I just got this book in the mail and I keep skipping around in it. I'm going to sit down and give it good reading time soon, though.
I also finished the movie Fat Head.
I feel like I'm becoming a victim of a conspiracy theory or something. Whenever I tell people this stuff, they think I'm absolutely crazy. And who can blame them? I just started paleo and it literally goes against everything I've been taught my whole life in regards to nutrition.
This stuff is either going to come back to bite me in the ass, or it's going to rock the scientific and nutrition world in 15-25 years as we literally remove all the American Heart Association labels off oatmeal and cereal boxes and slap them on lard tubs and egg cartons.
It's just crazy.
Now sentimental talk: My mom is 55 years old, slim and tall but used to be overweight, and has type 2 diabetes most likely from eating improperly her whole life. What can I do to help her other than hand her this book and say "your doctor is going to tell not to do everything you read in this book, but do it anyway". I mean, she's going to think I'm crazy! But I love her and I don't want her to get heart disease in her sixties. I mean, she's doing what ANYONE would do: Trying to eat healthy with things like low-fat yogurt and fruit, Special K cereal, canola oil instead of butter.
I just want her to be healthy again. She's suffering from a lot of health issues right now and I want what is best for her. I'm tearing up just thinking about this stuff. Do you guys have any advice for me?
First off, disclaimer. I'm always slightly leery of offering advice to people with confirmed health problems - my attitude is always 'what's the harm in trying?' but of course for people with diabetes the harm could be significant if I'm wrong. You should make sure first that you're convinced that this is the right way to live before you recommend it to anyone. After all, I'm just some dude off the internet, and definitely not a doctor - take everything that follows with the requisite pinch of salt and finish reading GCBC (great book, I think), decide for yourself after seeing how it works for you. And of course with experience and more reading it'll make you a better advocate when the inevitable arguments crop up. And sorry if all that sounded patronising.
That said, someone I know who has diabetes switched to a low GI, higher fat diet after we talked about this and ended up 4 stone lighter, completely off their blood pressure meds and taking a much lower dose of insulin after meals. I was never diabetic, but lost 50lbs doing high fat low carb. Something about it seems to work, in my experience.
I think the older generation are actually a bit easier to convince, because they grew up eating eggs and lard and butter and experienced the whole low-fat advice as it happened - 'those damned scientists got it all wrong' is quite an easy sell, I've found. If she grew up eating those foods it could be easier to convince her there was nothing wrong with them in the first place. She may also be interested in watching this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eREuZEdMAVo
Which is a presentation of the results of this study
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=205916
That showed superior weight loss for the Atkins diet AND improved lipid markers, which is the bit people have always fretted about on Atkins.
She may also find the books of Dr Richard Bernstein informative
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_K._Bernstein
as he recommends a low carb diet and eating to a glucose meter, checking your response to various foods.
There's also research such as this
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22562179
"Weight changes did not differ between the diet groups, while insulin doses were reduced significantly more with the low carb diet at 6 months, when compliance was good"
ps I promise I'm not stalking you, I just happen to subscribe to both the Paleo and Low Carb threads!