The story so far.....

Welcome to a new experiment folks.

I am a recently diagnosed diabetic. I am in my late twenties and relatively fit so the diagnosis of diabetes came as quite a shock, but I didn't argue when it put me in the hospital. I hadn’t been feeling well for about a week but had dismissed it as coming down with a virus. Then it progressed to something very like the flu but without any accompanying fever. Within 48 hours of the new symptoms, I could hardly move. My body stopped responding to the commands I was giving it. I was supposed to go to a doctor’s appointment but couldn’t even make myself sit up to put on shoes. I only made it to the hospital at all because my wife had stayed home from work that day and was there to drive me in. More precisely, she put my shoes on, dragged me off the floor and half carried me down the stairs to the car.

Several doctors and a few bags of IV saline later, I was in the ICU and on the road to recovery. They’d hooked me up to an insulin drip and now we knew what I had although it wasn’t under control yet. Things were starting to look up.

The dietician came in the next morning and the other shoe dropped. She talked about carbohydrates being the main problem, not sugar in and of itself. All of a sudden, I felt like I couldn’t eat anything. Everything started to look like poison and a future diet appeared bleak and bland. My body had betrayed me and there wasn’t anything I could do about it.

I wasn’t in the best place mentally at that point.

I started reading the literature that she brought me and looking at the nutrition labels of anything that came within reach. Some of that was reflex, some of it was that it’s not in my nature to give up. Ever. It doesn’t matter what the odds are or how dire things look, I’m just not capable of rolling over and dying. So I started looking at meals and seeing where I could make changes. Slowly, I started to see what I could eat and in what quantities. I started thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas and what those meals would look like while still being able to eat the things I’ve always liked.

Every additional thing I discovered that I could eat felt like something I got back. I could still eat pasta. Pies were going to be problematic but might be workable. I could still have wine! Everything was a gift. I started looking at things from the perspective of choice. I came to the following conclusion:

I always have a choice.

I could choose to ignore the dietary recommendations. I could choose not to take the insulin. I could choose to make no changes at all. I just had to be willing to live with the consequences of those choices. Unfortunately for me, the consequences for those choices often ended in re-hospitalization or death on my part. That just wasn’t going to happen. By the same token, I could choose to let diabetes control me or I could take the reins and make my own road.

I’d been given broad guidelines in terms of what a balanced diet looked like but there weren’t any prohibitions. There wasn’t anyone standing over my shoulder telling me that I could only eat certain foods that had been prepared in certain ways. After we got home, I started going through the cookbooks we had on hand, about half a dozen, and planning meals for the following two weeks. I decided to do what I’ve always done: Confound pre-existing conceptions.

All of which brings us to the purpose for these blatherings. I've always liked to cook; I just didn’t do it much. Now I had a good reason. I choose to eat well. Here you’ll see what I’ve been making and how that fits into a healthy diet. Not just for a diabetic, but an overall healthy diet. I’ll talk about which recipes work for me and things I would change.

Time to head down the trail. I’ve got the reins and I’m ready to ride.

:: Malloreth out ::