Gulf Coast Style

Are you a Knight punching your joust at windmill or a dragon? My windmill and my dragon is health and well being, which translates to quality of life. Truly the easiest thing to do is to blame others for our shortcomings. But if you really look at yourself with out the rose colored glasses, you might find the answer to where the problem lies.

It would be fun, if we all sat down a few minutes a day and journalized our actions. If you did that you see what kind of activity you were putting your body through and what you were feeding it. The general concensus is that nobody really wants to do this. Why do you think that is? When you write down everything you put in your mouth and all of your activities during the day, you get a visual picture of what your body looks like. Am I wrong? This kind of truth is straight forward. It is just like taking a group picture and all of sudden you see yourself as the chubby friend in the picture. That visual will either make you take action to not be the chubby friend or send you into a feeding frenzy.

I keep my journal everyday because I want to see changes I am making in my diet and my glucose levels. Without the journal, when I went to see the doctor my words would be subjective for him, but my journal is hard copy proof of the changes I am making on a daily basis to get this right.

So do you want to shed a few pounds or maybe not take so much medicine for something that can be controlled by diet and exercise? I challenge you to set up a journal to keep track of your food and exercise activity everyday. You will be amazed at the transformation once you see what kind of calories you are putting into your mouth and how little activity you physically doing. This is your jumpstart to making a positive change in your behavior and extending your life a few more years.

The doctor gave me the news on Wednesday. He stated it by saying that I could not be a little pregnant or a little diabetic. Even with the diagnosis I am not going to lay down and give up. I am going to continue to fight using my diet and exercise program. I still think I can reverse the diagnosis and turn the medical community on their ear. I do not have to take any medication, because technically I am under the recommended result for the American Diabetes Association and it would cause other issues if they medicated me for this diagnosis.

I have to be OCD about this because this is my body and my health. No one is going to take care of me better than me. How do you feel when you go and visit the doctor? Do you just accept your fate or do you go out and strive to make your health better without having to depend on the prescribed medications the doctor has given you to treat the symptoms and not the source?

A lot of our problems stem from our poor eating habits. They call the american diet SAD! SAD stands Standard American Diet. One change a day in your diet will lead you to the road to health and longevity.  Suppose you are a male with 50 pounds of extra weight on your frame. That extra stress on your body will transpire in the form of aching knees and backs. It will also cause sleep apnea, digestive issues and high cholesterol.

Now instead of living in your current situation, why not make some small changes. Eliminate soda pop from your daily calorie intake. Walk the stairs instead taking the elevator. Add more vegetables to your lunch and dinner menu. With these small changes, all of sudden the weight starts dropping and your knees and back hurt less and your digestive tract is working better.  You keep going with some more small changes and all of sudden you are back to high school weight and you feel young again.

The idea here is that you are the one making the changes and being proactive about your own health and not leaving it up to the doctors to determine which side effects you will experience from the myriad of prescription drugs they are prescribing to maintain your current health. As we age quality of life becomes more important to us and each needs to monitor our health requirements with less dependence on the medical community doing it for us.

This is just food for thought and maybe time for some self-evaluation of your current health and the reasons for your maladies.

Diets must become live-its. Think of this way…..if you want to lose weight, you have to choose a program that you can live with for the rest of your life….you can never go back to your old eating habits because that causes yo-yo dieting. Your body accepts and adjusts to any diet that you put it on and the minute you step back into old eating habits the weight reappears with a few more pounds added than you lost to begin with.

Let’s put our best foot forward America and be proactive in our health maintenance plan. You can do it, you just need to make a plan and stick to it. Find the plan that addresses your current health issues and be proactive to make it happen, so the doctor can start to take you off the myriad of prescription pills you have to eat every day to live.

Glucose Tolerance testing.  The last one I had was 23.5 years when I was carrying my first child. The sickening sweet syrup you had to drink after fasting was atrocious. The test came back negative for diabetes. This time the drink was a cold lemon lime flavored drink. I had 5 minutes to drink it all down before the test could officially begin. The first sample of blood had been taken before injesting the lemon lime drink. I waited an hour and then one more vial of blood was taken. Back to waiting room and another hour of sitting and waiting. The last vial of blood was taken and I was told to go find something to eat.

Now here is the interesting part. I went to the hospital cafeteria thinking they would have a vegan option for me to get nourishment. But that was a major misnomer. The menu only contained items with meat. I did not investigate any further but went directly to work, because I had packed some nourishment in my lunch pail on the mere fact that nothing out would fit the bill.

I find out on Wednesday afternoon, how well I did on my glucose tolerance test.

I have been tracking my daily glucose levels 3 x a day and doing an average to find out what my daily A1c levels are. I fall in the normal range every time even when I have a slight spike in one reading of the glucose test. Normal range for diabetes A1c is 4.5-6.0.  I fall somewhere between 4.5-5.5 every single day. I give this good reading to my vegan diet because I have eliminated the foods and the sugars that would be causing the spike in my blood sugar.

For those that are interested in treating Diabetes correctly, I suggest reading and talking with your doctor about Dr. Neal Barnards book..”Reversing Diabetes through the Vegan Diet”. If you are diabetic or even pre-diabetic, get off the meat laden diet, it will literally kill you. I suggest going plain vegetarian at first, still using the dairy and eggs and then in 6 months eliminating all dairy and eggs from your diet. The animal based products are contributing to your diabetic tendencies and the American Diabetes Association diet does not control them for a long period of time. I eat whatever I want on the vegan diet and I watch my portion sizes. I keep a daily food journal and glucose test section every single day and just by doing my own monitoring I can see where I am fluctuating and why.

I know too much information. But the whole thing is fascinating to me.