We’re talking about mindful eating and coping with diabetes during the holidays on December’s Divabetic podcast with musical inspiration from Leona Lewis.
‘Tis the season for family, festivity, and temptations that may disrupt daily diabetes health routines. That means it’s also the season when eating healthy, staying active, and taking medication on a schedule are harder. The added stress and anxiety of staying on track with your diabetes health may cause even those who are usually content to experience loneliness, anxiety, and a lack of fulfillment.
We also discuss using mindfulness to build a healthier relationship with food this season. It can be easy to get so caught up in celebrations that we lose track of regular, balanced meals that serve us so well the rest of the year.
Paying attention to what, when, and how you eat allows you to better tune in to your body’s true physiological hunger cues and make choices that keep feeling your best.
Studies show that people with diabetes have a greater risk of depression than people without diabetes.
Just like denial, depression can get you into a vicious cycle. It can block good diabetes self-care.
“I have a best friend who has severe depression, who takes medication and still struggles, so I know how bad it can be,” says Leona Lewis.
She describes herself as having “highs and lows” brought on by circumstance, not a clinical illness. In retrospect, frustrated and anxious might have been better termed to use, but she declines to dwell on it.
If you are feeling symptoms of depression, don’t keep them to yourself. First, talk them over with your doctor.
Guests include Diabetes Alert Dog expert Debby Kay CDT, CDTA, PDTI, Megrette Fletcher, MEd, RD, CDCES, the Charlie’s Angels of Outreach, Janis Roszler RD, CDCES, LDN, Emmy-winning Producer Linda Bracero Morel, Poet Lorraine Brooks, and Mama Rose Marie.
Plus, we’re giving away six months of access to mySugr Pro app in our INSTANT WINNER challenge.
The mySugr app logs important therapy data such as blood sugar, meals, activity, insulin, and much more! Handy features like the Photo Function and entry customization mean you can embrace the wonderful world of data logging and kick old-school logbooks to the curb.
The podcast features music from Leona Lewis’ Christmas, with Lovealbum courtesy of SONY Music.
The hidden affirmation you uncover focuses on mindful eating. If you’re struggling to cope with the stress, and anxiety of daily diabetes self-care: try repeating positive affirmations to yourself each morning to steer your mood in the right direction. This way of thinking can be helpful when the mental and emotional burden of coping with daily diabetes self-care gets tough. We also encourage you to seek out a therapist to help you adjust to life with diabetes.
Today’s fast-paced society distracts people’s attention away from their food toward Instagram, Facebook, and Smartphone Games Apps.
According to Healthline, eating has become a mindless act, often done quickly. This can be problematic, since it takes your brain up to 20 minutes to realize you’re full.
Eating too quickly often leads to overeating. You eat more and more because your brain doesn’t have enough time to receive fullness signals from your stomach.
It’s also been proven that you’ll eat less food if you eat slowly and chew your food thoroughly before swallowing.
2 Tips to Help you Start Eating More Slowly:
Chew more. Count how many times you normally chew a bite of food, then double that amount. You may be surprised at how little you usually chew.
Set your utensils down. Putting down your fork between bites of food will help you eat more slowly and savor each bite.
Many people wonder how their hba1c number relates to their blood sugar levels. After all, daily diabetes self-care management can be a jumble of numbers: weight, blood sugar levels, carbohydrate counts, fat grams, serving sizes, etc. Hopefully, this handy chart will provide some clarification.
When it comes to the numbers, there’s no one-size-fits-all target. A1C target levels can vary by each person’s age and other factors, and your target may be different from someone else’s. If you feel your hbA1C number is on a higher side, say over 7 or 8%, do not worry! Knowledge is power. You can lower your hbA1C by creating your own personal self-care plan with your healthcare professional.
Join the happy healthcare host, Mr. Divabetic for this free, fun Virtual Cooking Party on Zoom where everything you need to win is within your own home.
Whether you have had diabetes for a long time or have only recently been diagnosed, having a diabetes management plan and supplies in place are essential for living life to the fullest.
Having diabetes doesn’t mean you need to deny yourself all the foods you love, but you do want to make healthier food choices. One good choice is to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables, which are heavy in nutrition but light in calories.
During this virtual Cooking Party on Zoom,Chef Robert Lewiswill prepare a recipe that won’t compromise your diabetes wellness. Register Now
The holidays are depressing times for some people. We think everyone else is partying with a loving family, while we don’t have family, or don’t like them, or they are far away. Diabetes doesn’t help.
You might feel the weight of diabetes more at this time, because you can’t let go and celebrate like everyone else. Or maybe you do let go and then beat yourself up over it.
Need some inspiration and advice to stay on track with your diabetes wellness goals this holiday season?
Additionally, Emmy Award winning Producer Linda Bracero Morel, who is living with type 2 diabetes, shares her remarkable weight loss journey, Poet Lorraine Brooks provides wordy wisdom and Mama Rose Marie offers some motherly adivce.
One of Mama Rose Marie’s helpful tips is to start visiting neighbors, former co-workers, and older family members who are shut in during the holiday season. Help someone shop, escort them to doctors appointments (and take notes) and/or drive them to social activies like bridge. Please open your heart and share love and companionship to a population that is in need.
Enjoy Diabetes Late Nite featuring holiday music from Leona Lewis courtesy of SONY MUSIC. LISTEN NOW
I know many people in our Divabetic community don’t like to celebrate the holidays because they feel they may disrupt their diabetes care. But with a little pre-planning and guidance from your healthcare entourage you can still enjoy the festivities associated with Father’s Day without failing your diabetes.
Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing our Divabetic ‘Spaghetti Western’-themed Father’s Day Celebration blog posts showcasing healthy recipes, expert advice on portions and diabetes sexual health-related issues from our favorite diabetes experts, chefs, stylists (Diabetes Advocate & ‘Rich In Love’ Spokesmodel Doris Hobbs shows off a vintage Western look in the photo above) and party planners.
Since our a Father’s Day BBQ’s can spell trouble for anyone watching their weight and/or managing their diabetes I asked registered dietitian, diabetes educator, and Mindful Eating expert, Megrette Fletcher M.Ed., RD, CDE to share her tips on portions to help you stay on track with your diabetes self-care. Below are Megrette’s Tips on Portions in celebration of Father’s Day:
Do you get confused (or downright afraid) when your health care provider talks to you about changing your diet to better manage blood sugars. Fear not, eating the “right” amount of food is easy if you start by asking a few simple questions.
First – eat when you are hungry. By asking yourself, “Am I hungry?” you can uncover if you are truly hungry. If you are not hungry but you still want to eat, then you may be coping with situations in your life through food. For most people, this isn’t a problem, but if you are always coping with a bowl of ice cream at 9 p.m., is it working? Sure, it tastes yummy while you are eating it, but when the bowl is empty are you filled with a sense of health and wellbeing or guilt, blame and shame?
Many dads think, “I can’t have ice cream! I have diabetes!” The idea of forbidden foods because you have diabetes only drives the fear and misinformation about this disease. Remind yourself – all foods fit! The question is how much and how often. Restriction, regarding of the underlying intention, creates the conditions for you to feel deprived. At some point, your resolve will snap, causing you to overeat not with a serving of ice cream, but with a pint of ice cream! This type of overeating is the issue because it becomes a pattern. The cycle of overeating, repentance, and repetition is currently under study by leading neuroscientists. Thus far, the research is teaching us deprivation doesn’t work!
This Father’s Day, take a deep breath and take charge of your diabetes. Start by asking the first two questions in the Mindful Eating Cycle – “Am I Hungry?” and “When Am I Hungry?” If you think you are hungry, great! Get curious and ask the next questions – “When am I hungry? When I see food? When I am offered food?” Dig even deeper and notice where in your body you are feeling hunger.
It isn’t a waste of time to take a few seconds and be certain you are physically hungry instead of being tempted to eat. In our food abundant society, temptation starts the moment you wake up. You are bombarded by hundreds of cues to eat! At some point, you need a system to address the hundreds of food choices before you, which is why the Mindful Eating Cycle is so helpful.
To learn more about mindful eating and diabetes care, please visit www.AmIHungry.com. This website created by Dr. Michelle May is full of terrific resources to help you manage your blood sugar by getting curious about your hunger! You can also purchase the book, Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat with Diabetesfor an in-depth understanding of mindful eating and diabetes.
Megrette Fletcher M.Ed., RD, CDE joins us on July’s Diabetes Late Nite podcast schedule for Thursday, July 13, 2017, 6 PM, EST. On this podcast we will be celebrating our 7th Anniversary of ‘wellness with a wow’ podcasting. Guests include the Charlie’s Angels Of Outreach, Poet Lorraine Brooks and Mama Rose Marie.
TUNE IN: Tuesday, June 13, 2017 for Diabetes Late Nite with music by Maxwell. We’re talking about Diabetic Macular Edema (DME) with musical inspiration from Maxwell. Along with fellow musicians D’Angelo and Erykah Badu, Maxwell has been credited with helping to shape what has been termed the “neo soul” movement that rose to prominence during the late 1990s. Diabetic Macular Edema (DME) is an accumulation of fluid in the macula-part of the retina that controls our most detailed vision abilities-due to leaking blood vessels. In order to develop DME, you must first have diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is caused by damage to the blood vessels in the tissue at the back of the eye (retina). Poorly controlled blood sugar is a risk factor. Early symptoms include floaters, blurriness, dark areas of vision, and difficulty perceiving colors. Blindness can occur. Guests include singer Alfa Anderson, Diabetic Macular Edema patient Maryanne Kass, Artist Bryce Chisholm, the Charlie’s Angels of Outreach, Poet Lorraine Brooks and Mama Rose Marie. Throughout the podcast we will be featuring selected songs from several of several of Maxwell’s albums courtesy of SONY Music.
We all know high carbohydrate foods can raise blood sugars but did you know that they’re also raising eyebrows in the art world?
Chloe Wise’s viral “Bread Bag” series, in which she affixed luxury logos to carbohydrates and gave them names like Pancakes No. 5 and her videos, in which she and her friends recite things she’s overheard such as: “ I realized I eat quinoa all the time, and I don’t know what it is,” have caught the attention of the art world.
She spends about eight to 12 hours a day in her Brooklyn studio working on food projects depicting the sensual promises of chain restaurants including ‘Olive Garden of Eden’.
What’s the idea behind her carb heavy and highly caloric work?
“Part of it is how women are addressed in the media, like ‘You want to lose weight, you want to be healthy, you want to be the best you.’ For men, it’s like ‘Enjoy yourself’. For women, it’s like, ‘Cut Back’. And it truly affects us,” said Wise in New York magazine.
I think her approach to capturing the millions of contradictory messages being shot at us daily is necessary and so needed especially in the wake ofMick Mulvaney, President Trump’s budget chief’s recent comments.
In response to Senator Bill Cassidy’s position that any health insurance should pass the “Jimmy Kimmel test” (providing coverage for conditions like the heart issues suffered by TV comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s infant son that Kimmel described on his late night show), Mulvaney said that, while there should be coverage for diseases like cancer, coverage does not need to include “ordinary health care.” According to the Washington Examiner, Mick Mulvaney, President Trump’s budget chief, , diabetics have only themselves to blame for their illness:
“That doesn’t mean we should take care of the person who sits at home, eats poorly and gets diabetes.” said Mulvaney. “Is that the same thing as Jimmy Kimmel’s kid? I don’t think that it is.”
It’s shocking to me that anyone, let alone, a government official would make such an absurd and offensive comment. I’m not living under a rock. I know many people still blame people with diabetes for their health but I just didn’t expect to hear in this forum.
For the past 12 years, I’ve been fighting the shame and blame associated with a diabetes diagnosis the best way I know how; with a feather boa!
My diabetes nonprofit organization, Divabetic promotes a glamorous approach to managing diabetes to encourage someone at risk, affected by and living with diabetes ‘to keep their house’ a home and prevent a diabetes health-related complication from occurring. I saw how destructive mismanaged diabetes can be when I found my former boss, Luther Vandross on the floor of his 5th Avenue apartment after suffering a stroke related to type 2 diabetes. These memories still haunt me to this day and motivate me to keep fighting!
I really like artist Chloe Wise and her ‘Bread Bags’ artwork. I thinks she’s helping us change conversations around food, food consumption and the shame and blame associated with it. She’s pointing out the subversive ways the food industry operates and how they like to play with our minds to get us to consume more and more food. Several of her works focus on thesubliminal sexual connotations of phrases like “luscious cream sauce” and dripping, oozing and naughty images used in chain restaurant advertisements. When you really stop and think about it, it’s pretty gross.
Unfortunately, a lot of people with diabetes don’t get the opportunity to think about these types of things because they’re too busy beating themselves up about their food choices and/or lack of ‘willpower.’
I say, ‘Don’t get down, get DIVA’. The best way to fight back is to embrace yourself, and your diabetes health. Once you truly accept your diagnosis you can strive to learn more, do more and live more!
Divabetic’s Diabetes Plate Poetry “What’ s on Your Plate?” video describes the emotional experience of living with diabetes. An important component of diabetes self-management, but often unaddressed, is the topic of emotional well being.
Are you afraid of eating Carbohydrates?
“Every day, people with diabetes are bombarded with messages to limit, restrict, avoid, and feel guilty for eating carbohydrates. Not surprisingly, my clients with diabetes often tell me they are afraid of eating carbs.” says Megrette Fletcher, M. Ed, RD, CDE.
So how does someone with diabetes stop being afraid of eating carbohydrates?
Restriction breeds fear and fear breeds restriction
If you are trying to be “good,” it’s a red flag that you may be stuck in a restrictive mindset. The idea of being “good” often start as an intention to make more informed choices, but when the reason you’re trying to “be good” is out of fear, something shifts. Fear can make any choice not good enough because fear moves the goal of eating a balanced meal to a meal that is better. “Better” of course means eating fewer and fewer carbohydrates until you have nearly eliminated carbohydrates from your diet, hoping that the fear of eating would end. But it doesn’t, does it?
Pause and ask yourself, “Do I think all foods can fit in your diet when you have diabetes?” Fear and being afraid, makes it hard to think, read a label, consider your options, or make a decision. In Megrette’s book Eat What You Love, Love What You Eat with Diabetes, she tackle how to resolve some of these difficult thoughts about food and eating. READ MORE
CLICK to LISTEN NOW: The State of Women’s Health on the Diabetes Late Nite. We’re talking about the state of women’s equality and diabetes and sexual health post-election. Guests include: Dr. Andrea Chisholm OBGYN, Peak 10 Skincare founder and Domestic Violence Advocate Connie Elder, Poet Lorraine Brooks, Mary Ann Hodorowicz RD, CDE, Asha Brown, and the President of Women in Government Relations, Kathryn Schubert.
Megrette is a mindful eating expert and registered dietitian and diabetes educator in practice. She is the president and co-founder of the Center for Mindful Eating.
What do I eat?” As a diabetes educator and dietitian, Megrette Fletcher, MEd, RD, CDE, admits that she’s asked this question every day – and even more so during the holidays! Mindful eating isn’t about eating a specific food or limiting yourself to a set number of calories or nutrients. It is about becoming curious and aware so you can make conscious decisions.
Many people react mindlessly to their thoughts. In other words, they re-act—repeating past actions again and again—feeling powerless to change says Megrette’s co-author, Michelle May MD. “For many people, eating is a mindless reaction to their unrecognized or unexamined thoughts. However, your thoughts are just thoughts. Thinking a thought doesn’t make it true or important, or require you to act on it. In fact, a thought doesn’t even need to provoke a specific feeling,” says Dr. May.
Mindfulness is awareness of what is happening in the present moment—including awareness of thoughts—without any attachment to whatever you notice. Mindfulness is helpful because it creates space between thoughts and actions. By increasing your awareness of your thoughts, you can begin to break old automatic or habitual chain reactions between your triggers, thoughts, feelings, and actions.
Each time you choose not to activate your old trigger-thought-feeling-action-result sequences, you weaken the connections. It’s as if the wires rust and eventually break. Further, each time you choose a different action, you create a new connection. With repetition, you’ll hardwire these new pathways—like insulating the wiring. Your new thoughts and responses become your new habits.
Shame is a harmful emotion that is often felt by the young and old, especially when you are trying to manage your diabetes during the holidays. By undertstanding the ingredients that set you up for overeating, you can create the perfect recipe for success and healthy, happy holidays!
Recipe for Overeating by Michelle May M.D.
Ingredients:
1 batch, bag, box, or large plate of food
2 tablespoons of deprivation
1 heaping teaspoon of guilt
Sprinkle of shame
Optional: fatigue, stress, resentment, loneliness, boredom
Studies confirm that some people do gain significant weight during the holidays. Who are those people? They’re the ones who worry about their weight, who try to restrict their intake of holiday goodies only to overeat them out of feelings of deprivation and then guilt. The same studies show that people who don’t worry about their weight don’t put on significant pounds during the holidays.
LISTEN: December’s Diabetes Late Nite podcast with guest, Megrette Fletcher scheduled for Tuesday, December 13, 2016, 6 PM, EST. Hosted by Mr. Divabetic. Enjoy music from Leona Lewis’ “Christmas, with Love” album courtesy of SONY Music.
