Sugar Turned On Me

Rites of passage exist at all stages of our lives. When you’re a kid, you feel better once the training wheels come off your bike. As a teenager, you sneak out of the house for the first time or just get the keys to the car with no one in the passenger seat. As a adult, you buy your first house or get to take out your parents for a nice meal for the first time. In your job, you reach a point where the boss comes up to ask you something and you know without having to look anything up.

I feel like I passed a rite of passage as a diabetic today. I ordered unsweetened ice tea in a restaurant, intentionally, for the first time. With lemon.

Now I realize this isn’t exactly losing a baby tooth or jumping a fire or anything like that. Some people from father north may ask if tea comes any other way in eateries. Some people farther south may want to know how I could betray my South Carolinian heritage like this. But though it’s probably not big for anyone else, it’s big for me.

I’d gotten used to carrying around packets of stevia. It was no big thing to reach in my pocket, fail to find one and decide I’ll just have water. I was even looking on the bright side, namely that my meal would be two bucks cheaper. But still, it felt a bit lame, like somehow I’d been put into a special corner. “Oh no Stephen, you can’t handle beverages with flavoring in them. We must give you something more gentle.”

So today I said screw it and tried some. For the first time, I enjoyed the taste. A little sweetener wouldn’t have been superfluous but it also wasn’t required. I even got refills.

I could go all Polly Anna and say that this was a wonderful experience, an unexpected expansion of horizons and an unexpected yet simple joy. There’s an element of that, but in truth I just feel a little more like an adult again.

Finding out I was diabetic cut a lot of things out of my diet that I’d considered intrinsic to my happiness: unrestricted quantities of Oreos, french fries and most importantly sweet, sweet soft drinks. I’d resigned myself to a life as a caffeine addict, taking equal pleasure in soda and tea. I’d drink hot tea without adulteration, but cold tea came with enough sugar in it to stand up a spoon or it wasn’t worth the effort.

And now, it’s not. I have an additional choice when I go out. I have a sippable caffine source again. I’m a little more me.

And any day I can say that is a good one.

I’ve been writing this blog now for 2.5 months. During that time I’ve become more knowledgable about diabetes and details of living life with the disease. Some of that knowledge came with finding out that some of the things I’ve said previously in this blog could be clarified and expanded upon. I’d like to revist some previous entries and point out places where I could have said more.

• The First Poke is the Deepest: In this I discussed taking one’s blood, the problems I’ve had with it and tips I’d learned to help ease the process.  I would like to add one that my wife showed me: When you pick the place on your finger you’re going to use, massage the spot. Just use two fingers, almost like you’re going to pinch yourself, but using only enough pressure to gently roll the skin around. The result will be less pain and an easier sample.

Also, use a fresh lancet every time. I read about someone who was taking their blood something like eight times a day, getting callouses and often not getting any blood at all. When she asked other people’s advice, it turned out she’d been using the same lancet for a year. Apparently some people reuse lancets multiple times, sometimes until it becomes dull. Someone pointed out in the discussion, there’s a reason they come in boxes of a hundred or so. Use a new one every time.

• A Little Spicy Red Number : Cinnamon does in fact lower blood sugar. Something I was unaware of at the time I wrote about it, however, is that if you’re already taking meds for blood sugar, at least one study has shown cinnamon to provide no additional benefit. So if you’re on medication and adding cinnamon, do some experimenting and find out if the extra supplement is helping or not.

• Tommorow’s Lunch: Fish Stew: In this recipe, I recommended Dreamfields pasta because it works as a low-carb alternative to regular pasta and I’ve had good luck with it. I later found a discussion of the product in which they pointed out that some people have seen their blood glucose spike using this stuff the same as if they’d used the grocery store’s brand. Turns out that if you cook the pasta in a tomato based sauce (which is the preparation I’d recommended here) then it counters the effect of the additional dietary fiber. So, if anyone’s tried this and had a bad experience with it, I apologize and recommend trying it again, but cooking the pasta in water and then adding it in afterwards or at the time of serving.

I don’t want anyone who reads this blog to think I’m holding myself up as an expert. I’m someone with a condition, sharing my experiences about that condition here in the hope that someone reading it might feel less alone or concerned than they did before. I do check my sources and do a bit of research if I have any doubts, but I’m still learning. Discovering what I don’t know is part of the process of becoming a healthy diabetic and there’s always more to the story.

Remember, if there’s anything in this blog, on the internet or anywhere else for that matter that you hear relating to diabetes or blood sugar and you have any doubt of its veracity, please check with your doctor or at least a second source. If you have any questions or just want to keep me honest, add a comment. And if you find what I put here useful, entertaining or helpful, please let me know that too.

After all, it’s not like it’s just our bodies that need checkups. Sometimes it’s also what we have learned.

One of the biggest problem with diet drinks is getting them sweet without leaving an aftertaste that stays with you for a fortnight(1). The penance that most diet sodas make you pay by coating your mouth with flowery bitter saran wrap is the main reason I avoid most of them. The people at Steaz, who went on a mission to produce better healthy drinks, came up with a great idea which eliminates the issue of aftertaste: use sugar, just less of it.

The line of Steaz sodas is composed of fruity sodas that count amongst their short list of ingredients green tea. They come in a rainbow of flavors including Key Lime, Root Beer, Grape and of course Cola. On the down side, the regular sodas have about as much sugar as most sodas do: about 20-25g of carbs per 8oz. serving.

The Diet line has four flavors: Raspberry, Orange, Blueberry Pomegranate, and Black Cherry.  They lower the sugar content, provided through organic evaporated cane juice, to about 9g per serving. That means that 1.5 serving bottle is about equivalent to a slice of bread in carbs. They also throw a little vitamin C in there and two of the flavors also have a appreciable amount of Vitamin A.

All the health benefits in the world don’t matter if the soda sucks, though. Fortunately, these don’t, though you may have to warm up to them if you’re used to regular soda. I had been bombarding my taste buds with Coke, Pepsi and Dr Pepper for three decades when I first tried Steaz Diet Sodas and I found the diet drinks to be a little under-sweet. After I was diagnosed and stopped drinking soda cold turkey, I went back and tried one and found that my tongue could taste them and they were plenty sweet for my current tastes.

The idea of a green tea infused beverage may turn some people off, but I recommend letting your inner hippie go on this. Aside from the antioxidant benefits of the green tea and being a mild caffeine source, the tea in no way impairs the taste, but is present only as a slight earthy note in the background.

I’ve tried all four flavors and my favorite is Blueberry Pomegranate.  The others are good too, though I found the Orange to be just a little more bitter than I’d like. But I’ll take any of them on a hot day or with a hot dog.

I salute the people at Steaz for proving that there’s a better option to the sugar water found in most vending machines.  They turned me into a customer and an advocate.

(1)For the non-geeks in the crowd, a fortnight is twenty days.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t include a link to the Steaz website.

Recently, I pointed out my folly in having eaten high carb food and not following through on the plan to burn it off by being horizontal and moaning. This prompted a question in my head about how much energy you burn by having sex. Looking about the all knowing internet, I came across a couple of articles that suggested there may be additional reasons for diabetics to look to nookie for their cardio.

When you get diagnosed, they tell you to exercise. Walking is usually the first suggestion. 30 minutes of walking can burn as much as 130 calories(1)  and that’s if you’re just ambling. By comparison, sex can burn as much as four to five calories per minute, which means if you’re having sex 30 minutes instead of walking, you are burning as much if not more than if you were walking casually for the same amount of time. Also like walking, it’s something you’re most likely already doing regularly(2).

Being diagnosed can be depressing. So can sticking yourself with needles daily. Sex, as it turns out, helps fight depression. In one study, women who participated in heterosexual coupling minus a condom were found to have less depression than women who didn’t(3). Also, having someone that you like be attracted to you, male or female, hetero or not, is almost always a mood elevator.

Diabetics have trouble fighting infections. Sex boots the immune system. Diabetics have issues with frequent urination. Sex works out the muscles that help with bladder control. Diabetics have problems with circulation. Sex improves circulation.

This list goes on.

The best reason to have sex, in my opinion, is because you and someone you love want to feel close to one another, want to help each other feel good, and enjoy the feelings that come with healthy intimacy. It’s one of the finest and most beautiful things you can do with your body. The fact that it also comes with a long list of health benefits is really just a bonus.

So go put on some Luther Vandross. Turn the lights down. Pour a couple of glasses of wine. Make love. Doctor’s orders(4).

(1)Individual results will vary depending on weight, pace and terrain.
(2)If this isn’t something you’re already doing, stop surfing the internet after this article. Go find a group of people. Mingle. Find someone you like of similar worldview. Achieve a level of commitment and intmacy in which sex is a natural expression. Come back and resume surfing.
(3)This is not a reason to have unsafe sex. Condoms help prevent pregnancy and disease and finding out you have an STD might just counteract the mood elevating effects of sex in the long run.
(4)I am so very not a doctor.

Links to where I got my info:
Let’s All Have Sex… and Not for the Reasons You’re Thinking of
Six Reasons to Have Sex Every Week
What are the scientific reasons for having sex?
Is Sex Necessary?
A list of various physical activities and how many calories they burn in PDF format.

I can do real damage at an Indian restaurant. The food tends to be simple, tasty and with a really good blend of spices that add flavor as well as heat. I do it more rarely now, as naan bread is far to addictive, but recently my wife and I were trying to figure out what to do with some chicken thighs we had in the freezer. We decided to try Indian food at home.

We used a mix that we found at our local organic/hippie grocery. It was an experiment and I’m happy to say that it turned out well. Here’s what we did:

1 packet Paramapa Chicken Tikka Masala mix
3 boneless chicken thighs
1 boneless chicken breast
8 oz plain yogurt
2 cups water
a little butter or olive oil for the pan

Following the directions on the pack, it took longer to go to the store for the yogurt than it did to prepare the meal.  With a reasonable deck-of-cards side of rice as well as some peas and carrots it came out to about 45g carbs a serving or so, 30 of that coming from the rice.

I’m satisfied with the packeted spice mix. If you’re thinking you would prefer to mix it yourself, it seems less than complicated, but I can’t vouch for any individual recipe. They all seem to include pepper, ginger, tumeric, and garam masala (which can be found at Indian groceries and specialty food shops). There is some variation on other spices and flavorings invovled. I recommend some paitence and a good Google search.

Whether making it from scratch or cheating, this is a good and lo carb way to use chicken and is easy enough to be a spur of the moment decision (depending upon what spices you keep in the house). Plus it’s fun to say.

Chicken tikka masala, chicken tikka masala….

An inevitable part of the 21st century internet experience is spam. There is no corner of the internet in which one can avoid a sales pitch for items that inspire so much confidence in the merchants that they feel the best way to represent their product is to belch out an innumerable cloud of requests, hoping they get one sucker in every 10,000 or so to go for it. And unfortunately, some of these weasels sell “cures” for diabetes.

I don’t want to dash anyone’s hopes, but I don’t think there is a cure proper for diabetes yet. This doesn’t mean I put all of my faith in modern medicine nor do I discount the efficacy of herbal medicines. It just means I’m really wary of any claims that something I already have in my house will not mitigate or control a chronic illness, but wipe it out altogether.

A wise man once said not to believe everything you read. I fear what his comments would have been if he’d seen the internet. It’s not that there’s not good info on the internet. There’s scads of good stuff there. It’s just there’s also a great deal of crap. Sorting through it is within the capability of the average person with enough time to research and double check sources and with the ability to be objective and paitent.

Trying to cure chronic illness with a single pill does not lend one either to objectivity or to patience.

The same goes for diagnosis. There are a number of great web pages out there that will help aleve fears or help you sort through a number of possible explanations for symptoms before thinking you have a tumor. But that said, there’s a reason doctors still get paid the big bucks. With few exceptions, there is not a comparison between talking to a competent doctor about your health and taking down a bunch of stuff off the internet and diagnosising your self.

I’ve only actually followed a few links from spam promising to make me better. I’ve seen bitter melon extracts and fenugreek pills and I don’t doubt there is some benefit in the application of those herbs upon controlling blood sugar. But I don’t think they have my health first in their mind when they send anonymous emails by the dozen to my inbox.

In short, be careful of what you read. Especially on the internet. Even more so if they take Visa, Mastercard or American Express.

I was watching TV the other night, specifically a show about a chef who comes into failing restaurants and attempts to help them turn their business around. The restaurant in question was run buy a guy who’d been putting in 70 hour weeks for most of his life. He was diabetic.

I looked at the restaurateur hoping in the end he’d turn his lifestyle around and relax enough that he’d not end up dying over the stove. Part of that because he seemed like a decent guy, type A personality aside. The other reason was because I saw in him the things I could become.

I don’t mean the control freak aspect. I’m about as type B a personality as you can get. The worry stemmed from seeing what someone who had diabetes and didn’t take care of himself had to deal with. He talked about the pain in his legs and we saw the mood swings that came with his sugar spiking or bottoming out.

I’ve heard other stories and been told about other people that see the effects of diabetes on them and the one thought I think, so loud that I’m ashamed, is that I don’t want to be like that.

My diabetes is mild, as I’ve said here before. In that, I feel lucky. I got the warnings early and if I’m lucky, I can maintain a decent blood sugar and live a long, otherwise healthy life. But when I look at the things that could happen: gangrenous limbs, kidney damage, dialysis, even having to deal with insulin… I get a little shakey and feel it in the pit of my stomach.

Fear is a great motivator. Shame it also is bad for your blood sugar.

Edit 09/18/08: I’m feeling a bit rough, so there’ won’t be an update Thursday or Friday. Sugar Turned On Me will return on Monday the 22nd. Sorry for the interruption.

I’ve written before about the trials and tribulations of finding something to drink when you’re diabetic. Prior to my diagnosis, my beverage of choice was almost always Coke Classic. I was okay going cold turkey for a while, but sometimes the desire for a soda rolls over the line of want and begins to become a fizzy, screaming need.

Here are three potential reliefs I use for such a craving:

1. Virgil’s Diet Black Cherry -  Black cherry is an outcast when it comes to soda flavors. It’s the last one picked when the beverages get together for a game of kickball and usually relegated to the house brand of grocery stores.  Here it’s a star, sweetened with xylitol and stevia. The only thing I find as a downside to this entry is that it may actually be too sweet. The aftertaste is a bit cloying too.
2. Virgil’s Diet Root Beer - Same company, same sweeteners, different flavor. I really, really like this stuff. The sweeteners work with the flavor well, making it feel less like I am drinking diet soda and just drinking soda. It still has a bit of an aftertaste, but nothing to write home about. I have no problem recommending this.

I get my supply of these from my local health food/socially conscious grocery store. I’ve noticed no effect on my blood sugar with these, though I do recommend experimenting a little at a time first, as xylitol dose up some peoples numbers.

Enjoy

My blood sugar was 134 this morning. That’s considerably higher, like 30 points higher, than I like or than it’s been for some time. When I got over the shock and took a second test to verify that, yes, that number was real, I started to to trace back the evening like I’d been on a bender and needed to figure out why I was in a tutu.

I had a small glass of milk and a postage stamp sized piece of chocolate right before bed, but I’ve done that before and it bumps me up by 10, 15 points tops. I had a sensible dinner including some sweet potato fries, but that was at 9:00pm or so and I was up for hours after that.

Then it came to me… it had to be the baklava.

I let myself have treats now and again. I make sure to prepare for them, moderating what else I eat so that there’s space on the daily carb quota for a small indulgence. When the Greek Festival happened this past weekend, my wife and I picked up a box of 4 pieces of baklava and the plan was to share this with some friends, having a one each. The friends weren’t interested that night, so a couple of days later, we still have it. I figured the smallest piece was going to be okay. Plus, there had been a plan.

When I got diagnosed with diabetes, my doctor said to think of food as fuel. That means that if I overdue the potato chips, I have to do something to burn it off. My wife and I had agreed that when I had baklava, we’d do something together to spend all those extra carbs. Specifically we’d have sex.

And we forgot.

I’d like to say that there’s more to the story, but there’s not much of an epilogue save for me debating what meal I can cut out to get my blood sugar down. The incident will be remembered as a cautionary tale and a reinforcement to follow through on plans. Not that this one should have required any reminders.

But just to be safe, next Greek Festival I’m putting up a post-it to help remind myself.

To do: aerobic nookie. In ink.

In the exciting, cliffhanger Rant Part 1, I talked about the possible health risks involved with High Fructose Corn Syrup. The question I ended with was the why behind the what, specifically why put it in food and soda and whatnot at all if it’s going to be bad for us?

The answer is simple. Money.

In the eighties, when the US Government was trying to figure out how to help midwestern farmers, new tariffs got put on cane sugar which was largely an import. There were already government subsides to help corn farmers. Corn syrup became cheaper than granulated sugar.

Also, HFCS is a liquid. This makes it easier to ship and use in industrial food making. It also acts as a preservative in some food items, insuring a longer shelf life. Between this and the relative cost to cane sugar, HFCS became a easy choice for big business.

You may look at the talking points I’ve included in this two part rant and say to yourself “so what’s the big deal”? After all, as I said in Part 1, there isn’t a lot of research backing the claim it’s definatively worse for you than regular sugar. And if it’s cheaper for the free market, that’s got be good in the long run, right?

In my humble opinion, not so much.

The ads point out that HFCS is okay in moderation. This is true of all sugars. The problem is that partially because of the American pallete and partially because of its low cost, HFCS is bloody everywhere.

Don’t believe me? Go to your pantry and pull out any five items that contain more than one ingredient. I’d be willing to bet that you’ll find HFCS in at least four of them and in the top five ingredients in at least three. This is assuming you don’t try to avoid it, which I do and why I feel safe making this claim.

In the end, I won’t tell you not to use it. Ultimately, the consumption or avoidance of  high fructose corn syrup or anything else is a matter of personal comfort level and choice. But I urge anyone reading this to make that an informed choice, especially when it comes to something as ubiquitous and debated as this stuff is.

The Corn Refiners Association wants to raise your awareness of HFCS. I recommend you that you do just that, just get facts from more than one source, especially if that source is the one selling the product. Because if you’ve eaten before reading this, there’s a good chance you’ve already had some today.