You Can Win the War...You Can Be In Control!

I have found there is so much in life I really can't control.  If you work, there are aspects about your job you don't control.  If you are married, do you think you can control your spouse?  Can you control how much homework a teacher might assign?  Heck, I can't even control how long it takes me to drive somewhere due to traffic.  Think about it.

There are so many health related concerns you can't control.  Cancer.  A failing back.  Even getting a cold is something we can't seem to control.

But, there is some good news - YOU can control diabetes.  I know I have hammered this home before, but it's worth doing again and again.  You can control and manage diabetes.  What does it take?  A few simple steps.

Form you team.  The best way to fight diabetes and win the war is to have an engaged team.  Your team should include your doctor, pharmacist and you.

Take your medication.  This is so simple.  Do not miss a dose.  Take what your doctor prescribes, when he prescribes it to be taken, how it's prescribed to be taken.  This is such an easy step.  But, in order to take your meds, you have to have them.  My pharmacist tells me about 30% or prescriptions that are filled don't get picked-up.  30%!  Please, be part of the 70% and pick-up your medication so you can take it.

Diet.  And, by diet I mean what you eat.  This probably has to change.  My big diet change was to limit the carbs I would have during a meal to 55 to 60 carbs.  This means eating different foods and less of them.  As I look back, I must have been having 150 to 200 carbs per meal.  No wonder I am a diabetic. Now, I normally have about 50, and sometimes less.

Let me tell you that a lower carb diet helped me to lose about 60 pounds and dropped my sugar levels.  I went from an AIc of about 13.0 to 6.1.  My lowest A1c was 5.9 - so I know it's attainable and it my next goal.  That will probably require a change in my diet to both low carb and low fat (basically it means I will have to start counting calories).

Exercise.  I can't stress this enough.  There is something about exercise that makes it easier for your blood cells to receive sugar - glucose.  And, what will that do?  Lower your daily glucose reading!  And, you will lose more weight if you exercise than if you just try to do it by reducing what you eat.

Form your team.  Take your medication. Change your diet and realize it will be a way of life. And, exercise.  You will be on your way to controlling diabetes instead of it controlling you.  You really can do this.

A great way to get started is by downloading and using the Food Diary Plus to act as a reminder and keep track of your progress.

I know, that was a shameless plug, but it's your Food Diary that will form the basis for your fight.  You will gain so much information and will know how your body is responding.  And, it's a great way to keep track of what you eat and the effect it has on your blood sugar.

Are you ready?  You can battle the disease and win your war with diabetes.

Fight on!

Prediabetes Can Be Beat!

Yesterday I spent the day near the ocean.  It was one of those gorgeous days where the sky was crystal blue; ocean was incredible with the perfect breeze blowing.  The day was...well, I don't have the words to describe it adequately.  Then, because I love watching people, I started  watching them and noticing the food they were carrying - it was all either deep fried, sweet, or deep fried and sweet.

Late last night I was looking at yesterday's Los Angeles Times and came across an article with this headline: " Clothing lines embrace plus sizes."  People are getting bigger and need bigger clothes.  Do you think there is any correlation between what we eat, getting bigger and clothing manufacturers making larger sizes?  Nah, couldn't be...could it?

There are 75,000,000 to 80,000,000 Americans who have Prediabetes.  This is a condition where they have high blood sugar readings and will most likely be diagnosed with Diabetes sooner or later.  Take a look at what the American Diabetes Association says about Prediabetes.

Let me tell you - you do not want to be a diabetic.  Your life will change if you take the disease seriously.  And, if you don't, you will pay a heavy price.  Am I scaring you a bit?  I hope so.  I wish someone had scared me when I was told I had Prediabetes.

If you are told you have Prediabetes there are steps you can take - steps that mean you probably will not get Diabetes.  What do you need to do?  Talk with your doctor.  Find out the immediate things to do.  Chances are it will be a short list (I like short lists).  You will need to educate yourself and take action.

So, what might be on your 'to do list?'

Change your diet.  You can always go to a lower carb diet as a first step.  If anyone had really told me, or if I had taken the time to find out instead of being in denial, I would have found that a lower carb diet was not a bad thing at all; in fact, it's pretty good.


I look back at how much I used to eat and I am amazed.  I ate much more than I needed to eat.  Why?  I just love the taste of food.  How it looks.  How it smells.  How it tastes.  I just love everything about it.  If a plate of pasta is good, two plates are better.  Am I right?  Well, I was wrong.  If I had made a few changes and understood that I only needed to eat the food I would need for fuel, I would be much better off today.  But, it's not easy to change how one eats until they are forced to do so.

Don't become a diabetic statistic.  Start thinking about what you eat; how much you eat and the effect it has on your body.


You might need to lose a little weight.  Guess what, if you go to a lower carb diet, you will probably lose a little weight.  I know it's not easy - really.  There is no magic potion to take or a magic pill to take that will make you lose weight permanently.  It's about changing habits.  Changing eating habits.  But, if you can change that habit, you will change your life! I know I will be writing about this sometime in the future.

Change your diet...Maybe lose a little weight...anything else?  Yes, exercise.

Exercise.  You don't have to spend two hours in the gym to exercise.  You are not going to six-pack abs here.  You just want to get healthier.  All you need to do is to get 150 minutes a week of exercise.  Did you know that cleaning a house or apartment is considered exercise?  Chances are you are already do that.  Maybe you can walk for 30 minutes a night.  Just 30 minutes a night to keep track of what's going on in the neighborhood and it's exercise!

If I sound like I am begging you to take action, I am.  I would much rather hear about someone beating a Prediabetes diagnoses than progressing to full-blown diabetes.  It can be reversed and YOU can do it.

Carb Revelation! It's Not Just About The Carbs

I lost about 60 pounds between diet and a bit of exercise.  My diet has been one of basic carb counting - not too difficult to understand or track.  But, and this is a revelation from yesterday during my walk - counting carbs is not enough; you have to look at the fat content!  What a concept, right?

For me, it was pretty basic diet - about 55 or 60 carbs per meal with snacks not to exceed 15 carbs.  That was it.  I just could not fully understand that diet in which you can exchange this for that to equal a number.  It just seemed a very difficult way to figure out what I could have to eat.  My carb counting was pretty easy once I knew what the carbs were and the portion size.

So, I get close to where the doctor wants me.  I had a BMI of 25.0, as I recall.  He wanted me at 24.9.  You remember about good ol' BMI's right?  Body Mass Index.  If you are above 24.9, you are overweight.  Need to check your BMI?  Look here.  And, if you want to understand more about BMI, read this article.

As I write this, I have a BMI of 25.3 - not great, but not too bad either.  And, it seems as though I have been unable to get much below 25.0.  Kind of frustrating for a guy who thinks he knows how to lose weight, right?  Well, I have to begin to learn more about fat and fat content, which I have never paid attention to in the past.

I mean, catbs turn into sugar so if I counted carbs, I would not only lose weight, but manage the diabetes.  How great is that?  And it worked for a long time.  If you are just starting out, I think carb counting is a good way to begin to manage and control diabetes.  But, if you want to make that breakthrough to getting to the right weight, you may have to look at fat.

Perfect example: I eat granola-type bars for snacks.  I found one very low carb bar - I mean it was like 9 net carbs - nice and low.  And, I sometimes use another type of bar in which the total carbs is about 18, or so.  Much, much more.  But...and this is an important but...the fat content was double in the low carb bar.  Double!  So, my current solution is to just eat about half of the higher carb, lower fat bar.  I emphasize current, because i have to look at the labels and might find a better balance.

Yes, there is a lot to think about when you have diabetes and it comes to your diet, but it soon becomes second nature.  You begin to look at the labels on all foods to find out what is good for you to eat.  I imagine I should do a food label explanation pretty soon.  That might be a good idea, huh?

So, I keep counting carbs.  But, now I am beginning to count fat - and I am sure I will come back to fat in a future blog because even I know there are different kinds of fat.  I will try to de-mystify and simplify fat when I blog about it.

I will continue to let you know about my adventures in weight loss.  By the way, when my doctor told me I had to 'lose a little weight' my BMI was 32.55.  Of course, I had no idea what a BMI was at that point, or I think I would have been discouraged.  But anyone can lose a little weight, right?  Sure glad that my doctor did not tell me I had to lose about 67 pounds, total.

As always, thank you for reading.

Today

I just wrote about perseverance.  That each meal and each day is a decision point.  It really is.

Remember, I think I have told you that I lost about 60 pounds.  I was really happy with that.  All of my numbers were very good.  And, then I stopped being so disciplined in my approach.  If I wanted chips (I love chips - any kind of chips), I ate them and as many as I wanted.  If I wanted a cookie, I had one.  It was too dark to walk, I told myself.  Maybe a little too cold.  (Okay, go ahead ans laugh, but cold in California is 60 degrees.  I found reasons not to exercise, where before I exercised no matter what.

What happened?  I gained 7 pounds over three months.  All of my numbers went up a bit.  Still weren't terrible, but they went up - not the direction I wanted.  But, even thought I did not want the higher numbers, I did not want to lose the weight.  I knew the work it would take.

My doctor was not pleased with me.  I was not pleased with me.

So, after six months, I made the decision to lose the weight.  I knew that meant a bit extra exercise.  Not eating what I wanted, but what I should eat.  And, yes, it meant that I would be hungry sometimes.  But, I wanted to control and manage diabetes successfully more than I wanted food.  So, after fighting the decision, I made it.

I had to lose the weight and then some.

Right now, as I write this, I have lost five pounds - I think.  My scale at home is not entirely accurate.  (A piece of advice - get an accurate scale!!)  I know I have lost weight.  How much will reamin a mystery until I see the doctor next month.

What did it take?  Big surprise - less food and dedicated exercise.  I had to persevere.  I had to stick to it.  I have to control diabetes.  And, right now, my morning readings are looking pretty good and my weight is coming off.

The reason I write about this is that today's decisions regarding diet and exercise will be reflected in, on or around your body sooner than you think.  Please, please make good decisions so you can manage your diabetes.

I am not eating chips.  I am not eating cookies or ice cream.  I stay away from any sweet.  I limit carbohydrates.  Drink plenty of water.  And, I exercise.  ALTHOUGH - I do have one small (emphasis on SMALL) celebratory meal each week.  It's a small breakfast meal but I let myself have a few extra carbs knowing I will exercise a bit more so they won't have an adverse effect.

Don't forget to reward yourself for victories - I want you to have a lot of them!

Shakes and Quakes

When I was first diagnosed I had no clue how to eat.  It seemed like I could eat too little or too much if I weren't very careful.  Too much and my sugar would be high.  Too low and I could go into a diabetic coma or have the effects of low blood sugar - aka hypogycemia.  Neither of which really appealed to me to say the least.  I wanted to avoid high sugar readings because, after all, I was (am) a diabetic.  And, I really wanted to avoid those low sugar shakes and quakes.

You know what?  I was successful on both counts.  I did have one day where I had a glucose reading of 59 - pretty low in anybody's book, and had only limited effects before I had sense enough to eat.  So, what did I do?  What did I eat?

I started with being having meals of about 60 carbs - give or take 5.  Snacks stayed around 15 carbs.  But - and here is the big secret...drum roll if you please...I ate six smaller meals of about 30 to 35 carbs.  It seemed like I was always eating.

Think about it.  Breakfast at 6:30. Snack at 9:00 or 9:15. Lunch around 11:30. Another snack around 2:30 or 3:00.  Dinner at about 6:00.  And yet another snack at around 8:00 or 8:30.  Each of these meals was 30 or 35 cabs.  Six meals of 35 carbs each means I was getting somewhere around 210 to 220 carbs a day.  That was really enough food for me.

Enough food?  Yes - it's what I needed to live, work and exercise AND lose weight.  Was I hungry sometimes? Well, yeah.  Think about it.  I had been eating what 350 or 400 carbs a day.  That's a lot.  No wonder I had diabetes.  Does not take a brain surgeon, does it?  My stomach needed time to catch up with my lower intake...it had to shrink.

But, I have got to tell you a secret - you can eat enough food and not be full.  You see, somewhere between your stomach and brain there seems to be a lag so that when you have actually eaten more than enough you really won't feel 'stuffed' until 10 minutes later.  That's one reason why we over-eat.  I don't know the science behind that phenomenon, I just know it's true.

Soon I will have to write about what 'enough food' really means.  But, in a nutshell, it's the amount you need to go through your day in a healthy manner.

So, there's a rule for you - start eating with your brain!

Eat six smaller meals as you start to lower your blood sugar.  If you are interested, I will list what I ate in the beginning - just ask.  It's different that what I eat now that I am in maintain mode.

Keep fighting the good fight to manage your diabetes.  It's not easy some days, but well worth it.

Thank you for reading.

Diet and Exercise - General Routine

A question about my general diet and exercise was asked and I thought this would be a good time to introduce the topic.  I will go into more detail in future posts.

Diet and Exercise are the two of the most important ways for you to control your blood sugar, cholesterol and general well being.  For a diabetic there is only one more important item - TAKE YOUR MEDS AS PRESCRIBED!

The exercise part is the easier one to answer.  I walk.  I walk 5 or 6 days a week for about 30 minutes.  Sometimes it's 35 or 40 minutes because I decide to walk a bit farther.  I walk because it's something I can do easily and gives me a time to consider life in general, see the neighborhood and at least say hi to folks I see.  Once I start my walk, I do not stop. 

I walked for the first 2 1/2 years in old shoes that my wife wanted me to throw away. Yes, my shins ached a bit, but I would rather have a little ache than have a high A1c.  The first day I walked maybe 3/4 of a mile in 30 minutes, but the important thing was that I was doing something.  Over time my pace increased, so I go much farther in 30 minutes now.  My normal 'walk' pace is 120 paces per minute; I have several areas of my walk where it increases to 132 paces per minute.  My walk is done on level ground.

Do you know the most important reason I walk?  I hate the idea of going to a gym and I think I might dislike the idea of actually running almost as much.  Now, you know.

Don't worry about the 'right' shoes, by the way.  Just get out and start walking.

I think my next blog entry is going to be on diet, at least where I began, which is not where I am today.  I stay to about 45 or 50 carbs for breakfast - whole grain cereals, hard boiled eggs (no more than four per week), toast (whole wheat and high fiber - found a great brand that does not taste like cardboard), blue berries and black berries mixed (a little over 1/2 cup each), very low carb yogurt like stuff and coffee with a splash of milk.  Now, understand I do not have all of that at the same time!  I mix and match to get to a carb count.

Lunch is a sandwich of turkey (not my favorite), left-over roast, peanut butter (watch the portion size), ramen like noodles (watch the carb count), maybe low carb yogurt stuff, fruit, fresh raw vegetables, and iced tea to drink (unsweetened).  I will have the occasional hamburger (but they normally come in at 55 carbs by themselves).  Again, I mix and match to get to 50 + or - carbs.

Dinner is a taco type salad with a piece of bread or corn tortilla, roast, salad, broiled or rotisserie chicken, fish, fish tacos (2 and I use corn tortillas) and iced tea to drink.  Again, I use 50 carbs as the magic number. 

For snacks I use low carb yogurt stuff, low carb granola bars (that really are good), fruit, half of a peanut butter sandwich, fresh raw vegetables.  Most snacks I try to keep to 15 cards, more or less.

When I drink milk, which I love, I use 2%.

If it would assist you, I would be glad to use Twitter to list what I eat for a specific meal, or meals.  I would record and send out everything I eat.  I don't claim to be an expert, but I have found what works for me to keep my A1c and weight where they should be.  If I can help you, I'd like to.  I would also let you know when I found a great food or product that would help you.

Again, thank you for reading.

"The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny."  Albert Ellis

First Steps

Well, I had just found out I had diabetes that morning.  Not one of my better mornings.  I was afraid, but was determined not to be a victim of the disease.  I might (no might about it with my A1c) have diabetes, but diabetes did not have me.  It was important for me to make that distinction and statement.

The first marching orders from my doctor: Get the medication started because he wanted to get the A1c down as soon as possible, and lose a little weight.  I am so glad he did not tell me I had to lose 60 pounds.  I am not sure I would have been so aggressive in getting the weight off.  A 'little weight' is so much easier to lose!  Of course, I heard 'just a little more' for quite a few months.

Obvious foods were out for me.  You know what they are - sugar in just about any form, a lot of starches, no rice (I loved rice), white breads, etc.  Load up on vegetables (didn't know that I liked that idea).  So, no more cookies - and I have never met a cookie I didn't like.  And, of course, pies, cakes, ice cream, etc. were off the menu permanently.

The simple fact of life is that I had to change the way I ate.  So, I decided one of my first steps was to start and maintain a food log or diary.  EVERYTHING I ate got recorded.  I found an unused 'scratch' pad around the house and started writing down what I ate.  I used a simple format: Breakfast, Snack, Lunch, Snack, Dinner, Snack (B, S, L, S, D, S).  I wrote down every little thing and I put a carb count next to each meal

What? Carb count?  Yep, I am one of those who counts carbs - still do.  In the beginning I allowed myself about 60 carbs per meal and 15 carbs per snack.  Each day had a maximum possible of 225 carbs.  Where did I get this idea?  I think I eventually got it from a on-on-one with a dietician - unfortunately I can't accurately recall. (Sounds like I am answering a question during a Senate Investigation.)  Where ever I got it, it worked for me.

You have to remember where I was coming from.  100 or 150 carb meals were the norm.  I ate what I wanted when I wanted.  You might be coming from the same place.  Pizza.  Pastas. Breads of any sort. And, potatoes.  It doesn't take much for me to accurately imagine a baked potato with butter, lots of butter on it.  So, from 150 carbs per meal to only 225 for the day.  I really, really, really wanted to re-think this approach, but knew in my heart I didn't have any alternative.

In fact, I reduced the total number of carbs consumed daily (now, that really does sound like a label on a product) over the next few weeks to between 190 and 200.  But, I knew what I was eating and where I could reduce.  Why?  Because I kept my food diary.

By the way, at the top of every page, I put my morning glucose reading.  I knew the general goal was to see it go down to below 120.  I started with something over 300, but between the medication and the change in what I ate, I saw it go down everyday which served as a reinforcement for my eating.  Seeing the glucose number helped me be more successful.  It became a game for me!

So, please get your food diary started.  Even now when I need to make an adjustment - like lose a few pounds (more on that later), I start keeping a diary and I can immediately see where I need to make adjustments.

Now, most of my meals are aorund 50 to 55 carbs and my snacks are about 12 to 15 carbs.  I only know that it works for me.  As an alternative you might want to try six small meals at about 30 carbs each.

Want to know carb counts on some basic foods?  Look here.

You can do this!  Diabetes is the enemy and you ARE going to vanquish it with a bit of time and planning.

"Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." Charles R. Swindoll