I love this. I spent 4 months living with my mom last year (with my dh and 2 kids). It was highly stressful and my mother uses guilt to get me to comply. I actually got to the point where I would say straight out "Are you trying to make me feel guilty". To which she would reply "oh no, of course not". Then she would try again. I sometimes asked her 4 or 5 times in the course of one conversation.
You can not let people run rough-shod over you or your choices. Unfortunatly too often it's a pattern that we set with our parents from an early age.
My mom would take it personally when I wouldnt try a food that she was offering. When I tried to change the pattern of interaction, she would get very angry and fall into her pattern of not speaking to me, ignoring me, or being frigidly cold to me.
On an offside - when she started to do the same thing to my 7 year old daughter was when we quickly found a new home and left.

Stick to what you have to do. Try your best to explain it, but if people are not willing to listen, you still have to go forward.
Cerridwen

The fact that it is my mom factors into my problem with dealing with her on this subject for sure. People who know me would certainly tell you that one thing I'm not is a push over...except for when dealing with my mom.

My mom's a very good person...and ....well...she's my mom! I have a hard time telling her no and while I don't think she takes advantage of that fact on purpose, she seems hell-bent on ignoring my decision regarding the sugar/carbs.

So I'll try the
Mom: "hi everyone! there's fudge on the counter!"
Me: "how nice of you to think of me. Thanks, but I'm good"
Mom (carrying it around in faces): "do you want a piece?"
me: "how nice of you to think of me. Thanks, but I'm good"
mom: oh just one, this is uncles's special
me: "how nice of you to think of me. Thanks, but I'm good"
mom: it's not healthy to be on a fad diet
me: "how nice of you to think of me. Thanks, but I'm good"

approach and see what happens.

Good luck, Patina!

I think the whole "moms & food" equation, especially for those women who define themselves as homemakers, makes it very difficult for them to step back and see what they are actually doing to their loved ones.

When you were raised with, and lived your life by, the whole Goodies = Love equation, it's hard to think of our interactions in new ways.

Look how many low carbers on the board still bestow candy and cookies on their own children, even knowing that such things are actually not good for them, because they feel like "bad parents" otherwise!

I also think it's hard for me to accept that my loved ones absolutely do not want to change. Even when *I* say it's important! harumph!

My mom was on me about my weight for 50 years! and then when her metabolism finally got shot (after years of coffee, toast, and cocktails), she ballooned up and her normal approach to staying thin - DID NOT WORK. Only then did she finally start to listen to what I had learned. Before then she absolutely could not hear another way besides the one that had worked for her.

That's interesting and a little ironic. I guess there is another way to look at it.

Say your mom was doing something that you really didn't agree with and thought was totally bad for her health and you were seriously worried. Would you bug her about it? Something like say, overdosing on her painkillers on a regular basis, bungee-jumping, smoking, drinking or maybe "sleeping around" (Just kidding on that last one).

Would you stop bugging her, no matter how many times she asked you to respect her decision?

I guess the question becomes, if your mom truly, honestly thinks that what you are doing is bad for you, she probably won't stop bothering you.

I think your best bet is to find a Doctor that will back you up!

Just a little different angle maybe...
C.

Yes that is another angle to ponder... but here's the thing...

I quit smoking back in January of this year and my mom continues to smoke (maybe 4-5 smokes a day). Not one time has she smoked in front of me or offered me a cigarette. She goes out of her way to smoke away from me and she actually makes a point of saying, from time to time, how proud she is of me for quitting and sticking with it.

But sugary foods are a whole different story. So to me it's simply an issue of education. She totally gets it that smoking is bad...even for her... so she can get on board with that. What she can't wrap her mind around is that sugar and carbs are not the best food choices to make because she's eaten them her whole life (she's 75) and she's in excellent health for her age.

I explain it to her all the time but apparently I have no credibility on this topic because she's not buying it and like I've said, she refuses to read anything I've offered up. If I had a doctor that was supportive of LC'ing, I'd make my mom go to an appt. with me and let the Dr. tell her...but I don't have that option available to me at this point.

I hold out hope that eventually she'll "get it" and stop the sabotage...just not sure what it will take and how long it will take to get the message across.

I think, "Are you trying to kill me? Are you really saying that your hurt feelings about cookies are more important than my being diabetic and ending up losing my feet and vision over bad eating?" would be pretty effective but it might start a fight. Then again maybe sometimes a fight is needed since maybe some people in the heat of a snit will finally spit out something that makes their real motivations more clear. This is especially true in the case of people who are actually very nice, but that is partly from a lifetime of training in being very nice--you have to get them mad to make them break the training even momentarily to say what they really feel.

My stepmom's family died off one amputated foot, heart attack, cancer, going-blind, body part at a time, a whole slew of them. When I look back on all the holiday and event dinners filled with pure carbs/sugars because nobody thought diabetes was serious enough to pay close attention to, I am just aghast.

PJ

My mom has an ex-sister-in-law that is diabetic and she ended up having a foot amputated but my mom is convinced she lost her foot from drinking (she was/is an alcoholic).

We don't see the ex-SIL anymore but occasionally hear via the family grapevine that she's still drinking and still not taking care of her diabetes. For all I know maybe she's also had the other foot amputated by now.

Really tragic to live in denial to the point you're willing to lose body parts to continue eating (and drinking) sugar.