I am a diabetic and this is a real diabetic’s diet. I was almost 60 years old when I became a diabetic. Diabetes was not unknown to me. My father died at age 54 from complications of diabetes. My fathers’ mother died from complications of diabetes when I was that young that I do not even remember her. In spite of this family history of diabetes, I spent my entire life eating whatever I wanted and that meant lots of “sugar” in one form or another, particularly cakes and donuts. In other words, I had terribly unhealthy eating habits, especially in light of my family history of diabetes. Every time I would have blood work done, the first question I asked my doctor was, “how is my blood sugar?” And each time, when I was told my blood sugar was fine, it was like giving me a license to continue on with my unhealthy eating habits. Finally, it caught up to me.
Suddenly, at almost age 60, there I was, drinking as much fluid as I could and running to the bathroom every two minutes, or at least that is the way it seemed. I really didn’t need a doctor, I knew what it was, but I went to the doctor anyway. The news was as I expected, even worse. He took my blood sugar with a standard glucose meter and it returned an “E”. Testing it for a second time the meter again returned an “E”. I asked what that meant. He told me when a blood sugar is greater than 500 the meter will return an “E”. He was just checking it twice for confirmation. Although I pretty much knew what to do and what not to do, we discussed changes in eating habits and the like. Now if you have ever searched the internet for diabetic diets or diabetes and diet I’m sure you have found some very useful information. However, there is nothing that actually lays it out for you. I mean, something like,”here is what you should eat and when you should eat it.” So athough this informationj is good, I’m not good at what you might call a standard diabetic diet, measuring portions and such. It was bad enough, I thought, that I had to give up eating all those “goodies” I had been eating all my life. So I set out to do things my own way.
So off to the local supermarket I went. The mission? Find low sugar and/or no sugar foods. Read lots of labels for sugar content. All that good stuff. You know. You’ve been there. All the while thinking, ok, what am I going to eat for breakfast? How about lunch? Or dinner? Hhhmmm. Oh yeah, and since I’m now suppose to eat a lot of small meals every day, I need something for snacks in between those meals I just mentioned. So I answered myself. Hey, I can’t do all this and not eat foods I, at least, like. There has to be things I don’t mind eating that are “on the list” so to speak. What are they? Think, will ya? And so I did, I thought. I started with breakfast. Ok, I like cereal, but wait a minute, I guess fruit loops are out of the question, huh? Trix too, I guess. Yep. Ok, maybe there are diabetic cereals-diabetes and cereals, but I don’t like nuts and grains. Alright, how about Wheaties, I like Wheaties? Well, they’re not sugar free, but the sugar content is fairly low. In the cart they went. What goes with cereal? Bananas. I like bananas. In the cart they went. Hey, I’m on a roll here all of a sudden. But wait a minute. I’m not going to eat Wheaties and bananas every morning of my life. How about hot cereal? Sure, Cream of Wheat or Oatmeal? Yeah, they’re good. And how about eggs? I like eggs. And bacon! Sure, bacon. Let me go look at the bread. Ok, not sugar free, but low enough that I could eat one slice as toast with my eggs and bacon. Quick, over to the jelly isle. Yes! There it is! Sugar free jelly! Things are really looking up. Now I’m not going to bore you to death with the whole nine yards, I just wanted to give you some insight as to how I approached my particular situation that led to what I’m going to show you next. A real diabetic’s diet.
Before I show you the actual meals, let me tell you what I did. What I decided to do was keep a journal. I would record everything I ate all day long. One reason was just so I could look at it and know what I ate. The other reason was so I could show it to my doctor and we could talk about it while evaluating the results. I will tell you this up front. With all kidding aside, my doctor was astounded by my results. He flat out told me he had never had a diabetic patient that reduced their blood sugar as quickly as I did, not to mention the loss of weight. I never took insulin and I was on medication for a grand total of two weeks. In a short couple of months, I brought my blood sugar down to a very resectable 100 to 110 taken first thing in the morning. And weight loss? I lost 50 pounds in three months. I’m not going to show you my meals for each day for months on end, but rather, I will just skip through my journal and try to show you the variety of foods I ate as best as I can. And naturally, having loved cakes and donuts all my life, I continually looked for “goodies” that were either very low in sugar content or some type of sugar free snack. I finally found what I was looking for and you can read about them here.
What Foods Can A Diabetic Eat?
Ok, here it is. A Real Diabetic’s Diet
There it is, a real diabetic’s diet. It’s not pretty, certainly not gourmet food, but it is what worked for me and I sincerely hope it helps you. Even if you find just bits and pieces of my diabetic diet that you might be able to incorporate into what you are currently doing, I will feel as though I was of some help to you. Just remember, keep that blood sugar under control!
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