Monday, December 8, 2014

tests for LADA

http://www.tudiabetes.org/profiles/blogs/melitta-s-top-ten-tips-for-the-newly-diagnosed-person-with-adult print this out before going to endo when the time comes

Sunday, September 7, 2014

vinegar- drops blood glucose and lowers appetite?

i just ate 18 carb grams of chocolate pudding (3 pm) and now i'm going to drink two tablespoons of vinegar diluted in a cup of water and see what my post prandial numbers are at 4 pm and 5 pm as well as how my hunger feels later on today. while i am waiting to test bg, i will just sit around and go on the computer/watch tv, as activity really drops my sugar. at 4:08pm my bg was 98- a drop of 15 points in as much as we can trust glucose meters (which can be off +/- 15 points!) i will test at 5pm. then next week i will do the same 18 grams of carb from the same brand of chocolate pudding, but I won't use vinegar. i will also test preprandial. i may be at a different number, but at least I will be able to see how much bg drops or rises. right now i don't have an appetite, which isn't that surprising to me since i ate a lot of food today, and my craving for chocolate has been satisfied. optimally, i will eat a small dinner at 6:30, if i am hungry that is. if not, i will not eat. UPDATE: vinegar was not that clear cut when it came to lowering my bg. before eating i was 113. after 18 grams of carbs, 6 grams of fat, and 4 grams protein in the two low carb chocolate puddings i ate, 1 hour later my bg was 98. seems good. then at the two hour point not having eaten anything else, my bg went up to 117. i measured a second time, and my bg was 108. so no dramatic lowering, or maybe nothing conclusive due to the inaccuracy of glucose meters. my appetite seems to be either normal or a little better than usual, since my last big meal was at 12 noon, and i have only had the puddings and some celery since then with no big appetite swing even after eating that relatively high for me 18 grams of xylitol, modified corn starch carbs.

Saturday, July 26, 2014

protein requirements

I have noticed in the past two years going from 47 to 49 I have lost a little muscle mass even though I am doing about the same amount of exercise. so in this post i will be listing what different experts say is the amount of protein we need per lb or kg of body weight. Bernstein The Diabetes Solution, pg. 171: "In order to maintain muscle mass, most people should consume at least 1-1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of ideal body weight. Athletes will require considerably more, as will growing children." "...6 grams of protein is the equivalent of 1 ounce of an uncooked protein food. To estimate by eye, a portion the size of a deck of playing cards weighs about 3 ounces (red meats weigh about 3.7 ounces because of their greater density)." from a wsj online article that professor de vany posted on his facebook: "According to guidelines published in 2010 by the Society on Sarcopenia, Cachexia and Wasting Disorders, a nonprofit group, as many as 41% of women and 35% of men age 50-plus ingest less than the recommended daily allowance of 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight (0.36 grams per pound). The group recommends that total protein should be higher in that age range, or 1 to 1.5 grams per kilogram per day (0.45 to 0.68 grams per pound), spread equally through three meals. The group also says low vitamin D levels are associated with low muscle strength, and supplementing it in those cases has been shown to increase strength and function and reduce falls. But it's best to talk to a physician before starting any supplements such as protein or vitamin D." The New Evolution Diet by Arthur De Vany, p. 41: "Research suggests you need to eat 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight daily. That comes to about 3 or 4 ounces of meat of fish in each meal, up to 15 ounces per day. If that feels like too much, you can reduce your meat and fish intake by taking a dietary supplement called branched-chain amino acids, which provides about 15 grams of amino acids per tablespoon. Why is it important to eat enough protein? Because your brain senses how much of it your body requires and prompts you to keep eating until you fulfill that need....Adequate protein intake is essential to maintaining bone mass." jenny ruhl email to me about the amount of protein i need using her protein calculator: "It's 109 grams of protein or 510 grams of a protein-containing food like eggs. That's because an ounce of a high protein food like meat or eggs or cheese contains only 5 or 6 grams of actual protein." Jenny ruhl's nutrition calculator: http://www.phlaunt.com/lowcarb/DietMakeupCalc.php I was 128-130 lb for about 3 years (5'3") from my start of paleo at the age of 44 (2009, starting weight 143-148 lb)). So from 44 to 46/47, I was holding steady without counting anything, just by following general guidelines. then when i was around 47 (2012), i started to gain more weight and lose some muscle, mostly visible on my calves. that was also when i found out my blood sugar ran high, so maybe i just started eating differently, maybe lower protein? i don't know. but now i am 135 usually, and i can't get down below 133 even with intermittent fasting and HIT. So I am going to try to pay more attention to protein intake.

Friday, June 6, 2014

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/34/Supplement_2/S202.full

"Approximately 40–50% of individuals with IGT will progress to type 2 diabetes over their lifetime.

Thursday, June 5, 2014

Monday, March 31, 2014

finally- a good sleep!!!

for the past week or more i have woken up multiple times with temperature changes. this has happened before, sometimes to the point of me getting sick from lack of a good night's sleep. this latest wave has particularly tired me out, though. one night i tested my blood sugar as soon as i woke up from warming up, and my bg would be like 80, which i never see during the daytime. then in the morning my bg would be like 104. so it seems i was having a 'liver dump' to raise my bg, even though my bg number wasn't low. one explanation for this is a 'false hypo'. in this scenario your bg is drops to a healthier level because of metformin and/or carb restriction, but your body hasn't adjusted to the drop. then at night when bg naturally drops, your body remembers it used to be higher, say 100, and sees the drop of 20 points to 80 as signaling an emergency- thus the liver dump to raise bg.if you peruse my blog, you'll see i tried out the 'safe-starch' diet the Perfect Health Diet for three days, during which i got bg spikes to 157. i think that it is possible my body reset to a higher bg level, and when i went back to my usual carb level, i started to get the false hypos. then again, it could all be perimenopause (day 16 of cycle). so what did i do yesterday that might have led to a better sleep? 1. no coffee after 12. 2. no spices on my food in the evening 3. some cheese around 8 4. orange UVEX glasses at 7 5. no exercise (because i was worn out and am still recovering from a cold sore) 6. for breafast 2 scrambled eggs with mushrooms, asparagus, and yellow peppers 7. for lunch meatballs 8. for snacks: cheese, celery, half orange plus white part of orange skin, two mini peppers 9. for dinner meatballs again (not super healthy since we bought them pre made) and drum roll please: a good sleep and a morning bg of 90 instead of yesterday's 103

Friday, March 28, 2014

DIRT for Dummies- future coffee table book (don't rip off my idea, i had it first!!!)

A post in which I gather material I rip off from smart people so I can put it in a simplistic book about a subject I really have no experience in and know nothing about (because I am a GENERALIST and an AGGREGATOR of info doing MY OWN science via N=1)so that I may feel important as I will be an 'author' AND maybe I will make a buck and be my own boss so I don't have to deal with the crap of a real job- hallelujah hallelujah!! http://cwmi.css.cornell.edu/Soil_Contaminants.pdf PS don't rip off my idea, cuh (high school reference you behind the times old people with no teenage children)

Saturday, March 22, 2014

History of treating diabetes

https://www.diabetes.ca/about-diabetes/history-of-diabetes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWVuCDQKB5k the stories of dr. richard k. bernstein (Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution) and arthur de vany (The New Evolution Diet): using glucose meters to find out low carb/nutrient dense diets are best at controlling blood sugar Feeling awe and gratitude.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

resistant starch 'improves insulin secretion' ie you pump out more insulin to get lower bg numbers

From Bill Lagakos at caloriesproper.com "As to the Raben study you cited: I have no doubt that PS alone won't cause a spike in glucose, similar to your experience and that of the T1 you mentioned, especially because Raben showed the digestible starch in their raw PS to be only ~27% (w/w) and people aren't taking 200 grams of PS at a time. There's also no effect of type IV RS alone on blood glucose as per Haub's study (PMID: 22655177). As to the effects PS has on insulin long-term: one of the ways RS is thought to improve glucose control is by enhancing the incretin response, which will improve insulin secretion. This is kind of like what they saw in the Bodinham study (PMID: 22815837) and in the one by MacNeil (PMID: 24195618). Also, in this rodent study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pu…." "improve insulin secretion" means insulin levels increase- that is how you get lower blood glucose numbers. except i don't secrete enough insulin as it is, so i don't want to ingest anything that pushes my beta cells to secrete insulin. that is a recipe for beta cell burn out.

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Day 3 on Perfect Health Diet

I don't know what happened, but I had the worst sleep i have had in months. very hot and then cold. and my blood sugar was 109/110 this morning. i felt like my throat was getting sore at night, but this morning it's gone. this is my last day to see downward trends in bg. i know i am going to feel like crap all day because of not sleeping well. oh, well. i'll see how it goes. for breakfast i had the 75 grams of rice with butter and some cheese and coffee. i didn't have a big appetite. for lunch i has sardines passed in olive oil and lemon and the 75 grams of rice. i didn't go into the teacher's roooooommmm!! my bg at 4:45 was 95. not as good as the 89 i had at this time yesterday, but ok. at 4:45 i had ground beef, pepper, celery chile, to which i added the 75 grams of rice. i also had small chunks of cheese and i cup of coffee with cream and artificial sweetener. then I didn't take my bg at 5:45 because my husband and I went out for a leisurely one hour walk. when I got back I took my bg and it was 121. I thought it would have been lower after one hour of walking and two hours after eating. when I had my OGTT and drank 75 grams of liquid dextrose (ie glucose), I was 165 at half an hour and 128 one hour and two hours later. so this PHD meal pretty much gave me equivalent numbers to my 2 hours OGTT results. no thanks. can anyone tell me why I should go one with this little experiment? I was simply looking for some improvement- do you think my body shows evidence of being able to process glucose better? i'm glad i did this experiment because it reinforces for me that i really can't tolerate the carbs others can. as if i didn't already know that with two diabetic parents. but along comes the PHD which so many people are saying is a great diet, and which the author says is even good for diabetics if certain principles are followed. for me it doesn't work. i did it for 3 days and i saw no evidence that my body was processing glucose better. the only pluses were that i didn't feel so dried out and my constipation was healed instantly. i will investigate ways to deal with my constipation, such as taking magnesium every night. and i will ask others what has worked for them. in the end i feel that the jaminets are arrogant to advocate their diet for diabetics. their experience with diabetics is too limited. i only saw this today on the livinlavidalowcarb site which included reviews on the "safe starches" concept. one of them took the word right out of my mouth: "ANONYMOUS PROMINENT MEMBER OF THE LOW-CARB COMMUNITY Jaminet is not a clinician seeing patients and he’s never been obese. In that sense, he’s a theorist. His background isn’t in medicine, and it’s his Harvard affiliation that gives him cache. Like many bloggers in the field, he knows what worked for him and that his informed his opinions. Now here’s the issue: if he was treating obese individuals or type 2 diabetics, he might find out that 600 calories of glucose a day is too much for weight loss. He might also find out that some people have to go far below 300 to 400 calories a day to lose weight. He might find that safe starches and berries aren’t “safe” for some, even if they are “safe” for others. Or maybe not. But the key is to make a prescription based on what works for you is always a bad idea. What he did, though, is cut carbs considerably and then, in effect, add them back to deal with problems from eating so few. Compare Jaminet, say, to people like Dr. Steve Phinney, Dr. Jeff Volek and Dr. Eric Westman who have spent their lives working on this in the clinic and the laboratory would give different explanations for all that Jaminet is describing. So my main point is this: telling people they have to eat or should eat 600 calories of carbohydrate a day based on “book learn’n” is maybe not the best idea."

Monday, March 10, 2014

Day 2 on Perfect Health Diet

This morning 5 am my fasting glucose was 96. Right on the money for my normal bg. I had my 75 grams of white rice with a little butter, 2 eggs scrambled in butter, and a little asparagus. also coffee with cream. no time to take bg reading one hour later as I had to leave for work. At work i had another cup of coffee- no cream. At lunch 11:30 I had a tin of sardines packed in olive oil and lemon juice with 75 grams of white rice (heated up). before this experiment, i would only eat the sardines in a salad- a little yuck, but i was getting used to it. but the white rice with sardines and oil- heaven. then i tried to eat the salad greens with the balsamic on them and they tasted hideous, so i wasted it :( at school i had a little no no in the teacher's room. a miniscule piece of some kind of cake, but i had like 3 servings of whipped cream. new rule: no more teacher's room….!when i got home at 4:30 my bg was 89- again my normal reading when i was eating lower carb for this time of day. for dinner at 4:45 i had 75 grams of white rice again, with a little butter, a burger with salsa on it, and some broccoli. one hour later my bg was 134/133. this is an improvement from yesterday. at 8 pm my bg is 100. again normal or even a little better for this time of the day. so that's why maybe i'm pushing it a little by having what to me is a treat: a half a cup of plain full fat greek yogurt with 3 fresh strawberries and a small amount of frozen blueberries plus a little vanilla protein powder mixed in. my 9 pm reading will tell me if i overdid it or not. tomorrow's morning reading will be telling as well. last night my back was itching like crazy, but i don't know if that was related to what i ate or the aloe crap i put in my hair to kill frizz. as i said in my previous post, i had a normal bowel movement this morning- which i haven't had for several weeks because of constipation. i can't say my sleep was much better. i didn't burn up in the middle of the night, which will happen on days i do IF and weight lifting. during the day today mentally i didn't feel my best. i had more dementia moments calling a student the wrong name, forgetting stuff, etc. but i can't say for sure that is related to the higher carb. i had a very slight headache and a felt a little wired- more so than i usually do with the same coffee intake. this evening i seem to be warmer, although i'm not like my daughter who feels good in short-sleeves in the house. i still need a sweater at 65 degrees. again- i am not even weighing myself. i am mainly concentrating on my bg numbers. i would usual walk at a minimum of 40 minutes outside with my husband, but i had to do senior class trip stuff at the school with my daughter, so i wasn't able to enjoy the nice weather, and the lack of exercise might affect my bg numbers. exercise always has a positive impact on my bg. my bg at 8 pm was 100 at 9 pm after eating the greek yogurt, vanilla protein powder, and berried, it was 99/102: EXCELLENTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Day 1 on Perfect Health Diet: eating to minimize glucose spikes

i'm starting my 3 day PHD diet today. according to j.stanton and paul jaminet, i will minimize the blood sugar spike for white rice if i consume it with a meal containing fat. jaminet also recommends a fibrous vegetable, vinegar, and a quarter to half pound of meat or egg in the meal. why am i even going this route? i am really curious if the above advice will work. and maybe i will sleep better, which i never do. my sleep is bearable. if it were really bad, i would be getting colds all the time, and i was only mildy sick once this winter. i am trying this diet for 3 days because upping carbs to at least 150 grams a day for three days is the standard for preparing for an OGTT. My fast bg this morning was 108/103 (2 readings). It is usually under 100, but since I have been trying to eat 150 grams of white rice, it has started to go up. PHD advocates say I can minimize spikes coming from white rice if I eat it with a meal. I couldn't eat a PHD breakfast this morning, however. This morning I had coffee with cream. Since I was at a college open house for my daughter, and there were no safe starches available, i only ate bacon and eggs at around 9:15am. At 3:18 pm I wasn't really that hungry, but I thought it was time to test out a PHD meal. My bg before i ate was 100. I didn't want a half pound of white rice because I wasn't that hungry. I had about 150 grams of white rice with a spoonful of kerrygold butter on top- yum. i could eat that all day. i also had boiled asparagus with butter and salt and 5 hot wings. processed food, i know, but my husband refuses to be the food purist that i am. i will take my bg again at 4:18. I'm also having another cup of coffee with cream and sugar-free sweetener. i am very full- i probably should have eaten a little less. at 4:18 my bg is: 157/160 Who thinks my readings will go down day by day? at 6:20, 3 hours after the rice meal and after a half hour of brisk walking, by bg was 107/110. I was very thirsty after the meal. I usually never get thirsty. But I think that could have been the processed hot wings, which were salty with a lot of flavoring chemicals added to them. I just ate 3 stalks of celery- I need something with crunch. Anyway, after the celery, I'm not really hungry. That means I won't make my 150 grams of carb quota today :( tomorrow, in an effort to get in a half pound of white rice, I will divide that amount into three smaller portions: about 75 grams each. people whose blood sugar runs high are supposed to keep their carbs low in the morning, but, in order for me to eat a half pound of white rice a day, I feel I have to eat a small portion at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Monday, January 13, 2014

you can have a strong spirit even if your body is weak

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36m1o-tM05g mental outlook, attitude, life philosophy--------people who have suffered and still find happiness can teach us something. we won't be physically strong forever. when you are weak, how will you still enjoy life? will you be able to really smile when you are days away from death? i hope you will smile then and all the days before then.