Skip to main content

Turning Over To A New Chapter

I am not new to the blogging world! I have been blogging off and on for many years.  I did savings  and homeschooling posts over at Glimpse of Sonshine.  Over the last several years, I have been taking a sabbatical with blogging due to my schedule. I am no longer homeschooling so continuing to blog over at Glimpse of Sonshine did not seem logical. So I decided that it was time to move on and start another chapter on a new blog.

I hope to keep a consistent dialogue of posts moving forward as I want to start this as more as a journal of daily life for me. 

Daily life for me has recently changed due to just recently being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes as an adult in her late 40s.  I am not shocked in the least due to both of my parents having the same diagnosis at the about the same age as me. I am not shocked in the least due to having no outright symptoms of diabetes but looking back now and seeing that some symptoms were there just thought they were related to something else.

That something else is I have a high intolerance/allergy to artificial sweeteners.  It does not matter what kind of artificial sweeteners, sucralose, aspertame, saccharin, etc. They all cause me severe headaches to the point of not functioning.  So how is a person with Type 2 diabetes going to survive without having sugar if she can't use the artificial sweeteners?  The answer is very carefully! I can still have that piece of cake or a couple of small cookies with them having sugar in them. I just have to be careful on the size of them!


Now one might be wondering what about stevia?  Can't you use stevia?  There is no calories in stevia and it is the next best "natural" sugar! Stevia will help with your glucose intolerance.  Did you know that the stevia plant is in the same family as ragweed?  Did you know that if you are allergic to ragweed, which I am, that you are at higher risk for being allergic to stevia? So I have tried stevia to see if it would work for me.  I can honestly say, it does NOT work for me. I am not about to go into anaphylactic shock due to eating stevia. Having the tingling tongue and feeling itchy and even having a headache for eating stevia is not my idea of a good time. 

So what does living with Type 2 diabetes "look" like for a person like me? After doing some research on my own and meeting with a registered dietitian to talk about my options, I feel like I have a plan that I can stick to for the long term.  It will all be about counting carbs but not doing low-carb/keto diet. It will also be counting calories as I have about 50 pounds to shed to help my body deal with glucose intolerance.  Less weight means less insulin my body needs to make.  

With the need being there to count calories, it will be relatively easy for me to lean towards eating things with less sugar. So the need to use sugar will be less as well. I will still eat things with sugar in them but will do so in moderation or sparsely. 

I have been doing this diet changes for the last month and I am already noticing changes in my body.  I have lost five pounds in last month! I wished that I had done some body measurements before making the changes as I am sure that I have lost some inches too!  

There is a few more tweaks that I need to do with my diet changes and I am sure that it will help in my overall goal.  One of those tweaks is decreasing the amount of sweet tea that I drink in a day. Right now, I would say that two-12oz cups of sweet tea a day is not helping my overall goals. I make the sweet tea myself so I have already changed the sugar amount in it where it is not as sweet as it could be for sweet tea.  

Here are my summer goals. I am going to use them as topics for more posts here so that I can update my progress.  

Summer Goals: 
  1. Drink less sweet tea!
  2. Get moving....walking 2 miles at least 4 times per week!
  3. Keep calories in count with no more than 1800 per day!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chicken Pot Pie

One of my newly found favorite meals is chicken pot pie and homemade bread ! Aside from chocolate, I classify it as a comfort food! I love taking the bits and pieces of leftover veggies and chicken and using them to make something so comforting. There has been times though where I just make up chicken pot pie from scratch because there is no leftovers to be found to make up the pot pie. I know how to make pie crust from scratch but sometimes it is just nice to be able to take a box of ready made out of the freezer to put this dish together. It just can make life so much easier especially when you find them on discount for $1 per box and you have a coupon making them 50¢ a box! It is quicker to use a bag of frozen mixed veggies when making this dish, however, I usually do not have any on hand so I use fresh carrots and potatoes that I dice up and cook together in a pot until tender. I drain them but reserved the water just in case I need more liquid for the pot pie. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Frugal Tips On Buying Meat

***After taking the time to read, Miserly Moms by Jonni McCoy, I have decided to post about some of my "miserly" ways! I know that there are many websites, blogs, and books for that matter that share how to have a frugal/thrifty mindset already but each one does things a bit differently to suit their needs. So I figured that I wouldn't be stepping on anyone's toes if I shared some thoughts as well.*** --Chicken and turkey are usually less expensive, but contain more protein and nutrients than many other meats. They are also lower in saturated fats and cholesterol than many meats . --Save money by cutting a whole chicken into parts yourself. You can do this or just watch ads for when then different chicken pieces are on sale. Around here I can get drumsticks and thighs for 99 cents/lb. I can also get whole chickens for 99 cents/lb. Bone-in chicken breasts are usually on sale around here for $1.29/lb and when they are I usually will snag several packs. I cook the bo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Chicken Taco Salad

We are not much of a salad family. I don't make many pasta salads or green leafy type salads on a regular basis. Usually our "salad" consists of a plate filled with raw carrots and a bowl of ranch dressing! However, my favorite salad is my homemade chicken taco salad! When I make my Taco Bar night I always try to make more chicken taco meat than what we will need so that I can use it for a leftover lunch or two during the following days. I love the fact that making this salad I am using leftovers and it doesn't require much in the way of heating up! This salad tastes great cold or warm. Chicken Taco Salad 3 boneless/skinless chicken breast, cooked & cubed 2 TBSP taco seasoning 1/4-1/3 cup mild taco sauce Combine altogether. The taco sauce I use instead of water so that the chicken doesn't taste dried out. To make the salad: Layer the following on a plate: tortilla chips or crushed taco shells chicken meat shredded cheddar...
Post a Comment
Read more