wish the disorders had different names because it gets difficult to separate the two out when doing research and so I have had to wade through a lot of medical journal articles that aren't about me in order to get to the information I needed.

Type 2 diabetes is not about fat digestion. It's about fat accumulating in the cells and blocking the insulin receptors. When the insulin cannot get into the cells, the cells are starved for energy and the "food" (sugars) stay in the blood, causing various types of damage.

No [ to eggs, nuts and seeds ]. Those foods would continue to clog my cells with fat and block the insulin. I'm clearing the intracellular fats out and those foods are all very high in fat. I do sometimes have some ground flax seeds but no more than 2 tablespoons.

Type 2 diabetes is not a disease of the pancreas and it is not an autoimmune disorder.

To understand my perspective on how the food I have chosen has healed my diabetes, read "80/10/10" by Dr. Douglas Graham.

Thanks for the ref ( "80/10/10" ); will go look at it.

I grew up vegetarian and have always found meat kind of icky. But I have eaten it because I have spent so much of my adult life very poor and it's foolish to turn down food when one doesn't have money to buy other food.

Diabetes: An Essential Fatty Acid Deficient Condition

Diabetes is one of the many diseases that is caused by an essential fatty acid deficiency. Find out the difference between type I and type II diabetes, and what cell membranes have to do with this condition.

Ninety percent of diabetes cases are not of type I, rather, they are of type II diabetes. Type II Diabetes, it turns out, is a disease caused by compromised cellular membranes. Omega-3 fatty acid deficiencies in the body's cell membranes and the resultant loss in fluidity of the membranes is related to "insulin resistance" of cells.

This is the defining characteristic or type II diabetes which is usually seen only in middle-aged or older people. In type II diabetes the body produces insulin, but the insulin receptors on the cells do not work properly.

As a result, high levels of blood sugar and insulin will be observed simultaneously in the blood steam of persons with this disease.

Omega 3 Oils and Diabetes

Since diabetes II is arising from an essential fatty acid deficiency, it is not surprising that a very large proportion of Americans are showing symptoms which portend the advent of this disease. Persons who could already be described as being " insulin resistant" account for fifty percent of the population in United States.

What people are at the most risk of getting diabetes? Virtually every one who is overweight and who suffers from high blood pressure. These people are all also insulin resistant. These remarkable statistics could be substantially improved simply changing the essential fatty acid status of these people - something that is not at all difficult to do.

This pre-type II diabetes condition is called "Syndrome X". If you have received the syndrome x diagnosis you will probably notice that you are unusually thirsty.

The high levels of sugar in your blood stream in effect create a situation of dehydration as far as your cells are concerned. If you respond to your thirst by drinking sweetened beverages your blood sugar will rise farther. You will have to urinate more frequently, and yet you will feel even thirstier.

Meanwhile, your cells will not be able to take in the sugar, since their insulin receptors are not working. You will feel like you are suffering the sugar blues, while your pancreas is going through a major panic, trying to get the message out to the cells to "get that sugar put away!".

You will likely feel apathetic, you might feel tingling or burning in your hands or feet and you may also experience reduced resistance to infections.

The tingling or burning in your hands and feet what you feel if you are experiencing diabetic neuropathology. Researchers have now shown this to be caused by the fatty-acid breakdown of the nerve cells.

How Omega-3's Can Reverse Type II Insulin Resistance
Insulin resistant cells are really just insulin-non-responsive cells. They aren't actually actively resisting insulin, they are simply not responding to insulin. What researchers have noticed is that the less fluid a cell membrane is, the less responsive it is to insulin. Fluid cell membranes have lots of omega-3 fatty acids in their structure. Stiff cell membranes do not.

The good news is that simply by increasing your omega-3 intake you will be able to correct insulin resistance in your own case. Studies have shown that the frequent consumption of small amounts of omega-3 oils is all that is need to prevent insulin resistance.

And, even when insulin resistance develops in a person who's diet is high in saturated fats and omega-6 oils, but low in omega-3 oils, reversal of the condition requires only that omega-3 intake be increased. Insulin resistance can be reversed in such a case even with no decrease in saturated fat levels.

Other points to pay attention to would be:

Consume lots of green leafy vegetables
Consume lots of ocean fish
Use flax seed oil (one or two tbsp a day is the recommended dose, use it on toast, or on salad, or steamed vegetables)
Use only Olive oil and butter and coconut oil in cooking

One interesting and beneficial side effect of this regime is that if you are overweight, you are very likely to lose weight, and if you have high blood pressure, it will be improved.

The most widely available source of EPA and DHA is cold water oily fish such as salmon, herring, mackerel, anchovies and sardines. Oils from these fish have a profile of around seven times as much n−3 [ Omega 3 ] as n−6. Other oily fish such as tuna also contain n−3 in somewhat lesser amounts.

Botanical sources
Flax seeds produce linseed oil, which has a very high n−3 content

Six times richer than most fish oils in n−3,[88] flax (or linseed)

Eggs produced by chickens fed a diet of greens and insects produce higher levels of n−3 fatty acids (mostly ALA) than chickens fed corn or soybeans.

The n−6 to n−3 ratio of grass-fed beef is about 2:1, making it a more useful source of n−3 than grain-fed beef, which usually has a ratio of 4:1.[96]

In most countries, commercially available lamb is typically grass-fed, and thus higher in n−3 than other grain-fed or grain-finished meat sources.

Other sources

Milk and cheese from grass-fed cows may also be good sources of n−3.

Studies suggest that the evolutionary human diet, rich in game animals, seafood and other sources of n−3, may have provided such a ratio.

My routine: 300calorie meal every 3 hours, sticking to a daily macronutrient ratio of about 55/30/15 whenever possible and doing 45minutes on a stationary exercise bike each day - I plan on increasing the meal size slightly once I reach a weight I like.

It might not work for others but it's definetly worked for me, I've cut down from 238lb to 180lb in a little under three months and I haven't deviated from the routine once to skip exercise or have a snack - eating regularly like this completely suppresses hunger.

Maybe it's only worked for me because I've become somewhat obsessed with it, making spreadsheets to calculate the daily macronutrient percentages etc...

That's quite similar to the regime I'm on (spreadsheets included) and I was hoping you would share your experience.

A couple questions:

1. How did you decide on that macronutrient ratio? Also, are you referring to P/C/F or something else. There seems to be some variability in how this is expressed

2. What specifically did you eat to achieve it?

Thanks!

A carefully-conducted study by a collaborative research group at University of California-Berkeley has finally closed the lid on the fuss over fructose vs. glucose and its purported adverse effects.

Compared to glucose, fructose induced:

1) Four-fold greater intra-abdominal fat accumulation--3% increased intra-abdominal fat with glucose; 14.4% with fructose. (Intraabdominal fat is the variety that blocks insulin responses and causes diabetes and inflammation.)

2) 13.9% increase in LDL cholesterol but doubled Apoprotein B (an index of the number of LDL particles, similar to NMR LDL particle number).

3) 44.9% increase in small LDL, compared to 13.3% with glucose.

4) While glucose (curiously) reduced the net postprandial (after-eating) triglyceride response (area under the curve, AUC), fructose increased postprandial triglycerides 99.2%.

The authors propose that fructose specifically increases liver VLDL production, the lipoprotein particle that yields abnormal after-eating particles, increased LDL, and provides building blocks to manufacture small LDL particles. The authors also persuasively propose that fructose metabolism, unlike glucose, is not inhibited (via feedback loop) by energy intake, i.e., it's as if you are always starving.

Add to this the data that show that fructose increases uric acid (that causes gout and may act as a coronary risk factor), induces leptin resistance, causes metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes), and increases appetite, and it is clear that fructose is yet another common food additive that, along with wheat, is likely a big part of the reason Americans are fat and diabetic.

Fructose is concentrated, of course, in high-fructose corn syrup, comprising anywhere from 42-90% of total weight. Fructose also composes 50% of sucrose (table sugar). Fructose also figures prominently in many fruits; among the worst culprits are raisins (30% fructose) and honey (41% fructose).

Also, beware of low-fat or non-fat salad dressings (rich with high-fructose corn syrup), ketchup, beer, fruit drinks, fruit juices, all of which are rich sources of this exceptionally fattening, metabolism-bypassing, LDL cholesterol/small LDL/ApoB increasing compound. Ironically, this means that many low-fat foods meant to reduce cholesterol actually increase it when they contain fructose in any form.