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Doug’s beard and mustache were integral to his visual self-image, having spent almost his entire adult life faithfully maintaining them. With the resolve of Samson he wouldn’t let the convalescent staff take a pair of scissors to the ensemble in the many months that they were charged with his care. He lay there emaciated, looking up at me from sunken eye sockets, as if recently liberated from a WWII concentration camp; his drawn features etched with sadness and desperation, his once proud facial hair caked with the remains of meals past.
His could feel his end nearing and wanted to be anywhere else… Read more »
Over the years, I have mentioned the book a few times to different people and always got the same reaction. An eye roll and an “Oh, him.” Social conformity led me to take the same stance… until I progressively started a lower carb and eventually ketogenic diet and found my health again. Suddenly I realized I was living according to Dr. Bernstein’s recommendations, but it wasn’t the drag that I remembered it being when I tried to do it the 90s. I’ve since taken a different perspective on Dr. Bernstein. I think that the negative reaction I’ve observed might have its basis in a couple of factors: Read more »
Attaining nutritional ketosis merely means that you have changed the ratios of the macronutrients you eat so that you need to inject (insulin dependent diabetics) or produce (everyone else) sufficiently little insulin that your body begins converting fat into a moderate amount of ketone body’s for use as fuel. Too much insulin, and your body doesn’t produce a meaningful amount of ketones… Read more »
In contrast with Diabetic Ketoacidosis, Nutritional Ketosis is a metabolic state that exists in the presence of an adequate amount of insulin to transport glucose from the diet’s limited carbs out of the bloodstream and into the cells that may require them. In this scenario, glucagon driven high blood… Read more »
Diabetic Ketoacidosis is a familiar term to most T1 diabetics. The only populations at practical risk for Diabetic Ketoacidosis are either T1 diabetics or T2 diabetics whose condition has advanced to the point that their pancreas’ ability to produce insulin is greatly impaired. This is the second of a three part… Read more »
When people learn that I eat a low carb, high fat diet and measure my ketones frequently, hoping that I have a measurable amount of ketones in my blood, they inevitably ask me, “Aren’t ketones dangerous to diabetics?” or “Can’t ketosis kill you?” It is a common misunderstanding where people confuse ketosis with Diabetic… Read more »
“Congratulations. You are a Type 1 diabetic.” The doctor said, after my blood tests came back. (No, he didn’t test my sugar in the office with a glucometer. He listened to my symptoms on my first visit, ordered blood tests and made me come back a week later) My sugar… Read more »
