Diabetes

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Since dh was put on a controlled carbohydrate way of eating we use a lot less bread, but when we do have a sandwich I get the really thin sliced bread (be sure to check the carbs on those also). It is even good for toast. The biggest problem I have is finding it. Many stores don't carry it at all. Certainly with something in such epidemic proportions, there should be a lot of food coming on the market for them.
 
Yes, and oatmeal is another good source of fiber. It's also quite starchy, but it tends to travel through the digestive system rather fast, thereby not being able to break down so readily and letting loose the starch into the blood stream.

I think also, that wild rice is also a good thing, since it seems to have some kind of hulll on the outside of each grain.

You're right, LadyC! We can't just eliminate starch from the diet altogether. We can only control it, which DOES mean eating it in small amounts and in moderation so that it doesn't get out of hand and cause the glucose level to reach dangerous levels either way - up or down.


~Corey123.
 
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I aim for bread that is 13-15 carb units per slice. My husband's doctor is VERY impressed. I guess most people have more trouble with this. Anyway, you'll see me at the grocery store, reading labels to get the right number of carbs. He eats one slice of toast in the morning. Then if he's having a sandwich, he gets two slices of bread for lunch or 3 (1 1/2 sandwiches) for dinner. Our local grocery's regular bread (baked I think at their Wisconsin store) has just the right counts. When this started we tried to do that whole grain thing, but are big believers in flavor, plus some of the whole grain products are so carb heavy that you don't get to eat enough to fill you up. I agree that Barilla's pastas in the yellow package are great and nutritious. I could live on their angel hair. But I'm not the one with a problem. I make rice, pasta, or potato for supper (1 cup of rice, 1 cup of pasta, or 1 medium potato) most days. I was raised to be a salad nut, and I doubt a day every went by when I haven't had some sort of salad. Since he got the "wake-up-call" my husband (of 25 years) has truly learned to appreciate my healthy-eating habits!

I think the greatest advantage is that neither of us has a sweet tooth. I have a package of splenda in the pantry, but don't even use that much. About 10 years ago a young (at the time 4 years old) friend of ours was diagnosed with diabetes. Her mom commented on how great it was that we had good stuff for her to eat. She thought we'd gone out of our way to avoid sugar for her! Now she's a teenager, and made a point of talking to my husband about diabetes (she has also testified before congress on the subject of juvenile diabetes). What a gal!
 
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We don't eat much rice anymore. A cup has 45 grams of carbohydrate and DH is allowed up to 55 so it doesn't seem worth it to spend almost all of them on one item. I certainly don't enjoy food shopping as much as before but sticking to almost all fresh food, it makes it a bit easier to keep up with the count. This has truly been a different experience for both of us.
 
I love Sara Lee whole wheat bread. It has 13 grams of carbs per slice, and 70 calories, 10 from fat. They make several different whole grain breads, including a white one that the kids or a picky husband will eat.
 
If you eat a bowl of either Special K, shredded wheat, Wheaties or Grape Nuts with 4 ounces of skimmed or 1% milk for breakfast and lunch and just eat your regular dinner in the evening for 2 weeks, you could lose up to 10 pounds!!

I just did it, but I don't want to lose the weight too fast. I lost 10 pounds so far, and now my goal is to lose 70 pounds possibly before or by year's end.

This should hopefully put my blood glucose level back to normal range and help get rid of the borderline diabetes.


~Corey123.
 
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Corey123 said:
If you eat a bowl of either Special K, shredded wheat, Wheaties or Grape Nuts with 4 ounces of skimmed or 1% milk for breakfast and lunch and just eat your regular dinner in the evening for 2 weeks, you could lose up to 10 pounds!!

Congratulations Corey :)

You must get hungry during the day though? I've read Apples have chemicals in them that promote weight loss. Maybe we can munch on them between meals. Not before bed though, as those same chemicals make us stay awake. :wacko:

http://www.weightlossforall.com/benefits-eating-apples.htm
 
Thank you!

I eat either a low-cal low-seet granola bar, some trail mix or a piece of fruit between meals.

Also, I drink plenty of water, which also helps to flush the kidneys of any impurities and keeps me from being tempted to eat any junk food - which I've stopped eating altogether!

In place of a soda, I'll buy a bottle of water. And drink it straight down as if it were a soda!! I just can't seem to get enough water at times! But it's good for you and better than drinking something sweet all the time!!! And when I DO buy any soda, it's diet soda.

No more cake, donuts, candy, sweets, snack cakes, regular soda, sugary juices, honey buns, potato chips, corn curls or balls or any of that stuff!!


~Corey123.
 
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This is a fascinating and very informative thread. It is also very timely for me since 2 months I was notified by my oncologist's nurse that my blood test showed a reading of 302. I have NEVER had a problem with my sugar but my doctor, after getting the report from the nurse, said that since I was on Prednisone for gout, that may cause my blood sugar level to rise. He took me off the Prednisone and 4 days later I had a reading of 188. Doc put me on Avandaryl and it did the job. My level was read at 82 and 84 for two days. I got off the Avandaryl in hopes of getting something cheaper and Doc put me on Glucovance which I have yet to take. I wanted to be sure that my sugar lever was really high and not just some fluke because of the Prednisone before I started taking pills I may not need. I got a prescription for a glucose test kit and my sugar levels are reading 106, 105, and 111 during the day. First thing in the morning I take a reading after a 14 hr. fast and it reads 142 and 143. Is this high???
I am in Michigan for the summer and my doctor is in Las Vegas where I live so it's difficult to talk to him over the phone.
I eat very little sweets, no doughtnuts, cake, pie, cookies but I live on fruits, melons and berries. I love pasta (and by the way, there is NO substitute for pasta Goodweed LOL) but only eat it once a week now.
What are some foods that I should be eating? What to avoid other than pasta and other starches?? Is my sugar level considered too high at a fasting reading of 142???? I have not been diagnosed as diabetic, but this sounds serious enough so I want to avoid becoming diabetic.
 
Yes, according to what a friend of mine told me, a reading of 124 or 143 IS high, and puts you in the danger zone!

Anything below 65 is also the danger zone. Weight, sugar level, eating habits such as starches and sweets all are roads to getting or having diabetes.

This also puts you in the borderline catagory, like me, if your doc ever tells you that you have it.


~Corey123.
 
Drama Queen said:
What are some foods that I should be eating? What to avoid other than pasta and other starches?? Is my sugar level considered too high at a fasting reading of 142???? I have not been diagnosed as diabetic, but this sounds serious enough so I want to avoid becoming diabetic.
Lots of fresh frutis & veggies and whole (unprocessed) grains. Each meal should have a veggie/fruit and a protein source.

Increasing your activity will also help in reducing your chance of becoming diabetic. Daily exercise will help burn excess calories.
 
For hubby it has been more about balancing the carbs and choosing better carbs, not elminating them. In fact for him it hasn't even been reducing them. Just making better choices and spreading them through the day.
 
Yes, with diabetes, you gotta try to learn how to exchange some things for the other in order to keep your system evenly balanced.

Do well, and you can cheat a little bit now and then. For instance, if you want pasta, you have to give up bread, sweets, or vice versa.

The other day, my blood glucose level was kind of dangerougly low - in the 50s, so I had to deliberately eat something sweet to get it back up out of the danger zone - and it worked!!


~Corey123.
 
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Hubby has not had to give up pasta. I use a measuring cup to serve it and he can have one cup for dinner, or a half-cup for lunch. That means no bread with the meal, no wine or beer, and no desert, but he's happy to choose the pasta over the bread or desert. Luckily he isn't a sweets lover anyway. As we learned with the attack of the killer wasps, many meds wreak havoc with the blood sugar levels. When they pumped him full of adrenalyn and steroids the numbers went ballistic. But it beats death! LOL.

DQ, hubby has gout as well. Takes alopurin every day to keep it at bay.

One thing that as you age you have to recognise is you simply cannot follow a restricted died for every thing that is wrong with you. Some things are bad for gout/arthritis, some for cholesterol, some for blood pressure, etc. You wind up having to make decisions. You have to have a life, and as you can tell from my posts, food is a big part of ours and we're not willing to become cattle and just eat grass. We give the diabetes priority because the day hubby needs to take shots is the day my life goes to @#**.
 
Which is why your husband MUST try to maintain his blood glucose level at safer readings, take his medicine if he's on any, and keep his sugar level evenly balanced - to avoid having to take insulin shots.

If it begins to slide either way, it could push him into dangerous levels of either too high or too low! And if it stays there, then his doctor is going to put him on insulin shots. That is the only thing left that can be done, I think.

But nonetheless, I still wish you and him a healthy happy life and lifestyle!


~Corey123.
 
Just wanted to say Hi to all you sweethearts out there. I have type II diabetese and have had it about ten years. This spring my G.P. sent me to an Endocrinologist (diabetes specialist), when it became a fight to keep my blood sugar under 200.

I have been put on a low carb diet, but they haven't bothered me with the low fat thing YET!

I have tried the jicama fries which I didn't care for. They seemed quite tough. Zucchini potatoe pancakes were ok and faux mash wasn't bad at all.

I have some recipes which are low carb and quite good if you would like them like them.

I am sure I can do this, but it isn't easy and there is a lot to learn and relearn.

By the way they did tell me that a teaspoon of cinnamon enhances the action of the insulin. I don't know if Cassia has the same result (no it's not the same)?
 
Biggest change for hubby has been that cup of fruit twice a day. This time of year it is not difficult, in the winter trying to get something and not be boring can be ... welll, yawn. I have a young friend (16 I think) who is a type one and she cheers my husband on. I can remember when she was very young, and she was always good about eating that apple twice a day ... even if they were mealy, even if they weren't great, even when you're bored stiff. Hubby takes inspiration from her, and his numbers are great as a result. As I've said before, it helps a lot that I was raised to "cook and feed" healthy. Too much, but all of it good. When the aforementioned young lady was diagnosed, her mother thanked me and my mom for the fact that we make great food for diabetics. We were just cooking the way we always do. I do wish I could get us into whole grain pastas and brown rice, but at some point you have to draw the line. But I am very, very happy that my husband has learned to love the three things he had to add to his diet (a cup of fruit at around 10 a.m., another at 3 p.m., and three triscuits with peanut butter before he goes to bed). It is ironic that he had to add food to his diet and lost weight. I have some cute ceramic measuring spoons that look like vegetables that I have hanging as decorative accents. Since we now use a measuring cup to get him the right amount of starch for meals, we're going to start using them for serving spoons.
 
What a wonderful and informative thread this is!!! My youngest son has juvenile onset diabetes, his biological father was diagnosed with diabetes a couple years later, and just recently my daughter has been diagnosed with this also!!

She is on DisussCooking now and I know she is learning so much from all of you - I wish she would share some of the things she has recently learned. She too, was very depressed when she was diagnosed, but she also got hit in the face with high blood pressure and a few other things that just knocked her for a loop - at the same time!

I'm happy to say she is really coming to terms with all the changes she has to and is making in her life. A big part of her mental attitude, I sure of as anything, has been being able to read all of your posts - what you all are going thru and the great ideas you are offering.

So...as her mother, you have no idea how much I thank you for all you are doing.
 
It was amazing to me to find that many people don't know they are diabetic until they are hit broadside with another illness. We met a man in the cardiologist's office who had his leg amputated and had only learned he was diabetic when he had extreme pain in his leg. Many more suffer heart attack, stroke, eye problems. We truly must be the keeper of our own health since it seems doctors don't look out for us like in the past.
 
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