Diabetes, Fasting, Arthritis, Weight loss and Health!

[Mr. Pooka]

There's a title for you! (-8

I guess this spot is also a good spot to mention I'm not a doctor and I'm only talking about my own journey and what has been working for me. I'll add some references and notes. I've had to learn an awful lot of new information over the last few months and changed virtually everything about the way I eat. If you want more info just ask and I'll tell you what I've learned or link you in the right direction.

Several months ago Pooka mentioned we had started following an intermittent fasting lifestyle, specifically 16-8, shortly after Yule. We started this to lose some weight for health reasons. ...and it worked pretty well! There is a lot of interesting science behind why simply restricting when we ate while changing literally nothing else in our diet works. I'm happy to talk more about this stuff but I think the best resource on the internet would probably be Dr. Fung. He explains the science and facts extremely clearly and in simple terms.

www.youtube.com/channel/UCoyL4iGArWn5Hu0V_sAhK2w

Pooka and I both lost quite a bit of weight just by changing the times we ate! I lost around 25 pounds in 3 months. I'll also add one very important note here! There is a quite measurable difference in how much weight males and females can/do lose using these (and really most) methods. Males tend to be able to lose body fat faster then women and in comparison this can seem unfair and feel discouraging which is not my intent! I rarely use concrete numbers when lining up mine and Pooka's goals because of these reasons. We can both eat and do the exact same things and I will lose weight faster which feels like some unfair science. ...but I think the most important takeaway is that it still works equally well for Pooka but just takes a bit longer.

end part one, (-8 ...Intermittent fasting worked well for us to lose weight, it was super easy for us as we rarely ate more than two meals a day anyways but this cut out some of our snacking as well as sugar in our tea/coffee in the morning and evening. If anyone wants more notes or has questions about this totally ask me and I'd be super happy to help!


Part two, crippling arthritis. So... I do not talk about this kind of stuff but I'm making an exception because I know there are people around here, and people they know that might be able to get some benefit from this. Its in my nature and the way I was raised to not complain or even really bring up my own problems, really the only times I ever mention something bad on this end of the world is because it effects others... like if I got sick and had to cancel a planned game. Other then that you'll never hear me mention every little minor ache and pain or what might have bothered me on any particular day. Alright, with that out of the way, over the last decade I've had some extremely painful arthritis. The last 5-6 years in particular it was becoming so bad I was getting pretty depressed about it and felt like I was soon not going to be able to do almost anything physical. This directly related to Sphinxes. I LOVE working and colouring Sphinxes but the last while I wasn't sure if I could do it and felt there was an end in sight for me. Every Sphinx I coloured could have been my last. Its hard to mention but just using a computer mouse was kind of agony, like strapping on a glove filled with tacks. I'd absolutely never mention this because I wouldn't want anyone to feel bad but there is also a correlation here about how much I love doing this. I still wouldn't mention it either if this story didn't have a happy ending, (-8

This arthritis story ties around to Canadian Healthcare. While we do have free healthcare it's not always easy to access all the options. Locally we have a doctor shortage and our city uses the Hospital as a Clinic. It was there I was briefly diagnosed with arthritis and carpel tunnel many years ago. Since then I did all the stuff one is supposed to do for these things, which isn't much. I took more and more pain medication (and I'm stubborn and don't like to take anything, so only when the pain was to much) as well as I had to sleep with arm braces to keep my hands from cramping and pins and needles, which woke me up nightly for a decade. As the pain got worse I really went on a search for a doctor which took me nearly FOUR YEARS and finally got thanks to Pooka begging her's to take me on. (there is a gov. program that is supposed to match you up with a doctor but it was useless. For anyone in Ontario I can give you more details if you want about how it didn't do anything for me.)

So, yay, I got doctor and finally when in to talk about my pain which was becoming unbearable. They did some general tests trying to figure out exactly what was going on with me... and it turns out that I had diabetes. Virtually every problem I was suffering through, including my arthritis was on the diabetes checklist but somehow years of dealing with and looking up all the other problems individually never lead me to think diabetes. ...and have probably had it for over a decade.

Alright, Diabetes... Lots of people have diabetes, by the numbers, odds are two or three people reading this have diabetes. ..but this hit me super hard and I got pretty depressed again. This also happened mid Heb and as usual I worked to not bring my bad stuff into it because this is my happy place and I never have a reason to bring anyone down unnecessarily. I've got tons of friends here and I know there is heaps of compassion but there was no reason to for me to burden anyone by bringing it up. Either way, as I learned all about diabetes I really got in a mood... learning all the stuff I couldn't eat, wondering how I could even afford food anymore, having to get constant needles as well as poke myself every other day to take my own blood samples... I remember ruthlessly going down my 'recipes' links and deleting almost everything in there while playing funeral music in my head. It wasn't just about the food I couldn't eat, but it was also really about how we eat in general!

Money really was the cause of being depressed... we do not have the means to spend much money on food but we always ate really well. Our food budget atm is about $150 (CAD, so 120 US?) per month for the two of us. We don't eat out or order takeout (except 2-3 times a year for special occasions). ...and this is much more than we are used to spending on food! (just 5 years ago we were living on about $50-70 a month for 3 people). The reason we could still eat so well was that our diet was based on affordable carbohydrates. Flour, pasta, potatoes and rice. Other grains rounded this out, like oatmeals and cornmeals... I can make ANYTHING out of these basics and stretch a budget in ways that seem to boggle most peoples minds. I made all our own bread, noodle casseroles, pizza, rice bowls all in infinite combinations and we never went hungry. Now with diabetes looming I can't eat any of the staples of our entire diet. My pantry is still full of stuff I'll never eat again and will be giving most of it away soon. It took me a while to shake off this depression... but I did!

I had to learn how to eat again. Learn how to cook completely differently. Figure out how to buy food I needed that I never looked at before because of the price. I don't know how long I'd had diabetes or how much damage I'd done to by body so I had to take this stuff seriously. ...and I'm still learning, (-8
...but change my diet I did! I now keep a complete food journal (since late May when I was diagnosed), measure my blood sugar every other day and have totally changed my diet.

Before I go into to much more detail let me share something positive. Something I wish I knew a decade ago. After years of intense pain, now I have almost none. It's gone from a 9 or 10 to a 1 or 0. Never ever in a million years would I have thought or believed that I couldn't use my hands or stand because of the pain in my feet because of BREAD.

So, I had to change my diet/lifestyle completely. In order to deal with my diabetes I switched to a very low carb diet. (similar to Keto but I couldn't afford to to pure Keto...) It has changed my life in all kinds of ways. I know I sound like I'm about to try and sell you a diet book, (-8 but I'm only sharing because I know there are people who are interested and might be able to benefit from this information. In my journey of learning I strongly believe the Canadian (and American) food guides are absolutely wrong and broken. Even the Canadian Diabetes Association website has recipes on it that I'll never eat and feel they are only there under pressure from food conglomerates. Diabetes is classified as a degenerative disorder, meaning it is only supposed to get worse till you suffer and die. I don't really believe this and have learned a lot on three months! I think it's only considered degenerative because of a mindless adherence to what people think they should eat, as is dictated by governments and doctors with either outdated or biased information.

...alright, enough conspiracy theory from me, (-8 Here's some hard facts.

In three months I brought my blood A1c (a measurement of blood sugar breakdown in your blood that gives a broad 3 month average) into regular healthy, non-diabetic, limits and I lost another 30 pounds (that's 55 since Yule!). My diabetes counsellor was amazed and the first thing she said was 'well those pills and injections are working well, we almost never see such positive results!'. ...which was when I told her I didn't take the injections and was only using half the medication recommended and she was kind of stunned and didn't seem to know what to say. (again, I'm not a doctor, don't skip your medication because Mr. Pooka did please!)


Alright, long story short (maybe I should have started here and saved you the background reading, (-8). Currently I do intermittent fasting (16-8) and eat a very low carbohydrate diet (I aim for 20 a day max and only go over with 'heart healthy' carbs like beans and fruit occasionally). I've lost 55 pounds. I don't suffer with crippling arthritis pain. I feel incredibly healthier.


If any of this is interesting to anyone or you think you might find some of this helpful in your own life please feel free to ask me anything (here or privately!) and I'll tell you what I've learned, share the videos and web-info that have changed my life. ..again, I'm not selling anything, lol... I keep feeling like an infomercial, (-8

..and I really mean anything. Our experience with fasting, diabetes, weight loss, recipes, pain management, even food budgeting anything! I finally feel like I've found something that works well for me and I'm happy to share and support anyone else in their journeys, (-8




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good starter links...

on fasting...

Dr. Fung is easy to understand and explains things very well.

www.youtube.com/c/drjasonfung1/videos

Dr. Berg also has lots of great info. (sometimes I feel he comes off with a bit of a superior attitude and even when I agree I just think he could dial it back, personally!)

www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dr+berg


on Diabetes ...

Beat Diabetes is THE BEST INFORMATION for anyone just learning about diabetes. Dennis Pollak is not a doctor but is a well reached and good speaker who has very easy to listen to and extremally practical videos with plenty of references. (he's also a minister and is quite religious, but does keep his religious preaching to another channel and is extremely open minded, interviewing people of all faiths and cultures. I personally appreciate this separation.)

www.youtube.com/channel/UCmKsQWqGmDPIWgrVqGYbc3w

[wolfrysk]

I just want to say it is so, so fantastic you were finally able to figure out what was causing you such incredible pain and not only that, you were able to more or less eliminate it entirely. I can't imagine what that was like staring down the possibility of losing the ability to do so many things you loved because of it. As someone who is on the cusp of being diabetic (and most likely will be down the line due to other conditions), I'd definitely appreciate any and all resources/recipes you'd like to share or if you'd like to share any more of your experiences/struggles with what you've learned, if there's anything you found super successful (like for example any time I have done something similar I've really craved something to replace bread, did you find any luck with that?).

Thank you for sharing with us. <3 I hope you and Pooka are both really proud of your progress because you should be!

[Mr. Pooka]

Thanks wolfrysk! ...and I've already got some good stuff for you, (-8

I TOTALLY get where you are coming from with bread. Bread was my life. I baked bread twice a week and ate it daily and it was an absolute and nessicary staple for life. Shortly before my diagnosis I make a big post about bread in the recipe section because it was requested... If you read it now it kind of more feels like a love letter to how much bread meant to me!

..but now I almost never touch it, though there is some good news. Even better for you Americans, (-8 First off there are some low carb options out there, though not many where we are. It does seem like US Walmarts carry many more options though I think they might be expensive. You might have to hunt for it and you WILL spend a lot more time reading macro labels... absolutely NEVER trust the flashy front promises, (-8

Besides shopping there are many many options that can fill the void of bread, depending on exactly what your cravings are. My only caveat though is that the ingredients are not cheap. In fact, to make bread or breadlike food I use a general estimated cost of at least TEN TIMES the cost of regular bread. The only upside is that you'll appreciate it more and prob won't think of it as a staple, rather a treat. (People's millage may very, I'm not trying to generalize anyone's life situation! The facts about what you can eat as a diabetic are not changed if you can afford a truckload of almond flour or you can buy a pound every once in a while.)

So, for a quick dinner, bun like bread I make this...

Mr. Pooka's Dinner Bun Recipe

In a microwaveable bowl mix,

3 tbs of Almond flour (fine or course to taste)
1 tbs of ground flax
1/2 tsp of baking powder
1 egg

mix and add

1 1/2 tbs of melted butter.

mix again

Microwave for 90 seconds.

Let it cool for a while!


Done. (-8 This makes a spongy and quite bread like bun. It's shaped like the bowl you cooked it in and you can vary what you use to cook in to shape the bread. With a normal sized cereal like bowl, I get a bun that I can slice in half. I use this with dinners that have a sauce and it's delicious. I've seen people use this as a hamburger bun, but I feel like it might not hold together (perhaps tinker with the recipe a bit). I even toasted it once but it took a long time to get brown, but was yummy.


I also did the same recipe once as a desert. I mixed in some sweetener (I'll put a note about sweeteners below, they are not all equal with diabetes!), about a tsp or 2. I also melted a small square of dark chocolate with my butter. It came out as one of the best chocolate cakes I'd ever had, (-8 I served it with a couple of sliced strawberries and whipped cream, (-8


The variations are endless and there is lots more version online, including substitutions. My link in the first post to Beat Diabetes has some good looking and similar mug cakes that look great, (-8


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So, a lot of that sounds almost to good to be true... but, while most fruit should be checked for carbs, most berries are fine in small amounts (and are in fact, my go to desert nowadays... though instead of a whole bowl of them, often with sugar, instead I'll just eat a handful of blueberries or 2-3 strawberries. It's amazing how sweet they are once I gave up sugar for three months!). You can buy sugar free whipped cream (or make your own) but even regular whipped cream only has a tiny amount of carbs per serving. Also, the darker the chocolate the less carbs and is a go-to desert for those who need a sweet bite.

Honestly sweet was not my real addiction, it was bread, I don't find myself going nuts craving sweets, personally, but I do enjoy some deserts. Besides berries, there is sugar free jello! (again with whipped cream if your into it, (-8) You can find it both in boxes or prepared, but again READ THE LABEL! Some are much better then others and the promises on the front packaging can be misleading! There are also TONS of Keto and low carb desert recipes on Youtube, but I just haven't felt the need to try many yet, but I will, (-8


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There are a ton more bread and breadlike recipes out there but I'm only learning the basics now. I also was just able to order some of the ingredients I could not get in town and am looking forward to trying more, (-8 Youtube is full of recipes of course... but I'd totally check some of them out because not everyone is honest with their numbers. You can use this link!

www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076

I'll also add, that I do most of our cooking. We do not buy a lot of processed food and doing the macro math can be mindbogglingly monotonous and just intimidating... but with the above link I can just enter ingredients for recipes I want to try and it delivers all the nutrition info. It's awesome, (-8


back to bread... There is lots of recipes I want to try buy haven't gotten there yet. I bought all the stuff to make this and will try it out in the near future, (-8

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHob27yMH0s


I also want to try making Seed Breads. They are very low carb and look amazing. The thing about them (and lots of bread recipes) is that I'm new to them and haven't tried making them yet. Each is made a little differently but I can't recommend any particular ones from experience yet. Just google 'low carb' or 'keto' seed bread and you'll see lots, (-8 When I make one I'll get back to you, or if you beat me to it tell me how it goes!

Lots of this stuff required me to rebuild my pantry. I'm learning all manner of new flours, nuts, seeds and more. I'd never bought 90% of these things before in my life so, whereas I can do a million things with wheat flour, I'm just learning about coconut flour, psyllium husks, lupin flour, wheat gluten and lots more.

There is also two more Keto staples to google. Fathead dough and Chaffles. Both are made with cheese instead of flour which sounds like delicious dark magic, but somehow it turns into perfect looking bread!





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Sweeteners

All sweeteners are not created equally, especially for diabetes. While some have no carbs they will still spike bloodsugar like crazy, worse than pure sugar in fact! This is a very very handy chart that measures the GI (glycemic index) of sweeteners... basically you want the smallest numbers.

www.sugar-and-sweetener-guide.com/glycemic-index-for-sweeteners.html

My current fav sweetener is a Monkfruit and Erythritol blend. Its stupid expensive, like flour, about 20 times as much as sugar, but I only use a tiny bit so it's worth it for me atm. (I'm still using the same half pound container from 2 and a half months ago). This is perfect in my tea and deserts.

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on the topic of the sweetener chart there is one super important note. Everyone is different. This is super important when considering some foods. A low carb walmart tortilla might work not spike your blood sugar but it might spike mine. While you can usually guess pretty close, the one and only true test of blood sugar is using a blood sugar meter to check your blood and see what you get.


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and back to bread... heh, I'm just typing as I'm thinking, pardon the disorder of my mind, (-8 So, when I first started I bought the lowest carb bread available, a type of light rye that only had about 13 carbs a slice. Still kind of high, but it was under my 20 a day limit. I'd use once piece for a breakfast sometimes with an egg or avocado (or both), but I sort of just weaned myself off of it altogether. I truly feel like I had to fight an addiction to bread and carbohydrates, but now that I've been off it for months I do not have the same cravings as I did when I started! Also, realizing bread was a huge part of my decade of pain makes it easy for me to fight the cravings. (if every sandwich came with a side order of someone taking a hammer to my hands and feet it wouldn't be hard to skip them!)


...that being said, I was kind of a bread artist if I do say so, (-8 and what I do miss is some of the things I made with bread, like focaccia or hot Italian sandwiches. I don't have the desperate cravings, but I do miss them. That's why I want to experiment with some of the online recipes, so I can still try these as an occasional treat, (-8





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Other good links!

The Keto Cajun chef I linked above has a lot of recipes on my try list (-8

Next up is Heavenly Fan! She is a wizard of low carb immitaion food and you will find a zillion videos that give her credit. I think many of the recipes look like a ton of work, but the work does give you perfectly good recipes to mimic almost any high carb food you may crave from bread to french fries.

www.youtube.com/results?search_query=heavenly+fan

I'd mentioned Dr. Berg above... he and his (entertaining) wife have a bunch of yummy and easy looking recipes.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOg4VW6s_Jo


Thomas DeLauer can be super informative and can't get through a video without taking his shirt off... which I would do to if I transformed like he did. While much of his Keto info is good he does dip into very heavy sciency descriptions and I have to admit I can drift off without more simple explanations.


www.youtube.com/channel/UC70SrI3VkT1MXALRtf0pcHg


I've got a lot of recipes on my Try list from Joe Duff.

www.youtube.com/channel/UClERG7IuNpqoqtWFEpGAYqw


I've also watched and bookmarked a lot of CJsKetoKitchen. Lots of her food looks wonderful and I want to try a bunch of it! It's also entertaining watching how much her husband seems to hate being in her videos, (-8

www.youtube.com/channel/UC4hVTN20m5D9UH4I7skqnyg


Lastly (for now) there's this guy. I've watched a few, and while there is some good info in there, there's a lot of vague, 'I read it on wikipedia' info and a touch of what I think is bad advice...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_jneHt_wEE

[jeanstarwind]

Wow, Mr. Pooka it sounds like you have really gone on a journey this last year! It's amazing all the changes you and Pooka have made, and how it has so dramatically impacted your health for the better.

I did intermittent fasting/CICO a couple of years ago and probably the first two weeks are the hardest - getting to the point where you can ignore the hunger and not immediately reach for a snack or something. And it's honestly amazing (or at least it was to me) how much physical activity I found I could do in the mornings without eating breakfast (while drinking lots of water - keep yourselves hydrated kids!).

Buuuut.....been there, done that, fell off the wagon. >>; I lost about 13 pounds over the course of six months and then just as slowly gained it all back. It's weird, but the hardest part of loosing weight for me was the 'maintenance' part at the end. Like, I got to where I wanted to be and could add some calories back in and bit by tiny bit it was just a little more here and a little more there. I still sooort of keep fasting, but not to the hard and fast hours I was before. I'm at the point where I really need to climb on the wagon or buy a whole new wardrobe of pants.

[Mr. Pooka]

It has been a year for sure!

I think intermittent fasting wasn't so tricky for us... we usually only ate two main meals a day anyways, plus snacks. Just changing and restricting the time of day we ate was all it took for us to see some dramatic changes! The hardest part for me getting started was Tea of all things! It drove me nuts... I was used to putting on the kettle as soon as I woke up as well as having one in the late evening. Breaking this decades old routine was the major hard part to get started. That's when I started experimenting with plain green teas (which were allowed... so was regular tea, but without sweetener of some type I couldn't do it!) and while I still don't totally enjoy a green tea I still have them now and then when the craving hits, but really I got past that.

The next thing that made things tricky was snacking out of boredom or ritual. It was super common for us to get some sort of snack in the evening while relaxing and watching tv or a movie. I found this easier to get past personally but I still have some Pavlovian reflexes to want snacks with movies!

Other than that, the fasting sort of just worked into our lifestyle pretty well. What truly amazed me was that changing only when we ate but not what we ate had such a dramatic effect for us!

There is another factor making fasting even easier for me now, which is switching to a low carb diet. I eat a lot less food, but the food I eat is much heavier and tends to have more fat. (cheese, meat, olive oil, nuts and seeds in addition to veggies and then more meat and cheese.) It seems counter intuitive but this jumpstarted my weight loss. I ate less because the fats filled me up and kept me full longer (along with the healthy fibers). When I was still eating higher carb I did find myself sometimes very hungry, but that's because my body would use and process the carbs so much faster. (if I had toast for breakfast I'd be starving before dinner. If I ate some meat, eggs, or cheese or even an avocado in approx. the same amounts I rarely got hungry till dinner.) I also am now very conscious of the difference of being truly hungry and just wanting to eat for other reasons. Often times now if I have a heavier breakfast (like say an omelette with two eggs, some cheese and veggies, maybe a small piece of meat like one piece of bacon), which I'll note, I usually have around 1-2 PM, I'll still not be hungry when dinner comes around and will actually just skip dinner altogether and not eat again until the next day. ...and I never really get hungry in the middle! This is the effect of my body being content with using it's own fats instead of needing the constant refueling from carbs.

I've also snuck a few 24 and 30 hour fasts in here and there when I felt like it and it was rewarding and satisfying for me, (-8 I almost didn't want to mention in the first post in case the though of that intimidated anyone from wanted to try intermittent fasting in general.

If you're ever interested in trying it again I'd be happy to refer you to smarter people on Youtube, (-8 For every problem or difficulty people have with fasting (or low carb/keto eating) there is often a reason and a solution and perhaps it might help iron out what wasn't working for you! ...and the obvious side note, not all people work with all lifestyles or diets of course!

I have spent more hours than at least a couple of college courses watching every video, perspective, website and tidbit of information I could devour on these topics since May so if nothing else I make a pretty decent directory, (-8 I'm super committed to changing my own lifestyle and habits and am extremely open to the idea of sharing anything I've learned or even working together with anyone who wants to try some of the same stuff, (-8

[Mr. Pooka]

wolfrysk I had one more important note to add about your post I remembered during dinner. On a lot of checklists for people who stop or can't keep up low carb or keto diets is 'trying to replicate and eat similar foods that you used to.'

What I mean is that, yes, you can make low carb bread... but it costs a ton more, is a LOT more work and is usually not as good as the real thing... none of which are selling points and this can truly frustrate a lot of people into giving up. I read this a lot when I first started so I was prepared to contain my expectations. Instead of worrying about making the perfect keto bread I just skipped it. Like instead of toast I would put my poached egg on a big fried mushroom (which is delicious btw). Instead of putting something saucy on rice I poured it over broccoli or cauliflower. It wasn't quite as good but it was still passably good. and it came with a side helping of not having to have my hands and feet amputated in the next decade because of permanent liver damage as well as not living in constant pain (which is where diabetes will take everyone who doesn't take care of themselves!)... and when I thought of it that way, the broccoli covered sauce tasted oh so much better!

That being said, I am still looking forward to making some yummy keto bread, but really I'm thinking of it as a delightful treat, not a staple which is still a big shift in lifestyle and way of thinking. I still ate some small amounts of bread in the beginning but have mostly kicked the addiction.

[Mr. Pooka]

The variations are endless and there is lots more version online, including substitutions. My link in the first post to Beat Diabetes has some good looking and similar mug cakes that look great, (-8

literally the same time I was typing, this video was uploaded, (-8



www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9OBgOYskoY

(there's a bunch more desert recipe links on the Youtube page.)

[Mr. Pooka]

I'd watch a lot of videos and read a lot of recipes but never actually made chaffles until last night! I made the churro ones on the page below and they were amazing and sweet! (-8 I didn't actually use the suggested coating but made them like regular waffles, with butter, 0 sugar syrup and blueberries, yum, (-8


www.wholesomeyum.com/keto-chaffles-recipe/


The recipe makes one perfect Belgium waffle sized waffle... and one note that they sort of touch on. These are very soft and fragile when they are just finished making them tricky to get out of the waffle maker, way more than I would have expected. I sort of folded into quarters along the natural waffle seams and then unfolded it on a plate so they wouldn't fall apart. They really do crisp up as they cool which is some kind of magic science, (-8

...can't wait to try some savory ones!

[Mr. Pooka]

It's been nearly a year, I should ad a bit of an update and some comments on my own original entries, (-8

We still live on a very low carb diet and follow our intermittent fasting plan. I find if I ever cheat (which does happen rarely) I make a point of only breaking one of these two major lifestyle changes. I've also lost a ridiculous amount of weight (like a whole other person worth) and an living mostly pain free. (-8

I've also learned a TON since my original posts and have a very good understanding of food/cooking since I began and life is generally all around great on that front. ..as a side note, if anyone wants or needs some recipes or ideas (like Chaffle Pizzas, one of our super favs! ..or chocolate coconut clusters, yum!) just ask me and I'll add some lists and links, (-8 Rereading some earlier stuff I can see how I came off almost sad about the things I 'couldn't have' anymore and I can see where I was really struggling to figure things out, but these days I can smile sympathetically at younger me.

Here's a couple of things I've picked up.

I save a ton of time at the grocery store. I spend a bit more money on some items but skip whole sections of the store where I used to waste more money on unhealthy stuff. The only time I recently struggled with this was at Yule. I did not have any particular cravings, but it was incredibly hard to not buy the traditional things we would pick up every year to make it feel like the holidays... a tin of cookies, a few quality street chocolates or a panettone, etc... I got through it but it was truly a challenge.

A lot of Keto/low carb foods are super crazy expensive... but almost all of them are just trying to replicate high carb versions of food that I don't crave or eat anymore. I think a lot of these items help people get started on a low carb diet (so you don't feel like your missing the things you love) but most people seem to leave this stuff at the wayside eventually.

I do not miss the things I previously could not imagine living without. There are so many great and tasty options out there that replicate carb heavy food, like bread (our fav brand is called Carbonaut, when I buy it) but I simply never really crave it anymore. I'm never tempted to pick up anything with flour or sugar or potatoes, I just don't want them!

Carbohydrate addiction is a super real thing. I've seen people with diabetes refuse to give up flour and sugar over the inevitable suffering and death. I've also worked with people suffering under other addictions and there are direct parallels and I can even see it in my older posts... the depression, the bargaining the willingness to suffer to get what your body thinks it needs... Do not underestimate the fact that you are one person, vs 1000 companies spending BILLIONS of dollars to convince you that you need their sugar and flour. There's no harm in looking for support on this if you want or need it.

My sense of taste has radically changed since I stopped eating foods with tons of (often hidden) sugars. I actually don't even use sweeteners much at all either these days, just the occasional home-made desert. I can taste the natural sweet that comes in the cream I add to my tea and it's delightful, (-8

The phrase 'Fruits and Vegetables' is a carefully conceived marketing trick to put them into the same category and presume that automatically means healthy. Diabetics can eat most vegetables but should avoid most fruits. Of course there is exceptions (starchy veggies like potatoes need to be avoided and some higher sugar varieties like carrots and onions need to be kept to small amounts. Bananas, mangos and pineapples are worse than chocolate bars for diabetics, but most berries are fine and yummy!)

I'd be truly stumped and stymied maintaining a Diabetic diet if I was a Vegan or Vegetarian ...I know it can be done but I've got very little advice on that one...

Beware of food advertisements and social media. Like I mentioned above there are teams of thousands of people spending billions of dollars to convince you that you need their candy and French fries and they have a dramatically unfair advantage over you. ..but I can tell you that you'll feel like a billion dollars when you realize that you are stronger then all of them added together eating what's actually good for you and not funding their private boats and ill gotten mansions! Social media can make you sad, especially early on, when your friends and family post the foods and treats they are making or buying. If you can't deal with this just ditch the whole thing if you have to... eventually when you don't crave that kind of stuff anymore it's easier to participate and even like their pretty cake and ramen pics, (-8

While I'd urge some self restraint getting started, your diet/lifestyle can never be destroyed or derailed by cheating on it. If you are at a birthday party and feel obliged to have a treat so you fit in, or have a traditional meal that means something important (like us, and our anniversary dinner of Seafood Lasagna and frozen corn, which we've eaten every anniversary since we got married as teenagers!) just go for it. You can catch up again later and will probably not even notice anything different at all.


I feel so healthy and good as compared to my last decade of life it is truly hard to put into words! I've probably got some more notes but that's all I can think of atm, (-8 As usual if anyone has any notes, comments, questions or needs any help or support just ask me, here or privately and you'll get it! (-8

[Angel_of_Music]

That's great to hear Mr. Pooka!! Glad you're both doing well with it.

I'm also working to lose weight myself. I was working on it last year, lost 20 pounds and felt great. I didn't reach my goal weight of 200 by the end of last year, but I was happy with how much I had lost. Sadly once fall/winter hit, I kinda slacked and gained some of the weight back. Not too much thankfully, but I'm kicking myself for having slipped. I've recently started up again to lose the weight and...because I'm around food all day and sodas, it hit me. So I'm once again going on my 'kick work food and soda' drive. I'm easing off soda and only having it occasionally...like if mom and I play a card game and we have snack. If I get anything to drink after I'm done work, I try for vitamin water from the machine or iced tea. I'd normally also grab some nuggets or fries to eat on my way home, but I'm going to be stopping that and when I get home, I'll have some carrots or fruit to snack on. I'm only 15 pounds away from reaching 200, so my goal is to lose 15 pounds by my birthday in June. I know I can do it and I just have to keep to my rules...and do a little more exercise as well to help with it. Granted I move around a lot at work, but I'm going to do a little more.

[melodysangel]

Right, Im just going to stop and give you a hug now.

For real, here we are posting about our own complications (heck knows weve been through the wringer over here!) and you are just sitting there on the other end.

Im glad you finally decided to post though. I just wish I knew sooner ^^'

[Mr. Pooka]

I'm rooting for you Angel_of_Music, and loosing 20lbs is still a huge achievement, (-8 My Diabetes consultant noted to me that that kind of major weightloss is better then any medication for one's health.

Working at a fast food restaurant is just brutal when your trying to maintain a healthy diet... Nowadays I feel I could work at a restaurant and maintain my current (and life changing-ly awesome) eating habits, but when I first had to change my diet idk, I think it might have been torture! Now my situation is a little different because I truly will suffer physically if I cheat and eat carbs (95% of fast food of course) so I am never particularly tempted. If I ate things like bread or fries I'd feel the ache in my hands and feet and if I ate it more often it would send my right back to 'I should go to the hospital' type pains... so it's sort of like having a laboratory electrode attached to all the food that is bad for me.

That being said I can explain how I could do it these days. I live by two different eating habits, intermittent fasting and low carb. While they both work well together, you can get by with only one or the other... and if I had to work around food all day I bet I'd ditch the fasting before the low carb. The science behind low carb is that your body processes food differently depending on the combination ingredients. For example, if you eat nothing but hamburger patties and cheese all day you will still loose weight. If you add buns, fries and even to much sugary ketchup you body will process everything and you'll add fat to your body. Personally these days I do not measure any of my food and eat as much as I want as long as I don't include carbs... I can eat a pile of eggs cooked in butter with some cheese and then a pile of whatever meat and low carb veggies for dinner and the amount hardly matters, I just consistently keep dropping weight. Also I am NEVER hungry because the fatty foods have such a high satiety (keep you feeling full.) ...and that would be my strategy if I needed to work in fast food these days. I'd eat when I was hungry, but I'd have to ditch the carbs, so no buns, sugar or anything breaded but instead stick to just meat, cheese and any low carb veggies that might be on offer, like salads (but beware of what's in any dressing!). Idk if this kind of eating is interesting to you, but if you'd like I'll add more specific details if you'd find that helpful.

Ah, and an extra note about soda, you are totally not alone. It's hard to avoid it when it's everywhere and often cheaper and easier to find than water. Personally I used to like soda, but didn't drink it to often, but rather I liked juice... which is actually usually even worse than soda in most cases, so same boat. I only have some soda super rarely these days and when I do it is a diet variety, but that is also a bit of a trap. The most common sweeteners in diet sodas have a high GI (glycemic index) which can still spike by blood sugar... but most importantly, while it contains little calories it actually induces hunger, which can make you eat more or more often when you might not have...

There are a couple of sodas available with healthier sweeteners, but they are pretty expensive... Zevia is the only brand that comes to mind. ..so I still do have a diet soda now and then (less than once a month, usually when we're driving out of town) as a treat I stick to just water and tea with cream (the heavier the better... I also avoid milk because of the lactose/sugar, making cream or heavy cream a better option for my own situation) for 99% of my drinks.


So, I keep going on and on, lol, but really I'm just so happy with how this lifestyle changed my life and really I'd love to share any info with anyone who may be interested!

I eat meat, cheese, butter, low carb veggies, nuts and more every day, as much as I want, never measuring anything and I've lost 80 lbs so far, and feel like a million dollars, (-8

[Angel_of_Music]

Thanks Mr. Pooka yea, working around all the yummy foods we have, I tend to want to snag a fry when we're at a break and we have no customers inside or in drive thru. I've been good so far and snagged maybe one or two. Yesterday and today I had a 'cheat'. Yesterday I had a junior cheese deluxe...which is a junior patty, the bun, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, mayo and ketchup...and the cheese. I knew I shouldn't have, but A) the customer had cancelled their order, B) it was already made and packed and C) it was five minutes before the end of my shift. So I told my manager that 'I'll take it, no sense in throwing it out'. So she was fine with that. Okay. my ONE cheat for the month. Nope. Today I grabbed a six piece nugget for the walk home. So for the month, I'm done with my cheats. I'm only going to allow myself one cheat day of work food per month. So next month I'll just pick a day and grab something small...which isn't hard to do.

As for the soda...I don't drink diet anything XD I've heard the sayings that it's not as good for you and...I just don't care for the taste. It just tastes like flat soda to me and I'm not a fan of flat soda XD So yea, I don't touch it. We have a new drink in the machine at work, a Minute Maid aguas frescas. We only two flavors currently, a limonada and a strawberry limonada. I like the strawberry one, so whenever I need something to drink, I go for the strawberry one and it's a quick hit. I just take one of the junior cups and take a quick 'shot'.

Though right now I think I can feel a bit of a difference. I started my kick up again on April 1st(no fooling XD) and this morning as I walked into work, I could feel a slight difference. I was walking to a good walking song, something with a good beat to walk to and I wasn't breathing hard 30 seconds into the song. Also normally by 1, my back is killing me in the area where I pulled it back in 2019, but today at 1...I was moving around like I had never pulled anything at all. I'm like 'oh my back is going to be killing me at the end of this shift'. Nope. At 4 pm, my back was still fine. I got my walk home and when I got home...it was still fine. I like this feeling of course. I know it'll feel really good when I do lose a bit more, but for right now, I'm liking the feeling.