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While this is an easy scapegoat, I can’t really quarantine my complicated relationship with food. Since my teenage years, I have mostly gone from a low carb lifestyle, scoring points with Weight Watchers, or generally trying to watch what I eat with varying degrees of success. When my doctor diagnosed me with type 2 diabetes six months after the start of the pandemic, there was a lot of internal hostility in my head.
Even taking into account that this is a genetic condition that several members of my family have been diagnosed with, I still feel like I’m letting it happen by not taking proper care of myself. The truth is, after years of dieting by cutting out certain foods and then falling off the cart, I somewhere forgot how to create a great meal. Are you ready for the twist? My doctor recommended that I follow a ketogenic diet to lose weight and lower my glucose and A1C levels.
On the day of my diagnosis, a friend put me in touch with her sister Lauren Dorman, who (luckily for me) is a registered dietitian to work with diabetic patients. In my first session with Lauren, it became very clear how lost I was and how I was about to take this familiar wrong path again. It threw me into a loop when my dietitian gave me the opposite advice from the doctor who diagnosed me: cutting carbs would only be a quick fix for a much bigger problem, but what I really had needed was a crash course in diet.
Here is what I learned.
Trying to decide to listen to my doctor or my dietitian was really heavy on me. The doctor seemed focused on my weight loss as quickly as possible, while Lauren presented me with a stack of evidence (in the form of articles supported by diabetes research and data from health organizations) that explained the virtues of preserving carbohydrates in the mixture. .
Here’s what it boiled down to this: Despite years of fad diets that have taught me, carbohydrates and sugar don’t harm my health, even in my quest to reverse my diabetes. The right amount of carbohydrates is necessary for my body to function normally and, yes, for weight loss. The key to making this work is portion control and trial and error. My doctor supported this decision when she saw that my glucose levels were under control after working to incorporate the right amount of carbohydrates into my meals. When I was first diagnosed and in the days that followed, I was well over 200 after meals. With the following adjustments to my food (and a prescription for metformin), I’m between 110 and 120 most days. Less than 100 MG / DL in the morning after fasting is considered normal.
The basic idea of portion control seems simple enough: limit the amount of food you put on your plate. It’s quite embarrassing to think how much this escaped me. Having relied heavily on takeout throughout my adult life, I have considered an entree as a serving. When ordering something like chicken marsala, I never stopped to consider three chicken breasts to be more than one serving. I always had a mission to clean my plate and rarely had a fridge full of leftovers.
The meals I prepared weren’t that different. A bowl of breakfast cereal was not determined by looking at the label to understand what a single serving involved, I just grabbed a bowl and filled it regardless of the size of said bowl and sometimes pouring me half a box without realizing it. Examining the nutrition label was a surprisingly new concept to me: Did you know that these bags of minute rice contain about four servings per bag? It was completely new information to me. I was so used to looking at food from a dieter’s perspective of “can eat” or “cannot eat” that it was never a question of how much I might have.
Working with my dietitian, I’m learning that it’s not just about serving size, but it’s also the best bang for your buck. For example, my snacks should contain around 15-20 grams of carbohydrate. Technically, I could ‘burn off’ those carbs by indulging in one of my favorite treats, Bubbies Hawaii Cookie Dough Ice Cream Bites (trust them, they’re delicious!), Or I could go for something more substantial. This range of carbohydrates could go in many directions. I can give my craving for ice cream or mix in a bit of cheese and cold cuts, which would give me more protein and fiber, while still being in the right carbohydrate range. I always focus on single servings, but it’s kind of like playing a game of nutritional Tetris trying to put the pieces together to create a balanced meal. It’s been a minute since I had that kind of freedom trying to lose weight.
As for the trial and error part? After my diagnosis, I spent months keeping a food diary that tracked everything I ate and my post-meal glucose levels. Turns out my Taco Tuesdays will have to be celebrated without corn tortillas from now on. My blood sugar numbers went crazy after this meal! Nut butters are also prohibited. In contrast, I now know that having an apple for dessert after dinner tends to set me up to have a really good “fasting level” when I wake up in the morning. When I want something a little more decadent than an apple, digging into one of my Sweet Nothings spoon smoothies hits the spot without sending my glucose levels into a tizzy.
Documenting my food choices gave me insight and, more importantly, responsibility. I stopped journaling because I tend to eat a lot of the same thing and already know how most of the foods I eat affect my body, but when I eat something out of the ordinary , I continue to take notes. what it does to my glucose levels.
It’s only been a few months since I was diagnosed, and while I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was a good thing, it gave me a lot of perspective. Once I stopped blaming myself and accepted that this was just one of the traits of my family that is passed down from generation to generation, all that was left was to act. My numbers are under control and my quest to reverse this disease is on track. After years of dieting and promises to take my health seriously, this is no longer a choice. Living in quarantine might not have caused my bad food choices, but it forced me to face them and relearn how to create a good meal.
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