Part 9—Let’s Talk Weight…and Diabetes
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes My secret—I’m a Health Nazi! Today there is a stigma if one is overweight in the USA. We have fashion models who look anorexic and probably are. We’ve lived through Nouveau Cuisine which is barely 300 calories of food for a meal…to gorging only to throw up all we’ve eaten, a condition called bulimia. There are also anorexic young women and men today who think they are fat. It is fair to say that America has a problem with food and weight control. Today we’re told we have more obese people than ever before in the USA. We’ve an abundance of food most countries would kill for—I mean that literally. We even talk about the starving children in Africa to our own children. Somehow I don’t believe the food on my...
Read MorePart 8—Let’s Talk Exercise…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes Disclaimer: I am not a health care professional or a personal coach. I am an untrained lay person who reads. What I write is how I understand what I’ve read and what I believe is the way it worked for my mother. As a society we’ve heard the mantra—Gotta Exercise! So here is my attempt to explain why my mother’s walking—which started at 5 minutes per day and over two years grew to 45 minutes—helped her get off of her diabetes medications. Before she came to live with me she’d lived a sedentary life for twenty years. She had a lift chair to help her get up. She would read and sleep in this chair during the day. When we were in Tennessee during the time my father was recovering in the hospital she needed assistance...
Read MorePart 7—What are some reasons why these methods worked…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes Disclaimer: I’m not a medical professional of any sort—I just wanted my momma to live longer and what I write shows how desperate I was to figure it out so we could make good choices. During my learning phase, after my mom came to live with us, I discovered that insulin (necessary to break down sugar) needed to hold hands with the cell wall in a very specific place. This same place is where the cell wall also held extra fat. If insulin could not hold hands with the cell wall because fat was in the way, it could not break down sugar and thus sugar roamed freely in the blood, causing damage in all sorts of places, like capillaries in the feet and the eyes leading to the conditions diabetic neuropathy and...
Read MorePart 6—What is Wrong With the Daily Food Journal…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes The world has changed since 2001 when I wrote this document for my siblings when Mom visited. And I have also learned a whole lot more. I would have added to the list of Don’t—No GMO’s. I personally believe they destroy the digestive tract microorganisms, and they harm the environment. This is just for starters. On the list in Part 4 are several products that today would almost certainly be GMO. Soybeans or any soybean product would be GMO as would corn and sugar, unless the sugar were from pure cane. As to meats, I would suggest organic Chicken, Turkey, Beef, and Wild Caught fish only. No canned fish of any sort because most of them are farm raised and thus grain fed which means no Omega-3 oils, only Omega-6 oils....
Read MorePart 5—Parenting your Parent…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes I guess if we live long enough we will parent our parent(s). My brothers and I were blessed with a wonderful woman as our mother. She was loving, caring, strict, but also gave us freedom. Mom encouraged independence in all of her children. She did not try to keep us in the nest, rather allowed us to fly when we were able. Yet, she was home if we needed and ready to listen. However, there came a time when Mom did not seem right mentally. We had all left home involved with our own lives. Whenever we’d call home we noticed her memory was slipping. Later we discovered she struggled to keep the family checkbook tallied correctly. I remember conversations with my brothers to determine if they’d also noticed something...
Read MorePart 4—A Daily Food Journal…
My Mother’s Journey of Healing From Diabetes From time to time mom would visit my brothers in Indiana. At first she would go and enjoy herself. Then news came to me from my brother’s wives that she would eat all the sweets in sight at family gatherings. The following day she would be in a stupor as her body dealt with the aftermath of a sugar over-load and a body which could no longer handle this abundance. That is when I discovered diabetics CRAVE sugar. It is unnatural how even one teaspoon can curb the edge of that craving. But then the body begins to ask for more. So in 2001, for when my mom visited the kids and grandkids in Indiana, I created a menu. I found the following meal suggestions in my computer files. Breakfast: Cereal Milk replacement (Silk is a...
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