Wednesday, May 2, 2012

Planning my day while living as a Diabetic


As I sit here with my coffee I am trying to plan my day of eating. I am going to be out and about all day and most of my grab and go favorites are carbohydrate heavy. Typically I might carry ...

A Banana
A bagel
Crackers

...and by themselves none of those choices are ideal. I stare at the refrigerator...cheese, ham (more cured meat)broccoli, corned beef(uncooked..and cured) Duck pancetta (more cured meat) bacon...oh yea we are seeing a pattern here, sausage...uh hu, cheese, preserved lemons, flours for breadmaking, yeast, sour cream, and peanut. Okay....

Freezer, puff pastry, tortillas, more sausage, bread, goose liver, duck liver, veal liver.

It is clear I am going to have to do some more shopping but for today peanuts are the best grab and go item.

For breakfast I had grapes, cheese and...ham, yet another cured meat.

I realize what I am doing. I am not a big meat eater and the ones I like tend to be rich in either fat or flavor. I go for seafood or duck or cured meat. If I were eating normally I would have a pasta with a lot of vegetables and maybe a little duck pancetta, or a loaf of bread (not on this diet) with some gorgeous liver spread on it and a big salad. These cured meats I am drawn to are big in flavor and I use as a seasoning vs. a meal.

As I look at the Dieticians suggestions I see an enormous amount of chicken breast (yuck)and some steamed fish.

I have a lecture I am attending about living with type II diabetes and hope to draw some inspiration from that.

Post Lecture: No inspiration, in fact my questions confused them. When some of the dietary issues came up regarding percentages and fats I asked on what studies were they basing their advice. They were not prepared to 'waste a lot of time on facts, and sources and things.'

To me common wisdom is often just common and I want to get to the root of the reason.

Today that did not occur. I did munch my emergency peanuts but despite being calorie filled they were not going to take me to diner.

Starving afterwards I made for the St. Francis, my favorite diner in San Francisco for a nice safe Tuna Melt on Rye. For a side I had a cup of bean chili and ate 1/4 of it unsure about my total carb grams.

Then off to Chinatown for some more of those live red shrimp. I was sharing them with my friends Arthur and Cathy and wanting them to get some of these awesome fresh shrimp before the season is over.

Steam fried with a lot of seasoning and a little bit of garlic I served them with Chinese broccoli. They had brown rice and I skipped it in favor of two ounces of olive bread.(yea I weighed my bread), it was 20 grams of carbohydrate and I did not want to go over. 1/2 ounce of chocolate and a small glass of wine and I was done.

My carbs were 22% of my diet. I am not supposed to go under 22, nor above 35 with my goal at 33. Imagine eating this way for the rest of your life. Shrimp and Tuna put my protein through the roof in a good way.2,159 calories.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It is sad how bland and boring the medical/dietician recommendations are. I don't quite understand it.

I know you come at this as a chef; have you seen some of the Prevention/Rodale publications on diet and diabetes? They have some pretty good recipes,and explanations of how to plan. Diet plans like South Beach (low but not no-carb) could surely be a good base to start from, too.
I'm no chef, but once past the few days of jump-start, meals are much less boring than the dietician plans.
I'm fascinated with your struggle; how much harder it is for ordinary folks who don't much like to cook in the first place, or, as you say, are low-income.
Cheryl