Managing diabetes every day, every month of 2015

CHRISTMAS DAY 2014

MORNING TO EVENING ROUTINES OF A HEALTHY DIABETIC LIFESTYLE:

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Good diabetes management depends on following a routine that runs throughout your day — from the time you get up until your head hits the pillow again at night.
 That's because blood sugar levels are in constant flux during the day. They rise after meals and taper off during physical activity. The key to successfully managing type 2 diabetes and its symptoms is to keep your blood sugar levels as stable as possible. That's where a routine comes into play. Here are diabetes management tips to help cover every part of your day:

In the Morning

Check your blood sugar. If you have type 2 diabetes, you should check your blood sugar level every morning before you eat anything, says Marjorie Cypress, CDE, president of health care and education at the American Diabetes Association. This gives you a good baseline idea where you stand and allows you to make adjustments throughout the day.

Eat breakfast. If you skip breakfast, you're already starting your day on the wrong foot. "Many people tend to skip breakfast, and it's one of the most important meals of the day," Cypress says. "You skip breakfast and you get hungrier and hungrier, and that's one of the reasons people tend to overeat later in the day." Eating regular meals will help keep your blood sugar levels steady, but skipping meals and then binging will cause spikes.

Give your feet a once-over. Diabetes can cause your feet to lose feeling because of nerve damage. In extreme cases, a person with diabetes can end up having to have a foot amputated if an unnoticed cut becomes severely infected. Check your feet for any sores or cuts each morning. Also check your shoes before putting them on to make sure there's nothing in your shoe that could cause a sore. You might want to check your feet at bedtime, too.

In the Afternoon

Take a lunch break. Don't eat lunch at your desk — that's a sure way to rush and feel stressed. Instead, sit down somewhere else and eat, then take a short walk afterward. Plan a healthy lunch ahead of time or you might resort to unhealthy fast food. You get a triple-win against diabetes with a lunch break: The regular meal and the exercise help keep your blood sugar level stable, and you can release some pressure from work.

Have healthy snacks on hand. Afternoon snacking is a good way to set yourself up for healthy eating once you're home. "Most people like to snack in the afternoon, and I think that's important because you don't want to get home and start grabbing anything because you're so hungry," Cypress says. By having a sensible snack, you can help keep your blood sugar steady by avoiding a binge later on.

Get a little extra activity. Physical activity is crucial to blood sugar control. When you're active, your cells burn blood sugar through a process that doesn’t rely on insulin. Activity also lets your body use insulin more efficiently. Take the stairs instead of an elevator. Get up from your desk and go talk to co-workers instead of emailing them. Experts recommend getting 30 minutes of physical activity each day, but it doesn't have to be all at once, says Don Kain, a certified diabetes educator with Oregon Health & Science University. Every time you get up and move around, you're adding to your 30-minute total. If you'reworn out from work, he says, try to fit in a short walk in the late afternoon.

In the Evening

Eat a sensible dinner. Don't overeat at dinnertime. Eat a meal that's about the same size as what you ate for breakfast and lunch. The actual amounts of protein, carbohydrates, fruits, and vegetables you should eat will depend on the meal plan that's best for you. As with earlier in the day, maintaining a steady intake of food will make you less vulnerable to blood sugar spikes, especially if you're eating healthy foods.

Work out while you watch TV. Keep moving even as you veg out in front of the tube. Do sit-ups or push-ups during commercials, or march in place. Lift light weights during the show. Even physical activity that’s not aerobic can still aid in your body's ability to use insulin efficiently and maintain stable blood sugar. "Contracting your muscles can helpregulate your blood sugar," Cypress says.

At Bedtime

Check your blood sugar again. Here's where you see how your diabetes management routine pays off. "Checking your blood sugar at bedtime gives you a good idea what happened during the day," Cypress says.

Brush and floss your teeth. Brush in the morning and at night, and floss every night. "People with diabetes are at increased risk for periodontal disease and general dental problems," Kain says.

Apply some lotion. Keep your skin moisturized to prevent peeling, cracking, and developing sores that can be symptoms of diabetes. Apply lotion every night before bed.

A tutorial for making an excellent cream/lotion for face and body at

home you'll find on my blog (http://sunbirdafrica.blogspot.com or on my pinterest board "shea butter".

The very best for diabetic feet too!!

Yummie Yummie Yummie.....

will get rid of too much tummy!

HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR 2015

SANTA IN THE KALAHARI

Good Day all my friends,

Christmas is a rougher than usual time for us diabetics! Yesterday I tried to sneak into a shop which sells Christmas Cookies from Germany each year. Luckily for me they had already left for the holidays. Now I have delicious ice tea instead.....

I know, I promised you a "diabetic Christmas dinner" recipe for this post. But, really, where I am it is much too hot to even think of a sizzling turkey and sauce. I include a light recipe for an asparagus roll instead and trust, that by today all your family meals will be sorted.

There's something about asparagus that always shouts "special!" Treat yourself or your guests to our easy yet elegant toasty Mozzarella-Asparagus Roll-Ups and take a bow!

Serves: 10

Serving Size: 1 roll-up

Cooking Time: 10 min

What You'll Need:

• 1/2 pound fresh asparagus spears, trimmed
• 10 slices light-style wheat bread, crusts trimmed
• 10 teaspoons reduced-fat mayonnaise
• 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 5 reduced-fat mozzarella cheese sticks, cut in half, lengthwise

What To Do:

1. Preheat broiler. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray.
    
2. In medium skillet over high heat, heat 1 inch water to boiling. Add asparagus, cover, and cook 7 to 10 minutes, or until just tender; drain.
    
3. With rolling pin, slightly flatten each bread slice. Spread 1 teaspoon mayonnaise on one side of bread. Evenly sprinkle with garlic powder. Top that side with 1 to 2 asparagus spears and half of a cheese stick. Roll up carefully, then arrange seam-side down on prepared baking sheet; coat rolls with cooking spray.
    
4. Broil 4 to 5 inches from heat (or toast)3 to 5 minutes, or until bread is light brown.

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND CONTENTMENT

 AND HEALTH for the new year 2015

Greetings and joy to the world,

Barbara

Diabetic dinners (books)

Mr. Food's Diabetic Dinners in a Dash

view and/or order

In his third cookbook for people with diabetes, Mr. Food offers 150 delicious, easy, and healthy recipes for hearty foods--soups and salads, chicken, turkey, beef, and pork, as well as desserts.

Mr. Food and the American Diabetes Association are proud to present an all new cookbook, Diabetic Dinners in a Dash . This cookbook contains over 150 Fast and Fabulous Guilt-Free Recipes that will have everyone saying Ooh It's So Good! . Every recipe contains nutritional information, portion sizes, and easy-to-follow directions that will put delicious meals on your table every night.

sugar free recipes

The Ultimate Book of Diabetic Cooking This book offers detailed help on cooking for people with diabetes, including an extensive introduction that helps to explain the condition and offers advice on all aspects of nutrition as well as weight management and exercise. There is a special section on diabetes in children, as well as advice and support for how to manage the condition through puberty, pregnancy and through the ageing process. http://www.kalahari.com/s?Ntt=Mr.+Free+diabetic&searchCategories=4294966903+10017&N=4294966903+10017&Ntk=def&Ntx=mode%2BMatchAllAny&pageSize=12&linkId=3305586&affiliateId=2002691&linkType=ORDER_REFERRAL Please note that anybody can benefit from sugar free cooking!! WHAT A STUFF UP! AFTER SEVERAL COMPLAINTS THE LINKING TO KALAHARI.COM WORKS ONLY ERRATICALLY. I WILL LOOK FOR ANOTHER AFFILIATE FOR BOOKS etc. SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE THAT MIGHT HAVE OCCURRED. MY PERSONAL INCONVENIENCE IS THAT I AM TOTALLY FRUSTRATED, WASTING HOURS TRYING IN VAIN TO PROVIDE YOU WITH USEFUL READING ON DIABETIC COOKING. SO SORRY, REGARDS, BARBARA

The war against sugar continues

You might blame me for being radically persistent in my efforts to increase the stigma against the diabetic's enemy No.1. Well, I think it is important enough to hammer around on it and came across a book excerpt by a certain Michael Moss.
I had always wondered why on earth are we earthlings so blown over and down by sugar.
Michael tried to explain it and it's very insightful:

Forget what we learned in school from that old diagram called the tongue map, the one that says our five main tastes are detected by five distinct parts of the tongue. That the back has a big zone for blasts of bitter, the sides grab the sour and the salty, and the tip of the tongue has that one single spot for sweet. The tongue map is wrong. As researchers would discover in the 1970's, its creators misinterpreted the work of a German graduate student that was published in 1901; his experiments showed only that we might taste a little more sweetness on the tip of the tongue. In truth, the entire mouth goes crazy for sugar, including the upper reaches known as the palate. There are special receptors for sweetness in everyone of the mouth's ten thousand taste buds, and they are all hooked up, one way or another, to the parts of the brain known as the pleasure zones, where we get rewarded for stoking our bodies with energy. But our zeal doesn't stop there. Scientists are now finding taste receptors that light up for sugar all the way down our esophagus to our stomach and pancreas, and they appear to be intricately tied to our appetites.

"The second thing to know about sugar: Food manufacturers are well aware of the tongue map folly, along with a whole lot more about why we crave sweets. They have on staff cadres of scientists who specialize in the senses, and the companies use their knowledge to put sugar to work for them in countless ways. Sugar not only makes the taste of food and drink irresistible. The industry has learned that it can also be used to pull off a string of manufacturing miracles, from donuts that fry up bigger to bread that won't go stale to cereal that is toasty-brown and fluffy. All of this has made sugar a go-to ingredient in processed foods. On average, we consume 71 pounds of caloric sweeteners each year. That's 22 teaspoons of sugar, per person, per day. The amount is almost equally split three ways, with the sugar derived from sugar cane, sugar beets, and the group of corn sweeteners that includes high-fructose corn syrup (with a little honey and syrup thrown into the mix).

"That we love, and crave, sugar is hardly news. ... Cane and beets [were] the two main sources of sugar until the 1970s, when rising prices spurred the invention of high-fructose corn syrup, which had two attributes that were attractive to the soda industry. One, it was cheap, effectively subsidized by the federal price supports for corn; and two, it was liquid, which meant that it could be pumped directly into food and drink. Over the next thirty years, our consumption of sugar-sweetened soda more than doubled to 40 gallons a year per person, and while this has tapered off since then, hitting 32 gallons in 2011, there has been a commensurate surge in other sweet drinks, like teas, sports ades, vitamin waters, and energy drinks. Their yearly consumption has nearly doubled in the past decade to 14 gallons a person.

"Far less well known than the history of sugar, however, is the intense research that scientists have conducted into its allure, the biology and psychology of why we find it so irresistible.

"For the longest time, the people who spent their careers studying nutrition could only guess at the extent to which people are attracted to sugar. They had a sense, but no proof, that sugar was so powerful it could compel us to eat more than we should and thus do harm to our health. That all changed in the late 1960s, when some lab rats in upstate New York got ahold of Froot Loops, the supersweet cereal made by Kellogg. The rats were fed the cereal by a graduate student named Anthony Sclafani who, at first, was just being nice to the animals in his care. But when Sclafani noticed how fast they gobbled it up, he decided to concoct a test to measure their zeal. Rats hate open spaces; even in cages, they tend to stick to the shadowy corners and sides. So Sclafani put a little of the cereal in the brightly lit, open center of their cages -- normally an area to be avoided -- to see what would happen. Sure enough, the rats overcame their instinctual fears and ran out in the open to gorge.

"Their predilection for sweets became scientifically significant a few years later when Sclafani -- who'd become an assistant professor of psychology at Brooklyn College -- was trying to fatten some rats for a study. Their standard Purina Dog Chow wasn't doing the trick, even when Sclafani added lots of fats to the mix. The rats wouldn't eat enough to gain significant weight. So Sclafani, remembering the Froot Loops experiment, sent a graduate student out to a supermarket on Flatbush Avenue to buy some cookies and candies and other sugar-laden products. And the rats went bananas, they couldn't resist. They were particularly fond of sweetened condensed milk and chocolate bars. They ate so much over the course of a few weeks that they grew obese. 

"'Everyone who owns pet rats knows if you give them a cookie they will like that, but no one experimentally had given them all they want,' Sclafani told me when I met him at his lab in Brooklyn, where he continues to use rodents in studying the psychology and brain mechanisms that underlie the desire for high-fat and high-sugar foods. When he did just that, when he gave his rats all they wanted, he saw their appetite for sugar in a new light. They loved it, and this craving completely overrode the biological brakes that should have been saying: Stop.

"The details of Sclafani's experiment went into a 1976 paper that is revered by researchers as one of the first experimental proofs of food cravings. Since its publication, a whole body of research has been undertaken to link sugar to compulsive overeating. In Florida, researchers have conditioned rats to expect an electrical shock when they eat cheesecake, and still they lunge for it. Scientists at Princeton found that rats taken off a sugary diet will exhibit signs of withdrawal, such as chattering teeth."

Is it possible to have a delicious AND sugar free Christmas?

YES!!

Next time it's Christmas dinner recipes.

Regards,

Barbara

THE GREAT WHITE SHARKS (sugar and white flour)

Hello friends,
today I received a copy of a monthly newsletter by www.gonatural.co.za  from my friend Lucia and share this with all my other pals here.
I am sure you already know that sugar is the diabetic's enemy NUMBER ONE. Enemy NUMBER TWO is white flour.
The white bread we are eating and -worse- giving our children to eat contains both these enemies, plus some other crazy chemicals. The same goes for shop bought cookies, cakes, buns,

If you know the dangers involved and swallow the poison anyway, be my guest. I advocate awareness on this site, the final decision is yours.


Avoid the two ‘Great White Health Sharks’ (or Sweet Poisons):

1. SUGAR and
2. Refined White Flour

The consumption of both of these substances leads to a SLOW, but SURE, invisible health catastrophe. There are so many studies proving that both of these are ‘slow-killers’; but still they remain legal substances and are consumed in massive quantities. Surely if something is known to be harmful it is reasonable to expect that the authorities would act to protect the general public. But to the contrary, the modern, ‘drugged’ society continues promoting and consuming all of these harmful substances. It is imperative that every effort should be made to educate the general public regarding the long term health risks of these dangerous products.

As is the case with many harmful processed foods the public consumes it because it is first of all available, well marketed and it satisfies that short term craving. Sadly, people are totally oblivious to what is happening internally to their body at a cellular level. As happens with so many modern foods: ‘The lack of immediate affect leads people to conclude that there are no effects.’ Over time SUGAR has become the greatest drug on our planet. Yes, contrary to what people believe, the greatest drug is sugar and not alcohol, caffeine or nicotine. And the shocker is that it is legal and promoted to everyone.

Why is sugar ruining your health?

Refined white sugar or white flour is unnatural - it is highly concentrated. Human beings were never designed to consume sugar. Almost every known ‘dis-ease’ is fuelled by it.

1. Sugar makes you nutrient deficient as it is devoid of nutrients.
2. It makes you acidic.
3. It causes tooth decay and weak bones.
4. It causes high blood sugar levels, over stimulation of the pancreas resulting in a high risk of contracting diabetes.
5. Sugar leads to being overweight and obese.
6. It fuels cancer cells.
7. It causes children to become hyperactive resulting in ADD and/or ADHD.
8. Sugar cause an overgrowth of candida.
9. And so the list continues…

There are endless research studies that prove the above. Some by Dr Weston A Price date back as far as 1930. His epic study spanned more than a decade and incorporated 14 different traditional people groups. Some of Dr Price’s photos are also published in my book. Those photos are so powerful. As is my book, his book titled, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, is a must read for every individual and household.

But what are the natural alternatives to SUGAR AND WHITE FLOUR?

1. Sugar replacement: Honey, Stevia leaf extract, dates and more
2. White flour replacement: Living grain and a stone mill to produce freshly stone milled flour plus the skills and recipes presented in the book Go Natural to produce i.e.: Bread, Pasta, Pizza, Rusks, Porridge, cake, cookies, etc.

  

Book and monthly newsletters can be ordered from www.gonatural.co.za


For today be sweet,
Barbara