In which I am royally f&cked

[MoonCat]

Instead of a treadmill, you may want to try an elliptical. It's easier on the knees, uses the arms more, and I find it doesn't make me dizzy from moving in one spot like a treadmill does.

Hmmm, I never thought of that! Thank you! I'm checking them out online and y'know, this could work...My sister wants the treadmill, too, but her knees are worse than mine, and mine aren't that great *sigh* so this might be better!

Just the other day, I saw a guy going down the street on what looked like a cross between a bicycle and an elliptical. Very strange.

[iradney]

The hardest thing will be staying away from bread. I love breads and pastries

There are paleo versions of bread - I've made flaxseed bread which is quite low in carbs. It looks...weird, but tastes pretty ok. I think you can make pie crusts with ground almond (savoury, anyways) as well...

[Food Lady]

I'm not sure how to advise you because while my metabolism is somewhat impaired, I'm not a full-blown diabetic. And I don't have any meds like Metformin artificially lowering my glucose. All I can tell you is what worked for me. I got some input from my diabetic parents and drew on past experience and came up with this:
--My carb cap for the day is 160 max, but I average 130. I don't count protein or fat at all, but I suspect I get an average amount of protein and probably more fat than anything.
--I generally only get 2 to 4 teaspoons of added sugars in my diet every day. Most of that is dark chocolate; I can't live without it, so I add it to my coffee and count the carbs. I didn't eat sweets at all for 3 months, and now it's a rarity. I don't even eat much fruit, but if I do, I count.
--I count net carbs (minus the fiber).
--I tracked my calories for one day and they were 1600. That's probably average for me, but I really don't count.
--I don't have a formal exercise plan, but I walk for pleasure and my job is 100% on my feet.
--I don't miss bread. I have an occasional piece of sprouted wheat or cracked wheat toast, but it's mostly disappeared from my diet. I guess if I'm going to have wheat, it's pasta, in small servings.
--I try not to go over 45 carbs for any given meal and 15 for a snack.
--I've not done well lately, but I try not to snack between meals, allowing myself to get hungry. (I have leftover fear of hypoglycemic episodes, so I tend toward preventative snacking. That is not good).
--Greek yogurt has half the lactose of regular yogurt and twice the protein. Only nonfat is available in the brand I like in the unsweetened form at a particular store, so I get that. I'm not opposed to full-fat dairy.
--My basic diet is cage-free eggs, meat subs (I'm a veg-head), dairy, nuts and seeds, some fruits (berries, mostly), non-root veggies (mostly greens salads in summer and other veggies in winter), and small amounts of pasta, bread, or breading. I will have just a teaspoon of real jam on toast instead of the suggested tablespoon serving. I am adding beans back in now that I've lost weight.

Results:
--Hypoglycemic episodes 3 hours after eating are now non-existent.
--I've lost 20 pounds, if my pounds-according-to-inches scale is right. For instance, I lost 4 inches off my hips and 4 off my waist (5 notches on my belt!) For me, it's always been 5-6 pounds per inch.
--I don't have a meter, but the last time my dad randomly tested me it was totally normal.
--I do crave sweets sometimes, but am totally able to pass up candy, cookies, whatever. Occasional treats really are occasional, like once a month ice cream. I sometimes make low-carb muffins with stevia and monkfruit. Love 'em. Sweets don't have the power over me that they used to, but it took a couple of months to break free of the desire, even though the behavior changed dramatically and immediately (was scared straight).
--I'm in a groove now. By the time I've had breakfast and lunch, I've hit 70-80 grams of carb, which leaves me a lot to play with for dinner, bedtime snack, late decaf latte, whatever. It is not difficult anymore to track; I have a lot memorized and I just put a memo on my phone that I update. No biggie.

Oh, and you can bake with coconut flour. You have to convert the recipe, though. I don't bother much anymore, but I did at first. I haven't tried almond flour. If you miss pastries, try these: http://low-carbin-it.blogspot.com/20...-crullers.html She's a member of http://www.lowcarbfriends.com/bbs/ and so am I. There's a forum on there specifically for diabetics. I found it because every time I looked up low-carb recipes, I'd end up there.

One more thing: you can do this. I care about you and believe in you. Lots of people live with it a long time and keep in reletively good health. My mom has done so for 20 years and only recently has gone to insulin, and only a few units at night. It took a long time to get even that far. She's got it down and enjoys nice meals. In fact, she eats more desserts than I do! You don't have to be totally deprived.

[Sapphire Silk]

But, I'm not here to whine. It's the result of my own bad choices. Now it's up to me to get things on track.

First of all, laying blame is not productive. While obesity certainly does raise ones risks, and is a controllable risk factor (unlike genetics), don't let anyone blame you for getting this disease.

Instead focus on what you're already trying to do: empowering yourself to take control!

I've read a lot of good suggestions here. What that should be telling you is that this is a manageable disease. My father had diabetes for twenty years. He never had a major complication of the disease; had all his toes, didn't go blind, didn't have a heart attack, didn't end up in the hospital with hyper or hypo glycemia. Rather, he died as a consequence of his 50 year smoking habit.

Dad's secret to success was his support system: Mom, Brother, and myself. He exercised regularly, quit smoking, and ate better. Mom learned how to cook for him properly, and she was big on nutritious cooking anyway. Dad learned how to keep track of his blood sugar, disciplined himself on what he ate away from Mom's influence. Support from your family and friends will help you stick to your diet better. Lay it on the line for them and see if they step up.

Some food suggestions:

Don't drink soda of any sort. It's empty calories and it packs on the pounds. Avoid DIET soda as well! Research more and more is showing it contributes, rather than reduces, diabetes rates. A recent article I read on the subject suggests that artificial sweeteners increase insulin resistance, meaning that your body resists the influence of insulin in transporting sugars into your cells to be used as fuel. So instead of being burned for energy, the sugar floats around in your blood stream. This seems to be the case for aspartame, saccharin, and other artificial sweeteners.

Avoid pasta and processed breads. They have too much of the wrong kind of carbs and are not easily metabolized.

If you want to avoid processed sugars (which are in EVERYTHING) learn to cook with fresh ingredients. Start hanging out at the Farmer's Market, and invest in a crock pot. There are lots of things you can cook this way that you can prepare in advance, throw in the pot, go to work and come home to a ready made dinner that is healthy.

Someone mentioned smaller meals. Six small meals a day will help you lose weight, as opposed to 3 large ones.

Regular physical activity IS important. Keeping mentally engaged in the activity is also a key part of sticking with it. Set goals for yourself, and make them modest at first. Right now you're walking. Work your way up to cycling, since your knees are bad. Try swimming for cardio and endurance, or yoga for flexibility and strength training. Both are low impact.

I do martial arts because of the class interaction. Even though it's high impact and I have bad knees, I wear braces and I listen to my body. If it's just too much, I modify. I'm in much better physical condition than I was in 3 years ago, and I've lost almost 30 lbs.

Find an activity you can get into and get excited about doing . . . something fun that you look forward to. Then you won't think of it as work. Lots of sports require regular physical activity and training to get good at: bowling, golf, archery, all kinds of things.

Allow yourself the occasional treat, and don't think of it as cheating. Just don't get in the habit of making it a regular thing.

[MoonCat]

SapphireSilk---Thanks. I guess guilt is a common feeling with this diagnosis, along with fear and even anger. Got all those. I have to work through those feelings.

Re: Food. I don't drink soda anymore. We stopped that a couple years ago. I was using sucralose but I decided to stop that last week when I read about the same study you mentioned. Not eating pasta is the hardest part. I love pasta more than any other food. I love baked goods, too. I know whole grains are better, so I'm going to see about working those into my diet.

We have a crock pot - my middle sister does the cooking. All 3 of us need to lose weight anyway, so hopefully this is something we can do together.

There's a place in town where I can do "spinning" (the name makes me laugh-it's a bike, people!) which I've been wanting to check out. I can't swim, so all my activity will have to be on dry land. And it all has to be nearby; I don't drive. I really enjoy walking, actually, and last year I was doing a lot more of it, which is why I lost some weight last year.

Doc wants me to drop 30 lbs. I probably should lose more, but that's my goal for now. I've never been higher than the 180's but that's still too much for a short person like me

[morgana]

I also want to thank all you wonderful people for the advice.

I never said anything on here (maybe that guilt Mooncat was talking about or maybe just denial ), but I was also diagnosed about a month ago. Metformin and ordered to lose a hundred pounds.

But I'll survive. I always do. And so will you, Mooncat.

[EricKei]

Doc wants me to drop 30 lbs. I probably should lose more, but that's my goal for now.

One idea to consider trying is to set a goal for the weight loss (this works for other things, too) and then break it up into chunks. Instead of looking at it as "losing 30 lbs," look at it as "losing 10 lbs." Once you've lost that, renew that goal, then repeat. At the end, BAM! 30 pounds gone I have...*ahem* slightly more weight to lose than that, so I'm breaking it up into belt sizes/notches. I'm down one notch so far and working on the next...

Avoid DIET soda as well! Research more and more is showing it contributes, rather than reduces, diabetes rates. A recent article I read on the subject suggests that artificial sweeteners increase insulin resistance, meaning that your body resists the influence of insulin in transporting sugars into your cells to be used as fuel.

My Mom is one of those folks for whom this has (apparently) turned out to be the case -- For many, MANY years, she chugged 6-12 cans of Tab, a diet cola, per day (remember, this was back in the 70's and 80's when sugar and butter were the devil and cigarettes were still "not at all addictive" ). She eventually cut back, but she still had at least some Tab or other diet drink, pretty much every day of her life for years afterwards (still has one, and only one, can a day even now...). Her doctors believe that this habit was one of the significant contributing factors to her development of diabetes.

[raudf]

Something to watch out for is sudden blood sugar spikes. I recommend keeping a food journal and writing down what you ate, to make it easier to track which foods cause what kind of spike, so you can better plan your meals with those in mind. My uncle loves oranges, but he can't have them too often due to this effect. If he plans on eating them, he knows he'll have to adjust something else to balance the spike.

[Food Lady]

The studies on artificial sweeteners are inconclusive, and that's all I'll say about it here. Just want to interject that there are alternatives like monkfruit, stevia, erythritol, and xylitol. Stevia is believed to aid blood sugar control and xylitol preserves tooth enamel. If you want to avoid the artificial ones, experiment with different ratios of the others. I personally like erythritol the best, but it is less sweet than the others. I use mostly stevia, though, organic if possible. It's possible to buy the stevia leaves whole or cut and sifted online also; they can be steeped along with your tea.

[MoonCat]

I also want to thank all you wonderful people for the advice.

I never said anything on here (maybe that guilt Mooncat was talking about or maybe just denial ), but I was also diagnosed about a month ago. Metformin and ordered to lose a hundred pounds.

But I'll survive. I always do. And so will you, Mooncat.

Thanks, Morgana! It's a bitch, ain't it?

Time to go check my blood sugar again...

[morgana]

Yeah, it's a bitch, but it's a bitch a lot of people manage to live with. We're in good company.

[Victory Sabre]

I am not diabetic, but I do have a family history of it. My grandpa was, caused by the medication he was taking, and my dad is. I will be damned if I get it.

Some things I do to lose weight, and stay healthy.

1 - no deep fried foods. I do not like them anymore, and, frankly, my stomach gets upset when I eat them.
2 - No soda pop at all. I pretty much stopped when I had my kidney stone back in 2002, and the last one I had was in 2007. That last one was a Sierra Mist, and it was so sickeningly sweet, so me, I barely finished it.
3 - I drink organic apple cedar vinegar. In a way bitter things like that have become my new sweet. It is so good when I add it to water, and it, supposedly, helps control blood sugar. You probably would only add a very tiny amount, unlike me, but you might like it.
4 - consume whole grains. If you get bread look for 100% whole wheat. Same goes for pasta. It is a lot better than the white bread and pasta.

I hope these ideas help.

[It's me]

Lots of good advice already given here. Especially getting and using a meter -- that will let you find out what your response to what & when you eat. What works for others may not work for you and vice versa.

Couple of good sites:
http://www.phlaunt.com/
http://www.dietdoctor.com/

[Sapphire Silk]

There's a place in town where I can do "spinning" (the name makes me laugh-it's a bike, people!) which I've been wanting to check out.

Doc wants me to drop 30 lbs. I probably should lose more, but that's my goal for now. I've never been higher than the 180's but that's still too much for a short person like me

It sounds to me like you are on the right track. Do check that spinning place out; physical activity should be FUN! It'll help your mental health too, you can use physical activity to work out all the stress in your life. You'll feel better, have more energy, and the feelings will carry over into the rest of your day.

30 pounds is doable. I lost 30 pounds in six months a couple of years ago. What happened was that I plateaued; I'd built up some muscle mass to off set the fat loss with a net zero loss. I needed to step up my game, and I didn't. Then, I relapsed back into some bad habits and put some of the weight back on (though I never regained the whole 30).

Now that my foot issues are largely cleared up (I had foot surgery and a broken foot both in one year) I'm back to working out regularly, and I'm back to controlling my diet better. So I've started to lose and I've taken off another 25 pounds or so. I need to check my weight, I think I've finally broken past my low of 2 years ago and started to move back towards my original goal of dropping from 236 (my high at this time four years ago) to 180 (my current goal). If I'm right, I should weigh around 205 lbs. Which would mean only another 25 to go. We'll see! But my pants are falling off of me, and I'm almost down another shirt size, so I'm feeling optimistic.

The studies on artificial sweeteners are inconclusive, and that's all I'll say about it here. Just want to interject that there are alternatives like monkfruit, stevia, erythritol, and xylitol. Stevia is believed to aid blood sugar control and xylitol preserves tooth enamel. If you want to avoid the artificial ones, experiment with different ratios of the others. I personally like erythritol the best, but it is less sweet than the others. I use mostly stevia, though, organic if possible. It's possible to buy the stevia leaves whole or cut and sifted online also; they can be steeped along with your tea.

Well, by inconclusive it really means more study needs to be done. We've known for quite some time that people who use artificial sweeteners have an increased obesity risk (which by extension increases your diabetes risks). The prevailing thought for many years was that people just got their calories from other sources because they were being "good" with the soda; sorta like the morbidly obese folks getting the supersized meals with the Diet Coke we've all seen in the fast food joints.

The study I mentioned indicates there's more to it than that, ie the insulin resistance. Granted, follow up studies need to be done to confirm this preliminary result. But the conclusions of the study make sense based on everything I know about how the human body works.

Personally, I believe having too much sweetener of any sort is not good for you, no matter its source. They all have pitfalls, even natural sugars like fructose found in fruits and vegetables. Our bodies have been conditioned to crave sweets, though, and our society makes it really easy to obtain them cheaply. But we pay a price later.

[EricKei]

The prevailing thought for many years was that people just got their calories from other sources because they were being "good" with the soda;

My stepfather did this ~_~ His preferred movie-watching food (at home) was a big bag of Ruffles and a six-pack of Diet 7Up