The old lady I couldn't get away from, peered at my can of coke and said
"It'll rot your teeth, that stuff!"
I pointed out that it was Zero Coke and had no sugar in it, but she was undeterred.
"Have you seen how it gets rust off things? Any idea what it does to your insides?"
Ah, well, that'll be the acid in it, just like in vinegar. Nobody suggests that pickles rot you insides. In coke, the carbon dioxide bubbles dissolve slightly, making a weak carbonic acid. Indeed, stomach acid is way stronger than any acid you are likely to voluntarily ingest.
So, in a spirit of politeness, I asked the old lady what she preferred, if coke was such a demon drink.
"Tango, Vimto or Strongbow," she replied, without a hint of irony.
Tuesday, 27 July 2010
Saturday, 17 July 2010
Back to the Beginning, Again.
There was an old man called Michael Finnegan,
He grew fat and then grew thin again,
He kicked up an awful din-igan,
Poor old Michael Finnegan,
Begin Again.
According to last week's news, the powers that be have decided that lack of exercise does not cause obesity. It seems that fat people only move less because they are fat, rather that moving less caused the fatness in the first place. It is, it seems, all down to junk food and scoffing massive quantities of calories, rather than anything to do with burning them off.
This doesn't come as a huge surprise. After all, last weekend I spent six hours doing a Grade 1 scramble up a 3000ft Welsh mountain (Grade 1 means any more severe and you get to use ropes). I got down off the massive beast of a lump of rock, ached for three days and guess what? Yep, I put on 2lb.
The news is kind of depressing though, because I can buck myself up to do tons of exercise, but I have absolutely no will when it comes to not eating. I am almost autistic in my inability to understand a negative: not, stop, don't, never, refrain
Max wanted me to fill in a month of sugar-free dieting, together with my sugar levels. He thought that if I ate no sugar, my blood sugar levels will go down. I don't think homeostatic control of blood sugar levels works like that. Whilst you can make your sugar levels high by eating lots of sugar, you cannot alter your fasting level by having a sugar-free diet. By definition, you are testing your fasting level... when as much sugar as you body can deal with, has been taken out of the system.
Let me explain:
Imagine the insulin in your blood is a fighter pilot, shooting down invaders (sugar molecules). It doesn't matter how many there were to begin with, the fighter pilot will work to shoot down the invaders until there are only 5 invaders left in the sky, then it will stop shooting. This is fasting level. It won't start again until there are more than 5 about again.
With diabetes, the pilot's radar is damaged. It stops firing when there are still 8 invaders out there. It can't see the rest.
Max is suggesting that I limit the number of invaders. I don't think that limiting the invaders will make the pilot's radar work again.
To bring the amount of invaders back down to 5, if the pilot stops shooting at 8, I would have to stop taking in sugar or carbs which are converted in to sugar. I would have to empty my liver of glycogen, which is a sugar store, released over 8 hours, and I would have to use up the released sugar in some way (activity). Once all these sources of 'invaders' had stopped coming, then, maybe, my blood sugar levels would fall.
I'm guessing that if I fasted for around 16 hours, not counting the time when I'm asleep and not moving, I might start to get my sugar down to where it should be. Of course, the minute I ate something, it would shoot back up and I'd have to start all over again. Michael Finnegan.
Anyway, I filled in the sheet with what I eat and my sugar levels. I managed a fortnight before I got bored and despondent. On the few days I did manage to go sugar-free (and let's face it, there weren't many), my blood sugar was exactly the same as on the sugary days. Homeostasis is a wonderfully consistent mechanism.
What I did notice, coming back to what I've been saying all along, is that I eat too much bad stuff. I have turfed sugar out of my lunch-box and replaced it with a large ice-cream after work! Doh!
I need some sort of avoidance plan to stop me putting fat and sugar into my body. My obesity has nothing to do with weird dietary problems. It is simply eating too much of the wrong crap. I can imagine I'm going to end up as one of those fat mammas with their teeth wired together, who get stunned looks from their doctors when they admit to liquidising Mars bars.
Please help me stop!
He grew fat and then grew thin again,
He kicked up an awful din-igan,
Poor old Michael Finnegan,
Begin Again.
According to last week's news, the powers that be have decided that lack of exercise does not cause obesity. It seems that fat people only move less because they are fat, rather that moving less caused the fatness in the first place. It is, it seems, all down to junk food and scoffing massive quantities of calories, rather than anything to do with burning them off.
This doesn't come as a huge surprise. After all, last weekend I spent six hours doing a Grade 1 scramble up a 3000ft Welsh mountain (Grade 1 means any more severe and you get to use ropes). I got down off the massive beast of a lump of rock, ached for three days and guess what? Yep, I put on 2lb.
The news is kind of depressing though, because I can buck myself up to do tons of exercise, but I have absolutely no will when it comes to not eating. I am almost autistic in my inability to understand a negative: not, stop, don't, never, refrain
Max wanted me to fill in a month of sugar-free dieting, together with my sugar levels. He thought that if I ate no sugar, my blood sugar levels will go down. I don't think homeostatic control of blood sugar levels works like that. Whilst you can make your sugar levels high by eating lots of sugar, you cannot alter your fasting level by having a sugar-free diet. By definition, you are testing your fasting level... when as much sugar as you body can deal with, has been taken out of the system.
Let me explain:
Imagine the insulin in your blood is a fighter pilot, shooting down invaders (sugar molecules). It doesn't matter how many there were to begin with, the fighter pilot will work to shoot down the invaders until there are only 5 invaders left in the sky, then it will stop shooting. This is fasting level. It won't start again until there are more than 5 about again.
With diabetes, the pilot's radar is damaged. It stops firing when there are still 8 invaders out there. It can't see the rest.
Max is suggesting that I limit the number of invaders. I don't think that limiting the invaders will make the pilot's radar work again.
To bring the amount of invaders back down to 5, if the pilot stops shooting at 8, I would have to stop taking in sugar or carbs which are converted in to sugar. I would have to empty my liver of glycogen, which is a sugar store, released over 8 hours, and I would have to use up the released sugar in some way (activity). Once all these sources of 'invaders' had stopped coming, then, maybe, my blood sugar levels would fall.
I'm guessing that if I fasted for around 16 hours, not counting the time when I'm asleep and not moving, I might start to get my sugar down to where it should be. Of course, the minute I ate something, it would shoot back up and I'd have to start all over again. Michael Finnegan.
Anyway, I filled in the sheet with what I eat and my sugar levels. I managed a fortnight before I got bored and despondent. On the few days I did manage to go sugar-free (and let's face it, there weren't many), my blood sugar was exactly the same as on the sugary days. Homeostasis is a wonderfully consistent mechanism.
What I did notice, coming back to what I've been saying all along, is that I eat too much bad stuff. I have turfed sugar out of my lunch-box and replaced it with a large ice-cream after work! Doh!
I need some sort of avoidance plan to stop me putting fat and sugar into my body. My obesity has nothing to do with weird dietary problems. It is simply eating too much of the wrong crap. I can imagine I'm going to end up as one of those fat mammas with their teeth wired together, who get stunned looks from their doctors when they admit to liquidising Mars bars.
Please help me stop!
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