I used to feel my night was not complete until I had watched something on TV and had a snack with some coffee. After realizing that I was prediabetic I knew I could no longer eat the cinnamon rolls and coconut pie like I used to. It took me a while but gradually I built up a repertoire of “approved” snacks to go with my coffee. Life was sweet again! I tested them and could see that they weren’t raising my blood sugar to dangerous levels. But they were raising my blood sugar, and as a result my fasting blood-sugar levels weren’t nearly as good as they should be. As I cut down on the evening snacks (didn’t quite cut them all out, but made them the exception rather than the rule) my fasting blood-sugar numbers began to look a lot better. And I’m quite sure my pancreas greatly appreciates the extra time to chill, knowing that most nights, once it has dealt with my supper carbs, it has nothing more to do until the next morning.
Does this mean you can never have a snack? No, there is no need for fanaticism here, but it would be wise to limit your snacks as much as is reasonable and possible. And definitely make them as low-carb as possible. A handful of almonds and a slice of cheese will barely bump your blood sugar up, if you have any pancreatic function at all. The same with a couple of boiled eggs.
Of course people taking insulin shots have special needs in regard to eating regularly and may not be able to go nearly so long without eating as others. But even for them low-carb snacks are clearly preferable to the high-carb ones.
12
Fear Not…Meat!
For some time meat has had a bad reputation. Of course no health writers or “experts” were going to stop most of us from eating meat, but they have succeeded in making many folks feel guilty about it. The big issue? Meat is bad because it has fat in it, and surely we all know that fat is bad. Fat in foods makes fat men and women, and fat boys and girls. Fat is evil, fat is nasty, fat is disgusting. We must all drink low-fat milk and eat low-fat meals, and any meat we dare place on our plate must have the least amount of fat possible. A dried-out slice from the skinniest, scrawniest, toughest old turkey on the farm might be okay, if you have to eat meat at all!
Those who have led the way into low-fat nirvana have to have something to replace the fat with, and their answer has almost always been high-carb foods. Of course they don’t describe them as pancreas-abusing, turn-into-sugar-in-your-bloodstream-in-a-heartbeat foods. They prefer to tell us that they are from “the bread group” or the “bread, cereal, rice, and pasta group.” They insist that the majority of all the food that we eat must come from this group. This is the base of the famous food pyramid. So rolls, and cornflakes, and bagels, and doughnuts are healthy for you, but meat is a nasty food we should avoid as much as we possibly can.
Eating whole-grain bread in moderation is okay, but for people with diabetes or prediabetes, you cannot make “the bread group” the heart of your diet. It will flat kill you. Your blood sugar will be constantly elevated, your fasting blood sugar will rise higher and higher, your blood circulation will grow more and more sluggish, and your organs will start to fail. The low-fat diet sounded like a great idea when it was introduced, but time and research have shown it is in fact the worst possible diet for diabetics.
We have assumed that since meat contains cholesterol and grains do not, the less meat we eat the lower our cholesterol will become. But if we eat lots of meat, our cholesterol levels and heart problems will go off the chart. The only problem with this idea is that it just isn’t borne out in the studies and research that have been done. Over and over again studies have shown that low-carb diets lower bad cholesterol, improve triglyceride levels, and reduce heart disease.
Of course we want to be moderate in eating meat, but we need to understand this basic fact: when you see a piece of meat on your plate you can forget about how many carbs it has or how much it will affect your blood-sugar levels. Meat has so few carbs they are not worth worrying about. You will get more carbs from a handful of Cheerios than a huge steak. Have you ever taken a look at the carb content of a can of tuna? Starkist tuna lists the carbs as 0 grams. The McDonald’s Big & Tasty burger totals 37 grams of carbohydrates. But if you take away the bun you are down to 6 grams. And if you take away all the other ingredients until only the meat patty is left you are down to 1 gram.
What this means is that, since you are going to have to go light on the breads, and since you have to eat and cannot live on water, most diabetics and prediabetics are going to need to make peace with the idea of eating and enjoying meat.
The one meat you have to watch out for is meat with a bread coating on it, such as chicken-fried steak. The meat here isn’t the problem, but that coating can rise up and bite you. Choose grilled meat over fried meat and stay away from chicken or fish with a bread coating.
When you find yourself out at a friend’s house and they serve a dinner with some high-carb items along with some type of meat, the best way to eat their meal without offending them or raising your blood sugar through the roof is to major on the meat and vegetables and minor on the rolls, potatoes, and pasta. This way you can still get full, they can still have the satisfaction of seeing you enjoy their meal, and your blood sugar stays at a reasonable level.
Enjoy meat! Don’t let the low-fat fanatics make you feel guilty. Don’t go “hog-wild” (pardon the pun) but don’t shun it either. You are going to have to eat something, and if you are struggling with blood-sugar issues, meat and vegetables are about a zillion times better for you than bread and pasta. A steak and salad dinner will barely move your blood sugar, assuming you still have some pancreatic function. But a meal loaded with rice and rolls and pasta will drive your pancreas crazy. But don’t take my word for it. Your blood-sugar monitor will faithfully testify to this.
13
Salads—the New Potatoes
What could be more American than potatoes? We love our potatoes. To quote the noble Sam Gamgee, Frodo’s faithful companion in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, “You know—potatoes? Boil them; mash them; stick ’em in a stew!” Of course we do a lot more with potatoes than that. We fry them, we bake them, we create a strange dish we call potato salad with them—and how we love our french fries! For many people potatoes are a staple of nearly every dinner, in some form or fashion.
The problem is that, although potatoes are somewhat nutritious, they are about the worst possible food we could eat if we are having trouble with blood-sugar levels. Imagine eating at the house of a man who is known far and wide for his fanaticism about eating healthy food. Knowing his reputation, you are curious as to what he will be serving. As everyone sits down to the table you note carefully the items on his plate: a small piece of chicken, a beautiful spinach salad, a generous portion of cauliflower, a heaping helping of broccoli—and two Milky Way candy bars. You would probably be more than a little puzzled.
Yet many diabetics and prediabetics regularly eat baked potatoes, french fries, and potatoes in other forms without thinking twice about it. A large helping of potatoes in most forms will have as many carbohydrates as two candy bars, and the sugars those carbs turn into will hit your bloodstream just about as fast as those in the the candy bars!
Part of the answer is obvious: severely limit your potato intake. But that in itself is not enough. We have to eat, and nobody is going to stay on a dietary regimen that leaves them still hungry when they get up from the table. The potatoes must be replaced. The most obvious replacement is something we are all familiar with—the salad. Packed with far more vitamins than potatoes, and far more fiber as well, salads are a much better food for you, even if you don’t have blood-sugar problems. But if you do, salads must become a regular item at the dinner table.
It is not that garden vegetables don’t have any carbohydrates. They do, but they don’t have nearly as many as potatoes do, and the carbs they do have are converted to sugar much more slowly and released into your bloodstream in a far more gentle and gradual way. Of course all vegetables are not created equal, carb-wise. Be careful with beets, carrots, yams, p
eas, parsnips, and of course corn. But greens, broccoli, zucchini, cauliflower, cucumber, lettuce, cabbage, and a number of others are quite low in carbs. You get pretty much a free pass with these.
Get creative with your salads. There are so many different kinds of vegetables you can use. Try different combinations, and remember that you can add various bits of meat in them without affecting the carb count (as long as it is not bread-coated meat). Sometimes add a couple of boiled eggs in your salad. They taste great and will make the salad more filling.
Salads may not be able to compete in taste with a baked potato drenched in butter with little bacon bits sprinkled on top. But they can do wonders in keeping your blood sugar under control. If you need a little extra motivation to “go salad,” try the following experiment. Have a meal one night with a large baked potato. Check your blood sugar at its peak afterward (one to one and a half hours after you eat). The next evening have the exact same meal but switch out the potato with a garden salad. Check your blood sugar at its peak. You’ll need no further convincing on the value of salads over potatoes.
Be careful with your salad dressing. What you gain by switching to the garden vegetables you can lose through an unwise choice in dressing. French dressing and Thousand Island dressing are notoriously sweet and have far too much sugar. Ranch and Italian dressings typically are pretty low in carbs. But sometimes a manufacturer can attempt to spice up their dressing by adding extra sugar. So to be sure, check the labels and go for the dressings that have the lowest carbs. Salad dressing carbs are usually listed per two tablespoons. Most people are going to use more than this on a good-sized salad, so keep this in mind.
14
The One-Portion Rule
One of the simplest things you can do to keep your blood sugar under control is to get to a reasonable weight and maintain it. There is a definite correlation between obesity and diabetes, between excess pounds and over-the-top blood-sugar levels. If you are 50 pounds overweight you have increased your chances of being diabetic exponentially. And if you drop those 50 pounds you most likely have also reduced your blood-sugar levels significantly.
One simple rule for keeping your weight in bounds is what I call the one-portion rule. When we place a portion of vegetables or beans or meat or rice on our plate we often have every intention of eating that and only that for our meal. But when we finish eating, that food tasted sooo good that we decide to have “seconds.” Here is where the battle is lost.
This is pretty elementary but it needs to be said: when you eat 30 percent more food than originally planned, you are getting 30 percent more calories and 30 percent more carbs. When you double the portion you double the calories and carbs. If your small helping of brown rice contained 18 grams of carbs, and then you take another helping of equal size, guess how many carbs you have now ingested? That’s right—you went from 18 grams to 36 grams. And the calories doubled as well.
Often it is those second helpings that drive our blood sugars sky-high and pack on the extra pounds. Had we stayed with our original good intentions we would have been fine. The answer is to make a firm commitment to stay with one helping. This may mean taking a little more than you otherwise would initially, knowing that there is no second chance. That’s okay. It is far better to do that than to go for the seconds, because once our plate has been cleaned we can put more food on it and still not look like a glutton. So take a little more at first, and having finished what was on your plate, shut down shop! No more food until your next meal. At first your stomach, spoiled little brat that it is, will scream and protest, and whine and snivel. But after a while it will get used to its new rules and behave itself. Just remember, you are the boss, your stomach is the servant.
When you monitor your post-meal blood-sugar peak and find that it is too high, it doesn’t mean you have to do away with those particular foods and never have that meal again. It may be you just need to take less of the high-carb foods and more of the low-carb foods. And having eaten what you dished out for yourself, don’t go back to the well again.
People with diabetes or prediabetes can’t afford to be overweight. This has nothing to do with vanity or looks; it has everything to do with staying healthy, enjoying a better quality of life, and avoiding the terrible diabetic complications that will surely come your way if you live with raging blood sugar. Take reasonable portions for your breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and then shut your stomach down. Between this and eating a reduced carb diet, it will be extraordinarily difficult for you to stay overweight.
Our eyes generally have a pretty good idea of how much food we should take. But our eyes have an adversary—our stomachs. What seemed good and reasonable to our eyes seems pathetically small to our stomachs. And far too often our stomachs overrule our eyes. We yield. And we pack in the calories—and the carbs.
15
Artificial Sweeteners—the Supplement Everybody Loves to Hate
When a person learns they are diabetic, one of the most painful prospects they face is the idea of cutting sugar out of their diet. Of course many folks simply refuse to do this and live with elevated blood sugar (and the consequences). Others learn of artificial sweeteners and begin to use them as a replacement.
The evidence is solid and beyond all contradiction. You must wean yourself off all forms of added sugar. Even in its natural forms, like honey and in fruit, you cannot bear too much of it. Of course your body needs some sugar, which it will ideally produce through complex carbohydrates, but simple sugar, added sugar, and the sugar you get through eating fudge, pies, and candy bars will eventually bite you. In general, sugar is not your friend.
Artificial sweeteners certainly have their critics. It is not within the scope of this book to deal with all the pros and cons here, but let me give you a few simple thoughts about the matter. We know that normal sodas are laced with sugar and will make your blood-sugar level soar. Diet sodas do not have sugar and generally have 0 carbohydrates. They will not normally raise blood sugar, with the exception of sodas containing caffeine, which may make your blood sugar rise slightly. So if you have to drink soda, choose diet soda over real soda. Likewise, if you have to eat sweetened foods, choose foods sweetened with artificial sweeteners over foods sweetened with sugar.
I know I am making the purists gasp, but I am not a purist. And notice I said, “If you have to…” Obviously, since artificial sweeteners are artificial it would be ideal to avoid them altogether. And if you can do that, more power to you. But many of us are not eager to give up on ever tasting sweet things again for the rest of our days. And it is my conviction that the “purists” are usually the ones that can never stick with a low-carb diet for a lifetime. At the time of this writing I have been doing it for ten years and don’t feel the least deprived. I enjoy diet sodas once in a while, and I occasionally treat myself with a dessert sweetened with Splenda. This I can live with.
Diet sodas and artificial sweeteners have been around since the 1950s. The government has had a long time to try to prove that they cause cancer and result in all sorts of maladies. But they have never been able to do so. When a well-meaning friend tries to tell you that artificial sweeteners will kill you or drive you mad, the best they can usually come up with is some anecdotal evidence. They know someone who heard about someone who had a grandma who used to drink a lot of diet soda and one day fell over in a seizure. Her nose started twitching, her legs kicked the air uncontrollably, and soon afterward she died while screaming, “The diet soda did all this!”
That makes an interesting story, but it is meaningless. Diet sodas are drunk by the billions every year and still there is no hard evidence that the artificial sweeteners they use are harmful. The FDA says aspartame is “one of the most thoroughly tested and studied food additives the agency has ever approved.” They have searched and searched for a reason to condemn it and haven’t found one. But there is a preponderance of hard, solid, incontrovertible evidence that excess sugar is extremely harmful to the human body.
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bsp; Of course as in nearly all things in life, moderation is vital. You shouldn’t be drinking five or six diet sodas or eating large desserts sweetened with artificial sweeteners every day. But when you weigh the totally conclusive evidence against sugar against the slight (nearly nonexistent) evidence against artificial sweeteners, you have to conclude that if you must sweeten your tea or coffee, or have a soda, go with the artificial sweeteners.
One sweetener that is natural and still has almost no carbs or calories is stevia. This little gem is preferred by those who don’t want to risk the artificial sweeteners. It has been used for centuries in South America. It is quite sweet and is great for sweetening tea or coffee. In powdered form it doesn’t mix readily in cold drinks, however. The only drawback to stevia is the price—it is significantly higher than artificial sweeteners, especially when you buy it in packets at your local grocery store. However, you can get it online from various sources in bulk, and in this form the price is much more reasonable. I buy 1000 packets at a time, and they provide me many happy (and sweet) cups of tea.
For those of you who would like to enjoy something—anything—that tastes like a dessert and still won’t send your blood sugar through the roof, allow me to give you one of my favorites. The following recipe is not merely some wimpy substitute for a real dessert. This tastes better than most desserts, sugared or otherwise. It is awesome! Yet it should not raise your blood sugar significantly.
Chocolate-Drizzled Orange Sour-Cream Cheesecake
Pie crust ingredients:
3/4 cup ground almonds (1-1/2 cups before grinding)
60 Ways to Lower Your Blood Sugar Page 5