Sugar Turned On Me

I know how I got where I am. It was because I was up to three bottles a day. Maybe with one poured from the tap with lunch, too. I’m talking about a beverage that is a problem for many otherwise normal Americans and one to which they are not quick to admit.

Soda.

Drink is as important to food to one’s diet. Maybe more so, as after all, not everyone has a steak at their desk but they do have something to sip on. Soda is an easy choice because it tastes good, is relatively cheap and easily obtainable. Sure, there are other options in the vending machine, but most people grab a Coke or Pepsi before they even look at as bottled green tea.

I had the last Dr. Pepper I expect to ever have the Friday while I was waiting to get my first A1C results back after the weekend. I thought I was going to miss it. It was the only thing still regularly in my diet for which I was willing to overlook high fructose corn syrup . It was like a comfort food I got to have every day.

Knowing that it was one of the most likely culprits in my acquisition of diabetes, however, did take some of the sting out of having to give it up. The only problem then became… what do I drink?

After trial and error I got used to the following options:

• Water -  If we’re 90% made up of it, it can’t be a bad thing. I have never really been accustomed to drinking water as my primary source of hydration, but after a few days I got used to the lack of taste and started craving it. I prefer to use the water cooler or the filtered pitcher at home to lots of bottles (for environmental reasons) but it’s now my safe default.
• Tea - If you can get the taste for unsweetened tea, more power to you. I usually carry around packets of stevia with me. The advantages to tea are that it’s usually available in restaurants, has a bit of caffine (if you’re fond of it like I am) and is really cheap to make at home.
• Vitamin Water- Recently maligned for it’s sugar content, I still think it’s a good thing in moderation. Both Sobe and Glaceau brands use real sugar instead of HFCS and it does have vitamins. The thing I try to remember is that while one 20 oz. bottle has about 2/3 the sugar of a 20 oz. cola, it still is a sugary beverage and might be fine to sip on all day but not guzzled down two at a time.
• Juice - Most of what I said about vitamin water applies to 100% juices. Watch the sugar content, consume in moderation but still keep in the fridge. I need to start experimenting with thinning grape juice with water. The thing I look for is that it’s real juice and not a juice flavored beverage and that it has some real vitamin content.
• SODA!- There are a number of good diet sodas that meet the needs of even the most discriminating diabetic. I personally avoid the big name labels and get my supply from the local hippie grocery which stocks Virgil’s Diet (flavored with xylitol and stevia) or Steaz diet fruit/green tea sodas (which use real sugar, just not very much). If used in moderation, as they still are no replacement for water, they satisfy the craving for something bubbly quite nicely.

It’s nice to have options. After all, even though I’ve avoiding sugar… it’s still nice to have a cold one now and again.

It takes a while to train the taste buds to enjoy vegetables, especially if your switching from a meat and potatoes diet where sweet flavors dominate. Finding something that both is tasty and worth eating is one of the constant notes in the symphony day to day of life.

Meat is easy. No matter what animal it comes from, all you really have to do to meat is season it a little and apply heat and as long as you don’t burn it, it will probably taste good.

But Side dishes are a bit harder.  Quick side dishes even more so. And that’s usually where we get the majority of non-protien nutrients to keep our bodies running.

Enter the sweet potato.

It’s easy to think one should avoid sweet potatoes if one is diabetic. After all, they are mostly carbs. A large one is about 37 carbs, though they have enough dietary fiber to count that as 31.  Also, they balance out their sugars with a lot of other nutrients: vitamins A, B6, and C.

A lot of grocery stores sell them plastic wrapped for the microwave, though I’ve found it just as convenient to wrap them in saran wrap for the 8 or 12 minutes of zapping. Being already sweet, they don’t require a lot of seasoning, though a little salt and a touch of butter doesn’t hurt. And they are pretty cheap.

If you are just used to marshmallow topped casserole at Thanksgiving, it may be worth your while to give the little orange tubers another look. When they are not candied, sweet potatoes are completely viable as a staple in the diabetic diet.

As Alton Brown once pointed out, going out to eat is one of the great joys in life. It’s not just about the food, but about the experience. The sad truth is, sometimes that experience turns out bad.

America’s traditional dinnertime lineup is meat and potatoes. The protein starch combination comes in many forms, but it is so ingrained into the psyche of the culture and market that few people question it or make allowances for someone who might want something different. This is seldom more evident than when you’re trying to find a non-carb side item because you’re diabetic.

Last night, my wife and I went to a place that serves gourmet burgers. By default, all their burgers come with fries. I’ve been there before but I’d been avoiding it because the low-carb menu is slim and that’s usually where my eye falls first. Still, the food is good and worth trying to work with.

So I order my food and trying to be good ask the waitress what their other side item choices are. She looks at me mildly panicked. After a moment, a slow list of options comes out and by list, I mean pair: side salad and vegtables.

An anemic selection to be sure, but with enough options that I do have a choice. I go with the veggies. I’m thinking broccoli, carrots, maybe the cauliflower that I never eat.

Imagine my surprise when I get a little crock of mostly steamed lettuce. Steamed. Lettuce. There was, mixed in among the slightly wilted strands other things: mushrooms, onions and peppers. These would have been fine on my burger, but not as a stand alone dish.

I tried to be okay with it and picked at the mushrooms but in the end, most of it went back to the dishwasher and I was sad for having wasted food. I left a comment card, but I doubt I’ll be seeing any massive changes in the restaurant or the chain.

I’d love to put a moral to the story, but there really isn’t one. Next time I’m offered mixed veggies, I’ll probably be more inquisitive as to which ones, but for the most part it’s just a sign that I’m in the minority.

I’m not griping. I don’t expect special treatment or every fast food place to have a twenty item, diabetes friendly menu. But it would be nice if when eateries make healthy, low sugar options available, they make them edible options as well.

I mean, for crying out loud… steamed lettuce?

There are times where I feel like I’m a poser diabetic. My case is pretty mild and what I need to do to keep it in check is pretty trivial. I don’t feel any different than I did a year ago (well, maybe a little more energetic). There’s no visible signs of my disease. At times I’ve even wondered if my doctor told me I was diabetic just to make me stop downing three Baconaters a week.

I might have not changed my life at all except there were these numbers. Like 450, which was my triglycerides which made my  bad cholesterol numbers incalculable. Then there was 6.5, which was my A1C, a number that I didn’t even know could be measured before I was told it was confirmation that yes, I was diabetic.

Last week, I wrote that I’d gotten a little scared by my daily blood sugar measurement being at 120 and a nice lady responded encouragingly that the number wasn’t that high. I’m thankful for the consolation, though in truth I already know that I’m dealing with much less of an issue than some others. The only reason it made me concerned is that it was bookended by two days of 100 mg/dl. I have a good number of days were my blood sugar is only two digits, so a 20 point deviation is a big deal to me, even though I know there are people who are happy when theirs is below 300 on a given day.

Despite my diagnosis, I consider myself lucky. I think my problem got caught early on enough that I have a good chance of minimizing it’s impact on my health and on my life. The temptation is to think that because my case is mild, I don’t need to worry about it. But I’ve got these numbers and that’s enough to keep me honest.

In three months, I dropped my triglycerides to 175 and my A1C to 5.7 and I’m really happy about that. It would be easy to let myself think I’ve gotten this licked and in another three months be back to my old diet, putting myself at risk. But in this case, it’s good for me to take great care of small things and up my chances I’ll be around to see retirement.

Diabetes, after all, is serious business.

I’d like to ask, for my perspective and for the perspective of anyone who might be reading this that if you know what your blood sugar was this morning, reply with it. It might help someone like me understand how good we’ve got it… or where but for the grace of the gods we might go. Thanks. 

I had a checkup last week and my doctor was happy with my numbers. After three months of lifestyle changes, I got the official nod that my numbers were looking much better and that I was controlling my blood sugar. It was a good thing to hear, a validation for the efforts I’d been making. My blood sugar appeared to be getting under control.

Then came yesterday. My blood sugar was 120. As in twenty points higher than it needed to be for a fasting result.

I went over what I’d eaten the night before and double checked in my head that I’d not gulped something down for breakfast and forgotten about it. Nothing obvious culprit appeared. I went over other factors and then did a web search to confirm what I thought was giving me the unwelcome boost. It took but a few moments to confirm.

Stress.

That morning I’d been thinking about monthly bills, a vacation my wife and I are taking, events we wanted to do next year and the anemic state of my bank account and all were adding up to a bit of panic. Apparently, your body deals with such freakouts the same as if you were in the woods, facing down a dozen hungry wolves. Your fight or flight response kicks in. Your body demands fuel so you can run screaming. As a result, your blood sugar goes up.

Now most of us don’t have to face down hungry wolves, but we do have enough to concern us that it’s not hard to get stressed out on a regular basis. Knowing that stress is demonstrably effecting your health may even give you more to stress about. But worry is concern without action. It’s a waste of effort. While that may be difficult to remember in the midst of one’s gloom, it’s the truth.

Today I’m in a better mood and despite having a much more sugary menu last night than the one previous, my blood sugar was at normal levels. While I’m not 100% stress free, I am doing better.

Here’s some things I can recommend to help banish the stress when it hits you:

1. Don’t keep it to yourself - Talk to someone about what’s going on with you. The outside perspective can lead to solutions you might have missed because you’re a bit to clouded. Also, once you’ve spoken your problems, the sometimes seem smaller out in the open than they did trapped in your head.
2. Remember to Breathe - Worry shows in your body. Sometimes making a conscious effort to relax the body helps the freak out dissipate. Ten deep breaths is usually all it takes to aid a new perspective.
3. Escape - Go walk around the mall. Watch a movie. Take ten minutes to sit outside and stare at the sky. Do something to hit the reset button in your head. While too much escapism is a bad thing, a little when your hands are shaking can mean the difference from feeling trapped to feeling okay.
4. Make a Plan - I know my biggest source of stress comes from not knowing where I stand, not knowing what I’m going to do. Even if it’s just a skeleton of an idea, write down what’s hurting you and then write down what you can do about it. Get creative. Take back your life.
5. Count Your Blessings - The irritants in our lives are more often than not more noticeable than the comforts. By taking the emphasis off what’s troubling you and focusing on the good things in your life, I find that things soon get put in perspective.

I can’t guarantee that what works for me will also work for you. But I do believe that when all goes to hell, there are are always ways get back out.

Listen to your body. Clear your mind as needed. Remember that no matter what’s going on the sun will rise tomorrow, someone is likely to have been in the place you’re in now and in the end… it’s really going to be okay.

There’s a little art house theater in my town, a grand restored place that once held stage shows as well as movies and that now features things that won the Palm d’Or at Cannes and documentaries they complain about on Fox news. One of the joys of going there, aside from very reasonable admission, is they provide a wider variety of concessions than my local multiplex does. Theater goers are already a captive audience with limited choices in snacks but being diabetic makes the choices harder, so interesting options always appeal to me.

I got a small popcorn, unbuttered popcorn and a cranberry juice. The bottle of juice was from some large manufacturer and I already knew that I’d only be drinking half of it for the sake of carbs but I expected it to be a better choice than any other beverage they had than water. Then, while I was waiting for the picture to start, I got curious. I read the ingredients.

There an old foe reared it’s head: high fructose corn syrup.

I had been dodging the old HFCS for some time now. While the point has not been definitively proven, there’s some thought that the body uses high fructose corn syrup less effectively than it uses other sugars like straight cane sugar. Along with partially hydrogenated oils (because of trans fats) I’d started cutting HFCS out of my diet before I knew I had blood sugar issues. The problem is it’s in bloody everything.

Being diabetic doesn’t mean just paying attention to blood sugar. It means minimizing any risk to heart health to minimize our already increased risks. That’s why we eat right. But even foods that should be safe and no cause for alarm now hide ingredients that hurt us (and by us, I mean everyone) which do little except extend the shelf life of grocery items.

Like my juice.

It irks me that I have to look for ludicrous ingredients in simple foods. Everyone should be conscious of what they run their bodies on but we shouldn’t have to be paranoid. That said I know next time I go to the movies to get water… but I may still read the label.

Check out this list and get angry with me.

The little booklet that came with my current blood sugar monitor noted that if I eat beef, I should stick to cuts with “loin” in the name, i.e. tenderloin and sirloin. As tenderlon tends to be out of my budget, it’s the latter that usually ends up in the freezer at home. Luckily, in the area we’re in, one can get sirloin caps for a decent price per pound (usually much better than price for the same meat cut into steaks.)

We’re planning a shindig of reasonable size next year, and in pondering what food to provide, I made a suggestion. My wife tweaked it, and the result was the following:

2 lbs. of sirloin, cubed and trimmed of fat
1 small white onion
1 small bulb of garlic
1 8oz package of mushrooms
1 small package of grape tomatoes
1 5oz bag of baby spinach.
Salt
Pepper
Olive oil
Red Wine (optional)
Additional seasonings

1)Take the cubed meat and marinate it overnight (or at least a few hours) in salt, pepper, your favorite seasoning blend, enough olive oil to coat all the meat and if you wish it, a little red wine. This will tenderize the meat as well as add more flavor to it.

2)On the day you’re cooking it, chop the onion into petal sized pieces or so. Peel the garlic. Take these and put them on the grill of your roasting pan (that slotted, two part thing that comes with the oven will work fine) and pile the onions, garlic, tomatoes, and mushrooms on it. Add salt, pepper and seasonings to your liking. Then add the marinated beef.

3)Roast everything in the oven at 350 for about 10-15 minutes, or until the beef looks browned and done to your liking.

4)Put a bit of the baby spinach down on your plate and put a good bit of the roasted goodness on top.

The above should make about 4 healthy servings. The same preparation could easily be used for bits of chicken or pork or sweet potatoes or any variety of “main dish” type items, with some small adjustment to the cooking times.

Enjoy.

I’ve never been a fan of artificial sweeteners. Saccharin, Aspartame, Sucralose… they all just taste bad to me. Not even my love of cola and the promise of being able to consume it again has tempted me to get used to the flavor, much less the aftertastes, of the any of the above.

But still, water alone gets kind of boring. Fortunately, I got turned on to a solution… a weed. It’s called stevia.

A friend of mine worked in the dietary supplements section of a Whole Foods. He’d suggested stevia to me at one point to which I nodded and smiled and went back to my high fructose corn syrup flavored battery acid. After all, I knew most sugar alternatives were repugnant to me and that herbal concoctions were usually also distateful. What was to be gained by combining the two?

A lot, actually.

To clarify what stevia is and why you may have never heard of it, let me first say that it is not sold as a sweetener. This is not because it doesn’t sweeten things. The FDA for some reason, possibly pressure from the private sector, declared stevia an unsafe food additive in 1991, despite the fact that it has been used safely for decades in many countries around the world and for who knows how long in it’s native continent, South America.

What the FDA was willing to do a few years later was declare stevia an herbal supplement. Which just happens to sweeten things. And grows wild, so you can’t patent it.

No, it doesn’t make any sense. Just accept it.

I started using it a month ago and have had good experiences so far. I’ve only experimented with it in a white powdered form, though it’s available as a liquid and a powdered leaf though some people prefer to only use the green or brown extract, as it has a higher purity.

Stevia is 300 times as sweet as sugar and as a result, a little dab ‘ll do ya for most applications. I use something like 1/8 of an ounce in a glass of unsweetened tea and it comes out tasting like it was brewed by a southern grandmother. My sister in law used to keep a plant and sweeten a gallon of sun tea with just one leaf. The packaging for stevia will usually give conversions for replacing sugar.

I’ve not tried cooking with it, but when I do, I’ll write about it here.

Whether there are any real concerns or whether it’s all just political smoke and big business mirrors, stevia will have to wait to be recognized for what it does best. Until then, it will sit on the shelves in hippie stores, next to xylitol and fructose powder, just having no calories and being incognito. And I’ll continue to add it to my tea.

Call it sticking it to the man… with sweetness.

Here’s an article about stevia and diabetes.
And don’t forget to check Wikipedia.

So there I was, at a roadside store in South Carolina, just off of I-81. I was taking my blood sugar thrice daily at the time. My kit was open, spread out on the trunk of my car. I wondered what passersby might think I was doing, but thankfully no one paid me a second glance. As I tossed the strip and lancet away I thought to myself how many parts of my life had changed a bit.

You see, I like taking road trips. I like the simple nature of them, the slight separation from one’s usual routine and environment as you focus on getting from point A to B. And part of the experience for me has always been the brief visits to strange truck stops and convenience stores, sampling what local delicacies and sodas as offered usually as the minimum purchase I feel is required for using their bathroom.

It was a couple of weeks after I became aware I had diabetes that I took the first road trip during which random peach drinks and strange candies would not be featured. It was frustrating enough that I couldn’t go wild with fast food (as I used to think calories didn’t count on the open road), but not being able to take in the culinary samples of local color was a bit of a let down. And what would I buy in tribute for use of their men’s room?

The only significant stop on that trip was that little place in South Carolina. I still looked around the store and it truth found little of interest. I became aware once again how few convenience foods are geared towards people with dietary restrictions. In the end, I bought only a fingernail clipper.

After that experience, I came to understand that my new circumstances required a bit more preparation. Now when I travel, first there is the water. Unless I drink it by the gallon, it’s not going to hurt me. Second, some salt is required, usually in the form of corn chips. Fruit is good if I need a lift. Fortunately, all of the above will fit in as small cooler and all of the above are also easy to replenish in the places I make pit stops.

Different places still offer new wonders, just usually not so much in the drink case any more. A little forethought keeps me from feeling like I have no recourse to snacks on the road. Now if I can just figure out a way not to feel weird when I spread my blood sugar kit out on my trunk, hoping no one thinks I’m a junkie.

I remember when I was a kid, I told my mom the reason she liked the flavor of vegetables was because her taste buds were dying. I know my basis for this had root in some information from science class, but mostly it was because I couldn’t understand why someone would seek out the bitter or savory when you had access every day to the sweet.

From the time we are first hung upon our mother’s breast, we are taught sweet flavors are good. From cereal in the morning to milk and cookies before bed, sweet means comfort. No expression of this is more pure than candy, and the king of candies is chocolate.

The prohibition of chocolate was one of the worst parts of being diabetic that I could imagine as a child. That horror was no less present when I became an adult and was still there the day I found out about my condition.

Little did I realize that everyone’s favorite indulgence was not off the menu.

There was a website my doctor suggested to me, tenyearsyounger.com,which has a list of foods that are generally good, not just for diabetics, but for those seeking a healthy lifestyle. (I’ll make no claims, positive or negative, for their books or products, but the list is worth taking a look at.) I checked it out, finding the expected leafy greens and lean meats, but lo, there on one line was the magic word: chocolate. Good, dark chocolate. The sort I already liked. And it suggested having some every day.

Suddenly, the world seemed a little happier place.

I still had to respect certain guidelines: Higher cacao content chocolate, preferably the sort that uses said content as a selling point, is best. A little is good, but a lot is still probably bad. Read the labels for what else is in it.

With all that in mind, I remember the moment I decided it was time to see what it did to me. I had these little squares of Special Dark. I went to the Hershey’s website and checked their nutrition information to make sure that this wasn’t some horrible trick. After confirming that it was safe and legal, I opened the foil wrapper and regarded the stuff. The square was small enough that I would have just popped the whole thing in my mouth a few days before, but not this time. I could only have a little and I needed to savor it. I took a bite, just a quarter of the square, and let it sit on my tongue.

It was like discovering chocolate all over again, rich and wonderful. One little little square I was sated. The world lightened a little and I felt a little more human.

I know that some people with diabetes are more sensitive to sugar than I am and for them even the little bit I had would be trauma more than a treat. If in doubt, check with your doctor before experimentation. That said, I’m sure I’m not alone in being amazed how many favorites are still good to eat and that that while sweet now doesn’t always mean good, it doesn’t automatically mean avoid.