Living as a Diabetic Day 4

Purple Food.

If you live in Harlem and do not have purple food at the local C-Town, print this in, take it to the manager and let him or her know that you want more selections in Harlem.


Watch the raisin consumption, they are high in sugar. But you can eat Kohlrabi greens with impunity. Dr. Culpepper at Harlem Hospital tells all of her patients to put a lot of color on their plate, and what color is more fun that purple?

Before I get to today's breakfast let me share a recipe for Split Pea Soup. This soup warms the body and soul. This version has no fat, less sodium and all of the tasty goodness of the more traditions.

Pass by the Ham hocks, they taste great but are high in fat. Choose either smoked turkey wings or Smoked Neck bones.  Toss in some garlic and simmer for hours in about 16 cups of water with a few garlic cloves thrown in.

Split Pea Soup
12 cups of stock made from smoked turkey or neck bones, chilled with the fat removed.

6 stalks of celery chopped fine.

1 lb of split peas.

Add the peas and the celery to the stock and simmer. Add water as needed to maintain 12 cups. Simmer for about 3 hours. This will give you about 9 nice bowls of soup at slightly over one cup each.

Per bowl you will be getting 30 grams of carbohydrate (pair with protein for a meal) and 12 grams of fiber or 48% of what you need daily.

Bonus...this is seriously delicious and all that fiber makes you feel full.

And onto breakfast...coffee with goat milk is a given and that was followed by 2 cups of cubed watermelon and a small portion of chicken hash.

I used the one small potato I roasted with the chicken and 1/4 cup fennel along with 1/2 cup chicken. I cooked in a nonstick with the tiniest drop of oil and the hash was delicious.

66 grams of carb but fewer than 400 calories. I should be eating more calories in the morning but it is hard for me to make the non carby choices. When not following this a common breakfast was toasted baguette, butter, fruit and a little cheese. AKA fat and carbs. When I eat otherwise, I reach satiation very quickly.

51 grams of carb at lunch. I had a portion of the split pea soup and a tiny tortilla with 1 ounce of cheese and one ounce of meat done as a quessadilla in a non stick skillet with no fat added. I am under where I should be with calories but I feel satisfied and tend to have more calories at dinner after a heavy bout at the gym. At my age and condition the bouts are less heavy but the work twice as hard so off I go.

Bread; I have several favorite foods, bread, pasta, and rice are at the top of the list.

On the way home I decided that I would have a cold supper, I have a lot going on and was running late and cold roast chicken is a lovely meal, but I stopped at the store for my goat milk and it is opposite the bread. A little bread with my meal would be a good thing I rationalized and before I knew what day it was I had purchased a mini ciabbata.

I repeated the tomato salad with the yogurt ranch dressing (alright you convinced me this herby mixture is very good)sliced the rest of the fennel, chopped up a cup of cabbage and 1/2 cup roast chicken.

I was careful about the bread, 1/3 of the loaf (more of a roll by my standards) had 26 grams of carb, so I cut it, wrapped it and put it away.

When I say that fiber makes you feel full, I am not kidding. I ate the cabbage and fennel first dipping it in the dressing and could only manage 1/2 the tomato, though I did eat all the bread with some butter.

I did have a glass of wine, something that works for some diabetics but always watch your sugar.

Dinner came to 41 grams of carb, all very good. My day was more balanced that previously and my nutrition and fiber were higher, however I only managed 1,492 calories. Not enough for me. If you are trying to lose weight learn from my day...the more fiber you eat the more satisfied you feel and less chance of colon cancer.

Living as a Diabetic Day 3

Many of you remember the event back in May and since that day I have had e mail and remarks on the site about the program. If you want to get the start up date write to harlemhospitalcenter@nychhc.org and ask them for the official start date for 'Stirring the Pot'. 


For those who want to see photos of the event you can visit http://www.stirringthepotharlem.com/ 

Take note not only of the beautiful crowd and our friends at the Central Harlem Senior Center but check out all the folks to my side, in the kitchen, and running back and forth. The propped me up and did everything I could not. All I had to do was season and stir and talk a little bit. It was our extraordinary volunteers who did all the heavy lifting and I could not have even approached this without their help. If you are one of their patients send out a little love to Dr. Rhonda Trousdale for creating the program, Dr. Joan Culpepper-Morgan for pushing it along, and Bariatric surgeon Dr. Leaque Ahmed for taking it to the next level. 


Those classes everyone keeps asking me about are coming.

I am sitting here with a big smile on my face. I love the people of Harlem and seeing those photos again puts me in a good mood.

I finally had a breakfast in balance. I finished off the ham, had the 3/4 cup of cherries and a medium 100% whole wheat pita, along with my coffee and goat milk. 41 grams of carbohydrate. Honestly it is now noon and I still feel stuffed.

However I understand the importance of not skipping meals so I will have something before proceeding out to exercise.

I finally ate and lunch provided a very decent 41 grams of carb. I used the last bit of rice and pork with a little added cabbage and soy sauce. (If you need to watch sodium use soy sauce sparingly)

Without question some more vegetables are needed but thus far I've done pretty nicely.

I did get a question in my e mail box about diabetes and bariatric surgery. It is true that if a diabetic has this surgery they often can stop insulin. However this is an option only to be considered by the seriously overweight diabetics and you must keep in mind that you need to be scrupulous about your diet post surgery.Speaking of which, Stirring the Pot will have classes specifically for pre-and post surgery bariatric patients. They are a center of excellence in Bariatric Surgery so if you are considering it, talk to them.

For a snack I had a cup of chicken soup, not because I was hungry but my asthma today has been horrible.Soup helps.

Because I had made it a while back and froze it, I actually took the noodles out of the
broth with a slotted spoon to measure them. My snacks are supposed to max out at 15 grams of carb and this came in at 20 but I ate it anyway. As a result I am breathing better, so to me, the 5 grams were worth it.

I had one ounce of cheddar as a second snack. After the gym and time at my local farmer's market I was hungry and needed a bite to tide me over while I made dinner.

Many chefs talk about farm to table, and some do butcher whole animals and buy directly from farmers, while others just mean fresh food. I take it literally.

This was my salad. I've had more than one request to check out Ranch dressing and let people know which was the healthiest. I must confess that prior to being asked about it, I had never tasted Ranch. When I looked at the ingredients I discovered that the flavoring was just onion and herb but the dressing tended towards having a lot of sugar, especially the non-fat. For the most part a lot of garbage ingredients. I finally found a dry version that only contained the seasoning. To me the fat free version is obvious, I mixed a little of the seasoning with fat free Greek yogurt. Voila fat free Ranch.

I dolloped it atop a sliced tomato with shaved fennel and had a beautiful, fresh from the farm summer salad.

I roasted some potatoes and a zucchini along with a baby artichoke at the base of the chicken. Notice the eye at the right, my chicken was directly farm to table.

I prefer the male chicken, (you didn't think I would call it a cock and have you laughing at every taste reference did you?) It has a deeper richer flavor. In most groceries even the organic chicken tends to be a hen, if you want a more flavorful chicken you can ask your farmer for a male and specify age, old birds make great soup.

I had the wings, the zucchini, the artichoke and yes rice. I love rice and measured the portion carefully, to have my one cup. I maxed out my carbs at dinner but what a dinner it was. I have a lot of tasty leftovers to enjoy and soup on the stove.

My total carbs were 169 for the day. Under my 180 limit. My calories were 1,628 and my balance was good. I still need more fiber and few more more nutrient dense foods, but overall it was a good day. Most important, everything was delicious and I felt satisfied.



 

Living as a Diabetic Day 2

I ate too little at breakfast. I have no appetite and had two plums, a little ham and my coffee. 18 grams of carb; with a target of 45 to 60 I did not make the best choices.

I got a flat tire on my motorbike and pushed it 14 blocks to the repair station and was ravenous by lunchtime. I repaired to the St. Francis Diner on 24th to eat. They make great burgers, really great burgers, with carmelized onion and mayonnaise. It is possible to have a great burger without fries.

I could have asked for a green salad, or some fruit. I knew that a hamburger bun of this size was about 20 grams of carb, and that the onion would add some, as would the tomato so I went for the fries and ate half. Can I tell you how hard it was to stop eating. Ultimately I ate one cup of fries, about 75% of the bun (I trimmed off the outside edges)and all of everything else.

Be aware that if you use ketchup on the fries or the burger on average it will contain 15 grams of carbohydrate. Ketchup is largely sugar. Ketchup = Fewer fries. 

When I got home I anxiously counted it all up. 45 grams of carb. I did it. had I eaten the entire order of fries and all of the bun it would have been a very bad meal.

You can have a burger and fries (just not at McDonald's.) if you use extraordinary willpower and not finish the plate.

Dinner was again pork belly...(what I made a lot) but I had less rice and added in one cup of broccoli to up my nutrition and fiber content.

Dinner...51 grams of carb, well within my zone.

While not a day in perfect balance I did better and kept my calories within range.