Diabetics: How do you satisfy the nom nom nom?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Good morning diabetics!

I have recently joined the Lancet Club, and have a ton of questions.

The first is about food – as in, how and what do you eat? What’s a typical food day for you? Does it satisfy? How much and how often do you eat?

I’ve been given guidelines, but what I need are examples. I’m not looking for recipes quite yet, just some general ideas. Yummy recipes can come later in the thread.

Also, I’m having trouble bleeding. I’ve tried 2 different lancing devices (both from One Touch), and even set on 7, I can barely see red, much less get a good drop. Is it me or is it the device? My dietician said that the devices didn’t really seem to “cock” properly.

2

I’m sorry you’re ‘one of us’ now. My condolences. :wink: It’s fantastic that you’re being proactive about the situation, though! Good for you!

As for food, I eat a LOT of salad greens, celery, green beans, and broccoli. I tend to try to go easy on the cauliflower, corn and peas, and I try to avoid potatoes, which is REALLY difficult to do, especially if you worship them, like I do. Good Og. You need to have some carbs, but don’t overdo. I have to stay away from all fruit, because it sends my BG through the roof. You need to watch the salad dressing, because the regular ones are full of sugar, and the low cal/no cal ones are full of carbs. Olive oil and wine vinegar are my go-to salad dressings these days.

Everyone is different, and everyone’s bodies work differently, so you need to go with whatever works best for you. It’s all trial and error, until you find what makes your BG go high, and what doesn’t.

I’ve found that Wheat Nuts make great snack food, because they don’t raise my BG too much. So, I’m always eating those things.

I also eat a lot of chicken, but not anything with breading/coating. I usually just saute up some chicken in a skillet on the stove, or bake it, and put lots of seasoning on it. I eat a lot of pork, as well. Usually just the more lean, boneless chops. Same with beef. I like the lean stuff, usually in the form of a steak, or just sliced and sauteed, to add to salads.

It’s amazing how many carbs are in different items, and you’ll need to read the nutrition label.

I’m T1, and have been doing this for a long time. It’s just a way of eating that you’ll eventually get used to. It sure does suck when you first start out, though.

I wish you the very best with it all!

3

Since you’re looking for medical advice, I’ll move this to IMHO, where such threads go. If you want to start a second thread later for diabetic-friendly recipes, you can put that one in Cafe Society.

4

I eat several times a day. I don’t do breakfast very often, but I will have eggs, and sausage, or thinly sliced ham. I will snack on a little hummus and celery for brunch. For dinner, I eat roasted vegetables (sans potato), and some type of meat. For snacks, I will eat popcorn, but not much. Between meals, I eat a lot of carrots and celery, or Wheat Nuts.

To help yourself bleed a little better, try putting your hands in really warm water for a couple of minutes. That seems to help me when my fingers don’t want to bleed properly.

5

I went from A1C of @13 last year when I was diagnosed to 6.3 on my last test primarily by cutting out all sugared pop, 90% of my non-chocolate candy consumption and a small change to my daily diet.

Oat stuff is good for you! Even just switching to Oat Bread will do you good.
Lots of packaged food and even fast food has added sugar. Stuff you would never suspect. Watch the labels or more importantly, watch your blood sugar an hour after eating it.

I consume a fairly significant amount of Dove Dark Chocolate (2-5 squares a day) and I still tested at that 6.3. My blood pressure and cholesterol were also in the normal range for the first time in many years, so it appears this much chocolate (replacing other candy) is not doing me any harm and may be doing me good. Your Milage May Vary.

The trick, for the first couple of months, will be to test yourself regularly after meals and note how that food affects your blood sugar levels. Some things may surprise you - for good or bad.

And give yourself permission to cheat once in a while, or you won’t be able to stick to a diet at all. I give myself permission to have one sugar’d pop per week, but in practice, it ends up being less than one per month. The main benefit of this is that if a restaurant accidentally gives me a sugared pop when I order a diet, I’m not freaking out, getting upset or feeling guilty about it. Hey, I have permission to drink it, so I’m ok this time!

6

I’m assuming you’re talking Type 2, not Type 1, so I don’t have much to say on the nom nom nom. I pretty much eat 90% the same as I ate pre-diagnosis, but I’m Type 1, which is a different beast.

I can talk about the lancets, though! The Accu-Chek multiclix is the best I’ve found. Very comfy, can adjust the setting, and a drum lasts a long time (because no real diabetic uses a fresh lance for every poke, right?) Plus, it doesn’t look quite so much like a torture device as the other ones do.

7

Thanks. I thought it was appropriate to several forums!

8

Thanks for all of the responses so far. They are very helpful!

This comment confuses me. I was told not to go hog wild on testing myself – not more than about 7 times a week, with a mixture of early morning and post meal. So far I have only done early morning, with my readings at around 250ish.

Should my post-meal readings be at around 2 hours after the meal? What sort of jump should I expect?

I also need to cut out salt, as my BP looked like a phone number a couple of months ago. I’ve got my diastolic under 100, and I want to see my BG under 140.

9

What I’ve found is internet advice is much more stringent than doctor advice. All the diabetics I’ve heard from online are much more proactive about it than their doctors, so you need to figure out a balance for yourself. For the first couple of weeks I tested before every meal and then 2 hours after.

The other big thing is the amount of carbs you eat. Depending on gender, dieticians will recommend 30-50 grams of carbs per meal. Many people online will try to stick to less than 30 grams of carbs PER DAY.

I’m going for my follow up A1C this month, and that will guide me in my habits, because it’ll be my first A1C done after my lifestyle changes. For me, it’s been about cutting junk out of my diet and making the carbs I eat better carbs. Yes, carbs are carbs, but if I’m going to consume them anyway, multigrain bread is better than refined white bread. :smiley:

Food is an issue for me, definitely. When I don’t feel full, I try to supplement with veggies. Snap peas are my new favourite food.

Carb cravings and chocolate cravings are hard. Nuts can help curb the carb cravings because they have a closer mouthfeel to chips. Plain popcorn is okay too. Those little rice cakes in the snack aisle? Check the carb count, but they are usually good too. I’m not sure about the US - you guys have way more variety than Canada - but we have a brand named Russell Stover that makes No Sugar Added chocolates. One chocolate is low carb, and if you nibble it like a rabbit (:D) it satisfies.

Did your dietician tell you about fibre? Fibre is a carb, but because of how it is digested, you can subtract it from the total carb count. So if you’re looking at a high fibre bread and it has 20g of carbs and 5g of fibre, it has 15g of net carbs.

Another note - sugar alcohols. Some people tout them as the awesomest thing since sliced bread. But they’re just digested differently from pure sugar, they’re still carbs. Be aware of them, don’t take them as a free license to eat all the things, it’s just less guilt if you really, really need a piece of candy. Plus they mess up some people’s digestive systems, so if you eat too much of them, you might be making friends with your toilet.

10

I have type 2 diabetes that is (so far) completely under control through diet and exercise.

Controlling the noms is hard. The diet I follow is basically 2 or 3 carb units per meal, 3 meals a day. Each carb unit is 15g of carbs. I skimp a bit on carbs during breakfast and lunch so I can have a snack in between meals (i.e. only eat 2 carbs for lunch so I can have a 1 carb candy bar around 3:00 in the afternoon). It’s hard at first. You feel hungry all the time. Eventually though your body gets used to the smaller portions and it gets easier.

Otherwise I pretty much just eat whatever. It’s not what you eat, it’s how much you eat. The only thing I’ve really had to cut down on is pasta, because a couple of carb units of spaghetti is a side dish not a meal.

Also, pick a diet that you can stick to. It’s a lifestyle change, not a fad diet. I told my doctor that I am going to blow my diet over Christmas break. I always do. I have a weakness for Christmas cookies. After the break I go back to my diet. I gained a couple of pounds last month but whatever. I’m not going to lose sleep over it and I’m not going to go off of my diet because of it. That’s the key. Be realistic with your diet because if you aren’t then you won’t stick to it and then it won’t do you any good.

I also started walking a lot. For a while I was walking half an hour in the morning just after I got up and half an hour after dinner. That worked well. I’m trying to get back into that now that Christmas break is over.

Typical day for me:

Breakfast - either one bowl of cereal (careful how much, not a very big bowl) or an egg sandwich, one egg cooked in the microwave on a single piece of toast folded in half with a slice of cheese - technically I could have two eggs and two slices of bread but this saves me a carb for later. But if I’m really hungry for some reason I can do the larger sandwich.

Lunch - sandwich or a salad, or sometimes leftovers from dinner the night before (just be careful about portion size).

Afternoon snack - goldfish crackers if I’m good, a candy bar if I’m not so good

Dinner - whatever. Hamburgers, baked chicken, subs, pork chops, anything. Just count carbs and don’t be excessive on everything else.

100 calorie snack packs are your friend.

Just my 2 cents.

11

My doctor had me testing quite a bit at first. I was checking after meals and then again two hours later. After I got things under control I just checked 2 hours after dinner and maybe once in a while in the afternoon.

Now I don’t check it very often at all but I know what I eat and I know I have it under control.

12

This is all really helpful. I guess I’m going to have to get used to thinking in terms of carbs. I was using the “plate method” to control my eating, and I lost a good deal of weight that way, but it seems like that’s a little obsolete now.

My dietician said to forget about the whole white/wheat thing and just count carbs as carbs, but I can’t do that. I like my whole grains too much already.

13

Do you like them more than eyesight and blood circulation?

14

I like them more than Wonder Bread.

15

Then eat your whole grains. There’s nothing wrong with them. You just have to count them in your carb count.

Eat what you like or you won’t stick to your diet. Just control the portions.

16

Ok, so you’ve learned where you are at fasting on your current diet. But if you have no idea why it is getting so high that it’s 250 after not eating for 8-12 hours, you’re not really learning anything useful.

That’s why I advise that you now focus on where you are after the various foods you eat. Throw in the occasional check in the morning as well (assuming your post meal numbers start changing) and stick to the 7 checks a week thing.

Because it really is the diet that is going to be the key to your new lifestyle, and you do need to get a handle on how the things you eat affect your blood sugar.

Frankly, I haven’t poked myself in about a month, because I have a solid idea where my blood sugar is based on what I learned earlier. (Although I’ll probably make a point to check myself a couple of times in the next week just because I’m now aware of how long it has been.)

17

I like this advice. I just need to fill up on more veggies, I guess.

18

OK, point taken. I guess I should also write down what I’m eating before those tests. And how much.

Test 2 hours after my last bite?

19

About 2 hours. After you finish…or after you start. It’s not really something that has to be exactly precise.

But yeah, especially as you start, I would suggest testing after meals. Everyone reacts to different foods differently. I, for instance, seem to get less of a spike after potatoes than my wife does, but we’re exactly the opposite after breads.

As for controlling the munchies, I like to get some protein with my snacks and with meals. Greek yogurt can pack a good number of carbs, but the high amount of protein seems to keep my BG in check when I eat it and the protein keeps me satisfied longer than with regular yogurt. Some light cheese with a few crackers is another good one if you want something crunchy (just watch the total carbs). My favorite thing to throw in my laptop bag for work is single-serving packets of peanuts. A little high in fats, but having the serving size limited by the package makes it work okay for me.

20

Careful. Carbs aren’t just potatoes and bread and pasta. Veggies have carbs in them too, some more than others.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat veggies. You just have to include them in your carb counts.