I was diagnosed in 2009. But, my own diabetes absolutely did not start there. I truly believe it started way back in my teen years when I was addicted to white bread, white carbs, etc.
Growing up our meals weren’t protein friendly. Money was never plentiful in our household, so Mom made do with what she had. Meat was more of a flavor, it made the carbs taste much better. Potatoes, macaroni and spaghetti noodles, Ramen noodles, and so on were the main dishes. Mom’s favorite things were mashed or fried potato. She knew how to make a potato into just about any dish you could imagine. Later on she learned how to make Rice-A-Roni, and that introduced a whole new carb load. I don’t blame her, she did the best she could with the resources she had. She fed us on a meager budget.
Both Mom and Dad were diagnosed T2 back in the 1980’s. Let me tell you, the diet from the Registered Dietician, as well as the testing methods, were pretty primitive compared to today. Neither parent had a glucose monitor. They had a lancet (tiny needle) and the strips. On the strip bottle was a color coded label, and you matched up the color on the strip once the blood was applied, and that determined the range of your blood glucose. Continuous glucose monitoring like we have now was not on their radar. Compared to now, it is like looking into the Stone Age when remembering those days.
The diet both parents were given were more or less what we see now. Lots of starchy veggies and bread servings, easy on the meat and healthy fats. This type of diet merely increased their insulin usage through the years and caused health issues with both. They became less mobile, more frail, more pained. Dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s, and eventually cancer that inevitably took his life. Mom had issues with her legs, hardened arteries, and eventually cancer which took her life.
Fast forward many years of a horrible diet, and I receive my own diagnosis. I was 31, and I had a blood sugar reading of over 300 and an A1C of 14. During that time, the kids were young, and money was tight. I did what I could to feed everyone on a meager budget for food, and baked a lot of things using grains and used lots of rice and pastas to fill bellies. Meats were a flavor and healthy fats were supposedly not supposed to be used—butter and lard were the enemy, just ask any doctor. I started on Metformin and insulin and got wider and wider. I didn’t learn anything about a better diet, how to control blood sugars outside of pharmaceuticals, or anything concerning making myself healthy. I was told it’d just progressively get worse, need more medicine, and that was it.
As time moved on, I developed some neuropathy and cataracts, and learned more about diet and natural ways to control health. Is it perfect? No. Now at 48, I’ve taken on a much more natural approach to handling blood sugar control, and work on a mostly ketovore type diet. There’s days when things go south, but mostly it goes well. I’ve learned different cooking habits, grocery shopping ways, new to me recipes, and so on. I’ve taken a dive into herbs and supplements that have a history (and some studies) of showing improvements overall in health. I’ll be sharing those in due time, with receipts. The best thing I could have done was learn diet and natural ways to work on health, the benefits have been great. I’m still learning, and probably always will be. But, I’m glad to share whatever I learn!
