Sugar Turned On Me

I had some vacation time I had to use before it expired and made use of it last week. I have a desk job and while it can be mind blanking at times, I don’t think of it as highly stressful or physically demanding. Still, a week off was a wonderful thing.

I’ve come to the conclusion I need to find a way to stay on vacation forever. Really. It’s a matter of health.

I’m not particularly lazy and I love my job. It’s not the work I wish to avoid, but the benefits that time off seems to convey. In general, I’m more relaxed and focused. I feel less tired (because I sleep on my own rythmn) and most importantly, my sugar stays lower.

Now, I can’t chuck back bricks of brownies or slurp down endless milkshakes while I’m off and not expect to gain weight, but in general I’m  better off. Part of that is the previously mentioned mimimum of stress. The other part is that I’m eating the same foods most often, but I’m more active, usually doing a lot more working and lifting than I do on any given day at the office.

Barring such potentialities as publishing a best seller or winning the lottery (which I rate about equal in probibility) I may never get to test my theory that a life of avocation without occupation would be better for me and for all I know that’s probably best. Who knows how long it would take for what is now a change in my routine to become the routine and sap the lifestyle of all its benefits? It could go from being a wonderful dream to being a horrid nightmare.

But you know… if there’s a government program looking to do an experiment, I’m willing to give it a try.

So December kicked my butt and if you’ve been following this blog, I apologize for the unannounced hiatus. I’m back now and so is it and I figure what better way to return to the schedule than with a talk about the difference between too much and enough.

Catching up on my email last night, I read a story about the dangers of diet soda. The article has three main points:

1. Diet soda may help develop or continue a taste for sweet things, thus tempting you to ingest other sweet things and thus expand your waistline.
2. If you’re drinking diet soda, you’re not drinking water.
3. Aspartame may be dangerous, having been linked to headaches, diarrhea, dizziness, memory loss and mood instability.

On the points above, I don’t disagree. That said, there’s something to which the article gives a cursory nod but should, I think, be the main focus. Specifically, I’m talking about moderation.

Moderation in American culture is associated with the terms “boring” and “timid”.  We are the culture of XTREEMism, the culture of excess where enough is never enough and too much is usually prefered. If anything, this is what is killing us. With the rise in Type 2 diabetes, that danger to life and limb is literal.

Learning moderation is a hard trick. It’s usually much easier to avoid than to ration. But unless we discipline ourselves such that we can do so, I think we’ll find that we just bounce from one crisis caused by excess to another.

The article states in one place that if you’re drinking 1 can of diet soda a day, you’re probably okay but if you’re downing a 6 pack a day, probably not. I wish that had been the headline. It’s right. If I’d removed the word “diet” from in front of “soda” and followed that advice before my diagnosis, there might never have been a diagnosis to deal with at all.

So with that in mind, I give the following three tips to help learning to moderate not only your consumption of diet soda, but everything you need to keep a watch on in your life.

1. Limit Access: If you’re trying to watch your intake of anything, don’t keep it constantly in reach. Experiments have shown that we tend to consume things that are easily at hand and think about things we have to work for. If you drink diet soda at work, only take 1 or 2 with you for the day. It will make it hard to over consume if you don’t have any to consume.
2. Keep Yourself Posted: Wonder how many carbs/Diet Dr. Peppers/grapes/reality shows you take in on any given day? Write it down. At the end of the week look back and see how honest you’re being with yourself.
3. Experiment with Less: The next time you go to a fast food place, order the medium instead of the extra large. Try it out and see how it works for you. You might just find that it does as well for you as the X-Tra large swimming cup and you might also find that you waste less when you toss it.

Sugar Turned on Me will be back full time now. Got comments about this, the article or just want to say what you did on your Winter Break? Feel free to comment below. See you tomorrow.

One of the glorious aspects of the internet is the ability to voice one’s outrage almost as soon as you have it to as wide an audience as you can find. While usually, I try to calm down a bit before I spew out my irritation upon an unsuspecting public, today I feel little remorse in dipping my virtual quill into a jar of bile and vitrol and scribbling upon the imaginary paper you see before you. The cause for this teeth grinding, stomach tightening irritation: The proposed NY soda tax .

The gist of it is this: New York state’s 2009 budget includes an 18% tax on sodas, sugary soft drinks and fruit drinks under 70% juice. This in theory would be used to fight obesity and raise awareness. It’s being likened to the higher taxes on cigarettes and Govenor David Paterson is saying this is a necessary step in the battle against childhood obesity and diabetes.

I won’t say that obesity isn’t a problem, even if I think the standard by which obesity is determined is arbitrary. There is a point where excess body fat has negative health impacts and that’s a serious problem. As this is a blog about diabetes, I obviously am not going to say that that isn’t an issue either. So why does this thought anger me? Because it’s a sin tax, and sin taxes are wrong.

Taxation is one of the big sticks a government can wield, on par with military force. “The power to tax is the power to destory” it has been said. In theory, taxation is to raise monies necessary for the government to do it’s job, but properly applied it can be a blunt instrument used to enforce the will of the state.

Sin taxes are mommy government cutting your allowance; it’s not the government’s job to be a parent to the populace.

Besides that, when a tax like this gets proposed, it usually gets defeated because of who it targets the most: the poor. Cheap food is made with a lot of sweeteners so that it will be palatable. I’m not saying this is a good plan and it’s one of the things that I feel is a shame upon the fast food and mass produced food markets. But raising taxes on the sweet stuff means raising taxes on the cheap stuff which means hurting poor people.

Does anyone need or have to drink soda? No. Do some people do it because it’s cheap? Yep.

Then there’s the standard by which they’re choosing drinks. Consider that 8oz of soda,  chocolate milk, unsweetened apple juice or orange juice all have about the same amount of carbs (within 5 grams). How many of those are going to get taxed again? Sure, the last three all have vitamins, but so does Glaceau Vitamin Water… which would be taxed and has less sugar per serving than any of these.

Most importantly, taxes like this  skirt the actual issue involved, that being the matter of personal responsibility. I got to be a type 2 diabetic by consuming about a gallon of soda every 48 hours for 15 years combined with not really supplementing my diet with much else of any nutritional value. I blame no one for this but myself.  The day I found out that I was diabetic, I stopped drinking soda.  I reject the idea that I or anyone else can’t avoid soda if they choose and have to be forced into a better choice.

Not to mention, we’re talking about childhood obesity here. The adults are the one’s supplying the soda most of the time, I imagine. Do you think that upping the cost is going to make them suddenly buy healthy drinks or simply serve the same thing and grumble about the price of groceries?

Be it a tax on cigarettes, a tax on booze or a tax on soda, you don’t get the result you want until you change the people. Until then, you’re merely profitting off of people’s bad behavior because as a society we’ve failed to teach ourselves moderation. I don’t doubt that we need to do something to make sure that the next genaration doesn’t all die of heart failure by the time they’re 40, but I find the idea that we should do that by poking the wallets of people an offensive and dangerous concept.

After all, what else do we think is a problem that we can tax? What does the government have to target before we see that such practices for the rude extortion that they are? Do we really have the right to say stay healthy or pay up?

Me, I don’t think so.

As of yesterday, Sugar Turned On Me has been around for 100 posts.

Go me.

Since my diagnosis, I’ve gotten comfortable with the idea of me being a diabetic. Not happy, just comfortable. While that’s a good thing in many respects, it also worries me a tad.

When I first found out that I had Type 2, I was concerned. I think I lost the first 5 pounds by stress alone. While I’m glad that I’m not stressing as much, I worry that I might not keep an eye on things as much as I had when I first started adjusting my life.

I watch what I eat, but sometimes I’m tempted to overlook that fact that three cookies is a lot more in terms of carbs than two. I recognize the value of exercise, just not when I’m feeling lazy at lunchtime. I try to stay on top of my blood glucose numbers but I don’t seem to mind skipping a day or five.

Anything you do daily, be it an exercise regimen, a diet or a blog runs the risk of being as much a chore and a hassle as it is a choice. Add a feeling that you don’t have as much say in it as you’d like and the motivation to follow through seems to evaporate like summer drizzle on a sidewalk. Logic does not sway this nor the warnings of doctors nor the concern of loved ones. Inertia is hard to overcome; excuses come in value packs.

Does this mean give up? No. I’ve written 101 entries in this blog. I want to see the 1001st. I’d like to see the 10,000th. If I want that, I have to take care of myself. Setting a goal that requires I be around for it helps me do that.

I don’t think I’m going to run out of things to talk about when it comes to diabetes unless they cure it. Until then, I’ll do what I can to be here. After that, should I see it in my lifetime, I’ll still be here… I’ll just write about something else.

We all have things we think we’ll never do. I just started doing one of them. I went to a restaurant and ordered Diet Coke. And I liked it.I used to drink Coke by the bucket, part of what has rendered me Type 2 diabetic. I couldn’t stand the taste of the diet version and only tried one recently because I happened to be at a party and wanted to drink something other than water, the black stuff being my only option. The experiment turned out successfully and now, I have another option on the list when I go to restaurants and other places with soda fountains.

But not without some reservations.

In general, I’m against artificial sweeteners. I don’t think the food additive industry is evil or doesn’t deserve to make money or anything like that. I just prefer that things I put in my body be minimally processed and tested by centuries of use.

Diet sodas have come under scrutiny lately, some studies showing that the sweet taste alone causes your body to spike insulin production and negatively affecting weight loss. The thought is that you may not be putting sugar into your body, but your taste buds fool your body into thinking you are and it reacts accordingly. There’s also the fact that diet soda still has caffeine and other ingredients that are considerably less good for you than say water, not to mention that aspertame (the sweetener in Diet Coke) has been linked to headaches in studies, to cancer in less conclusive studies.

I can’t say that any of the articles I’ve read have 100% convinced me one way or the other if Diet Coke is the devil or not, but still I think that as with anything, you should pay attention to what a substance does to your body and that all things consumed should be consumed in moderation. I’m not intending to start hooking myself up to IV’s of the stuff but knowing that Diet Coke, which I used to consider utterly foul, is now an option, makes me happier. I’ll keep my eye out for additional articles and keep an eye on myself to monitor the side effects, but when I go to the movies I now know that I have some other option besides bottled water to accompany my viewing pleasure.

I wonder what I’ll think will taste okay next.

Some links:
A piece on Diet Sodas with a scholarly yet alarmist bent.
Another article, this time from a more journalistic perspective.

As we are rapidly approaching the winter holidays, one expects that there will be many blogs that will break from their usual discourse to offer a hopefully sincere, probably sappy message touching on the spirit of giving and attempting to reflect on the meaning of the season. This blog will be no different… mostly.

When I was a kid, I looked forward to this time of the year the same as every kid does; the time we got off from school seemed much longer than the two weeks that the calendar says it was. As an adult, I’m still impressed by how the world slows down now. On Christmas Eve, even the streets in major cities seem empty and everything from business to wars might stop for a moment to focus on something other than the work of the given day.

That’s what holidays are, a time to focus on the reasons why we do what it is we do every day. We set aside time for remembrance and attention, to regroup and take comfort in looking after one another and ourselves.

And yes, I’m getting to where this relates to diabetes.

As a society, Americans push things to the limit: monster trucks, $700 Billion dollar bail outs, and six pound cheeseburgers. As I’ve grown older, I’ve seen this need to squeeze every drop out of everything we can start to creep into my late winter festivals. The ease of my youth is getting replaced by the pressure to get things done, be it shopping or cookies, decorations or visitations. The things we do to observe the holidays are now so urgent and involved that we’re starting to lose sight of why we do them and what’s the point.

So too, when we get busy, we start to let go of those things we think we can exempt so that we can get on to the urgent stuff. We skip meals, showers and in the case of those with disabilities, we stop looking after ourselves. After all, there’s a date on the calendar fast approaching and there’s work to be done!

If you find yourself doing this, as I know I have, then stop. Take a breath. Remember what it is you’re doing. We don’t erect trees or light candles because we have to, we do it because we’re observing something important to us, celebrating the motivation for which we do the rest of the things in our lives.

If you’re diabetic, don’t neglect taking your blood sugar or eating right because you’re in a rush. Make time to take care of yourself. Don’t feed into the need to push things, as that’s how half of the Type 2 people like myself got in this situation in the first place.

This may seem like a thin thread I’m tying everything together with, but consider: I know that I’ve missed taking my blood, eating right and making some posts here because I’ve been busy with so many other things this month. Eyes down and focused on the task at hand, it’s easy to let the things that matter more but feel less urgent slip by the wayside, be it holiday cheer or basic health. This is a bad thing and I urge anyone doing it, myself included, to knock it off.

Merry ChristmaYuleQwanzukka, everybody. Take care of yourself. Peace to you, one and all.

Today, my company took the office out for lunch.  Normally, this would be great news and in the end, it turned out okay. But why do I say “Normally”? Because we were going to Olive Garden.

On the one hand, I really like some of the food at Olive Garden. The issue is that it’s hard to find anything there that doesn’t come with pasta and being diabetic, I can only do so much of that. When the  decision was made, I agreed while inside I smoldered.

I wanted to look at one of my co-workers and ask “What are you trying to do, kill me?”

I might have done it too, but I didn’t want to be That Guy, the one that is now the “least” in “least common denominator”, the limiting factor and the one that stands out in an unpleasantly special way. I probably could have pulled the “I have a disability” card, but then the choice of venue for the meal would be less about celebrating as a team and more about me. In the future, I’d be approached by my co-workers or my boss when similar festivities occurred and asked what my preference might be. And any time I had a donut or something sugary in the office, I’d risk getting ugly glances from my team mates for having the audacity to risk things when it suited me, but not when it benefited them.

The drama I’m describing is probably a couple of orders of magnitude above what woudl actually happen, knowing the people involved, but still I didn’t want to make others uncomfortable by demanding they cater to my metabolism. If it really had been something life or death, something more complicated than where to have lunch, I might have pointed out why the place suited me less than some others, but it didn’t and I didn’t feel I needed to play up my issues.

Lunch was lovely and I can thank Atkins that there were options that I could have without risking totally killing my blood glucose.  I’m glad we went where we went and I’m glad my comrades in commerce enjoyed themselves. There may be some event where I need to be adamant about compensating for my diabetes, but this one wasn’t it.

Here’s hoping that if such an event ever comes, I’ll have the wisdom to know it and the tact to be able to say something without becoming “That Guy”.

Like anyone who starts paying attention to their diet, I read labels. I check for carbs, fats, vitamins, artificial sweeteners, high fructose corn syrup, etc. A lot of shocks happened when I was diagnosed with hyperglycemia because I looked at some foods I thought were a step up and found out they were just as dangerous as soda or half the menu items at Micky D’s.

For instance, humble orange juice.

A serving of orange juice is 8 ounces. As that’s not been enough fluid to satisfy any thirst I’ve had since I was six, I usually drink OJ in the same quantity I used to drink everything, 16 to 20 ounces. The problem now is that a reasonable sized bottle of OJ is enough carbs to count as a meal for me, over 50g. This means I usually skip it.

This isn’t an issue until I’m feeling under the weather. 

Orange juice has been a constant when I’ve felt ill. One sniffle and I start thinking about Vitamin C, preferably in multiples of the recommended daily allowance. Juice of Orange is a practical, enjoyable way to administer said Vitamin C.

The issue is that in so doing, I’m upping my already erratic sugar intake. Sure, I could have the OJ with skinless chicken breast and some broccoli, but that seems extreme. I could try other vitamin C beverages, but most of them are of the same level of sugars as OJ.

I can get around this by taking Vitamin C in tablet form, though they don’t exactly sell it that way in the average stop n’ shop. So when I start feeling something attacking my immune system, I’m caught between going to consume what I know will kick up my blood sugar or delaying and depriving my system of the necessary nutrients to kick the bacteria in their protoplasm.

Tomorrow, I may see about keeping some Vitamin C tabs in my shoulderbag for just such an emergency. Today, I’m having OJ and just trying to stretch the bottle out over the course of the day. It still all kinds of such to ask myself, “which aspect of my health do I choose?”

I feel lousy.

This isn’t a hangover from last night’s wing buffet. (Morning blood glucose reading, 111 by the way). It’s not just because I’m getting little sleep. I think I’m coming down with something.

Getting a cold or the flu or a stomach bug or what have you is irritating on a number of levels, aside from the usual inconvience and worry that I’ll infect my co-workers or my wife. It plays hell with my blood sugar.

I’ve gotten pretty good at reading my body. I can tell when I’m a little sugar crashy versus when I’m just tired or hungry. Being sick, especially at first when I’m not sure, throws that off.

Illness also throws off my ability to stay active, my appetite and therefore my ability to eat regularly and a number of other small things that meant the difference between me taking care of myself or not.

The people at John’s Hopkins and the Mayo Clinic   both suggest more or less the same precautions with diabetes and illness: stay hydrated, keep to your schedule and check your sugars more frequently.  Also, if you go to a doctor for you illness, make sure he knows about the diabetes too.

I doubt I’m going to the doctor or taking anything heavier than Vitamin C, but I’m still trying to pay attention. I don’t want a bad situation to get worse, because diabetes doesn’t just complicate things when I’m healthy. It’s also a royal pain when I’m experienceing, well… other royal pains.

A friend of mine is having a birthday today. Aside from an opportunity to wish him well and celebrate another turn for him around the sun, it is an opportunity to celebrate with him in his usual fashion: at a wing buffet.

Buffalo wings are deciptively small, ninjalike delivery systems for cholesterol and fat that have the insidious nerve to be delicious. The aren’t high carb, which is why I find them tempting but that saving grace can be done away with if they are in the right sauce. On top of that, they’re nigh impossible to consume in small quantities… at least if you’re me.

It’s possible to tear the skin off of them and just eat the meat, I suppose, but that defeats much of the purpose as the flavor lies on that same skin. If I were truly desperate, I could tear off the skin, rub the sauce off it onto the meat and then consume but that seems like the behaviour of an addict and I feel it’s more dignified to just accept that I’m going to have to find some reasonable way to work off the extra bad stuff.

I don’t blame my friend for my temptaion, only myself. I could order something else off the menu, a nice salad or something else sane for my metabolism. But I know I’m not.

Even the best of us diabetics have our weaknesses, and I am not one of the best. So if you read this, think of me and say a little prayer that the angel of moderation and common sense finds me and stays my hand from wing number 31, or at least helps me do the math on how many minutes of walking I need to do in the very cold autumn we’re having to compensate.

I thank you in advance.