7 Deadly Diabetic Myths Exposed

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There are a lot of people who have thier own myths about Diabetes. Some could prove lethal if a diabetic is not informed of the right thing. So I would like to expose some of these deadly myths.

Myth 1: Sugar Causes Diabetes

Sugar may be a factor in diabetes, but it does not cause it. Research shows that one of the main contributors to the sudden increase in blood glucose levels are simple carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates on the other hand show a slow and gradual increase in blood glucose levels.


Myth 2: Only Fat People Get Diabetes

This myth is really wrong. Some are so sure that they won't get diabetes because they are fit or slim. It's not a lifestyle dependent disease, although it can highly influence or trigger insulin resistance, but according to my doctor it has a lot of other factors and the source of it is still a mystery.


Myth 3: If you're diabetic limit your food intake

Although type 2 diabetes has been closely linked to obesity, another deadly myth is the thinking that once you limit your food intake you can recover from it. This is somehow related to the first myth I mentioned, eating right (avoiding simple carbohydrates) with the right amount of activity like exercise can do much in controlling your blood glucose levels. Too little may cause you to go hypoglycemic where your sugar levels go so dangerously low.

Myth 4: Once you're on medication you can eat anything you want

Whether you're on oral medication or on insulin, you still have to manage your diet as well as exercise. Health supplements can also help but it's still eating right and losing weight which makes the big difference. A total change in an otherwise sedentary lifestyle.

Myth 5: Standard Diets or Low Carbohydrate Diets are good for any diabetic

Though standard low carbohydrate diets help in controlling weight, doctors still recommend that diets should be individualized and specifically programmed for each patient. That's why your medical care team should always include a dietitian or a meal planner.

Myth 6: You only need to test your blood glucose levels once in a while

This is very dangerous. Not testing right means letting your blood glucose go uncontrolled. Invest on a good meter. Technology has really evolved nowadays, meters are now very portable and accurate as well. It is also standard practice to have your blood checked via a reputable laboratory on a regular basis or as your doctor would advise.


Myth 7: My whole family is diabetic, therefore I'm certain to get diabetes

This myth is often the most common misconception. Surrendering to the fact that you have a family history of diabetes and you're sure you'll get it is totally wrong. You always have the power to take control of your life and watch what you eat. Stay active, eat right and avoid excess. You can control your life.

Til next post!

How to Create your Diabetic Meal Planner for Type 2 Diabetics

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One of the few things I learned when I was diagnosed with diabetes, was the fact that I could no longer eat anything that I wanted to eat at anytime. That's why in my last two posts I was looking for a new recipe book to change the monotony of my meals. My dietitian has prepared an easy meal plan for me early on. Here is how to start your own Diabetic Meal Plan for Type 2 Diabetics.

Step 1: Know your Glycemic Index

To start your meal plan, work with your endocrinologist to determine your target Glycemic Index. Your meal plan should revolve around this index and you should carefully map how your index moves before, during and after your meals. Your target Glycemic Index or GI must be between 70 - 130. Once you start to eat, list down all the food you ate and check your GI one to two hours after eating. Ideally, your glucose level should not exceed 180 with the food you just ate. Avoid those foods or combination of foods which cause your GI to spike beyond 180. Monitor your meals for a month clearly identifying which foods you should avoid or eat more of.


Step 2: Follow your Doctor and Dietitian

Normally, after your first month you would have generous list or a variety of foods to either avoid or eat more of. Always heed the advise of your doctor and dietitian specially on how much to eat and what medication to take at which time. Think of them as your lifelines. Consult them regularly. Become partners.

Step 3: Know the Basic Food Groups and How it Affects your GI.

The following article from http://www.brighthub.com/health/diabetes/articles/63482.aspx can explain how the basic food groups affect your blood glucose levels. Check out the article below.

Carbohydrates and Starches

Refined carbohydrates will drastically increase your blood sugar. Examples of refined carbohydrates include foods made with white flour and sugar, such as cakes, muffins, and bagels. Instead, choose six to 11 daily servings of starches made from whole grains. Select bran cereal with no added sugar. Cook whole-grain pasta and brown rice. And avoid products (such as bread) that use the label “enriched.” Bear in mind that if you’re carbohydrate-counting, count starchy vegetables as carbohydrates. These include corn, potatoes, and peas.

Vegetables and Fruits

Vegetables should always have a significant presence in all type 2 diabetes diets. Not only do fruits and vegetables contain essential minerals, vitamins and fiber, but they are also low-fat and low-calorie. Experiment with different vegetable and fruit choices to find your favorites: try bok choy, kale, melons, or kiwi. Try to eat at least three to five servings of vegetables every day, and two to four servings of fruit. Just keep in mind that how you prepare vegetables is as important as how much you eat: avoid high-calorie buttery sauces or dressings.

Dairy and Protein

The American Diabetes Association recommends choosing two to three servings of dairy products per day. Add low-fat or non-fat milk or yogurt to your type 2 diabetes food list to obtain calcium and protein. You should also select four to six ounces of meat or meat substitutes daily. Eat lean cuts of meat and fish. If you’re a vegetarian, you may prefer tofu, cottage cheese, eggs, or peanut butter.

Moderation

Being a type 2 diabetic does not mean you have to restrict yourself to an utterly draconian diet. Once you understand what kind of foods to eat with type 2 diabetes, you can also fit in small treats – in moderation. While you should typically avoid alcohol, candy, and fried foods, if your blood sugar levels are stable, you may indulge once in a while. A serving size of ice cream is considered to be a half cup, or you could eat two small cookies, or one small muffin or cupcake. Double-check your blood sugar before and after you indulge.

Read more: http://www.brighthub.com/health/diabetes/articles/63482.aspx#ixzz12TodjWvL

Step 4: Religiously follow your Diet Plan

Now that you know how to monitor and identify what and when to eat. Stick to your meal plan. It means living a normal life even with a chronic disease like diabetes.

Have a great time creating your meal plans!

Till next post!

Related articles

• What Kind of Foods to Eat with Type 2 Diabetes (brighthub.com)

Recipe Review : Cauliflower Mashed "Potatoes"

I was craving for mashed potatoes. My dietitian warned me that potatoes contain a lot of carbs which could eventually lead to spikes in your blood glucose. I wsa so dissapointed. But I was so happy when I saw this alternative on www.diabetesdaily.com. So I tried it since it was a simple recipe to do. The verdict?


Here’s my review.

Let me say that except for the fact that I was struggling to find an alternative gravy sauce and ended up buying one of those instant gravy mixes to add to the authenticity of the mash potatoes. Honestly, I cannot tell the difference.

I asked my wife and daughter to guess what I used, and they said “why would you use anything other than potatoes, or is this a trick question?” They got the shock of their lives. My daughter actually said, now I love Cauliflowers even more!


Have a try at it and let me know what you think about it.



Cauliflower Mashed "Potatoes"

1 head cauliflower

1 clove garlic (optional)

1/8 cup skim milk, plain yogurt, or good butter

Salt & pepper

Paprika

Steam cauliflower (optionally with a clove of garlic) until tender. Cut the cauliflower into pieces and place
in a blender with the milk, yogurt or butter. Season with salt and pepper and then whip until smooth. Pour
cauliflower into small baking dish. Sprinkle with paprika and bake in hot oven until bubbly.

Serve with roasted Aspauragus. (Optional)

Servings: 6

Amount Per Serving :: Calories: 57 • Carbohydrates: 12g • Fiber: 5g
Sugars: 5g • Total Fat: 0g • Saturated: 0g • Trans: 0g • Sodium: 91mg • Protein: 4g

Just a reminder though, you may want to watch how much gravy you would be adding as this could cause you to spike. It tastes good even without the gravy but I was looking for the classic style mashed potatoes so I indulged a tiny bit of gravy(around a tablespoon). Enjoy!!

Till next post

I've Discovered New Recipes for Diabetics

NEW RECIPES - UNDER REVIEW

I'm getting bored with the diet my dietitian gave me and I wanted to explore safe recipe alternatives for a change. As I was searching the net, I came across a lot of suggestions from dietitians, health buffs, diet programmers and the like. Some were promoting a new diet scheme but did not really provide recipes until you subscribe to them; the others were just giving one or two recipes which seems promising but leaves me with only two suggestions. Then when I was lurking in one of the diabetic forums, I downloaded a recipe book which looks tempting and well thought of. So I am going to try this out scientifically of course, as I want to see how these recommended recipes help me manage my blood glucose level. If it looks promising, I'll definitely share them.

Stay tuned.

The 4 Deadly Mistakes I did Before I Understood How Deadly Diabetes Is

When I look back five years ago, back to the time when I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I realized I made a lot of mistakes early on which made me depressed, irritated,insecure and hopeless. I took a look back at what were those mistakes. I'm going to share 4 deadly mistakes I did before I realized that Diabetes was not just a simple, ordinary disease.

FOUR DEADLY MISTAKES BEFORE I UNDERSTOOD HOW DEADLY DIABETES IS

1. THINKING THAT THIS WILL GO AWAY SOON - After the doctor had given me the bad news, I though to myself, it's just a disease. It will go away. It took me a month to realize that this was not a simple cold that will go away once you take your medication and drink plenty of fluids. It occurred to me almost a month after that fateful day, that I was marked for dead..dead man walking..why? I was in the hospital being scolded by my older brother who is a doctor, over the phone. Not only because I missed a few medications, not because I drank 2 liters of cola, and not because my blood glucose was pegged at 320 mg/dl. 

It was because I thought that once I finished drinking the medicine for 30 days I can go back to drinking cola, or eating too much. My brother said your disease is lifetime. There is no cure for it. All you can do at this point is keep it under control, else you die, or lose your leg, or you go blind, or suffer a stroke, or die of a heart attack. That was the first mistake.

2. I CAN STILL EAT WHATEVER I WANTED - My dietitian told me I can eat whatever I can as long as it's in my diet plan. I looked at it and saw most foods that I would also find good to eat. Then she said that     I cannot miss any of my meals (yoohoo) I said to myself, all I need was to follow my diet plan! I said yes this is doable. I was wrong! My dietitian and doctor looked at my fist monitoring report. I was asked how big was the meat portion that you ate? It was either too big or too much, but I was hungry. Diabetics need to learn that having diabetes needs control, you can exchange the food groups using the Diabetic Exchange method but the portions and amount must be followed. Counting calories is not only important but a must, I learned to read the labels, learned to weigh my food with my diabetic scale and avoid temptation.

It is still a struggle. The family must support you too. Isn't it hard that you're at a party and you stick with the raw salad with no dressing, then everyone else gets to eat cake, pastries and drink beer or cola? Family members must realize that in order to help those loved ones cope, they have to bear with the person with diabetes. Share and understand their difficulty and their pain. Never taunt or ridicule them specially if its about food.

3. SKIPPING MEDICATION OR THE I'LL DO IT LATER MISTAKE - This is the mistake I always commit, even now I would sometimes forget my medication. Often it's due to lack of money. Medication can be expensive specially if its a chronic disease, but most of the time, or ok..it's almost never back when I was starting out. I had no excuse for it, I was simply careless. The sad part was that I needed to get rushed to the ER to realize that this was priority numero uno, or else it's curtains for me.

4. FORGETTING TO MOVE AND HAVE FUN - One thing I realized when I talked to a fellow diabetic,(he's a close friend who had type 2 diabetes for 10 years, he's 46 year old.) He used to be obese like I am, he was a gym buddy who saw my medication and glucose meter in my locker. We shared stories. His life style was sedentary. He says he would sit and work in the office, eat junk food, go drinking with the boys, he partied big time.Then it struck him, one day. He went into a diabetic coma. His wife thought he was going to die. He recovered after they pumped 8 units of insulin into his system. That event in his life pushed him to improve. Now he runs marathons, plays golf, tennis and badminton. His best achievement was keeping his blood glucose at an average of 115 mg/dl. He changed his lifestyle. I was inspired by how he changed his life.

I hope my mistakes can help all of you who are new to this disease. I hope they inspire you to take control of your life and have fun and most of all stay as positive as you can and share your own light to others.

Till next post.

Cheers!

10 Signs and Symptoms that you have Diabetes

A friend of mine asked me, how can you tell if you already have diabetes?

A lot of us are in the dark when it comes to diabetes. I for one did not notice that I already have tell tales signs of diabetes. Here is a list of 10 signs and symptoms that you may have diabetes, and its time to see your doctor to verify. I am not a doctor, however these were discussed to me after I was diagnosed, you may still have time to prevent it so I am sharing this with you.

• Being very thirsty. - Initially I thought it was just the hot and humid climate that makes me very thirsty. I kept on drinking a lot of water. This was the first realization.

• Urinating a lot—often at night. - Originally, I believed that it was due to my thirst that I keep urinating at night. It was one of the symptoms that made me suspect that I might have diabetes, moreso when it became a discomfort specially when I would often wake up at night.

• Having blurry vision from time to time. - This symptom was not as noticeable, though there are times when I find it hard to focus on small prints. My job requires me to peer into microscope for material inspection almost 8 hours a day so I thought my eyes were just tired, also since I work with computers, I figured it was just regular eye fatigue. It was not that often that I got it.

• Feeling very tired much of the time. - Now this symptom was the hardest to spot, particularly because I had a long 2 hour drive from my office to my home so I just thought it was due to the long traffic jams I had to endure going home. I just thought to myself that it was regular fatigue.

• Losing weight without trying. - This is another symptom which was not apparent since I am on the obese side. I just noticed that I was shedding a few pounds which I thought was due to the lack of sleep that I was getting. It was not a significant decrease so I did not pay much attention to it, but I did lose weight.

• Having very dry skin. - I'm a guy so I don't pay much attention to this symptom so much. Though at that time, I would often have itchy skin.

• Having sores that are slow to heal. - Luckily, I haven't experienced this symptom yet, nor would I want to. Good thing my doctor asked me to monitor my healing progress from now on.

• Getting more infections than usual. - I don't have this symptom. I don't know why but I rarely get infections. (running a high fever is a good sign or indication that you have an infection - so my doctor says)

• Losing feeling or getting a tingling feeling in the feet. - There were times that I would get cramps, so my doctor says that is also an early indication of possible nerve damage later on. So I take precausions by wearing socks regularly as well as cleaning my footware religiously before and after wearing them to avoid problems.

• Vomiting. - I experienced this when I had hyperglycemia. I already knew that I had diabetes when I got to this symptom.

The symptoms I mentioned may not be the same for everyone, nor should it be taken as it is. It is based on my experience, as it was told by my doctor.

There are other risk factors that may cause diabetes. I got this from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) website which discusses the factors and could explain why and how we got the disease.

" Certain risk factors make people more likely to get type 2 diabetes. Some of these are


 • A family history of diabetes.


 • Lack of exercise.


 • Weighing too much.


 • Being of African American, American Indian, Alaska Native, Hispanic/Latino, or Asian/ Pacific Islander heritage.


You can help manage your diabetes by controlling your weight, making healthy food choices, and getting regular physical activity. Ask for help from your health care team. Some people with type 2 diabetes may also need to take diabetes pills or insulin shots to help control their diabetes.

Some people with diabetes are concerned about their family members getting diabetes. A national study show’s that people may be able to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes. To find out more, talk to your health care provider, visit the CDC Diabetes Web site at www.cdc.gov/diabetes, or call 1-800-CDC-INFO."

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes/pubs/tcyd/intro.htm

If you suspect that you have diabetes, please consult your doctor or health care provider as soon as possible. Type 2 diabetes can be prevented and controlled when detected early. If ever you experience any or most of the symptoms,have the due diligence to consult your doctor as soon as possible.

See you next post!

I am a Diabetic - Welcome to my World

I am a Diabetic. I learned about it five years ago. I’m now 36. I’m writing this blog for people like me. How I learned about the disease and how I am now living to educate people on how to live with the disease and control it.

I have Type 2 Diabetes – or Insulin Resistance Diabetes. See the definition below;

“ Type 2 diabetes is a chronic (lifelong) disease marked by high levels of sugar (glucose) in the blood. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of diabetes... When you have type 2 diabetes, the body does not respond correctly to insulin. This is called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance means that fat, liver, and muscle cells do not respond normally to insulin. As a result blood sugar does not get into cells to be stored for energy.” http://www.tudiabetes.org/notes/Type_2_Diabetes

I learned about this disease when I was 30 years old and I got hospitalized for dizziness and nausea. At first I thought it was just because of my hypertension. They drew blood from me and started running some lab tests. It was then that my doctor told me, I have the tell tale signs of a Type 2 diabetic, the dizziness and nausea was not due to my hypertension, but that I had hyperglycemia. Here is an explanation of Hyperglycemia according to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperglycemia

Hyperglycemia - is a condition in which an excessive amount of glucose circulates in the blood plasma. This is generally a glucose level higher than 10 mmol/l (180 mg/dl), but symptoms may not start to become noticeable until even higher values such as 15-20 mmol/l (270-360 mg/dl). However, chronic levels exceeding 7 mmol/l (125 mg/dl) can produce organ damage.

The origin of the term is Greek: hyper-, meaning excessive; -glyc-, meaning sweet; and -emia, meaning "of the blood".

Hyperglycemia as caused by Diabetes Mellitus

Chronic hyperglycemia that persists even in fasting states is most commonly caused by diabetes mellitus, and in fact chronic hyperglycemia is the defining characteristic of the disease. Intermittent hyperglycemia may be present in pre-diabetic states. Acute episodes of hyperglycemia without an obvious cause may indicate developing diabetes or a predisposition to the disorder.

In diabetes mellitus, hyperglycemia is usually caused by low insulin levels (Diabetes mellitus type 1) and/or by resistance to insulin at the cellular level (Diabetes mellitus type 2), depending on the type and state of the disease. Low insulin levels and/or insulin resistance prevent the body from converting glucose into glycogen (a starch-like source of energy stored mostly in the liver), which in turn makes it difficult or impossible to remove excess glucose from the blood. With normal glucose levels, the total amount of glucose in the blood at any given moment is only enough to provide energy to the body for 20-30 minutes, and so glucose levels must be precisely maintained by the body's internal control mechanisms. When the mechanisms fail in a way that allows glucose to rise to abnormal levels, hyperglycemia is the result.

I always believed that a Problem well defined is already half-solved. Charles Kettering put it best when he gave that quote and it has been my mantra ever since. I was shocked when I learned I had diabetes, but I took great strides to learn everything about the disease.

For first time diagnosed patients, getting the right information is vital. Talk to your endocrinologist or your doctor about it. Do not be afraid to ask. It's your life that is at stake, learn as much as you can. NEVER self diagnose. It could kill you. 

More about the disease and means to control, monitor and live with the disease next post. 

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