Food!

I love food. Good food. Salads and other raw veggies, fruit, skinless chicken breast. I even love some not-so-good food. Hmmm, chicken wings, chocolate chip cookies to name a couple. When it comes to living with type 2 diabetes or any diabetes type for that matter, our food choices are so important. The foods we choose can help us to live more healthy with our diabetes or they can do the opposite.

Food is inherently healthy. We need food to survive. The type of foods we choose and the quantity we eat are within most of our control. For some of us living with diabetes, we had to make the decision to eat less. I know I did. It wasn’t just about eating less, it was also about what I was choosing to eat less of. It is fair to say prior to my diagnosis, my eating habits were not great. If I’m being honest, they were crappy. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the knowledge to know what to choose, I did. I just made poor choices without EVER thinking there would be health consequences. It was pretty easy to forget that I’d had gestational diabetes with my last child because that was a number of years ago. I knew I had packed on some weight too but when you’re only thinking of today, the future seems distant, less important. The weight gain caused me to pause and think occasionally about my health but because it didn’t affect my self-esteem in a major way (or did it?) again, it was easy to ignore.

Food is at the center of our diabetes

I think we can all agree that we live in a world where food is the center of just about everything. Food is the start of many life events. Many business meetings, many first dates, many weddings are planned around food. Food is what brings friends together. Food is also at the center of our diabetes. Our choices become so very important. As I was reading the latest type2diabetes.com web pages, I realized my healthy eating was getting pretty boring. I know when I’m bored, I revert back to the old ways. Let’s face it, eating nutritionally crappy foods tastes great in the short run. In the long run, there are consequences. As I continued to read all the recipes on this website, I started to giggle to myself. Being somewhat of a conspiracy theorist I thought the RDs are out to get me, to make me, or keep me healthy. They have been publishing some very new recipes with new (to me) ingredients that pique my interest. I find myself not bored anymore. Some of the recipes are things I would make for my family, some I would not. My family isn’t too adventurous with new foods on a daily basis. And that’s ok. I can use some of the new recipes for my lunches. I can use some of the recipes for my bigger family gatherings. I can use them when friends come over. It’s all good and relieves my boredom.

I could be wrong but I don’t think many of us have perfect eating habits all the time. Sometimes we just need knowledgeable creative people (sneaky RDs) to light a spark under our butts so we can keep going when our diabetes gets the toughest, so we don’t revert back to our old ways and sabotage all the positive changes we have made.

We need food. We need healthy food to stay healthy with our diabetes. New foods can be a really good way to stay interested in eating healthy. Try making some new food. Let me know how that goes for you.