Browsing Tag

Living With Diabetes

Diabetes Diet

Guiltless Indulgences

Guiltless indulgences might sound like a contradiction in terms. But it’s not — as long as we control how much we indulge ourselves.

Recently I have been researching some of those sweet foods that are usually off limits but we can now buy or prepare with non-caloric sweeteners. Almost since I learned in 1994 that I have diabetes I’ve avoided even these guiltless indulgences. But my good friend Barry “the low-carb vegetarian” has more of a sweet tooth than I do and has been leading me down this path.

“Do you know of any low-carb chocolate drink that tastes good?” I asked him.

“Hot chocolate couldn’t be simpler,” he replied. “Grind some organic cacao nibs into cocoa powder, or get 100% unsweetened cocoa alkalized powder, sweeten with erythritol and/or stevia, mix in to unsweetened almond milk or unsweetened soy milk… add cinnamon, vanilla extract, nutmeg… however you like it, even a little high fat low carb whipped cream on top, and voila!” Continue Reading

Psychosocial

Are You a Noncompliant Diabetic?

When we don’t get our blood glucose levels low enough or take the diabetes medicine that our doctors prescribe, they often complain about our noncompliance. Particularly when we follow a very low-carb diet and are unlucky enough to have a nutritionist on our medical team, she is almost certain to give us a hard time.

When doctors and nutritionists do that, they are forgetting their place. The doctor-patient relationship is a status thing. While medical professionals usually earn more money than we do, they work for us. We are the ones who make them well off, if not rich.

We hire our doctors. We can fire them too. Several years ago when Byetta first came on the market, I knew that taking it would help me control my blood glucose and lose weight. The doctor I saw at the time had never heard of Byetta, so he had to read up on it. When he did, he refused to give me a prescription for it because he was sure that I would lose only a few pounds. I fired him and proved him wrong after I hired a compliant doctor. Continue Reading

Diabetes Diet

David’s New Diabetes Diet

What I eat keeps changing all the time. Since I change regularly everything else that I do, this should be no surprise.

My breakfast starts with two glasses of GreensFirst. This is one breakfast that I can consume immediately after getting up from bed. The experts all tell me that we do better when we eat within an hour of arising, but that’s always been hard for me to get down. GreensFirst solves that problem beautifully.

I absolutely love this way to start the day! Much better than the two cups of coffee I used to start the day with. Now, I drink only decaf, and much less of that (I also stopped drink single malt Scotch whisky). I don’t drink any alcohol now. I stopped drinking regular coffee and alcohol to help control my headaches, which are now gone, but I am staying off of them for my health (and budget). So sometimes bad things can lead to good outcomes!

When I wrote the article about GreensFirst, I hadn’t experimented much with it. But since I keep changing, I now make it with protein powder and refrigerated sparking mineral water and really enjoy the fizz. Of course, I have to mix it up with a little bit of filtered tap water, because cold water doesn’t work as well. Continue Reading

Diabetes Testing

Roche’s Social Media Summit

Roche Diabetes Care this week took a bold and potentially dangerous step into the unknown. This leading manufacturer of blood glucose meters invited 29 of us who write about diabetes to what they called the “Social Media Summit.” During the past 14 years that I have specialized in writing about diabetes no other diabetes company had ever reached out to us.

When my invitation first arrived, I didn’t recognize the term “social media.” I now understand it to mean bloggers and other patient advocates, like me, who write about diabetes.

On Wednesday and Thursday we met with top company executives at Roche’s North American headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana. Luc Vierstrate, Roche’s Senior Vice President and General Manager of Roche Diabetes Care North America, kicked off the event over dinner Wednesday. Roche executives turned out in force, probably outnumbering those of us who write about diabetes. At dinner I sat between the medical director and the vice president of sales, each of whom have type 1 diabetes. Continue Reading

Diabetes Diet

The Good Fats

Whenever my energy level is inexplicably low as it was on a hike last week, I consume more of the good fats. We get our energy either from carbohydrates or fat.

And now that I eat very few carbs to control my blood glucose level and my weight, I need to get most of my energy from the fat in my diet. But sometimes in my quest to control my weight I don’t get enough of either.

Big mistake.

But what are the good fats? They are those with the highest proportion of monounsaturated fatty acids, explains Dr. Dick Williams. He is a consultant to BalancePoint Health, a cholesterol, weight loss, and diabetes control program headquartered in Boulder, Colorado.

“When you stop burning carbohydrates for energy, you need to turn on your fat burner,” Dr. Williams told us at the most recent meeting of our local diabetes support group. “Some of the best examples of monounsaturated fats are avocados, olive oil, and nuts — especially almonds, pecans, and walnuts.” Continue Reading

Diabetes Basics

My Motivation

Motivating people with diabetes to control this disease is my goal in life. For most of my life I consciously took in information, but now what gives me the greatest joy is to share it.

But what motivated me to control my own diabetes?

Yesterday afternoon I gave my chiropractor a copy of the article that I wrote here on Chia Seeds, mentioning that many people had read and commented on it. While he was treating me, he said that my articles must help many people to control their diabetes.

Maybe, I acknowledged.  But I’m trying to help just one person at a time. Continue Reading