(Everyone please break out your violins)
It's been a bit reminiscent lately. Thinking about all the food I don't eat anymore. You know. The list. French Crullers from Dunkin Donuts. Double Stuff Oreos. Barbalo Wings from Midtown Sundries. Jalapeno Poppers from Arby's. Mozzerella Cheese Sticks. Any baked good in the desert case at you-name-it restaurant. Whopper Jr.'s. The International Passport from IHOP. :-/
(Ok. Thanks for the musical background. You can put them away now.)
It all started a few days ago when I just really wanted to go out to eat. We haven't mastered the experience of a relaxing dinner out yet. To me, it's still a chore that requires planning ahead. We didn't plan ahead, it got late, and we were stuck in the house with another last minute meal to make. Thank God for Anthony, because he whipped up an awesome Spicy Butternut Squash soup that was incredible. It made me think much less about dining out, and more about how good I have it.
But I still had this craving...for something. And nothing I've eaten seemed to lessen the craving, so I keep picking and sipping, opening doors and shutting them. And that brings me to tonight.
Pre dinner my blood glucose was 93. That's usual. I was finished with dinner but I just needed more. I wanted food Food FOOD! It was essentially a total protein dinner. Spicy chicken sausage and your basic cooked chicken. An hour and a half later, my hunger didn't subside. My glucose was then...91.
We had all sat down to watch a Netflix movie like usual, but saw that the Charlie Brown Valentine's Day special was on- so we switched gears. I just gotta say- I have come to despise TV shows. Not the show in general, but what comes on every several minutes to try to convince us that we need what they have. We just have your basic cable, no frills, so we can't fast fwd through them. Commercials make me want to do a few things. A) Throw my slippers at the TV. B) Shake some sense into the people who believe the hype. C) Run to my pantry. D) Take a road trip down Memory Lane (and to Burger King). Well, since I won't do A, B, or D...that leaves C. Now, the problem is, I don't have a single thing in my pantry that resembles the flowing liquid chocolaty goodness, the single serve brownies, or any of the other snacks they showed. (No wonder people snack at night!!) My choices in the pantry were... mixed nuts, coconut milk, or popcorn. Well...I had had the 1st two already today, and I don't eat popcorn much, so... my eyes looked up. Someone bought a box of cereal, and it wasn't me. Anthony tried to encourage me to fight the urge, that I just didn't need to eat sweet snacks before bed... but I'm pretty stubborn.
I heard Dr K's July 2010 interview on the Livin' La Vida Low Carb show recently and something he said stuck in my head, but it didn't make it's way to the "carry-out-in-real-life" section of my brain yet. (Or maybe I should say my heart?) It was about carbs and the thyroid in Hashi's patients. That when I subject my thyroid to high blood glucoses and insulin surges, a little piece of my thyroid dies- never to return. That's huge. But knowing that was still not huge enough to stop me from going to my pantry and grabbing the single box of gluten free EnviroKids Gorilla Munch and opening it up. It's one of those things that's gluten free...but not good for me. Corn and cane sugar. Oh. I could've had a burger patty. I could've fried an egg. I could've even eaten a banana. Nope. I wanted easy pantry food. I wanted CEREAL. There was a time when Anthony counted 14 boxes of cereal up there. I was over the top. It was always so easy and quick to pour myself a bowl. Well- it still is, I found out. I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk...and a splash of dark chocolate almond milk too, for an additional kick. I dug in. Nom nom nom. Declan calls out from up in his room..."Hey, I heard someone pour a bowl of cereal!!" Selective hearing. We only buy maybe a box a month (that's pushing it, too)...and he was waiting for it to be cracked open apparently.
Well, 2/3rds into the bowl, I started feeling not-so-good. Weird. Heavy. Anxious. Foggy. Achy. Full. I finished it anyway. Because- well, sometimes I am compulsive, and my belly didn't hurt. While feeling bad at this point, I thought to myself, "I may never do this again. This may be my last bowl of cereal. Ever." Anthony held my hand, smiled and shook his head as I put the empty bowl down. 1/2 hour later, my blood glucose was 163. At 1 hour it was 161. That's NUTS.
There's something about seeing a number on a digital screen that is so concrete, I can't help but wonder if that message did finally make it to my heart. If it did, then it was worth feeling this awful this once. If it didn't, then I'm as hard headed and careless as they come.
As I write this, I am still feeling weird- in a bad, achy, foggy way. My blood glucose is still 139. So, that means while I sleep it will drop, and my cortisol will come to the rescue- again. I bet I will wake up hungry and nauseous.
I hope I remember this feeling the next time my mind starts to wander down Memory Lane and starts looking over the fence. It's not greener over there. It's just not.
Sorry! But I am really confused here. Remember my brother is a diabetic since age 7, so we are used to dealing with blood sugars. Also we have always been told fasting blood sugars are the only accurate way to tell if you have a true problem. Unless it has been 3 hours after you have eaten any sugar test will not tell you squat. It is too unpredictable based on what you ate and metabloism rate. I am really confused now. How you are checking it goes against everything his endocrinologist has told us the past many years.
ReplyDeleteCheck out this link, Becca. It might help you understand a little better.
ReplyDeletehttp://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/glucomania.html
Becca-
ReplyDeleteThe reason for my testing as written above:
"It was about carbs and the thyroid in Hashi's patients. That when I subject my thyroid to high blood glucoses and insulin surges, a little piece of my thyroid dies- never to return. That's huge."
The point in the audio webcast was around 27 or 28 minutes, I believe.
This is not about diagnosing diabetes. It's about Hashi's and thyroid health. And more obvious to me...how I felt- with a direct coorelation to a digital screen. I'm learning how to read my body, since I can't always rely on a lab test from LabCorp.
That being said, is it good to let your body shoot it's sugars up no matter who you are, insulin dependent or not? I firmly believe it does matter, as high sugars lead to other adverse reactions in the body- like dominoes. (See Anthony's link- and I know I've posted others on my FB wall- I'd just need some time to find them for you if you want.)
Plus- ths ADA still recommends "Healthy Whole Grains" for an ADA diet- even though these are shown to increase blood glucoses much more than your basic...you guessed it...Meat and veggies.
Absurd, right?
This post is so timely for me. I've been happily gluten free since last July and paleo-ish for the last several months. Just last night I was telling my husband that for the first time in a long time I just want a cheeseburger or a cupcake or SOMETHING, lol. I think I just get tired of eating the same things and think back to when I could eat whatever I wanted, even though it wasn't good for me.
ReplyDeleteI have also held on to my cereal addiction - a tiny bowl of rice chex with unsweetened vanilla almond milk is comfort food for me. Now that I can imagine my blood sugar spiking, though, I might stop that. Or at least eat it with some protein.
It's so interesting hearing another person's thoughts on all of this!
Becca and others- Here's a good link about blood sugars as well. It's actually a GREAT link. I hope you read it. :)
ReplyDeletehttp://bloodsugar101.com/
It will not let me see anything I am posting on here while writing for some strange reason. I find this frustrationg. so I will keep it short.
ReplyDeleteWendy, could you be more specific? The last site you sent gave me lonly information that I grew up with nothing new. Did I miss something?
Ants, thanks for the link. Honetly I think the doctor is ignoring cause and affect. He also is using numbers just pu;lled from his head.. As a doctor I was shocked to see the numbers he used as emamples. They were not accurate for a normal person unless MAYBE that person normally eats very little carbs. Your body does give its initial dose (the one within the first hour) based on "memory. It remembers the amount of carbs you most often eat to explain simply. If one does not usually eat that many carbs it would need the second insulin release to take care of it. Still it was a very interesting read.
The thing that confuses me is that with the exception fo meat and most nuts which have a GI of 0 all other foods do have and will cause a spike in gugars. Popular paleo foods such as butternut squash, coconut, strawberries have a GI as high as many grains. Even almond milk does. Brown rice has the higest GI rate if almost all grains in pasta/cereal form. Pretty much like pure sugar. The fact is you eat your sugar spikes if your numbers are that high an hour in you have an underlying problem. Am I missing something here? Can you explain it differently? I am very interested. I am wanting to learn about this world. I just have a hard time with some of the reasoning. I am TRULY not trying to be difficult. Just to learn
Sorry for any misspellings. I can't see what I am typing.
The glycemic index gets a lot of attention in the press, but unfortunately it only tells half the story. For instance, carrots are high on the glycemic index, but you would have to eat 21 oz. (about 10) to provoke an insulin response! The glycemic LOAD is a better metric but it still has a couple flaws. For one thing, it doesn’t take into consideration that carbohydrates are often eaten in combination with other foods that contain fiber, protein and fat. Fiber, protein and fat all slow the conversion of carbohydrates to blood sugar and reduce the glycemic load of the entire meal. Then you have to consider fructose (and it doesn't matter if you're talking HFCS or 100% fruit juice). Fructose has a low glycemic index yet 30% of fructose is converted directly into fat! That, along with countless other problems it causes but, I digress...
ReplyDeleteIf you notice on the link Wendy sent you, there is a section entitled Healthy Blood Sugar Targets. It states:
Fasting glucose should be under 100 mg/dl
1 hour post-meal should be under 140 mg/dl
2 hour post-meal should be under 120 mg/dl
And she goes on to say, "The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, an organization of specialists who treat diabetes, recommends that blood sugar should not be allowed to rise above 140 mg/dl two hours after a meal." I think this is high and we should never go over 120 mg/dl, but I tend to be more conservative with these things...
You're right, there are paleo and non-paleo foods alike that can cause a blood sugar spike, but even in a 'normal person'. For instance, we were curious on the affects of fruits on the kids, so we decide to test it. Declan, who is a pretty healthy kid, had a pre-meal blood glucose of 77 mg/dl. He ate an apple. At an hour post-meal he was at 157 mg/dl! Does this mean he has an underlying condition? Of course not! It means that certain foods by themselves can have a deleterious effect on our blood sugar. A lifetime of daily blood sugar spikes like this and you have Type 2 Diabetes and/or Metabolic Syndrome! As an aside, he had an apple with a scoop of almond butter (fiber, protein and fat) and his 1 hour post-meal blood glucose was 133 mg/dl. So for us, we feel that having a piece of fruit is best with a meal consisting of protein, fat and fiber.
Some may think we carry this diet and testing thing too far. But in all honesty, I find it fun! It's interesting to see how certain foods affect us. And as Wendy said, "There's something about seeing a number on a digital screen that is so concrete, I can't help but wonder if that message did finally make it to my heart." I can't tell you the number of clients who come to me AFTER getting a negative report from their doctor saying they're ready to get serious about their diet.
Why should we be reactive to a bad lab result instead of proactive with some thoughtful eating and some simple tests?
Hi Wendy and all,
ReplyDeleteI am new to the paleo thing and the Dr K treatment actually. I can TOTALLY identify with your cereal story. I used to eat an entire box of "healthy cereal" with almond milk in one sitting until I got fed up and looked for a solution. I gained 80 pounds in 6 months. I knew better. I was doing crossfit and counting weight watchers points on a low carb block diet. I knew better but nothing was working. I could not stop the craving or the behavior.
It's gone now. I have not eaten sugar, anything with flour, or junk food for over two years. I can happily say the cravings have gone away and they have not come back. My story is too long to share here but I'll share with anyone off the record.
You know...that link doesn't work, and the site doesn't take you to the page I wanted to share. Once you go to www.bloodsugar.com go to "Healthy Blood Sugar Targets"
ReplyDeleteTHAT'S the real page I wanted you to view. Becca, from what I read in your 1st post, this would be new info to you. That it's not just your fasting sugar that counts.
And, there are people who comment to the Dr's posts in The Heart Scan Blog that post their numbers. Some have no such increase at all, some have even higher increases. As he said- they were examples. Mine spike, and I am not low carb. I eat plenty of veggies and fruits. Check yours. See what it shows for you.
Here's another post that gives directions on how to test yourself. It even accounts for the low carb dieters.
http://thehealthyskeptic.org/how-to-prevent-diabetes-and-heart-disease-for-16
thanks, Ants! That was VERY helpful. I still have a couple of questions but things are making much more sense to me now. Not sure if I will go out and buy a meter. But I am going to be much more sensitive of what i wat with what I eat it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Wendy! Those numbers are what I have alwways heard and believed. But I was always told if you go higher it is an insulin response problmm. Still working it all through but much less head spinning going on. Thanks for always being so willing to asnwer my question.
Hmmm! I might have to borrow your meter for a day or two. I was a little worried when I thought you were checking after every meal. There is no way I couls see myself trying to check the four kids blood sugar after each meal. can you imagine.!!! It would not be laugh worthy.
Again! I have no idea what I spelled here. Probably if I typed less quickly and paid attention since I can ssee nothing but black blobs I might look less illiterate.
Love you, girl. Good job doing what you need to do.
This is outstanding details to absorb. I have taken thyroid natural supplements for about 5 years. Synthroid did not seem to do as well. It seems that desiccated bovine helps me a lot.
ReplyDelete