I'm glad playing the viola helped! Music helps me a lot too.

If you were just vegetarian, I'm not surprised you were ill. Dairy products are extremely unhealthful.

@maturin1919 I can juggle apples and oranges too.

@maturin1919 thanks... I thought you would need to see proof ha ha

Having observed the cattle kill floor in Des Moines Iowa it is MORE EXTREME to watch a killer shoot electricity into a cow skull watch the victim fall instantly onto it's back watch a sharp hook pierce her hide between an Achilles tendon and the leg bone hoof joint and a moving conveyor line of hooks drag a shuddering bull not yet dead up into the air the next slaughter house worker USUALLY an illegal alien slices open the throat of Daisy contented milk cow with an electric knife more dangerous than a chain saw. ...the floor has 3 inches of standing mega gallons of steaming hot blood in the refrigerated room of 32°F sucked down into a drain pipe for immediate filtering out feces, grass, cowhide slices and hoof powders. ..YUP US vegans are extreme alright to demand the meat murderers stop telling lies and decimating the AMAZON river basin for grassland to feed cheap McDonalds ground bovine cadaver

The study cited in footnote 17 which you obviously didn't get to is here: [ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] and it specifically says saturated fats are the culprit, not just general calorie restriction and certainly not aimed at carbs, sorry charlie!

Also there's an entire organization of doctors committed to educating people through scientific research, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which tells here that a diet high in carbs reduces your risk of diabetes and heart disease, and that avoiding carbs can actually harm your health. [pcrm.org]

And here's a Harvard study of 100,000 people showing that low carb diets lead to shorter lives... goes on to cite a smaller study that shows that if you're going to eat low carb, do it plant-based for lowest mortality results! [nutritionfacts.org]

@verifiabliss The NIH study doesn't even contain the string "carb" much less address them. Yes, the kinds of fats you consume is in the mix. Never said it wasn't. Also ... the kinds of carbs you consume are relevant. Enlightened diabetics pay attention to glycemic index more than to carbs as such. Also to various laws of unintended consequences, like skipping potatoes to avoid the carbs and missing out on all the fiber.

The key for me has been exercise (limited somewhat in scope unfortunately at present by the fact I have an aneurysm) and dropping key comfort foods like sodas (quit those back in the 90s) and milk and bread (mostly quit both in the 90s, although they still try to creep back in). My A1C has been steady at 6.7 for the past four years and I hope to see it at normal levels by stripping off another 20 pounds over and above the 85 I already shed over the years, and improving my core strength through low-key fitness training like chair yoga, and eventually graduate to something more strenuous.

Ironically in the process of of all this my meat intake has in fact fallen significantly. I grill an alarming number of vegetables rather than steak. As in a lot of things, my younger self would scarcely recognize me, and would be accordingly appalled at what has become of me. But pragmatically, people like me are simply not likely to go vegan, particularly cold turkey or via the typical program of accusatory shaming sometimes seen from ethical vegans. Everything in its own time and place.

On the plus side I live in walking distance of a world-famous vegetarian (sorry, not vegan) eatery and they have finally started taking reservations so eating there doesn't come at the price of standing in line for two hours. So there's that. It's always progress when people can flex a bit and be pragmatic rather than idealistic -- or if you will, happy rather than right.