Hi                 
                 
What do you thing about below diet supplement? I'm going to buy something good for muscle growth. Please give me a piece of advice.       
                     
Bialko Gaspari Nutrition

I am a type 2 diabetic, my last A1c was 5.4.  I am trying to improve my health and my life on an ongoing basis.  Diet is the number one thing diabetics screw up so that is why I made this forum. You should not listen to anyone about diet unless they too have diabetes.  Doctors are mostly idiots who know very little about this disease and prescribe drugs that hurt more than help you.  I just want you to know a bit about myself.  I trust my body and I trust mother nature, I do not trust the medical establishment for the most part with good reason that I will get into later. 

Just know that I know what I am talking about when it comes to diabetes and food / health.  Hope you get something from this forum, now go make a post and stop lurking in the shadows!

You should include organic baby spinach in as many meals as possible.  For example, I eat it in my egg white omelets all the time.

Start with a medium to small skillet, pour in a snitchet of olive oil and a a lil oriental dipping oil (optional) for an added flavor.
put in 2 egg whites, or if you like doing things the easy way, buy some liquid egg whites and pour in about 2 eggs worth..
heat until the egg whites start to turn white
lay some swiss cheese on one side of the "patty"
let the cheese start to melt and by the time the cheese is almost melted, drop in the O B S (organic baby spinach)
tear it up into small pieces and sprinkle it in there,  use as much as you can realistically eat. The only deterrent for me is if I add too much the omelet gets a bit watery which is no good, and  it becomes impossible to fold.
once the spinach gets just a little bit wilty, you should be done.
take a big flat spatula and fold the omelet
put on your plate

optional but highly recommended

cut one slice of double fiber toast by orowheat in half and toast it
spread some chunky skippy peanut butter on there, don't be shy
add a layer of organic blueberries on top of the toast and squish em into the peanut butter (because it's fun)
eat the toast AFTER the egg (as a dessert)

also recommended

Don't drink with your meals, wait until well after your food has digested.  This is a personal thing I do which makes my body happy, I also think that some pretty smart people agree with me here.

Eat some spinach on everything you possibly can, you will thank me

 

I like to ride my bike.  It is fun and good for me too.  Riding bikes is great exercise for diabetics.  If you are overweight, jogging can hurt your knees and be jarring to your heart some say, so I propose riding a bike as a great alternative.  It is not the only alternative, but a good one.  Besides riding bikes needs to make a comeback.  When I was a kid in the 70s everyone had a bike, and there were less fat people.  See the connection?

I am not knocking jogging, I think it is great exercise, and I endorse it fully.  But riding a bike is more fun, and easier on your body, with just as many benefits.

Ride your bike and stop being lazy. I come up with some of my best ideas while riding my bike...  like the idea to start a diabetic diet forum.

It remains to be seen if it was a good idea, but you get the point.  Now go ride your bikes, oh brave diabetics, ride like little champions!

OK so I will make this quick.  I just refilled my prescription for metformin er 500 mg tablets.  The new pills are made by a different manufacturer.  The old pills were slightly bigger and had different numbers on them.  The new pills which I have been taking for a few days now, are making my stomach more upset than the old ones, and causing more gas than the old ones. 

Why do I post this shit?

It is worth mentioning that if you are going to take a medication for the rest of your life, you may want to pay attention to the details of what you are taking.
I wish I would have paid attention to the brand name of my old metformin because I liked it better than the new stuff. Slight variations in formula can have big effects on your system.  This goes for other medications as well.  Pay attention to the brand name of the pills you are taking and make sure when you refill, ask for the brand name you are used to.

I have experienced this same thing with glipizide back when I was really sick with diabetes.  I changed brands without knowing it and the new brand plummeted my my numbers at a faster rate and caused me some really scary close calls with hypos. 

KNOW WHAT BRAND YOUR PILLS ARE AND PAY ATTENTION TO DOSAGES.  STAY ON THE SAME BRAND TO AVOID PROBLEMS.  NO ONE ELSE IS LOOKING OUT FOR YOU!

Just thought I should post this for those of you who don't know much about food and the food industry's obsession with total boldface lies and bullshit especially when it comes to "diabetic friendly" foods.

I was at Walgreens today getting some nail polish and panty hose for a wedding that I am going to tomorrow.  The panty hose and nail polish is for my wife, just in case you were thinking I am into some freaky deaky shit.  She was with me, too...  I know better than to try to buy nail polish for a woman, it will be wrong every time, that is another story. 

So she is browsing the makeup section and I am over in my favorite area, the candy section.  I come across this big display "Sugar Free Chocolate". I am aware this has been around for a long time, but I never paid much attention in the past. I took notice this time, because I have been thinking about chocolate a lot lately.  I will post a whole thing on which chocolate I recommend for us diabetics, hint, it's not the sugar free kind.

So I am reading the nutrition information which is the default behavior all of you should do when you are picking up food in the store. I look at the label and notice it has more than twice the carbohydrates of the chocolate I have been eating.  It has no sugar, but a ton of "sugar alcohol" which is where the term, scam, comes from.  This little trick has been used for years to make us think that a food is sugar free and therefore better for us (diabetics).  Right next to the nutrition information is some little advert on the label about a "walk for diabetes" coming up.  This is what set me off.

So the maker of this shitty candy bar is implying that this product is diabetic friendly and great for diabetics to eat.  This really gets me going, as you will learn if you hang around the forum long enough.  Advertisers, food manufacturers, even the ADA will get me livid. It is this sleight of hand and gentle misinformation that all combine to help keep diabetes growing as a disease and keep fucking good people up.  It pisses me off to put it gently.  There is no law that stops this kind of misinformation, so you have to be your own advocate, big time.  If you learn nothing else from me, learn that.  Stand up for yourself against your doctor, the food industry, everyone.  You have this disease, not them, so you are the one who will go blind, lose your legs, lose the functionality of your sex organs, not anyone else. Sorry for that little explosion, but I have to keep it real in here, or I will just have another over edited, void of reality, soft spoken, shitty little bitch diabetic forum.  That is not going to happen. 

This forum is where bullshit ends and real discussion about diabetic diet and diabetes in general, begins.

Ok so now that that is out of the way..   Here is what you should do when you are going to eat chocolate...

Go for dark chocolate, it is better for you, and tastes far superior to "milk chocolate" which is little more than sugar mixed with milk and a little cocoa sprinkled in for taste.
The main thing to look for is percentage of cocoa and carbohydrates, and most importantly, taste.
 
The best taste / carb combination I have found so far is a Safeway Brand dark chocolate bar. This thing is huge.  You know the big ass candy bars in the potato chip aisle??   It is 78% cocoa, 7 carbs per serving (which is 1/3 of the whole bar) plus it has 5 grams of fiber per serving.  So if you do the math, that is really only 2 net carbs per serving.  Good luck finding a "sugar free" chocolate bar with that kind of carb count.  There is some argument about the whole subtracting fiber from the total carbs formula, but I find it to be pretty accurate. 

I can snack on this incredibly yummy chocolate bar which makes me happy, does not spike my numbers, and makes me feel like I am cheating the game for a minute.  The more you deal with diabetes, the more you will learn the happiness value of feeling like you are cheating, while you are actually making a healthy decision. 

You see, If you are in a good mood you numbers will decrease, this is a fact.  Dark chocolate makes me happy, and the right kind of chocolate in moderation is actually good for me.  You must have self control, my friends, or you can find yourself on a full on binge.  This is the key to all diabetes control.  Self control will make you the king or queen of your whole world.  Take it from me, I have mastered self control, and I can eat whatever I want, as long as I eat small portions, and don't be an Idiot.

I didn't really intend on such a long post, but oh well....   Maybe it will help someone.  Just to be clear let me summarize:

SUGAR FREE CHOCOLATE IS A STUPID SCAM AIMED AT IDIOTS WHO DON'T READ LABELS.  IF YOU HAVE DIABETES YOU MUST LEARN SUGAR IS NOT THE ENEMY, THE FOOD INDUSTRY IS.

LOOK FOR GOOD DARK CHOCOLATE INSTEAD WITH LOW CARBOHYDRATES AND SOME FIBER IN THERE.  EAT IN MODERATION AND BE HAPPY.

Yes it's true I play basketball with dogs.  It is fun and they love it too.  I am going to post some video of a game one of these days.  It helps keep my diabetes in check, and I am getting pretty good at basketball. 

Exercise is up there with attitude and diet for diabetes control.  Kind of a boring post, but I am the only one posting, so I gotta start somewhere! 

By the way, tomorrow is thanksgiving, which doesn't have to suck for diabetics.  I have a good time on thanksgiving and I eat lots of good food.  I just do it in little "spurts".  For example, I can get a round of turkey, gravy, potatoes, and a small piece of pie (yeah, very small).   Then an hour later, I will revisit the trough and get some more turkey, this time with more veggies and stuff instead of potatoes and pie.  It is all about moderation.  You can pig out even, just do it over a period of time, not at once. 

And drink lots of water too, that is critical for PH balance and keeping your kidneys happy.  NO SODA PERIOD. Sorry, that's not entirely true...   Coke Zero every so often in moderation is one of my "cheats". 

This post is not really on topic, I am setting a bad example for the forum here.  Try to keep your posts on topic if possible, but if you go off, it's cool.  Just try to be interesting.

OK, This is no bullshit. My last a1c was 7.8 which isn't bad, but it is above the "medical establishment's" recommended score of 7.0 and below for Diabetics.  So when I got the score, I was pissed, because I want to get off of these damn pills (metformin).  So I changed my diet which was already way better than most people's and added some wheat grass into the mix, continued walking my 2 dogs every day twice for just under a mile or a little more each time. I also play basketball everyday in my back yard for about 30 minutes (yes with the dogs) and that is pretty much it. 
I sit on my ass all day long on my computer working on my internet marketing businesses which is not the best thing to do for diabetes, but I take my breaks and get some exercise, and I start every day with wheat grass, water, and walking dogs. I am seriously considering creating an information product that goes into detail about my diet, and my routine.  Why would I do that?

Because I just got an A1c Score of 5.4, That's why!!!!!    I can't believe it, I am ecstatic, happy, overjoyed, proud, stoked, etc.  This is HUGE.

When I was diagnosed last August my a1c was 13.8.  My doctor said I should have died of stroke, because I was also a heavy smoker and total alcoholic.

That's right folks, I am a diabetes success story.  I can't tell you how happy that makes me.

In the last year (since August of 2009) I have accomplished the following:


Quit drinking with no support groups and no relapses (I drank over a 12 pack every night, yeah, the real deal)
Quit Smoking Cigarettes (2 packs a day since I was 17 years old, now I am 36 almost 37, shit........)
Quit Eating All the foods I used to Eat (Yes, all of them.  Hamburgers, Greasy burritos, Potato chips, Coke, Gatorade, Fruit Juice, Candy, Big plates of pasta)
Came up with my own diet 100% on my own that I stick to like its the LAW
Started Exercising every day with no exercise partners or support from anyone
Fought panic disorder and detoxification during all this other shit.


I just wanted to post this so everyone in this forum knows a little more about me, and what I have accomplished in one year.  Maybe it can be an inspiration to other diabetics who are in hell right now.  I can't really explain how hard it is to get from where I was to where I am now, lots of breakdowns, tears, fear, obstacles, anger, and on and on it goes.

But I feel GREAT and I look great, and my A1c is probably better than my wife's who isn't even a diabetic. 

So I guess I am allowed to have my own diabetic diet forum now, I have earned it, lol.

Metformin.  Ahh the old standby.  Everyone is on metformin, or at least every pre diabetic and type 2 diabetic is on it. I have often wanted to stop taking it, just to see if my numbers would change at all.  I could understand taking it when I was also on glipizide because of the whole combination effect.  But now I am only on metformin.  I will probably stop taking it soon to see what happens. I have a feeling that nothing will happen to my numbers. 

metformin

Every day I drink at least one full glass of wheat grass, the organic powdered kind.  I get it from some people at my local farmer's market.  I buy so much of the stuff, they asked me to do a photo op holding a box and the whole thing.  I wrote a little testimonial for them too. 

The thing about organic wheat grass is this... 
It is the perfect food to reduce acid in your body.  It helps lower the Ph of your system.  It is called the perfect alkaline food.  What does acidity have to do with diabetes you ask?  Allow me to explain.

Type 2 diabetes tends to strike people who eat too much, and who eat really bad high acid content food like fried food, soda, beer, etc.  Without going into a whole spiel on how people get diabetes in general, it is important for the sake of this post to explain the connection between your PH balance, and your blood sugar levels.  Basically, the more acid in your body, the worse your numbers will be, and the opposite is also true.  This is a connection that I have seen for myself in practice, many times over again. 

My numbers are much better when I drink lots of water and wheat grass. 

Wheat grass, and water are the perfect combination of foods.  It tastes good to me, too.  Of course I don't eat shitty foods anymore so my taste buds have adjusted to real food now.  What I mean by that is almost everything you eat is jam packed with either salt, fat, or sugar, or high fructose corn syrup.  When you cut back on that garbage, a change takes place in your taste buds and you start to really taste foods.  So with that being said, it is surprising how good certain things taste that I never noticed before, like apples, avacado, or wheat grass.  Not to say I won't devour an entire fat laden salty hamburger someday, just not anytime while I am alive.

Ahh food snobbery.  A terrible side effect of diabetes.  I try to keep it under control, but sometimes I can't help myself.  Like when I see really overweight people stuffing greasy piles of whatever into their indiscriminate pie holes while their poor pancreas is crying out for help...    Makes me want to scream in their face "YOU ARE ALMOST THERE, KEEP IT UP, YOU CAN JOIN ME ON MY DIABETES FORUM!"

I will post a super entertaining rant in the "freakouts" section tomorrow. 

I am the only member of this forum at the time, so I can hear the crickets chirping when I make a joke...    It's cool with me though, the crickets are right, they were always right.