Changing Habits

My dad has diabetes. He’s been living with it for years.

Last year, my doctor told me that my blood sugar was at the top of the normal range, and had me do additional testing, the A1C test. That also came in at the top of the normal range.

The doctor recommended cutting back on my sugar and carb intake in general, and I concurred. From watching my dad, I know that diabetes isn’t something to play around with, or bury my head in the sand.

Prior to this warning, my eating habits were… well, here’s an example. I’m a person of habit – I find something I like and that’s the thing I do. Variety is fine, but I like what I like. SO I was eating the same thing every day for breakfast and lunch, like clockwork.

Breakfast was three granola bars, and lunch was a can of pineapple. Pineapple is fruit, so that is too terrible, but every day? And on top of the granola bars… well let’s be honest: chocolate covered granola bars are really just candy bars with some oats thrown in as a fig leaf. I was eating three candy bars and a can of pineapple every day.

And I ate corn chips any chance I could. In quantity. And a big bowl of ice cream at every opportunity for dessert, and any candy or cake that was available…

Again, diabetes isn’t something to mess around with. Since last October when I got the warning, I changed my breakfast to hard boiled eggs, lunch to a can of soup. I (mostly) stopped eating chips (I failed at the three team happy hours we’ve had to resist chips and salsa – my kryptonite – but at least the last time I actually ate moderately, so there was a win!). The doughnuts and cookies and cake that get brought into work frequently (that I used to partake of)? Ignored (though occasionally with a whimpering sound tbh).

And here are the dessert items I have eaten since October:

1. Two spoonfulls of cheesecake (one each at my daughter’s two birthday celebrations)
2. Five spoonfulls of ice cream (from three different batches of home-made ice cream that my daughter made (she’s a bad influence?)
3. A cookie
4. A VERY thin slice of cake for my birthday

And that is it.

I’ve been avoiding optional carbs, like when we have spaghetti I have the meat, the sauce, and the cheese, but skip the noodles, and like not eating the bread that gets served at restaurants while you’re waiting for them to bring your food.

I have been avoiding almost anything that is sweetened, but when sweetening I use Splenda instead of sugar. I still sweeten my coffee with flavored non-dairy creamer, but I have been using less and not supplementing with Splenda.

Amazingly, once I stopped, the craving for sugar (and carbs in general) is mostly gone, and I use a LOT less sweetener because I no longer need things to be as sweet.

For dessert, I have been eating frozen grapes (red grapes are best for this). Freezing them causes the cells to burst, making their sweetness more accessible. Just a few is all it takes to satisfy the craving for something sweet.

Basically, I made changes as though my life depended on it.

Which, while I’m not even pre-diabetic, it does (from a long-term point of view).