Kate Jones's living with type 2 diabetes blog

Jerusalem Artichokes and Personal Preference

Wed, 22 Feb 2023 18:21:03 GMT

A little story about how the Jerusalem artichoke soup I made and how it brought up the issue of personal preferences in food!

It’s recently been the season for Jerusalem artichokes and I enjoy them roasted or making a delicious soup from them. They are good for supporting gut health and as my husband had recently had to take antibiotics, I wanted to make food that would support his gut bacteria. I made the soup with leeks as well as the Jerusalem artichokes because these are also good for the gut microbiome.

Jerusalem artichokes are avoided by many people because they often cause a lot of wind. This is because they contain a sugar called inulin, which we humans are unable to digest but that our beneficial gut bacteria can use for food. The unfortunate by-product of this is gas!

I looked up ways to mitigate this unwelcome effect and found a suggestion to add caraway seeds to the soup, so this is what I did.

I then remembered that my husband had said something about not liking the taste of caraway seeds. I asked him about it and he recounted the tale of a time he had been at a shared lunch where someone had brough some bread with caraway seeds in.

“It was disgusting!” he said.

I then remembered how I had enjoyed a baker’s rye bread because of the caraway seeds it contained. I loved the flavour! I see this as a very good example of how what may be benecifical to our health can be delicious to one person and quite the opposite to another! So while we may find some good advice about the health benefits of certain foods on the internet, or in a book, it may not work for us because of our personal tastes. This is where working with a nutrition coach who can tailor advice for health eating to out personal preferences can be an advantage.

However I’m pleased to say that my husband enjoyed the Jerusalem artichoke and leek soup in spite of the carraway seed flavour. The caraway seeds seem to have worked too because neither of us suffered from wind after several bowls of the soup!

One of the preferences we may have is to avoid eating gluten or reduce our sugar consumption. It’s been Pancake Day this month and I have been experimenting with pancake recipes that are gluten and dairy free and lower in carbohydrate. My poor husband has had to help with the taste testing! I have come up with a recipe that I think works quite well and you can get it if you sign up for my newsletter.

Cranes Well-being tips for the Festive Season

183:916053673 (Kate Jones) — Fri, 23 Dec 2022 13:04:24 GMT

It's Christmas and it can be a challenging time for people with high blood sugar

Christmas is nearly here! I don’t know about you, Christmas is nearly here! I don’t know about you, but I have often found it a difficult time due to the family expectations around food and alcohol. Certain sugar-loaded foods were ‘traditional’, so I was expected to continue to enjoy them even after I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. Do you also find that at this time of year there is an expectation to consume more puddings, cakes and other sweet things, as well as all the extra snacks, alcohol and abundance of food in general? Being winter and often cold outside it can be difficult to resist these comforting foods and drinks, especially when all around you are over-indulging with relish!

Wishing to avoid being ill by January, I struggled to be more restrained, but with family and community expectations it proved difficult – and stressful! My diabetes nurse advised me to eat anything I wanted for one day – Christmas day or another day of my choice. She said I might not feel very well the next day, but one day over-indulgence would do no lasting harm. I found this a useful strategy to adopt.

I have heard that a lot of people’s HbA1c goes up at this time of year, so I know my experience is not unique! Here are some suggestions for navigating the festive season:

Choice – remember that it’s your choice whether to forget the ‘rules’ over Christmas and get back on track later, or whether you want to try to eat as healthily as possible while still having fun during the holiday. Perhaps you want to choose one day to let go of all ‘rules’ and eat whatever you want. Your family and friends may try to persuade you to have one more drink or a piece of Christmas cake on other days, but the choice is yours.

Rest – you may have more opportunity to rest during the Christmas holiday. Making the most of it can help your body and mind to re-balance. It can help to maintain a good sleeping pattern as much as possible. You may have some later-than-usual nights, but if you can stick to your usual bed time – (or even go to bed early!) you can be well rested. If you have been stressed, you could take some naps in the afternoons to help your body and mind recover. This helps maintain more stable blood sugar. Giving your gut a rest by having 12 hours overnight without food (i.e. no late night snacking or meals) can also help, giving your gut and liver time for recovery.

Activity – you may well be consuming more calories than usual and particularly sugar. You can help your blood sugar to balance by exercising to use up that sugar. It might be a long walk or even dancing in the kitchen to Christmas music while you cook or wash up. Active games with children can also burn off some sugar!

Nutrition – if you can limit the amount of manufactured food and prioritise real food (without an ingredient list) your body will thank you. This means including lots of vegetables, spices and herbs, whole grains, proteins (such as eggs, pulses, legumes, fish and meat) and healthy fats (olive or coconut oil). With more time over the holiday, perhaps this is a good time to try out a new recipe. Remember also to keep yourself hydrated by drinking plenty of water or herbal teas. This will support your body in dealing with the extra sugar load and alcohol if you drink it.

Engagement with life – Having fun, laughing and enjoying ourselves are as important for good health as what we eat and drink. Giving (and receiving) gifts can also raise our spirits. May you be blessed with those around you who engage you in vitality and joy.

Support – as I mentioned above, it can be a challenging time. Why not ask your family to support you in eating healthily? Perhaps you have a good cook in the family and you could ask them to come up with some healthier options that everyone will enjoy, less loaded with sugar and carbohydrates. For example, here’s a recipe for mince pies that are lower in sugar than shop bought ones. Of course you can also ask for my support in re-balancing after the festivities!

I wish you a relaxing, happy and fun-filled Christmas with lots of lovely food treats. I also wish you good health and well-being for the New Year.

What is an HbA1c?

183:916053673 (Kate Jones) — Tue, 25 Oct 2022 15:47:16 GMT

What is an HbA1c and how does it differ from a finger prick test?

I am having my regular HbA1c blood test this week , so I thought I’d write about it because I have heard from other type 2 diabetics that what this test is, what the numbers mean and how it differs from a finger prick test is often not clearly explained by medical staff.

I was told by a diabetes nurse that in the past diabetic patients would have an annual fasting blood test to check how they were managing their diabetes. It was noticed that although these tests appeared to show a reasonable glucose level, patients were developing symptoms usually associated with higher blood glucose levels, such as numbness in the feet, eye problems or kidney disease. It was discovered that patients were eating their normal diet until a week or so before the test was due and then just eating an extremely low carbohydrate diet, such as living on salad, for the week before the test! Their blood glucose would therefore be low for the fasting glucose test, but would jump up again soon after when they resumed eating ‘normally’.

A different type of test was therefore developed that showed how much glucose had been in the blood over the previous 8 - 12 weeks. Therefore, if people were tested every three months a better understanding of how well they were managing their blood glucose could be achieved. This test is the HbA1c.

The Hb in HbA1c stands for haemoglobin , which are the red blood cells that carry oxygen around our body. The way the test works is that glucose can stick to some of the haemoglobin cells until they die naturally, which is about 3 months. The test finds out how many of these red blood cells with sugar sticking to them there are as a proportion of your blood cells, because that gives a good indication of how much glucose (sugar) has been around the blood during the lifetime of the cells. So fasting the week before the test won’t help anymore!

The other kind of blood glucose test is the finger prick test , where a small drop of blood placed on a special strip is analysed by a glucose monitor machine, something people can do for themselves. This test only shows how much sugar is in your blood at that particular moment. Your blood sugar can go up and down during the day, depending on what you eat, what exercise you are doing, how well you have slept and stress. So the finger prick test is only a momentary snapshot of what is going on. However, it can still indicate whether your body is managing blood glucose well or has too much. Doing a finger prick test first thing in the morning after you have been sleeping gives a good baseline as you have not eaten during that time, so your blood sugar will usually have come down to its average low level (there will be more about higher morning blood glucose levels in another blog).

As the two tests measure different time spans , the numbers that indicate a healthy or not so good result differ. The numbers of the HbA1c are higher, so if it is 48 mmol/l or above you are in the diabetic range. If it’s 39 - 46 mmol/l you are in the pre-diabetic range. The normal range is below that in younger people, but this changes with age (like blood pressure).

The numbers of the finger prick test ranges are much lower , with a normal fasting level being 3.9 to 5.4 mmol/l for a person without diabetes. For someone with diabetes (whether type 1 or type 2) a normal fasting range would be between 4 and 7 mmol/l.

Why should I care if my blood sugar is high?

183:916053673 (Kate Jones) — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 16:23:09 GMT

Many people are unaware that their tiredness and other symptoms are due to high blood sugar

Are you gradually gaining weight and finding it difficult to lose it again? Are you low in energy? You may also have skin problems, have to pee often and feel thirsty, get frequent thrush or cystitis infections, have skin tags, catch colds of flu a lot and have difficulty shaking them off. I had all of these symptoms, but for a long time thought you just had to live with them. However, I learned that these can all be symptoms of blood sugar that is too high. The good news is that by balancing my blood sugar, most of these symptoms went away, I had more energy and have enjoyed better health and vitality.

Here’s how our blood sugar gets high:

We all need the sugar called glucose to fuel the energy of every cell of our body, from the muscles – including your heart – to brain, to digestive system. This sugar comes from the food we eat. Our ancestors often found that food (and therefore glucose) was scarce, so their bodies adapted to be able to store extra food when it was available, by turning it into fat. This fat was then stored in various parts of the body, including the muscles, liver and beneath the skin.

These days most people eat a lot more food than we need for immediate energy, especially food that is high in glucose. Our bodies need to keep glucose in the blood at a certain level, above which it starts to become toxic and cause problems.

What problems?

When there is too much sugar in the blood, some goes via the kidneys to the urine. To get rid of this, more water is drawn from your blood (making you thirsty) and you will need to pee more often. This can also result in higher-than-normal levels of sugar in your bladder (especially if you’re dehydrated). Some bacteria feed on this sugar as it hangs around, leading to cystitis. Too much sugar in the gut can also feed another unwanted microbe: the yeast that leads to candida.

As in our ancestors’ days our bodies store the extra as fat. Many of us are also less active, so we never use up that stored fat and more keeps being added, leading to weight gain. Also, a lot of the food we eat today (especially ultra-processed food) is broken down into glucose and other sugars so fast that we don’t have time to use it up before it gets stored. It’s this stored fat that can cause even more problems.

One of the places this fat gets stored is in the liver, which can interfere with other things the liver is supposed to do, such as getting rid of toxins properly. These can end up being sent out of the skin instead, causing skin problems. The liver is also key to the proper functioning of the immune system, so when it’s clogged with fat it can be more difficult to resist and throw off infections.

When this fat is stored around your middle it also interferes with the way your pancreas works. The pancreas produces the hormone insulin, which opens the cells to let the glucose in, so when it’s not working properly your cells can’t get the energy they need and you can feel tired.

Why should you care if your blood sugar high? Because in my experience you will feel a lot better and enjoy life more if it’s balanced!

Shock, Fear, Denial and Shame following diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes

183:916053673 (Kate Jones) — Mon, 18 Jul 2022 15:04:07 GMT

Feelings I had when I learned what having type 2 diabates could mean

Receiving the diagnosis that I had type 2 diabetes was a shock - I had been convinced I was not actually diabetic, just maybe pre-diabetic. I thought the initial high result was due to all the sugar in the J²O I had drunk the night before the first test and that the second result being so much lower should prove I wasn't diabetic. Sitting across from the diabetes nurse and hearing her say "You have type 2 diabetes" was therefore upsetting.

It was difficult to take in all that I was being told about the possible long-term effects of having diabetes. I was told that due to the sticky nature of the blood when glucose levels are too high, small blood vessels can become obstructed more easily, causing damage to surrounding tissues. I was told that before there was better understanding of type 2 diabetes it was a primary cause of blindness and the amputation of toes and feet. There were also kidney problems, often leading to a kidney transplant and that the bad type of cholesterol is usually higher in diabetics, so there's a greater chance of heart attack and stroke. With the help of medication and good dietary control these issues can be avoided now, although medication is not without problems because it can cause weight gain, when losing weight is known to be one of the best ways of controlling type 2 diabetes.

As a Reiki practitioner, I have also seen how often medication that treats one symptom can cause other problems, so prefer not to take medication unless absolutely necessary. I asked the nurse how long she thought I could stay off medication and she predicted 10 to 15 years possibly. I told her that I planned to stay off it for the rest of my life - I think she was sceptical!

My sight is important to me - I enjoy photographing, painting and drawing nature in all its many visual splendours. I've been an avid bird watcher since childhood so the idea of even losing some of my sight was very scary. At my age some reduction in sight is normal - I was 53 at this time and was beginning to find reading small print difficult. However, the weakest over the counter reading glasses seemed to be enough and I hadn't felt the need to go to an optician for several years.

I also more or less dismissed the idea that I might end up needing a kidney transplant - I guess it was just too awful to think about! However, the aspect of possible heart problems or a stroke I took more seriously because my father had died at the age of 58 from a sudden heart attack. I then remembered that he had suddenly lost a lot of weight and I began to wonder whether he had been diagnosed or suspected he had type 2 diabetes (he was a GP). He had certainly never mentioned this to me, but it could explain the weight loss (he became thinner than I'd ever known him in my life!) and also perhaps the heart attack if the changes to his diet and lifestyle came too late. I had always blamed the heart attack on stress and the drastic weight loss, but if he had type 2 diabetes this would be a more reasonable explanation.

I therefore considered it quite possible that I might have a heart attack or stroke if I didn't do something about my diabetes. However, I had heard about the negative effects of statins (which have now been shown to increase susceptibility to type 2 diabetes) which it was suggested were a possibility if my cholesterol levels were too high. This was a medication I definitely wanted to stay off!

Over the next few days after my appointment, this diagnosis was on my mind a lot. I continued to have feelings of shock and difficulty believing it was true. However, these were soon replaced with feelings of worry and shame.

I was worried about all of the above, but also about what effect having type 2 diabetes was going to have on the rest of my life. Would I end up on medication as the nurse had predicted? Would I die young like my dad of a heart attack or stroke (I had about 5 more years if I was to die at the same age as him!). This brought up worry about the effect that would have on my family.

I also began to feel ashamed. It was clear that one of the main reasons I had type 2 diabetes was being overweight. I had struggled to lose weight for years and like so many people had managed to lose about 5 lb then gradually put it back on again. So here I was now with an incurable disease as a result (or those were my thoughts at the time). The nurse pointed out that I was morbidly obese and that even if I could lose enough weight to be classed just as obese this would help! I felt that I was to blame for it all and this made me feel very miserable. I had wrestled with depression for most of my life and could feel the familiar despair beginning to change my thoughts to negative ones:

"Why bother to try doing anything about it? It's never worked before"

"What makes you think you can change anything like this? It's impossible"

"Haven't you tried so many times to lose weight and it never works?"

"You're just lazy and greedy"

"Whatever you do don't tell anyone about this - it's too shameful"

"Don't tell your mother she will blame you, don't tell your sister she'll think you only have yourself to blame, which is true of course"

"You're just going to end up blind or dead soon, so why bother doing anything?"

Having discovered an online forum for diabetics I understand these feelings are very common - in fact normal! Faced with a major life change such as this we go through a grieving process and it helped me to recognise this.