It's not a diet, it's a change of diet - taking control

Every so often I get invites to go along to various clinics where people can talk about their diabetes - it feels a bit like the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings are represented in film and television.  One of the things that is quite striking about the meetings are the number of people that talk about being on diets.  There are lengthy complaints by some seriously overweight people about not being able to lose weight; that the various diets don't work. 

When I was diagnosed, I knew that my diet wasn't good - although I've always eaten fresh fruit and vegetables, I knew that my sweet tooth wasn't doing me any good.  Too much chocolate, cake and biscuits were being consumed as well as a healthy dose of cider.  I didn't consider going on a diet using Slimfast or Complan or whatever the latest craze happens to be, I decided to change my diet and take control. 

When it comes to control, being a project manager, I can be somewhat obsessive about detail.  What occurred to me first was that having an hba1C test every few months didn't leave me feeling in control.  That had to be fixed.

1. Blood pressure monitor - they're reasonably inexpensive and remove some of the 'white coat' stress for me.  
2. Blood glucose monitor - this allowed me to check my glucose whenever I wanted to 

That felt like starting to take control.  My rationale was like this:  I would take my blood glucose every morning when I woke up, the closest I could reasonably get to a 'fasting blood glucose' test and use that as a measure.  If it was below 7.0 in the morning then things were looking good. 

Having put some control around the blood glucose, it was time to start looking at the exercise aspect.  Here, having a smart phone helps massively, everyone wants your data so there are a lot of free apps.  My choice was more limited in that I had a Windows Phone but I found something and then started recording my walks and cycle rides.  I use SportsTracker if it helps but I decided, for reasons of privacy, not to link it to Facebook. 

I now had a method of control so it was time to focus on my diet.

1. Check the sugar content of everything in the fridge and cupboard - some real horrors:
• Breakfast cereal - just get rid of it, it's packed with sugar
• Sweetened yogurts  - lots of sugar
• Biscuits - obvious
• Cakes - also obvious
2. Change white bread to granary or wholemeal 
3. Eliminate potatoes and parsnips
4. Eliminate all dried fruit
5. Swap sugar for Splenda
6. Buy a couple of Low GI recipe books

Getting the Low GI books reinforced the decisions I'd made about clearing the fridge and store cupboards. 

The next point is that you have to get slightly obsessive about these things - checking blood glucose and doing some exercise every day is a must.  In my case I feel guilty if I haven't clocked up a 2 mile walk.

The result for me was weight falling off me with no effort and no feeling hungry.  Some recipes had to be adapted (see other pages).  In 9 months I had lost 45lbs and was feeling much better.  I now find too many things overly sweet as I've reset my tastebuds too - natural yogurt is normal and sweetened yogurt far too sweet.

I explain this at clinics (which is largely following the advice that you're given) and people look at me as though I'm weird.  I'm not on metformin or any other medication and my Hba1C is 38.  And that's the way I like it. 

Recipe - My Corned Beef Hash

I really like Corned Beef Hash, but given that it uses tinned corned beef and potatoes it's not really that good for me.  As a result I experimented quite a bit to get something that satisfied the craving for corned beef hash whilst trying to lower the glycaemic load.  It tastes pretty good and it doesn't seem to send my blood sugar into the stratosphere although a key point here is that portion control does need to be managed.

Serves 3
1 tin Corned Beef (refrigerated for easy chopping)
1 large onion
1 large sweet potato, squash or swede
200g or so of mangetout, snowpeas or green beans
pinch of oregano
black pepper

Peel and chop the sweet potato and microwave for a couple of minutes until its reasonably soft.  If you're using squash or swede, the same approach applies.  Swede takes a bit longer to cook and can remain quite firm even when fully cooked.

Peel and coarsly chop the onion and fry in a large pan in a little oil until transparent

Add the chopped, cooked sweet potato/squash/swede and continue to fry

Chop up the corned beef (it's much easier if it's been kept in the fridge first) and add to the pan.  Make sure that it's given a good stir and leave to cook through.

Add in a pinch of oregano (or thyme) and some black pepper to taste - it shouldn't need salt because of the corned beef.

Depending on how much you like the crusty bits where things stick to the pan keep it cooking until you're happy you've got all the crusty bits that you want.

Add in the mangetout and stir until they're bright green and 'al dente'.  Leave them too long and they become soggy and less appealing.  Should take no more than a couple of minutes.

Serve and enjoy. 

Recipe - Sunday Morning Breakfast Pancakes

Normally I have multi-coloured breakfast first thing in a morning, but ever since we visited the US a few years back, my wife has a hankering for the big fluffy style pancakes - not the thin crepe things, the monsters that usually arrive in a 'short stack' coated with butter, syrup and dusted with icing sugar.

Over the last couple of years I've had a number of attempts following various recipes and finally settled on this, the Sunday morning special - it produces about 8 pancakes, but that's because I'm limited by the size of frying pan that I have available.

Ingredients:
135g wholemeal flour
1 tsp of baking powder
2 tbsp of Splenda
2 tbsp of rapeseed or olive oil
1 egg (lightly beaten)
grated zest of 1 lemon or lime (to give it a little kick)
150ml of milk
1 tbsp of Greek Style Yogurt

To serve:
Blueberries/strawberries
Light syrup
A little butter

Put the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Add in the wet ingredients and whisk.

Leave to stand for 10 minutes - wholemeal flour means needing more liquid so if it ends up too thick (which can happen), just loosen it off again with a little more milk.

Heat oil in a pan and get cooking.  Cook until the underside is set and a light golden brown and then flip and continue until cooked through - nothing worse than a pancake that's not quite properly cooked.

Serve with blueberries and/or strawberries.  Any type of berries really as most of them are low GI.  The challenge is usually the syrup - it's not possible to have pancakes without syrup.  I've found that a light syrup is usually the best as it goes slightly further.  I quite like Clarks Maple Syrup with Carob which meets most of my requirements.

Initially the pancakes could be a bit heavy - seems to depend on the type of wholemeal flour being used (I always use stoneground wholemeal flour because I bake bread as well).  I'd avoid rye - it doesn't work nearly as well.

Enjoy. 

Made it to 'normal'

After 18 months my latest blood work came back with an HbA1C of 41 which is actually classed as normal.  Which feels pretty good - it's the lowest it's been for 3 years which means that whatever I'm doing is definitely working.

Update:  July 2015 down to 38 which is pretty good.  

Recipe - A simple cheesecake

I've always liked cheesecake, especially the baked variety.  This is a combination of several recipes that I've pulled together to give me something that I like and even better it doesn't cause my blood glucose to go through the roof.  What's really good about this recipe is that there is no biscuit crumb base to consider, which is the main source of starch.

Heat the oven to 180C

250g Mascarpone cheese

250g Quark

3 large eggs

2 tablespoons of flour

zest of one lime or lemon

150g of sweetener (I use Splenda)

200g fruit - blueberries, blackberries, raspberries or cherries all work well

Put all of the ingredients except the fruit into a bowl and mix together - you should be able to use a whisk rather than electric blender

Distribute the fruit evenly over a large (23cm) silicone sandwich 'tin' that's been sprayed with a little oil first.  Pour over the cheesecake mixture evenly, trying not to re-distribute the fruit too much.  Give it a little shake or tap it on the work surface to get rid of any bubbles.

Put in the oven for approx 30 mins (fan oven) or until it's risen and starting to brown - it should come over the top of the tin.  

Let it cool and then remove from the tin - I usually use the two plate technique for getting it out of the silicone 'tin', but it's up to you.  And that's it.