Living with Diabetes

Currently I am living with my boyfriend and his father (along with his brother and sister), his father has diabetes.  I am no stranger to the disease, my mother's mother had it, along with most of her siblings.  Before I moved away from my family, my step-grandmother was diagnosed with diabetes.  My mother is sadly, on the same path and is working on bettering her diet to keep her chances low.  My boyfriend himself is considered high risk for the disease.  


Diabetes is scary.  But I've learned so much more lately than I ever knew about the disease.  Since I am literally living with this disease, I am doing everything I can to not tempt or discourage.  I have stuck to a really standard polite rule of not buying ice cream any longer, but not just that.  I am eating as if I too have diabetes, just to make this living situation work better.  I know, personally, I would hate to be tempted or cut off from dinner with my roommates or family due to their unhealthy choices when I cannot eat the same.  


So here are some of the things I've learned.  Remember when playing sports how the coach will say "carb up for the game", why?  Because Carbs = sugar.  Yep... it's not just as easy as staying away from the sweets, Carbs can also cause problems for diabetics.  It's tough.  Carbs are stored in your body as a power food, they literally turn into sugar but aren't like sugar in the fact that sugar moves through your body more quickly.  What does this mean for a diabetic?  Basically if you eat a lovely dish of pasta and bread for dinner you could be at risk of having a diabetic seizure and literally dieing in your sleep.  Yeah, not fun stuff.  


Carbs are probably the hardest thing to cut out of a diet to be honest, think about how many foods contain carbs (actually you'd be surprised to know that nearly all foods contain some amount of carbs). I was amazed!  Not eating foods high in carbs means cutting out Potatoes and all potato bi-products, no more potato chips, no potato salad, no baked, fried, or any kind of potato really.  Bread is another food that can be high in carbs, however there are now low carb options for bread (thankfully), finding a low carb tortilla is harder just fyi.  Pasta, as I mentioned before is out of the question 99% of the time because again finding a low carb option is harder than you can imagine.  Rice is the same way, I have yet to find a low carb rice.  Today I was searching baked beans (trying to find a side dish for Super Bowl dinner that would work with no luck.  Surprisingly even Milk contains carbs!  You have to cut out a lot of breakfast foods when you are eating with diabetes.  It's so depressing to think about it like this, but no more Cereal (actually in moderation you can eat just about anything but moderation is the very important word).  Oatmeal, Cheerios, Pancakes (even without syrup) are all bad due to carbs.  


At his diabetic class (taught by a specialty nurse), he learned that he is allowed 70g of carbs per meal, with a 75g allowance for dinner.  So moderation is truly the key to eating with this disease, regardless what you choose to eat.

A few interesting facts:

Fruits have a natural sugar content that you have to account for.
Splenda is not necessarily the best non-sugar option and contains ingredients that when consumed in large amounts (such as diet sodas) can cause diarrhea and irritate the stomach and intestines.
"Sugar Free" does NOT mean carb free, so essentially because something is labeled as such does not mean that it is good for a diabetic!
Fiber, however, is good.  (According to his class), For every 5g of fiber you can subtract 2.5g of carbs off the label.  Fiber though, makes you go to the restroom more frequently as well.  Fiber is being pushed as the miracle that keeps you regular... so perhaps it's the way to go since it's less likely to upset your insides like Splenda may.
Although something says it's high in fiber though... does not mean it's the best option.  While reading labels on snack bars today we found that the Fiber One bars are not nearly as healthy as the Special K bars (which look tastier as well).  The Fiber One bars did not have enough fiber to account for the large amount of carbs they contained.  While Special K bars have roughly 18g of carbs, they are still healthier in moderation (as a snack food).


Like I mentioned, this disease is really tough to live with.  Even though I am not infected, just walking down my favorite isle at the grocery store (pasta isle) makes me think how lucky I am that I don't have to really worry about what I eat currently.  However, being so close to this, in fact living with it really makes me happy that I now know what I do and can watch what I eat now to assure that I stay healthy in the future.


Think about it.