What we are saying here is pretty simple, but it needs to be said. People with blood-sugar problems cannot live and eat and do things the way others live and eat and do. It is nowhere written in stone that you must complete the latter portion of your life in the same fashion as you did the former portion. Indeed, once you begin to take your blood sugar seriously, there is no way you can possibly do that. It is time to think outside the box.
35
Using Your Freezer
When it comes to establishing disciplines in our lives, I am a firm believer in making things as easy as possible. The harder you make it to keep up with your new lifestyle, the higher the chances you will fail.
It would be so wonderful if all the grocery stores had low-carb food options right alongside the regular foods. In the candy-bar rack you would find regular and low-carb candy bars. In the bread section you could choose between normal and low-carb breads. Alas, it isn’t so. Most grocery stores sell a few token low-carb or sugar-free items, but with many foods your choice is either high-carb or forget it.
If you have lots of money this isn’t too much of a problem. You can order all kinds of low-carb foods, from doughnuts to barbecue sauce, from various low-carb websites. If you are willing to double your food bill, you can stay low-carb and steer clear of baking low-carb breads, pancakes, brownies, pies, and so forth. But for most of us this is not an option. We are going to have to do some cooking.
I have a few rules in this area. I rarely tackle complicated recipes that use more than a dozen ingredients or call for strange things such as cleaned squid or exotic spices I cannot pronounce. I get intimidated by recipes that tell you to fold something into something (folding is for clothes, not foods). Another rule is, whenever possible I like to make a large recipe and keep the leftovers in my freezer. It generally doesn’t take much more time to make a dozen muffins than it does six. Why spend all that time messing up your kitchen for six muffins that will be gone pretty soon? Double the recipe, put six of them in the freezer, and bring them out when the first six are gone. Or you can make six muffins and then put the rest of the mix in a square pan. When it has baked you can divide it into portions for strawberry shortcake.
I love to treat myself to a really good low-carb dessert from time to time. I used to feel I had to eat a piece of pie or whatever it was every night so it wouldn’t spoil by the time I finished it (since I was the only one eating low-carb). It was nice enjoying a dessert every night, but it tends to put on the pounds. Low-carb desserts are not low-calorie desserts, and moderation is required. Then I realized that I could keep a couple of pieces in the refrigerator, divide the rest into pieces, and freeze them individually. Then on Saturday evenings, while watching a film noir movie from the forties or fifties, I could bring out one of those bad boys, make some coffee, and have my own little low-carb classic-movie party. Try this with my cheesecake recipe in chapter 15. And for the movie I recommend Laura (from 1944) or almost any Humphrey Bogart movie.
You can keep strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and nearly every other kind of berries in the freezer, then bring them out to put on low-carb pancakes, waffles, and so forth.
The idea of using your freezer isn’t new, profound, or brilliant. But it is smart in its own simple way. And the easier you can make a low-carb lifestyle, the more likely you will keep with it. So use your freezer. Make it easy on yourself.
Many low-carbers make an occasional trip to a special low-carb shop, but in most cases we don’t live very close to one. We’re not going to be making a lengthy trip to the low-carb store every week, so it makes sense to buy the food or snacks in large amounts and freeze some of them.
36
The Power of the Scale
When I was a wild and reckless college kid, someone at our dorm got a call saying that a railroad company was paying students to come and clean up the mess that had been created by a train accident. I decided to join some of my friends who were going there to make a little extra money.
When we arrived on the scene of the accident, boxes were everywhere. We pitched in quickly and began loading everything onto a truck. But the sight of some of those things was too tempting for most of us. I am ashamed to say that I, along with most of my buddies, began helping myself to some of the smaller items and stuffing my pockets. We thought we were making a real haul until it was announced that when we were paid, we would be searched. That put a new light on things, and soon the air was filled with boxes and all sorts of treasures being thrown into the bushes as we divested ourselves of our loot. So much for our dreams of riches!
The power of accountability is truly amazing. But when it comes to your health, no one is going to hold you accountable but you. There are no sugar police to ticket you when you eat that third doughnut. You will not go to jail when you give your kids a breakfast of Pop-Tarts and Dr. Pepper. And no one will haul you into court when you become nearly as wide as you are tall. In America you can eat yourself to death pretty much undisturbed if you desire.
What this means is that you must take the initiative and hold yourself accountable. But this must be done in specifics, not just by a vague notion that you shouldn’t “eat too much” or have “too much sugar.” When it comes to obesity the evidence could not be more solid. As your weight increases, so does the likelihood that diabetes is going to come knocking on your door. Around 80 percent of type 2 diabetics are obese. What’s encouraging is that often when obese people lose weight the severity of their diabetes lessens—and sometimes disappears altogether.
So how do you hold yourself accountable? Just as checking your blood sugar as it peaks after a particular meal holds you accountable for that meal, so weighing yourself daily on an accurate scale holds you accountable for staying at the proper weight. Facing the truth has a sobering effect. Humans have a remarkable ability of self-deception. We can delude ourselves into thinking we are nice when we are nasty, we may convince ourselves we sing beautifully when we croak like a frog, and sometimes we persuade ourselves, the mirror notwithstanding, that we are not really overweight—just “pleasingly plump.”
The scale will not be impressed. It does not play favorites, nor will it go easy on you so as not to hurt your feelings. It will faithfully tell you exactly what you weigh every time you step onto it (if you don’t buy the cheapest one possible). When I first started testing my blood sugar, there was nothing more disappointing to me than high numbers. On the other hand, low numbers made me absolutely euphoric. When I ate several slices of thin crust pizza and a salad and then tested at around 120 an hour later, I felt like I had climbed Mount Everest.
Every pound you shed as you get to your desired weight is making it easier for your body to process sugar and decreasing the severity of your diabetes. If you are still in the prediabetic stage, your lessened weight is making it more and more likely that you will never cross that terrible border.
A scale can have that same effect. First, decide what is the ideal weight for you. Then start adjusting the intake of your food to get to that goal. (Don’t get radical or extreme—take your time!) Weigh yourself every morning before breakfast. Your scale will either encourage you or rebuke you. And as you hold yourself accountable through the scale, you will find an extra portion of that vital and mysterious ingredient called motivation.
Allow your scale to hold you accountable. By sticking to a low-carb diet and weighing yourself daily, you are well on your way to getting to and maintaining your proper weight. You can do it! And that will have amazing benefits in your struggle with high blood sugar.
37
Give It a Rest!
One of the major rhythms of life is the pattern of growing weary and then being refreshed. The obvious example of this is our need for sleep. Most humans spend around 16 hours of their days awake and 8 hours asleep. Of course God didn’t have to make us this way. He could have made us untiring creatures who never needed sleep at all. How much more productive we could be if we never slept! How many more books co
uld be written, business deals transacted, and inventions created if nobody ever slept!
Our wise Creator did not see fit to make us thus. Somewhere in the evening we find ourselves running down. Our eyes become heavy, our concentration weakens, our productivity plummets, and even our desire for food gives way to the demands of our body that we lie on a comfortable bed, close our eyes, and lose consciousness for a period of six to eight hours (often more if you are a teenager). By morning, after breakfast and a cup of coffee, we are refreshed, alert, and ready to face another day.
The topic of rest has to do with a key question: What makes a person a diabetic? In type 1 diabetics the pancreas is simply unable to produce insulin. In type 2 diabetics things are a little more complicated. In many, and probably most, cases a vicious cycle has done the work. As people age their bodies often become less efficient in processing insulin. The pancreas says, “No problem—I’ll simply produce more insulin and all will be well.” As this “insulin resistance” increases, the pancreas gamely determines to keep up with the need, and after a while we are walking around with bodies flooded with insulin (a very unhealthy situation).
Even though our blood-sugar levels may not (yet) indicate there is a problem, the enormous load of insulin surging through our bloodstream is doing a number on us. The more insulin is produced, the more insulin-resistant we become; the more insulin-resistant we become, the more insulin must be produced. Our pancreas is working far harder than it was ever intended to work, and the insulin receptors in our cells are becoming impotent from the floods of insulin they are constantly forced to deal with. After a while the entire process starts to shut down. Another one bites the dust.
Incessant and addictive eating of breads, doughnuts, pasta, cakes, Cokes, fruit juices, and coconut cream pies is literally destroying our pancreases and our delicate blood-sugar-processing mechanisms. What should last us for 90 years is worn-out and almost useless at 45.
But there is good news here. Research and experience have shown that our body can often regain much of its effectiveness in processing sugar when we stop the constant abuse. The answer to this dilemma is rest. Your damaged and exhausted pancreas and insulin receptor cells need some quiet time to heal.
Pancreases, like people, are not made to be working nonstop and beyond their capacity. Your car may run just fine putting the pedal to the metal occasionally, but drive like that everywhere you go and you’ll soon be looking for another car.
In a sense this is what is at the heart of this book. By adopting the three key ingredients of blood-sugar management—reducing carbs, exercising, and getting to the proper weight—you are taking an enormous strain off the blood-sugar mechanisms of your body. The beta cells of the pancreas can actually replenish themselves to some degree, and insulin resistance can be significantly lessened. No, you’ll probably never be able to go back to the days of your youth when you could eat a huge plate of french fries and a big bowl of ice cream, drown them with a large Coke, and have blood sugar under 100 in an hour’s time. But you may well be able to get that blood sugar down to a normal range and keep it there for the rest of your days—and that’s not too bad! (In fact it’s great!)
In addition to a basic low-carb diet, one of the healthiest things you can do is go on a limited fast. Now relax—I’m not talking about going without food for several days. But it can be very beneficial and healing to the body to give your pancreas a real break by going a few days without eating any major-carb foods. This is particularly helpful when you are first trying to get your blood sugar under control.
What this means is that you set a time of a few days to a couple of weeks during which you eat primarily low-carb vegetables, low-carb breads (or no bread at all), and proteins. No rice, no potatoes, no “normal bread,” no sugary anything, and no fruit. Dr. Atkins was essentially recommending this when he urged his dieters to do the “phase one” eating plan. The South Beach diet also includes this regimen, calling it “pancreas rest and insulin receptor resensitization protocol.”
Your beleaguered pancreas will hardly know what’s going on when suddenly he has so little work to do. Healing and refreshing, the natural result of rest, are made possible and even, to a degree, likely. People whose fasting blood-sugar levels are 130 or more would do well to consider a two-week rest such as this. And then, every few months, take a three- or five-day “fast” just to do your pancreas a favor, and to say, “I’m sorry for all those years I’ve mistreated you.”
As you learn more about low-carb foods, you will be able to craft many meals that would fit within such a fast. Here is one example of a Sabbath rest for your pancreas:
1. Breakfast: Eggs, sausage, and a low-carb muffin (see chapter 16)
2. Lunch: Low-carb bread covered with the highest fiber beans (cooked) you can find, plus an avocado
3. “Tea-time snack”: A small handful of peanuts and a cup of tea with heavy whipping cream and one packet of stevia.
4. Supper: A salad made up of lettuce, slices of green pepper, broccoli, and cucumbers with a low-carb dressing such as ranch or Italian; baked chicken breast, green beans, and a low-carb slice of bread (see chapter 10)
Meals like these will do very little to raise most people’s blood-sugar levels. Of course if you are just starting to take blood sugar seriously and your fasting blood sugar is at 150 mg/dl, don’t expect to see a post-meal peak of 125. But once you get that fasting blood sugar down into a reasonable range, you will be thrilled to discover that your blood-sugar peaks are ridiculously low! And when you go back to a more normal (albeit still low-carb) diet, you may find that your blood-sugar control is better than ever.
38
Sugar in Disguise
Because diabetes is all about high blood sugar, most folks normally think about controlling their intake of sweets when they decide to do something about their diet. No more ice cream or chocolate pudding. No more candy bars or milk shakes. “Those things are sweet—they must be bad for me.” Their thinking is right as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go far enough. They assume that by controlling and limiting the sweet things that go into their mouth, they are doing about all they need to. Wrong!
There are all sorts of nonsweet things that can be just as much a problem. These are “sweets in disguise.” Rice does not taste sweet, nor do potatoes, or rolls, or bagels, or spaghetti noodles. So they must be okay—right? Wrong.
There are two types of foods that wreak havoc on our blood-sugar levels—the sugars and the starches. Sugary foods like Frosted Flakes and doughnuts are easy to identify as offenders. Your taste buds will immediately inform you that there is some serious sugar going on with these foods. But when we taste a large bowlful of bland rice there is no such warning. The starches are in effect entering your body incognito. However, those startches will almost immediately be converted into sugar once they hit your digestive system. And once they do, your body won’t know the difference! They will be every bit as damaging as that candy bar or Pepsi.
To complicate the problem many health professionals have made far too much of “healthy whole-grain” foods. They act as though anything that is whole grain should be given a free pass. They imply that your body will hardly know you have ingested any carbs. But your body will indeed know! And your blood-sugar monitor will tell the tale when you test your spike after eating. To illustrate this, let me pose this question: Which would be better for you—a large bowl of Frosted Flakes fortified with all sorts of vitamins and minerals, or a large bowl of Frosted Flakes without fortification? Of course everybody would say the fortified flakes would be much healthier for us. But what in the world would a diabetic be doing eating Frosted Flakes in the first place, fortified or unfortified?
Some folks can eat a breakfast of a large bowl of bran cereal with a couple of slices of whole-wheat toast, and congratulate themselves for eating a “healthy” meal. Everything was whole grain and nothing tasted the least bit sweet. But if they check their blood sugar about an hour after the meal they
will be dismayed to find that their blood-sugar levels have ascended into the heavens. After eating, their digestive juices made short work of the bran and bread, and with blazing speed converted them into sugars. Their pancreas uttered a groan—“Here we go again”—and tried its best to keep up with all that sugar. But simply couldn’t do it. They might as well have eaten a doughnut and drunk a soda.
I am not saying you cannot ever eat bread or rice, but I am saying you need to be careful about portion sizes of all starches. They can bite you. Remember that it is carbohydrates that raise your blood sugar, and they come in many and varied forms. Some taste very sweet and some not at all, but if they are carbs (except for fiber carbs) they are dangerous little guys. Be careful and be temperate!
39
Blood-Sugar Targets
One of the sad realities of our time is that millions of Americans know that they are diabetic or prediabetic but have no idea what their blood-sugar levels should be. If you don’t know what target to shoot for, you are not likely to hit it! Compounding the problem is the fact that there are different voices telling you different things. And doubly compounding it is the fact that some of these voices suddenly change their tune and tell you something different than they did previously.
60 Ways to Lower Your Blood Sugar Page 11