I have recently been receiving many questions in my chat room, regarding the high protein, low carbohydrate diet and is it appropriate for people with diabetes and kidney disease.

All diets that reduce the amount of food that you eat will work.  Even the diet where you eat all of the foods in the food guide pyramid, but eat smaller portions.

There are several things you need to ask yourself before trying any diet.

1.  Is this a diet that promotes health?

2.  Is this a diet that I can live on FOREVER?

3.  Is this a diet that will teach me to eat the right way?

Let's take a look at these questions.

1. Is this a diet that promotes health?  Look at the diet that you are interested in trying.  Does it eliminate foods from certain food groups?  If it does, then there are associated health risks that may come along with eliminating foods or an entire group.  Each food group provides the body with necessary vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that only that group provides.  Did you know that foods from the vegetable group provide negligible amounts of protein?  If you choose to try a vegetarian diet, then you must find alternative sources to protein.  Also, removing protein from your diet also removes key vitamins such as B12.  In order for you to get that vitamin, you must take a multiple vitamin. 

2.  Is this a diet that I can live on FOREVER?  That question is usually answered with a big NO!  Most diets will tell you that you may only stay on it for up to 2 weeks, and then you need to reintroduce foods that you had eliminated.  They key here is that while you were eliminating certain foods, is that you had reduced the amount of calories you were eating.  Once you reintroduce eliminated foods, you begin to increase the amount of calories because you have only added more food, and not decreased the amount that was on the original diet.  A diet that begins eliminating foods doesn't teach you how to reintroduce foods, but keep you total caloric intake down.

3.  Is this a diet that will teach me to eat the right way?  Most diets don't teach this.  But you can learn how to eat the right way, but then you must stick with it to keep the weight off or continue to lose weight.  When I teach weight loss, I teach using the food guide pyramid.  All foods can fit into a healthy diet.  The most important thing to remember is using common sense and eat smaller portion sizes.

I like to eat sweets, but I know that if I ate them all the time, that I would begin to put on some weight.  So in order for me to enjoy the foods that I like, I have to eat them only occasionally and in small quantities.  This is not always easy to do!  It is something that you have to train yourself into doing. 

It takes 21-30 days to learn a new habit, so changing your eating habit won't occur over night.  You must practice it until you get it right.  But never give up and always practice.

High protein, low carbohydrate diets can be very unhealthy to people with diabetes and kidney disease.  If you are a person with diabetes and do not eat enough of the right kinds of carbohydrates, then you may end up having a reaction with your insulin medication.

High protein diets may also cause problems with people who have kidney disease.  Once on dialysis, it is important to eat high amounts of protein, but if you do not take your medication appropriately with your meals (phosphorus binders) then you run the risk of having too much phosphorus in your body which can cause severe itching and a calcium imbalance.

People with diabetes and kidney disease need to follow the diets that are prescribed by your physician and be trained by a dietitian.

If you have more questions related to this topic, please feel free to write me in the "Ask the Expert" area of this website.  Please also look at the responses that have already been posted.