FOOD WILL BE MY MEDICINE ON INSTAGRAM

I'm now documenting my healthy eating journey on Instagram. CLICK HERE to go to that account.

I keep meaning to do a write-up or a video explaining my healthy eating and my journey with prediabetes etc, but stuff keeps getting in the way. I can't promise I will do either of those things in the near future, but I will be updating my Instagram account, so please follow me there

xox

DIABETES | How to measure BG (Blood Glucose) | mmol/l vs. mg/dl | Your normal vs Their normal

IMAGE SOURCE - GOOGLE.COM

If you have been measuring your BG (Blood Glucose) at home, and checking on-line to see if your reading is low, normal, or high, but have been confused by the disparity in numbers between the two different types of measurements, then this post is for you! 

I have found some websites with the measurements 'translated' from mg/dl to mmol/l, and then mmol/l to mg/dl: CLICK HERE to see this particular comparative list, which is my personal favourite so far.

Or alternatively, click on the picture below and you will be taken to a page where you can enter the values and have them converted for you! *smiles*

It's charts and converters like these which have been lifesavers for me when trying to explain to people who go by a different measurement to mine, if my sugars are low, normal, or high. In Spain they go by mg/dl, and my BG reading device goes by mmol/l. Explaining to somebody who goes by mg/dl what my reading is in mmol/l, they think I have seriously dangerous low blood sugars, or as I like to call it, hipo-mode; when really, it could be anything from too low to too high. So this helps me explain, "I got 'X' reading which is the equivalent of 'X'.", without causing unnecessary alarm. And it's the same in reverse. If someone goes by the mmol/l reading, then my mg/dl reading will have them thinking that I have seriously dangerous high blood sugars, or as I like to call it, hyper-mode. So knowing which measurement I am using, and roughly what it's equivalent is, comes in very very handy!  And I'm hoping it will come in handy to you too.

Although, that said, listening to our bodies can be just important as taking and monitoring our BG readings on a regular basis. 

Health, is a relationship between you, and your body. If it's a good relationship, you'll be healthy. If it's a bad relationship, then you'll be unhealthy. Your body will only give you, whatever you give to it first. Treat it well, and it will treat you well. Of course, there are unhealthy things we might get no matter what we do, but I'm talking about the things that we can either choose to prevent, or choose to allow. I personally refuse to allow diabetes in.

It's been three days since I did my general mid-Sept update on here. I have since managed to lower my BG once again, back down to between 4.-something to 5.0 mmol/l which is roughly between 75-90 mg/dl, and I'm starting to feel a lot better again. I haven't been feeling sick for a whole day again, or experienced any drastic mood swings. I'm actually feeling very optimistic, despite everything. If you missed my previous post, and have no idea what I am talking about right now, then please CLICK HERE and all will be explained.

Anything above 5.0mmol/l or 90mg/dl, and I start to feel sick, my mood goes down, and all optimism and enthusiasm goes out of the window. (I guess this is my personal evidence for the relationship between sugar and emotions). They say that readings up to 110mg/dl or 6.2mmol/l, is considered to be normal. But, everybody's body (and 'normal') is different. Some people get dangerously high readings, and feel absolutely fine. Unlike me, most prediabetics don't even get any symptoms. It seems it all depends on the individual. 

I'm just figuring out what is right for me.  

This afternoon I was down to 4.3mmol/l which is about 76mg/dl, and I felt weak. I also felt hot and sweaty, so I checked my BG and like I said, I got 4.3mmol/l. I guess my body is just very picky about my glucose levels. I know how it feels to have elevated sugars, and today I learnt a bit how it feels if I go down a little too much.  It wasn't very nice, but I'm glad to have experienced it, as it's been a valuable lesson to learn. Hopefully I'll be able to identify it in future and never go too low. 

Such a huge part of our health journey is about listening to our bodies very closely, yet so few people do. After dinner, I read my BG every hour for three hours. I went from 4.3mmol/l before dinner, and then 6.7mmol/l an hour after dinner, 6.0mmol/l two hours after dinner, and then 4.9mmol/l three hours after dinner. I need to see my Dr at some point to be sure, but these highs and lows seem a bit excessive to me. I keep hearing that you should read your BG two hours after each meal, as that's when your sugars go down to whatever they are normally. Mine plummeted after three hours. Does this mean I have a slow metabolism? I have so many questions... And no, I won't measure it a fourth time. My finger tips are sore as it is! 

I am amazed at how these generalized readings dictate what is low, healthy, or high, for everyone in general, but then when you look at each person's low, healthy, or high, it's a slightly different story. Yet we are all boxed into these categories as one, with individualism being erased, and very little emphasis being placed on what is right for each person. This is then combined with a lifetime of very little being said or taught about eating healthy, yet we are expected to pull through no matter what. Most adult people rush through life, putting so many things before their health and well-being in general. I used to be one of them, and I can't believe it when I look at myself now. I used to mix healthy with unhealthy, and lie to myself that what I was doing was healthy. Now I see that mixing healthy with unhealthy, leads only to unhealthy. (Not to be confused with fat). I wish it would be compulsory for all schools everywhere to teach health and diet as an actual on-going subject from infant school, all the way up to college, and combine it with cookery classes. It's become far too normal to depend on fast food, ready-made meals and to even skip meals completely, while depending on stimulants such as coffee and cigarettes to get through the day. *tsk tsk* Coffee and cigarettes might not be my thing, now or before, but I've lost count of how many people swear by their dependence on things like that to keep them going in their day to day lives... *sad face* 

Before I end this post, I'd like to remind you that I have numerous links and videos on the right hand side of my blog. Please check those out as I'm sure you'd find them very informative! 

Until my next post, please stay healthy and happy! xox 

  

 

DIABETES | The Myth about Blood Sugars and Diabetes | My mid-September Update

IMAGE SOURCE - FACEBOOK.COM (Dr. Eric Berg's fan page)

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If you missed my previous post then please click HERE to see that, before you continue reading my update below.

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I also wanted to share this with you.

I just found this video by Dr Eric Berg, explaining how blood sugars work in the body. It's an excellent and very easy to understand explanation which breaks down exactly how the whole process works. He also mentions foods that are good for us people who are working on controlling our glucose levels. 

I highly recommend you watch this video if you'd like to understand more about how our bodies work in regards to sugars, what all the hormonal names and processes are, and what role fat plays in all of this, and a few other things he explains as well.  

Video Title:

The Myth about Blood Sugars and Diabetes

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/P7fHYSyvxU0?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

(You can click on the video title above to go straight to the video on YouTube)

Mid-September Update

After a month of being on this life changing journey, which started out excellently, things have now been going slightly downhill for the last week or so. I  had managed to get my glucose levels down to very normal and healthy levels, (mostly between 4.7 and 5.0, although I wasn't doing daily readings), and I was starting to feel brilliant. Slowly, about a week ago or so, I began to reintroduce some carbs to see how they affected my readings, and my levels have started elevating again. Not dangerously, but to me, a rise in my case, isn't a good thing in the grand scheme of things, and, I haven't been feeling too great either. 

I'm an extremely sensitive person in every possible way - emotionally and physically. Even the slightest bit of worry or stress, and I'm in panic mode, and even slightest sign of ill health, and I can feel very ill. I very rarely look ill, but that's another story. Yesterday I felt dizzy and 'clouded' all day - which made me want to take a reading. I also had a birthday party/dinner to go to in the evening, and I knew I needed to organize my meals during the day in such a way, so that I could make allowances for later on. In the end I felt so dizzy that I had to cancel. By the evening, I also felt depressed. Feeling lonely didn't help. I ended up crying my eyes out for most of the evening, until I eventually fell asleep.  Yes, diabetes or elevated sugar levels can make us depressed and/or temperamental. It's one of the 'symptoms' that not many people seem to know about.

It's not easy for me to share this, but I think I should. I'm not here to sugar-coat this as something trivial. I want to keep this as real as possible. It's not common place to feel the symptoms of diabetes as a prediabetic, but like I said, I am very sensitive, which is both a blessing and a curse in one. Although that said, after having connected with many people who have diabetes in their family, but aren't diabetic themselves, I have discovered that like myself, people seem to be getting what look like diabetes symptoms, without actually being diabetic or prediabetic. I wonder if maybe it's our body telling us that it's not happy with what we're doing to it, before a real problem emerges. 

Note to self: I must do some research on that to find out what that's all about!

For the last few days, I have also been fighting hunger. I am hoping that all this is just me PMS-ing, but since my sugar readings are rising, and a side effect of that can be constant thirst, as well as hunger and feeling down, I can't be sure what it is that has been making me feel sad and hungry these last few days. My Fasting sugars when I got up today was 5.5, which (in Europe at least), is considered only one point away from the highest it can be for that reading to be considered normal. 5.7 is a prediabetic reading, which means Borderline Diabetes / the very early stages of Stage-1 Type-2 Diabetes.

IMAGE SOURCE - GOOGLE.COM

I also found this interesting A1C to Blood Glucose Conversation table here. 

This should clarify any confusion about the type of measurement being used, but is not to be confused with measurements in mg/dl and mmol/l.

I'm not sure if this rise in my numbers yesterday and today, are due to the reintroduction of carbs in my diet, (even if a much smaller quantity than I used to eat before my diagnosis), or if it's stress. My weight hasn't gone up, but it's still early days to know if I will have a significant weight change or not by the end of this month. I have set myself monthly goals, although I monitor it more frequently than that. I hope I don't put any weight back on, but weight isn't the thing that gets me excited. It's seeing a completely healthy and normal glucose reading that gets me excited. Especially after fasting.

I don't get very personal on my fashion blog, but I think it's necessary on this blog, since sugar levels can influence our emotions. I just wish I knew if it was my sugars or my circumstances that are making me feel kind of down right now. I'm job hunting again, and so far, all I have found are employers offering unfair and abusive terms. I turned down a job offer earlier this week, which had been dragging out for months. Long story short, it was going to be three jobs in one, but I was only going to get paid for one of those three jobs. It was all on a part time contract, with no pay for overtime, so the pay was always going to be awful no matter what, and on top of that, the boss seemed like a nightmare to deal with. He always gave me a bad vibe, and in the end he said some really out of order things, called me repeatedly one time at an inappropriate time in the evening/night to arrange yet another interview, and also kept going back on his word about things like pay. I could only imagine him being even worse if I took the job, and I wasn't going to tolerate that. After months, and an endless amount of interviews, and a couple of anxiety dreams that were waking me up at night, I turned the job down, and the anxiety dreams stopped. I've seen better job offers since, but still nothing that feels quite right. They're all evening classes, which if you break the pay down per hour, it's dreadful pay. Not to mention that a timetable like that will only play havoc with my diet and sleeping pattern, leading back to unhealthy meals and general chaos.

With the fear I feel right now of becoming a full blown diabetic and all the complications that that can lead to, I'm not willing to compromise my health for a job. It would have to be a very last resort choice, between nothing, or at least something, for me to accept a job like that. I am clinging on to hope that I can get something decent from 9-5 teaching at an actual school instead of an academy, since it's only the start of the school year, and in Madrid a lot of things are decided last minute. But it's just hope that is stopping me from really plummeting into a full fledged panic attack over here.

Anyway, I appologise if this post is depressing to anybody. I am going to go for a walk now, and to top up on some healthy goodies! Fingers crossed some fresh air will do me good, as well as the exercise. I'm going to go back to cutting out carbs as drastically as I did in August to see if my readings go down to healthier ones and are no longer so close to unhealthier readings! 

Remember, all comments and suggestions are welcome if you have any.

xox