Leslie

Got it. TY.

petitefrancaise

Eating lots of carbohydrates leads to insulin resistance. You need more and more insulin to deal with the blood glucose. If you carry on eating lots of carbohydrates at some point you may end up with your pancreas just not being able to keep up and at this point if you keep eating lots of carbohydrates then you need to inject insulin. Your insulin requirement will keep increasing, your body weight will increase leading to more health problems.

Not only carbs produce blood glucose though and that's why high protein diets are suspect too.

Dr Jung points out that reducing insulin requirement (by reducing carbohydrates and frequency of eating) leads to weight loss.

Teckelspass

I agree with this. I am not French, but was raised similarly: as a child, 3 main meals with a small snack after school; as an adult, 3 meals, with no snacks. My 2.5 year old is on that same schedule and does fine, although it seems that most of her little friends cannot go to the park or the grocery store without a snack. But I think she also eats her main meals a lot better without it.

Snacking was one of the things that really stood out to me when I first moved to the US. Everywhere you go -- in the car, in the grocery store, children (and some adults) are snacking.

scrubbedexpat097

So are you more interested in trying to find an easier way to lose weight than worrying about being diabetic? Or are you worried that if you are gaining weight your family history of diabetes may include you sometime soon?

I have 5 brothers, 3 are older and 2 are younger than me. I also have an older sister.Both our parents were diabetic by the age of 60, and two grandparents were diabetic by the time they were in their mid fifties.

Two of my older brothers are diabetic, one now insulin dependent. Neither have ever been overweight and both have always eaten healthy. They are both very health conscious and exercise on a regular basis. One younger brother is now borderline, again very active, grows all his own veggies and is not over weight. My sister, who is an exercise freak has no problems yet neither does my oldest brother or youngest brother.

I am the heaviest sibling, fairly plumpish and could do with dropping about 15 pounds. I teach water aerobics, which is my main source of exercise and it has helped with my BP problems and probably helped my weight not getting out of control! My last physical showed my fasting glucose at 130 and my A1c at 6.5 so I knew that I need to really watch my diet . I check my fasting glucose (I have a glucometer) every Sunday morning and since monitoring it the level is rarely over 100 and usually stays in the low 90's. Next month I will have the A1c checked again and hopefully it will be back in the 5.5 mark But again, when I see how my siblings have been affected I know that sometimes , diet, exercise, stress relief etc really don't always stop the outcome.

petitefrancaise

This.

I also don't like being a bit heavier. I still have to deal with french women and they are soooo bloody judgy!

Based on another source, I started adding PS/PSA (?) to my night time magnesium and vit d. Apparently, it lowers cortisol and therefore night time need for insulin. Also, finally managing to sleep all night thanks to melatonin and a new air con system and I'm sure that makes a difference too . I have also joined my son and started rowing. That won't be having any effect yet as I'm still working on technique and not capsizing.

And I've determinedly gone right back to my french eating habits. Coffee for breakfast, good hearty lunch and soup or salad for dinner. As someone else said, a light evening meal works best - well it does for me anyway.

I've avoided the arthritis which quite a few family members have had and I really hope to dodge the diabetes bullet too. I've got another check up due so I'll get the dr to run all the tests again, she thinks I'm fussing as everything is within norms, just need to get the excess weight off.

dc koop

I was always normal weight for my height didn't have much of a sweet tooth and was jogging about 3 miles a day 4 days a week. When I was around fifty-five I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes through a regular blood test as part of a physical. The receptor cells in my body I was told could not absorb the sugar from food properly which caused above normal blood glucose readings. I don't take medication watch my diet and exercise regularly which keep the A1C readings in the normal range.

In my case the type 2 onset was a genetic inheritance and not much to do with eating too much high carb food or being overweight