I got my diagnosis over the phone on a Thursday and my appointment wasn't until Monday morning. I had several days to compile a list of questions and to start eating better immediately.
The list of questions is essential whether you are unfamiliar with the disease or have been around it for as long as I have. Among my questions were:
1. Will I be on medication? If so, what will I need to be on and how do I take it? Will there be side effects?
2. Will I have to test my blood sugar everyday, like I did when I had gestational diabetes?
3. How does exercise play into this diagnosis? If I have to exercise, how much and what types of exercise should I do?
4. Nutrition is important with diabetes. What do I need to know, learn and do to have good nutrition? How will nutrition affect my disease?
So by the time I made it to the clinic on Monday morning I had a short list of questions and made sure they were all answered. I also took a notebook and made notes from my conversation. I asked as many questions as I could and scheduled my next appointment.
As I mentioned, I started eating better right away. While I didn't track everything I ate, I did use several cookbooks for meal ideas and looked through my books on diabetes to get some idea of what my diet should be. (I will provide a list of the books I have used so far at the end of this post for your reference) I found that one book of diabetic menus not only listed weeks worth of menus, but had recipes and a nutrition guide. This book was the most helpful and I refer to several charts from it everyday now.
Test Results:
By the time Monday came I had lost three pounds since my physical two weeks before and I was armed with my questions, notebook and a couple of my reference books. The first topic of discussion was my test results. My fasting blood sugar was not far below 200. The normal range is between 65-99. Even the low 100's would have been better than my reading. Another factor that went in to my diagnosis was my A1C. This is a count of how much glucose is in my blood for the last three months. My A1C value was way, way, way above normal which is 5.7 or below.
I had never heard of A1C before so we talked about this a bit and I was told that this must be measured every three months. The blood cells are only alive for about 3 months, so this must be tested that often to see how well your body is handling the glucose you intake.
In addition to this, we discussed insulin, diabetes and how things work. In a nutshell, insulin is a hormone that processes the glucose in your body. Your body either uses or stores the glucose. If you are not producing enough insulin then too much glucose will be stored in your bodies cells, causing problems. This is what most people think of with diabetes. However, there is another problem with insulin. Your body may produce insulin just fine, but your cells are resitant to it and the insulin, therefore, cannot do it's job.
Medication:
My medical professional did not put me on insulin as a medication at this time. She first put me on a medication to assist my body in using the insulin that is produced naturally in the pancreas. We discussed when to take it and the side effects. I am taking Metformin, so is my Dad. Hopefully, I won't need to take anything in addition to this. Time and other blood tests, etc. will tell for me. The side effect to be aware of with this medication is upset stomach. It does fade quickly as you continue to take the medication. One plus right now is that I am not testing my blood sugar yet.
Nutrition:
Nutrition and exercise both play a big part in living with and controlling diabetes. Some have supposedly conquered this disease with diet and exercise. I am not confident that this will happen for me, but I don't let this thought discourage me. I just want to feel better, live as long as I can, and be as healthy as I can.
So, we talked about my new eating habits and I showed her my books. She was impressed with the nutrition charts and menus in the one book. She said that the information is appropriate and should be followed. The book has charts giving the starch/bread, vegetable, fruit, milk, protein and fat servings to have at each meal and as a snack. Then it covers diabetic nutrition, has charts giving portion sizes for foods in each food category and finally gives menus and recipes. I follow the meal chart for the amounts in a food group from this book for every meal now.
My medical professional asked me a few questions and determined my Basal Metabolic Rate, how many calories you burn if you are at rest for the day. The figures you need for this are your height, weight and age. Here is a link to a website to calculate your own: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/
This figure tells you how many calories to eat in a day. However, this isn't the only thing to consider in your diabetic nutrition.
In this discussion I brought up the Glycemic Index and asked if it would play a roll in my meal planning. I was told that it does. The Glycemic Index tells you how fast the sugars in your food enter your blood stream. A food with a low GI will enter slower than a food with a high GI. (I have a couple books to recommend on this subject.) The Glycemic Index can be very important for diabetics, not for diet reasons, but in the selection of foods that will NOT spike blood sugar.
One of the most important nutrition things I learned in my discussion with my medical professional was that weight loss is not to be my priority as a diabetic. My priority is to learn about carbohydrates. I am still in the process of learning about them and will share what I learn here in my blog. Did you know that there is a basic guideline for how many carbs you should have with your meals? I didn't know that and tried to find out. What I found is a range for carbs per meal for a diabetic, but nothing specific. The range is 45-60. The exact number for you depends entirely on you and your body. I have also wondered how many carbs I should have in a day. I tried to find this out and couldn't find a specific answer to this either. My source for these questions was the American Diabetes Association website. http://www.diabetes.org
Exercise:
The last topic in my first appointment about my diabetes was exercise and this was simple. For now I will be trying to get at least 45 minutes of cardio exercise in every day. I have been working up to this so far and am at 20 minutes right now. Cardio exercise means doing something that gets you into a sweat and increases your heartrate, but not so much that you cannot talk normally while doing it. Walking, aerobics, biking, etc. are all good choices. The important thing for me is finding something that I can enjoy doing everyday. I will probably be looking for several options to use throughout every week so I don't get bored.
Wow, this has been a very long blog, but all of this information was important, necessary and helpful as I begin my new life with diabetes. I'll never consider diabetes in a positive light, but I should at least learn to live with it comfortably.
So, don't get frustrated, get creative.
Bibliography:
Quick & Easy Diabetic Menus: More than 150 Delicious Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Snacks, Betty Wedman, M.S., R.D. Published by Contemporary Books. This book is based on the American Diabetes Association Exchange Lists.
Fast and Simple Diabetes Menus, Over 125 Recipes & Meal Plans for Diabetes, Plus Information on Complicating Factors Including: High Blood Pressure, Kidney Disease, Celiac Sprue, High Cholesterol, Betty Wedman-St. Louis, Ph.D., R.D., C.N.S. (Former president, American Association of Diabetes Educators) Published by McGraw-Hill.
The Everything Glycemic Index Cookbook: 300 appetizing recipes to keep your weight down and evergy up!, Nancy T. Maar, Published by Adams Media, Avon, Massachusetts.
The Simple 0-10 GI Diet, Azmina Govindji & Nina Puddefoot, Published by Ulysses Press.
This figure tells you how many calories to eat in a day. However, this isn't the only thing to consider in your diabetic nutrition.
In this discussion I brought up the Glycemic Index and asked if it would play a roll in my meal planning. I was told that it does. The Glycemic Index tells you how fast the sugars in your food enter your blood stream. A food with a low GI will enter slower than a food with a high GI. (I have a couple books to recommend on this subject.) The Glycemic Index can be very important for diabetics, not for diet reasons, but in the selection of foods that will NOT spike blood sugar.
One of the most important nutrition things I learned in my discussion with my medical professional was that weight loss is not to be my priority as a diabetic. My priority is to learn about carbohydrates. I am still in the process of learning about them and will share what I learn here in my blog. Did you know that there is a basic guideline for how many carbs you should have with your meals? I didn't know that and tried to find out. What I found is a range for carbs per meal for a diabetic, but nothing specific. The range is 45-60. The exact number for you depends entirely on you and your body. I have also wondered how many carbs I should have in a day. I tried to find this out and couldn't find a specific answer to this either. My source for these questions was the American Diabetes Association website. http://www.diabetes.org
Exercise:
The last topic in my first appointment about my diabetes was exercise and this was simple. For now I will be trying to get at least 45 minutes of cardio exercise in every day. I have been working up to this so far and am at 20 minutes right now. Cardio exercise means doing something that gets you into a sweat and increases your heartrate, but not so much that you cannot talk normally while doing it. Walking, aerobics, biking, etc. are all good choices. The important thing for me is finding something that I can enjoy doing everyday. I will probably be looking for several options to use throughout every week so I don't get bored.
Wow, this has been a very long blog, but all of this information was important, necessary and helpful as I begin my new life with diabetes. I'll never consider diabetes in a positive light, but I should at least learn to live with it comfortably.
So, don't get frustrated, get creative.
Bibliography:
Quick & Easy Diabetic Menus: More than 150 Delicious Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Snacks, Betty Wedman, M.S., R.D. Published by Contemporary Books. This book is based on the American Diabetes Association Exchange Lists.
Fast and Simple Diabetes Menus, Over 125 Recipes & Meal Plans for Diabetes, Plus Information on Complicating Factors Including: High Blood Pressure, Kidney Disease, Celiac Sprue, High Cholesterol, Betty Wedman-St. Louis, Ph.D., R.D., C.N.S. (Former president, American Association of Diabetes Educators) Published by McGraw-Hill.
The Everything Glycemic Index Cookbook: 300 appetizing recipes to keep your weight down and evergy up!, Nancy T. Maar, Published by Adams Media, Avon, Massachusetts.
The Simple 0-10 GI Diet, Azmina Govindji & Nina Puddefoot, Published by Ulysses Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment