the daunting dr. bernstein

I've just finished day 2 of my 3-day Dr. Bernstein marathon.  A visit to Dr. Bernstein consists of three long days, during which he tells you things you never imagined about diabetes, interspersed with sessions in the exam room where he finds complications you didn't think you had.  He is, as everyone has said, an amazing person, very intense, and totally focused on the management of diabetes, his own and that of his patients.  It's both inspiring and scary to spend a day with him.  On the one hand, you get a real sense that this disease is manageable, if you follow his intensive regimen.  On the other hand, you wonder if it is possible for any human being to stick to the program he outlines.  It requires a capacity for objectivity that most people lack -- as in, "I know this is bad for my diabetes, so I will never eat it again.  Ever."  I had already cut out a lot before I went to see him (sweets, bread, pasta, fruit, milk . . .) and my A1C was good enough even for his high standards (4.4!), but there's certainly room for improvement -- even at 4.4, I still have distressing highs and lows.  I'm pretty confident that, if I follow his plan, those will even out.  The question is, can I stick to it?  When I got home from my first session last week, and my second session yesterday, I was profoundly depressed all evening, thinking about the things I can never do again.  Have a Starbuck's grande skim latte.  Sit at a bar and drink a cosmopolitan (not that I ever did that very much, but still . . .)  Go to Paris and hit all the artisan bakeries.  It takes a lot of effort to live such a regimented life, and it takes even more effort to tune out the people who tell you it isn't necessary or even desirable, that you should be able to eat fruit and bread and whatever and just cover it with insulin.  But I don't think that's the right approach, at least for me, so I'm committed to trying the Bernstein plan.  Now if I can only stop whining about it.

Comments

[WSB]

Are you on the Bernstein forum? Plenty of support there. www.diabetes-book.com

Have you been checked for gluten intolerance/celiac? New guidelines for TYpe 1/LADA suggest that you should be and Doc B is not up to date on the food intolerance issues.