What Happens If??
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What Happens If??
| Thu, 05-15-2008 - 11:17am |
I have been diabetic for a year and lost a lot of weight and my A1C jumped from 9.9 to 5.9. Lately I have been having trouble keeping on a healthy eating regime. I started chocolate and some white bread at times. If I continue to eat this way (I still try to stay below 60 carbs for major meals, 30 for breakfast and 15-20 for snacke) if I continue with these foods? My husband says my body will break down and if I am real good, I still won't be able to get my numbers low again without help. I think maybe the little insulin I have left might disappear. Is that true if I eat a bit too much sugar at times? Thanks.
Debbie, Mom to my "only" Stephanie

You're tiring out your insulin producing cells bit by bit if you are eating white bread every day and so on (why not just eat whole grain breads which aren't so huge a hit, or better still, make yourself a wrap with a low carb multi grain tortilla). If it's occasional, and it's not sending your glucose readings off the wall, it's not so huge. You are testing after a big meal including white bread or chocolate, right? What effect is it having? For example, I know that if I have a small portion of cereal with a bit of pecans, unsweetened almond milk, and ONE teaspoon of semi sweet chocolate chips, (total carbs approx 25), I'm okay. BUT milk chocolate (as in a hershey bar) is O-U-T. So I use small small portions of dark chocolate to get my chocolate fix. 60 grams of carb at any one time is way too huge for me no matter what(YMMV). I try to keep under 45 max, preferably 25-35 most of the time. And it's carbs not sugar that is the issue (just clarifying).
Bottom line - test test test and see what effect it is having on your blood sugar. But yes, diabetes is a progressive disease. The better you control things now, the longer it'll be before you take the next step.
--Deb
I know what you mean - I'm a major chocolate lover. It used to be REALLY easy for DH, he could just order a box of Godiva chocolates online and he was done for ANY gift giving occasion. Now, I just have the teaspoonful of semi sweet bits at breakfast most mornings so I don't feel 'deprived' but I don't grab the ice cream (chocolate is the least of your worries there, even vanilla is chock full of sugars) or cookies (much).
Watch out for the 'hidden' sugars like corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup - if there's one thing to BAN from your eating it's that one-, fructose, sucrose, etc. Several companies make decent low carb and/or sugar free hot cocoas (read the labels to determine what artificial sweetener they use, I can only tolerate Splenda and that in small amounts only, but YMMV) which can be a good stand in. Did you know that the real dark chocolate (like 65% or more) is not supposed to be chewed up? Instead, put a small square of it in your mouth and kinda of half suck on it, half chew it a bit, almost more like a lifesaver than a hershey bar. Savoring it like that allows it to slowly melt and allows the subtler flavors to become noticeable, kind of like slowly savoring a glass of wine. It also allows one small, fairly low carb, square of chocolate to become really satisfying.
Yes, if you eat a bunch of carbs and your blood glucose goes way up, you're more likely to have a precipitous drop later. What you're going for is gentle ripples in a pond not a big tsunami wave that crashes back down again.
Don't go too nuts on fruits either though - fructose is still a sugar, although better than the straight sucrose in a candy bar. Oh, also, if you are going to have chocolate (or other carby things like bread) make sure you 'buffer' it with some fiber, protein, and even fat. For example, jam is mostly sugar (sucrose and fructose) - not great straight. BUT if you use that multi grain bread (provided it's not too high in carbs) and add some nut butter you've got fiber, protein and a good fat to slow how the sugar gets absorbed. You want it to be nice and slow and steady. And, you want to pack as much nutrition as possible into each carb you eat since you've got to keep an eye on the carbs. So, if my options are 25 grams of carb in a chocolate something or 25 grams of carbs that gives me protein, vitamins, minerals, etc. that's the better choice. Because our bodies NEED carbs for energy so we have to have some (can't just not have any) so we might as well make the most out of what we CAN have. Do include occasional special items, just not ice cream EVERY day.
If you're having snacks throughout the day, you probably should trim down the mealtime carbs. If you would have, say 50 grams at lunch and 50 at dinner, but you're having a snack at 3 pm that's 15 grams, you'd probably want to reduce lunch and dinner down to 40-45 grams of carbs. For me (YMMV) I try to stick to 20-25 at breakfast, 30-40 at lunch and dinner and two snacks, mid-morning and mid-afternoon, that are about 15-20 grams. Carbs can be somewhat adjusted like that BUT they're not the same as calories where you can 'save up' for something - such as eating a salad at lunch because you know you're going to have a bowl of ice cream for dessert. Nope, that's too few carbs at lunch and too many at dinner (even if the calories for the day are okay).
--Deb
One other thing that I missed mentioning is that it's all about Choice. If someone else told me "you can't ever have this", darn sure I'd find some way to do it no matter what (just ornery I guess lol). But if I *choose* not to have that very same thing, it's not a problem. In *this* moment I choose not to go down to the kitchen here at work and get a mug of the free, organic, really rich and tasty hot cocoa they have down there. In an hour, maybe I will have some (by then I will have tested to see how lunch went, likely it won't be so low as to make space for cocoa). Most likely, I'll *choose* to slice up the smallish pear I brought from home and make myself a cup of mandarin orange spice tea. After dinner tonight (DH is making pizza - homemade, whole wheat herbed thin crust pizza) I will likely *choose* to walk for 30 minutes on the treadmill. Each is a choice - I could have cocoa endlessly (it's free after all), I could sit on my duff and watch TV the whole evening (and sometimes I do - tonight I 'have to' finish my walk by 8 pm because our favorite shows start then - one at 8 one at 9 and one at 10). BUT I choose to do what is in my own best interest. I know I feel better all around when I walk, when I keep my carbs under control, when I keep my weight from edging up. My family likes it when I do that too - if my carbs cause my glucose to rise, I get sleepy and grumpy and generally unpleasant (and DH really likes me to be awake and alert and uh "interested" when it gets to nookie time lol).
--Deb