For those that have not read my blog
and the link from yesterday, here is another link that lists many of
the diabetes bad habits I have covered, but explains them
differently. This brings me to the habits for this blog.
Not tracking your blood glucose
If you don't keep track of your sugar levels and report them to your
doctor, your doctor may not be able to figure out which diabetes
drugs are working best for you. This is because many diabetic
medications vary in terms of pharmacodynamics (how a drug influences
a diabetic's body) and pharmacokinetics (how your body responds to
the drug). If your medication can’t be assessed, you can’t
successfully manage your diabetes. Yes, the doctor has your A1c and
other tests, but without the daily blood glucose readings, he only
has a general knowledge and whether you are doing great or poorly in
your management of diabetes.
Sloppy carb counting or not
correctly recording the carbs consumed Accurate carb counting is
critical to good diabetes management on any level. Sloppy carb
counting if you are on insulin can be dangerous. With hypoglycemia
and hyperglycemia being the result, guesstimating the number of carbs
you will be eating can lead to incorrect injection of insulin.
I will be the first to admit that even
reading the labels on food and calculating carbs from ingredients is
still a crap shoot because of the errors that are allowed on labels
and the USDA database used by many carbohydrate calculators. Now
before becoming too discouraged, using labels and information from
the USDA database is still preferable to guessing. A digital scale
also helps when cooking foods.
Binge eating Many people with
diabetes have this bad habit and this promotes other bad habits like
overeating snacks and having food quantities that cause blood glucose
levels to become too high. I recently watched a person with type 2
diabetes eating almost an entire plate of all white foods – bread,
potatoes, and rice. There was not another color as in vegetables on
the plate. He was not in insulin and we don't know what medication
he was using, as he would not tell us.
Skipping meals Many people with
type 2 diabetes do not consider this a bad habit. Yet they take
their oral medication. This is dangerous and if a medication causes
hypoglycemia, then it is even more dangerous. If you are a person
that does this, you should have a talk with your doctor urgently.
The doctor should be able to suggest when or when not to take your
medication.
Emotional eating Here again
people let their emotions take over and seek out foods that they
would normally not consume and then proceed to overeat. Yes, they
seek out comfort foods and these are often high carbohydrate foods.
Emotional eating often occurs with stress, depression, death of a
family member, and other emotional happenings. Even positive
feelings and happy times can lead to emotional eating, though rarely.
Avoiding fish in favor of red meat
Now this may not be a bad thing, but many doctors consider this a
bad habit, as do most registered dietitians nutritionists (RDNs).
This is because they follow the high carbohydrate/low fat food plan.
While we should eat more fish for the nutrients, many people never do
and are living well despite what doctors and RDNs like to believe and
promote. The saturated fat in red meat does not give us cause for
concern any longer.
To avoid the bad habits of diabetes,
develop a positive attitude, and a routine that you can follow and
make a habit. Good habits that become ingrained and almost automatic
can help you when burnout happens and even during minor depression.
They can also help in avoiding most of the other bad habits. I can
not guarantee this, but this had helped me.
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