Diabetes Archives - Page 2 of 26 - Diabetes Counselling Online

Carb Counting Queen: am I really good at Maths, or is it an illusion?

September 5, 2014 by helwild Leave a Comment

I’m always so profoundly moved by what people are so prepared to share with me. Recently I received the following lovely piece of writing from one of the Parents in our ‘Parents of Kids with Diabetes’ group on Facebook. Check out the link if you are the parent, carer or grandparent of someone with diabetes.

Thanks to Maureen Campey for sharing of your thoughts. Fabulous writing Maureen. Yes, the tears come, even if in secret. There are the times we ALL feel like the ‘carb counting Queen’, whether we have a child with diabetes, or have diabetes ourselves! As you say, it helps to be able to see the funny side. I think it also celebrates our confidence in our skills & knowledge, a confidence that we need to stay sane.

“Sometimes I feel sad, but there are times when you just have to laugh at the craziness of life as a mum of a Type 1 child. We were at a friend’s bbq recently and when I came home, I started to write this. Do you feel like this too? I’m happy to share this and just give you a laugh. x

The Carb Counting Queen

I am the carb counting queen. No carb is too complex for my capabilities. This title, it has to be said, was totally uncontested. There was no bloody revolution. There is no pretender to the throne.

A Saturday afternoon bbq? Sure, we’d love to come! Watch me as I glide, seemingly effortlessly, towards the buffet. Greeting friends on either side, they are totally unaware of my inner calculations. Think synchronised swimmer – all smiles above the water, craze of activity below. If karma exists, my maths teacher would be rolling about laughing.

Ok, here we go! Salad, all good: nice and plain. A top ‘filler upper’! Protein, yip: lots of chicken, and sausages. Fine, but wait! Was the chicken marinated? Best stick to sausages! Which carbs though? At least a modicum of healthiness! Bingo! Corn on the cob! One exchange down!

I bet there’s a loaf of bread somewhere, hopefully wholegrain! Always a ‘failsafe’ but so, so boring. Can I check out the pantry without seeming like a crazy lady? Ah look! Potato bake! Now, how did I calculate carbs in that one I made at home? Get the Mobile ‘phone out and have a look. There might be one on the ‘Carb Counter App’ or my faithful knave the ‘Traffic Light Guide’.

Is there a dessert I wonder? Fruit? Maybe iceblocks for the kids? Which brand? Would it be rude to ask? Please let it be at least font size ten on the packaging! So unseemly scrambling about for those newly prescribed glasses.

All that in a ten metre walk! Pass me a glass of bubbly! Now for the rest of the family!”

Maureen Campey

If you have some thoughts you’d like to share about living with diabetes, we’d love to hear from you. Send your writing to: [email protected] OR just write your thoughts after this post in the Comments.

Regards

Helen Wilde

Helen is a Senior Counsellor with www.diabetescounselling.com.au She has been the mother of someone with Type 1 diabetes since 1979, and has lived with Type 2 diabetes herself since 2001.

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A fibre reminder – do you make the minimum?

September 1, 2014 by Sally Leave a Comment

Just recently the importance of fibre has been featuring in the news, mostly along the lines of improving our gut bacteria to help keep us well. So following on from that I thought it worthwhile to review a previous Diabetes Counselling Online blog on fibre and build on it by providing some examples of how you can build the fibre in your own diet to ensure you meet at least the minimum advised for people who live with chronic health conditions (in adults, 28g for women and 38g for men).

As a precursor to this encouragement to you to increase the amount of fibre in your diet, even aiming as much as 10g above the minimum, you need to do it gradually while drinking plenty of fluids (preferably water) and being physically active to get the greatest benefits.

More evidence is emerging relating to control of insulin resistance and protection of our immune systems being associated with increased fibre intakes. Additionally the Australian Dietary Guidelines discusses the evidence about fibre reducing fat absorption and risk of cardiovascular disease and bowel cancers. And then there’s the ‘traditional’ view about improved regularity in our bowel movements. It seems there’s no end to the potential benefits for increasing our fibre intakes, but so many of the people I see find it a challenge to do that.

When thinking about increasing our fibre intake, it’s also important to understand that there are three main types of fibre: soluble, insoluble and resistant starch. We need a healthy balance of all three as they all play particular roles. Read more about them here.

If you aim to include fibre-rich foods such as wholegrains, legumes, nuts, vegetables and fruit in each of your main meals, and follow the Australian Dietary Guidelines, especially in those 3 food groups, you should easily reach your target. Leaving the edible skins on your fruit and vegetables is also an awesome idea.

I thought if we make a table for four examples of each meal of the day and indicate how you can add fibre along the way, it might help you to find some ways to improve your own daily intake (data taken from Calorie King).

Example Breakfasts	Serving Size	Amount of fibre (grams)
Weetbix	2 biscuits	3.6
Traditional oats porridge	¾ cup cooked (170g)	2.9
Multigrain toast	2 slices (56g)	2.8
Baked beans	½ cup (140g)	6.7

Example Fibre Toppers	Serving Size	Amount of fibre (grams)
Wheatgerm	1 tablespoon (12g)	2.2
Psyllium Husk	1 tablespoon (6g)	4.9
LSA (nut) mix	1 tablespoon (20g)	4.6
Rice bran	1 tablespoon (12g)	3.1

Example Snacks	Serving size	Amount of fibre (grams)
Apple	1 medium w skin&core (138g)	3.3
Banana	1 medium (170g w skin)	3
Mixed nuts, dry roasted, no salt	A handful (30g)	2.7
Classic Fruit & Nut muesli bar	1 bar (45g)	3.0

Example Lunches	Serving size	Amount of fibre (grams)
Multigrain sandwich w tomato	2 slices plus 1 small tomato (100g)	4g
Salad with chickpeas	½ cup (100g) chickpeascarrot ½ cup gratedcelery ½ cup chopped capsicum ½ cup chopped 1 small tomato (100g)	4.72.10.8 1.1 1.2 (TOTAL 9.1)
Barleymax wrap	1 wrap	10
Campbells vegetable soup	½ tin	6.5

Example Dinner carbs	Serving size	Amount of fibre (grams)
Wholemeal pasta	1 cup cooked (150g)	8.3
Sweet corn	1 large cob (200g)	11.2
Basmati rice	1 cup cooked (125g)	1.4
Lentils	1 cup cooked (198g)	7.3

So if your meal choices through the day looked kind of like this day plan in the table below, you’d be getting at least 41g of fibre per day of all three sorts.

	Meal	Fibre (g)
Breakfast	½ cup baked beans on one slice of multigrain toast	8.1
Morning Tea	1 medium apple (skin on)	3.3
Lunch	1 Barleymax wrap with filling	10.1
Afternoon Tea	1 handful nuts (skin on)	3.0
Dinner	Wholemeal spag Bolognese and 2 cups salad	15
	TOTAL	41g

This is very basic and just designed to give you an idea of how you ensure you get the fibre you’re looking for each day. You’ll notice I haven’t made it a ‘balanced’ diet as my focus was just about fibre. You can read more here about that, but I have aimed for reasonable amounts of carbohydrate in each meal.

And using the toppers, you can easily add extra fibre to your breakfast cereal or your salads if you feel you need topping up. If you look in the health food isle in the supermarket there are lots of fibre topper products. Just remember to bear in mind the carbs for your diabetes, and watch the amounts of fat too if you’re watching your weight.

Make one yourself!

You can make up your own similar tables using the fibre per serve off the labels of the products you’re using and referring to www.calorieking.com.au for the ones without packets to guide you.

Hoping you’ve found this blog useful in working out how much fibre you’re getting each day and how to top up with some high fibre ideas that you may not have thought of. Remember that ideally you see your own Accredited Practising Dietitian for a personalised consultation to ensure that your diet reflects your nutritional requirement for your medical conditions.

Let me know if you have any questions and any tips on how you add fibre to your meals. Sally

Sally is the Social Media Dietitian with Diabetes Counselling Online, owner of her private practice (Marchini Nutrition), and has had type 1 diabetes for close to 40 years and coeliac disease for many years too. You can access a list of all Sally’s Diabetes Counselling Online blogs here.

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While we’re busy making other plans..

August 7, 2014 by helwild 2 Comments

A diagnosis of diabetes brings the ‘C’ word into everyday life: Control. We get bombarded with information, instructions, advice. We’re told to ‘test’, given pieces of paper to go to a clinic or hospital for a variety of even more ‘tests’. We’re monitored, measured, & judged. For some people, this becomes more important than anything else. They become hyper vigilant, testing, checking, measuring, exercising, dieting. Almost everyone diagnosed with diabetes begins their journey like this; driven by fear, anxiety, guilt, the notion of ‘control’ becomes all consuming. For some, this is relatively short lived, and things become all too hard. Those who ‘drop the ball’ early give up, bury their head in the sand, ignore advice, feel hopeless, helpless. Their diabetes remains ‘uncontrolled’. For others, the steady mantra of ‘control’ rules their lives. No matter what they achieve, no matter how ‘good’ their diabetic ‘control’ is, they strive to be ‘better’, to be ‘perfect’. To all intents and purposes, and according to most measures, their diabetes is ‘controlled’. Yet they still feel unsuccessful.

How do we find balance?

Ive been thinking a lot about this lately. Those who have a child diagnosed with diabetes come to this with a rather different perspective. For us, the worry, anxiety, need to achieve control are driven by the primal urge to protect our child. It can be harder for us to let go of the notion of ‘control’ than for the child themselves. After all, our main role in life is to care for our child, to make life the easiest, the best, it can be. We will access the best technology and resources available to us, whether thats a new insulin, a new way of measuring, a new test, an app, a new alarm or monitor, a hypo dog. It can be hard to relinquish that ‘control’ to our child. At what age do we ‘allow’ them to make their own decisions about management? For many of us, the decision is taken out of our hands. Our child will refuse to allow us to administer insulin, conduct tests, record results. They may lie to us, and we have the moral dilemma of respecting their autonomy, their right to privacy, and reconciling that with our parental role to manage their health. In some families, difficult topics are discussed. In others, they are not spoken of, they are ignored. Either way, the hard subjects, sex, death, religion, war, family secrets, unfairness, prejudice, injustice, and overnight hypos, all exist. Our children will learn about them. We do have the right to choose whether or not to speak of them.

We tend to judge ourselves very harshly around these changes in our ‘control’. Yet in the end, the vast majority of children with diabetes grow up to manage their diabetes well, to live good, productive lives, to participate fully in other aspects of life, work, socially, and also often with a strong social conscience, a sense of advocacy and participation in supporting others with diabetes. Through struggle & difficulty many are very compassionate human beings, people to be proud of. In managing our own diabetes, although some Health Care professionals may seem, or indeed be, somewhat judgemental, in the end we are all doing the best we can at the time. There may be ‘scope for improvement’, but judging and blaming have no part in our Mental Health, nor in our Physical Health. We need to find our motivation in self love and in our sense of our own worth. We deserve kindness, and the best we can do.

I think one of the key notions that helps to make this journey survivable is to accept that it is just that- a journey. We travel our road in life, and sure, for everyone, some more than others, there are rough patches, difficulties. The destination is known, we don’t know when, but we do know that ‘all things must pass’. Looking around us while were on that journey is what makes the difference. Taking that holiday in Japan, even though we can’t get an Insurance company to fully insure our insulin pump; walking to the shops in the sunshine, or the rain; playing with our child because it’s fun, not because the exercise will be good for his blood glucose control; taking time out from achieving, controlling, managing, to just simply be. This week I went back to my Yoga class. It’s been 5 years since I saw my teacher, Balbir. In that 5 years she has grown old, but she still has the mesmerising power to transport me during relaxation time to a place of calm and serenity; and the ability to lead me through physical practice which stretches and awakens my body to Life. Taking time to focus on the breath, on Balance, Serenity, and the practice of Mindfulness. Most of all, on Resilience. Building resilience in ourselves, and importantly in our children, helps us and them to live life fully: to achieve a level of mental health that will see our journey through life as a balanced one, a life to feel gratitude for, not a life of self doubt. Yesterday I saw an almond tree in full blossom. It was growing alongside a busy highway. Clearly it had stood there for decades before the road came along, before the construction that rose around it. Yet there it was, in full blossom, old, huge, bursting with optimism and life.

Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans- remember to Notice your Life.

Its a Long Way to go, A Hard Row to Hoe

Helen Wilde

Helen has been the parent of someone with Type 1 diabetes since 1979. She has lived with the diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes herself since 2001. She is a Senior Counsellor with Diabetes Counselling Online. If you are struggling with Control or any aspect of your diabetes you may like to contact our team at

http://www.diabetescounselling.com.au/counselling-request/

carpe diem

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Saucy tips to improve d-health

August 4, 2014 by Sally 2 Comments

Earlier this month we shared a thread in Diabetes and Food – let’s celebrate it! on what people’s favourite sauces were. There were some awesome ideas presented by our members on how to swap some of the more processed sauces for lower sodium/fat/sugar varieties and some great ideas for fresh, homemade options. I thought we’d look at some of these today, and how we could modify some recipes to make our own that would be kinder to our d-health.

Some of the sauces mentioned were Satay sauce, Bernaise sauce, salsa, curry sauces, tomato/bbq sauce, salad dressings, Worcestershire sauce, sweet chilli sauce, mustard pickles, and pestos.

It’s important that we remember that it’s okay to have small amounts of what we like if we really want them, but is better if we can find fresher, healthier alternatives or modify what we like to make the most of it while still considering our health.

Reminder on our targets

Primarily for heart health reasons, we need to look for less than 2g/100g saturated fat, less than 400mg/100g sodium, and we should minimise added sugars which may throw our BGL readings out of range.

Ideas for alternatives

When you consider the main reason we enjoy sauces with our food is to add flavour, then herbs (fresh and dried), spices, garlic, chilli, ginger, lemongrass, lemon/lime juice/zest and other fresh flavours can really lift your meal to a new level of enjoyment.

Sometimes thinking of alternatives to what you might normally use can prove inspirational and help you to enjoy the food even more knowing that you’re doing your insides a favour too!

One of our members who enjoys pickles and fruit chutney (high in sodium and added sugars) on her sandwiches and a store bought barbeque sauce (high in sodium, sugar and fat) or sweet chilli sauce (oh the sugar!) on her chicken or salmon suggested she would swap to “avocado on sandwiches and lemon juice on my chicken or salmon”. Such a simple idea and yet so delicious!

This website gives some great examples of various spices and what foods they go with to help you with some ideas, as well as how to best store them for freshness.

Another idea that emerged in our Facebook chat was that an easy alternative to lemon pepper (high in sodium) would be to grate and dry some lemon zest and mix it with freshly ground peppercorns. Wowser! and so easy

Salsas

Salsas are a mix of chopped fresh ingredients such as tomatoes, fruit, avocadoes, fresh herbs, garlic are so versatile that you can make up varieties depending on which fresh herbs you have available and what you’re adding it too.

Here are some recipe ideas for a tomato based salsa, a mango and capsicum salsa, an avocado salsa, and a spicy salsa, and there are plenty more where they came from! Don’t they look amazing!?!

Salad dressings

Store bought salad dressings can be a nightmare for heart health, and yet they’re such an easy thing to make yourself! At home we just use one third quality vinegar (white balsamic is my current favourite) or freshly squeezed lemon/lime juice to two thirds extra virgin olive oil. You can choose various oils (preferably those higher in monounsaturated fats) for variations on flavours. Sometimes a dash of sesame oil or other stronger flavoured oils can transform your salads.

And if you prefer the creamier salad dressings, just try some based on low-fat yogurt. This Australian Good Taste recipe sounds wonderful. As discussed further down too, if you *really love* your current processed creamy dressing, just mix it with half low-fat yogurt to make it a better option.

Here’s a link to some more awesome salad dressing recipes from Taste.com.au.

Pestos

It’s great to see that some of you have started experimenting with pestos as they’re so versatile and can really transform a boring meal into something very special. They can be used in pasta dishes, as a coating on meats, as a filling or stuffing in vegetables, and tossed through roasted vegetables make them irresistible, plus a whole lot more.

You just need a big bunch of soft-leafed herb (such as basil, coriander or parsley), a handful of nuts of your choice (pinenuts, walnuts and pecans work well), some quality extra virgin olive oil and extra flavours if you want them such as a quality parmesan cheese or fresh garlic. And if you have more than you need they freeze well for future use.

Here’s a link to some pesto recipes from Taste.com.au, remembering that you can control the sodium levels to suit your own health needs.

Modifying recipes

An awesome way to have the sauces you love but without the heart health issues is to make your own. We make our own barbeque sauce at home (and our own satay sauce) from recipes that we’ve found online and then modified to suit our heart healthy preferences.

For example in most recipes you can easily cut the ingredients that might be adding the salt and sugar in half quantities, and swap any saturated fats for monounsaturated fats.

Break it down

For our satay sauce we buy the Ayam brand of satay spices (which has a massive amount of sodium) and then break it down using low salt/sugar peanut butter and low-fat coconut flavoured Carnation milk to make it to our liking. It’s rather delicious too!

And if you fancy mayonnaise, try mixing 1 tablespoon mayo to 3 tablespoons low-fat natural yogurt which gives you the taste of mayo with less fat and more nutrients.

Add more goodness

Actually choosing your favourite sauce and ‘watering it down’ with other vegetables, herbs and liquids can also be a good option to retain the flavour you love while minimising the damage. A good example of this provided by a member of the ‘Diabetes and Food – let’s celebrate it!’ group was that of Patak’s curry sauces. She said, “I always add tons of stuff to them”. Some examples of good ‘stuff’ to add would be tinned tomatoes or passata for tomatoey ones, low-fat Carnation evaporated milk to creamy ones, or even low-sodium stock, as well as lots of extra fresh vegetables.

Healthier brands?

There are a few companies starting to offer better heart health choices in their sauces and spreads. Always remember to read the label and check for the less than 2g/100g saturated fat, less than 400mg/100g sodium and added sugars, but some good options might include the Walden Farms range of sauces (suggested by a member of the group, although I couldn’t see a nutrition information panel on their website to check the numbers) and the Fountain ‘No Added Sugar Smart’ sauces: Tomato and BBQ.

In summary, it’s okay to have small amounts of what we like if we really want them, but is better if we can find fresher, healthier alternatives or modify what we like to make the most of it while still considering our health. Hoping you found these ideas helpful.

We’d love you to share your own ideas below in the comments section to help others find healthier options for favourite sauces, dressings and the like. Thank You! Sally

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Life..’More than #diabetes’ Ups & Downs

July 28, 2014 by helwild 7 Comments

How much does diabetes dominate your life? It is a health condition which, because it is related to food and exercise, can seem like the most difficult health condition you could possibly have, doesn’t it? And because the symptoms are not always obvious or noticeable, it can seem that if you ignore it, it will just go away, or not be true.That you will ‘get away with it’, if you ignore it, or make a ‘token effort’. Even people with type 1 diabetes can at times feel that they can ‘stretch’ the ‘rules’, not take their insulin, or use insulin to allow themselves to ‘indulge’ in ‘favourite’ foods; or ‘allow’ themselves to ‘run high’ to avoid hypos. The insulin pump combined with the modern blood glucose meters, cgm’s, allows such fine control, approximates more closely than anything else the action of the pancreas in releasing insulin; yet in its very existence such biotechnology is a constant reminder of life with diabetes.

As the parent of a child diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, there were times when it seemed there would never be anything else that mattered in life, other than diabetes. When my daughter grew up & left our home in a tiny rural town to go to the City to study at University, things in some ways got easier; but in other ways, things got harder. I was a young Mum, and I was only 32 years old when my beautiful healthy girl was diagnosed. I was 37 when she left home. It was hard knowing she was 250 km away, and relying on others, who were not me, as her ‘backup’ person. Every night that we slept under the same roof, I got up to sit with her through her hypos. The click of a light switch, or the click of the toaster, would wake me. This continued through her teen years; her pregnancies; her own years mothering babies; travelling with her for Diabetes related professional reasons as colleague, & as her ‘back up person’ for her diabetes management, on trips overseas & interstate ; and on family holidays. Even now, if we are sleeping under the same roof, if I’m sleeping within hearing distance, something wakes me, and I can’t lie in bed knowing she’s out of bed & feeling bad.

I do have other things in my life: work, sport, friends, family: causes to do with the environment and the earth. I have grown tree seedlings for Trees for Life, collected for the Heart foundation, travelled. I’ve volunteered at Film Festivals, Arts Festivals, tutored at the U3A. But beating away like another heartbeat is my daughter’s diabetes. I work and volunteer in Diabetes. I practice Mindfulness. Being her parent will always be a part of who I am. Of course, it is much, much more intense for her. Every minute of every day and night, no respite. I do get to take breaks, she doesn’t.

My life changed 15 years ago. My husband retired, and I got a job in the city, so we moved house. Over the past 15 years, my life has expanded to include assisting my mother in dealing with changes that came about in her life, first with my father’s diagnosis of dementia. In the beginning, I was working in a highly responsible & challenging job. My help was as practical as I could manage, also fitting in supporting both my daughters with pregnancies & babies, toddlers & growing children. With my father’s death, assisting Mum meant helping her manage her own health & living arrangements, & eventually her own dementia.

That time also came to include my own diagnosis of diabetes. Because of my daughter’s diabetes, I came to the diagnosis with a shorter period of ‘denial’ than some experience; and with very little anger. I do feel some negative emotions, of course; but I know that it’s possible to live a good life with diabetes. My fear of diabetes related complications is much less than my fear of dementia.

I hadn’t meant to write about difficult experiences in my life, but yes: they are also part of life, and many of them have nothing to do with diabetes. The past 15 years have included weddings, births, joys: wonderful family Christmases, when Mum played ‘Mother Christmas’ to our large family: visits from overseas relatives, contact through Social media with relatives, friends, strangers. Yes food is pleasure, but there are other pleasures. Exercise is pleasure. Doing things for others is pleasure. Growing things, writing, taking photos, playing with children, doing good work, talking with friends from all over the world, these are all pleasurable.

Life is Good. Life is a river, it flows. Life is truly a journey, with opportunities for rich experiences that include the difficult ones, and the easy ones: spontaneous ones and planned ones. Seize the moment, take opportunities when they arise. Life is more than diabetes: it includes things that are harder, and worse: and things that are easier, & better..Life is for the Living.

Helen Wilde

carpe diem

Helen is a Senior Counsellor with Diabetes Counselling Online. She is also the parent of someone diagnosed with diabetes in 1979. She has lived with type 2 diabetes herself since 2002.

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