A Reason to Keep Diabetes in Check

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.

Most of us know a little about diabetes.  Terry has diabetes and had a few complications with it at times.  I also have several friends with diabetes … thus, the blog.

We know there is a type 1 and a type 2 diabetes.  Type 1 diabetes is the rarest form with type 2 the more common type of diabetes.  There are many other differences between the two and also many similarities because they both are associated with the production of insulin.

There are many obvious reasons to keep your diabetes in check but the discovery of diabetes type 3 gives yet another reason.   I bet most have never heard about a type 3 diabetes.  That’s probably because it’s only really been discovered or rather, named that,  within the last few years.  More recent even than the discovery of the disease itself is what this type of diabetes targets.  It’s considered the brain diabetes.  Scary, huh?

This type of diabetes is harder to diagnose and harder to treat.   It appears that having type 1   or type 2 diabetes is necessary for developing this new form of diabetes.   Thus, it is also called double diabetes.  Type 3 diabetes does to the brain what the other two types do to the kidneys.  Without production of insulin in the brain the brain can not function as it should.

When this third type of diabetes was discovered a few years ago there was much discussion and controversy about the possibility of it being associated with Alzheimer's disease. There is speculation now of splitting the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s into two forms.  Thus, a huge reason to keep  diabetes in check.  Not all Alzheimer’s patients have diabetes but many with diabetes do develop Alzheimer's.  Thus, the two diagnosis. 

Check out a very recent article.  The article discusses cholesterol levels required for good brain activity and the need to maintain a low carb and high fat diet – healthy saturated fat diet.

Alzheimer’s is not a disease any of us want.  The thought of having any type of dementia is certainly not appealing.  Not all dementia is Alzheimer’s.  We probably all know someone somewhere at sometime who has had this disease.  We certainly don’t want it to be us.  This is just one more reason to keep a watch on sugar spikes and high glucose levels.

The most important point is this: it isn't "diabetes" that raises your risk of developing dementia, it is your average blood sugar. There is a close relationship between A1c (average blood sugar test)  and your likelihood of developing this type of dementia.

Research is very new on diabetes type 3 and it's association with Alzheimers so it’s something we’ll probably be following for a while.  In the meantime we’re going to learn to use a little more coconut oil and coconut products.

Keep tabs on that blood sugar as we want to continue connecting on the road but there's also another little issue that we need to keep in mind as all of us age.  What is it?  Well, even with slight dementia someone else may be put in charge of what you can and cannot do.  This boils down to the question of who to trust with your future  .. just in case.  I'm not talking about money either.  Only recently we have become aware of a couple situations where older parents have given power of attorney to one of their children.  In both cases the older parent is made to live in situations that are not necessarily of their choosing.  Once that power of attorney is given it just may be difficult or impossible to change.   It's something to keep in mind before giving anyone the right to anyone to make decisions for you.

‘Tis life on the road.

Diabetic and Changed Eating Habits

At a dinner party one should eat wisely but not too well, and talk well but not too wisely

Golly … I can’t believe I started this blog about three weeks ago and I still haven’t finalized and posted it.  We've had beautiful weather here for some time so I'm guessing this was written just after we arrived back in the Pacific NW.    It's one of my back-up blogs when we've just been way busier than we should be.  Here it is.

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When the weather is nasty it’s not even fun going out to eat because you actually have to go outside to do that. So, we have stuck around pretty much. One thing we have discovered is that sometimes eating in tastes better than eating out. At least it has around here. You get your food just like you like it most of the time. After all, you’re the cook so you know what you like. It’s usually seasoned perfectly …. because it’s just like you like it too.

Speaking of food – and we usually are often – Terry is a diabetic. He’s the one who usually ate three or four desserts, filled up on bread and then gulped down his favorite foods which were white potatoes and pasta. Folks who know him know a lot about his eating habits.  They’ve seen him down three and four helpings of bread pudding for dessert.  Well, in January it finally caught up with him and he had to change.  He has discovered all kinds of things in his system changed when his eating habits changed.  Mostly they change for the good.

He has given up spiking carbs including most desserts most times. As a diabetic the carbs he’s concerned with are the ones that cause his blood sugar to spike. We have been testing for those spikes. White potatoes for dinner have been replaced by butternut squash and sweet potatoes. Brown sugar topping has been replaced by Splendid mixture with butter and the list of changes goes on.

We have discovered a few low carb foods that don’t cause spikes and fill slots left open by foods we used to eat that did.  For example regular pasta has been replaced by Dreamfields Pasta. Dreamfields advertise this pasta has having a net of 5 grams of carbs.  Other pastas have about 40 grams of carbs. The key is digestible carbs. At first we doubted.  However, after trying and then testing for blood sugar spikes, we no longer doubt.  There were no spikes in blood sugar. 

This is what we have found out -----   net carbs = total carb grams - fiber grams - sugar alcohol.

Some people subtract half of the sugar alcohol grams. Some people subtract all of it. Some people only subtract fiber. It really depends on how your body reacts to sugar alcohols and all the other "non-digestible" chemicals they toss into those products

Another food item we’ve replaced is bread.  Breads can be really, really bad.  We have a new bread.  It’s Sara Lee’s 100% whole wheat with honey.   Two slices of bread contain 14g of carbs and one slice is only 7g.  Don’t forget to subtract out the dietary fiber which would leave one slice of bread with 5g of carbs!!  Compare that to the bread you currently have.  Actually, it’s really good bread too.  We use it for sandwiches and even for French toast.

I did say French toast and we do eat it with syrup.  It’s not regular syrup but low carb sugar.  There are several syrups with low carbs.  The one we bought was I Hop low carb syrup.  However, there are others that might have even lower carbs.   We just haven't checked them all out yet.

Terry loved pancakes.  Pancakes was one of the food items that came right off his food intake list.  However, we have discovered Adkins has a pancake mix we have yet to try.  Tammi has ordered some of the pancake mix for us and when it arrives, we'll going to put it to the test.  The carbs:  Well, according to the package it only has 5g net carbs.  We have yet to test the sugar spike but we will.  Terry will get out his little blood sugar tester and test it before he eats, an hour later and then two hours after that.  That just about does it.

Obviously our food items have changed.  Terry’s been concentrating on protein and low carb green vegetables.  It’s been like a miracle to his system.  We’re continuing to test for sugar spikes and getting educated at the same time.  Eating at home has been easier and with all the other changes we’ve been able to add items back in that we first took out of the diet. 

Reading labels of products happens more often now .   It’s amazing how much we’ve learned about foods.  It’s certainly been an education.

Smucker's Sugar Free Blackberry Jam with 5g of carbs.

IHop Sugar Free Syrup with 1g net carb.

Check out the dessert that Sabrina fixed.  It’s a cheesecake in a strawberry.  Obviously there are carbs in cheesecake but by eliminating the graham cracker crust you do cut those down.  

~  I bet you can’t eat just one??!! ~

‘Tis life on the road.

Keeping Blood Sugar Down

If not for chocolate, there would be no need for control top pantyhose.  An entire garment industry would be devastated.

 

When we first hit the desert it was obvious Terry hadn’t been feeling too well.  He was drug out and taking rather long naps. Oh, we all take naps but we don’t sleep the day away.  It was time for me to check that blood sugar reading. He is really, really bad at doing this.   Actually, why take it if you aren’t going to do anything about it?  The reading?  350!  Then, it slipped that it was also 350 when he visited his cancer doctor in December.  I guess that was a secret he didn’t want to share.  Obviously we had work to do. 

Now those of you who know Terry know that about that time comes out all the shields protecting those snacks.  However, it didn’t happen that way this time.  He actually surrendered and figured it was time to do something about it. (His kids would have been shocked!!)   Mike and Jim have had to work to keep their readings down too.  Thus, they’ve been a big help and a lot of encouragement.  He's been struggling with this now for nine days.  Today starts day number ten.  Monday was the first day we finally could say the reading did not go over 200.  There was a lot of sugar to get out of that bloodstream!  He’s had to increase the insulin and cut out the carbs.  That means no bread and no cinnamon rolls.  Poor, poor, Terry.

For now the eating hasn’t been much fun for someone who dreams of rolls, cakes, pies and potatoes.  He’s been eating almost all protein, some dairy and low-carb vegetables.  It’s been tough but doing a great job.  He even surprised us all at being careful of what he ate at our recent potluck. 

He definitely deserves an atta boy as Monday his blood sugar had one reading of 129!  He was proud and I was too.  We aren’t watching calories but only watching sugar and carbs.  You might guess that he’s also losing weight.  He hates that four letter word ( D I E T).  If he thought he was on a diet, things might be different.  We’re not talking about that now and will wait for him to notice. 

Instead of dreaming about all those sweet treats, he’s now dreaming of the day he can have just half a potato but for now he’s doing great.  Tonight’s another potluck.  It’s a pizza potluck.  I guess he’ll have a steak instead.

‘Tis life on the road.