2) TYPE 2 DIABETES CONTROL
e) Specifics of How a Person can Live Long with Type 2 Diabetes
1) Essential for a Person with Type 2 Diabetes, the "three legs of the stool":
a) Weight Control: get to target weight by reducing "calories in" below "calories out".
i) weigh yourself every day
ii) find a low refined carbohydrate, low saturated fat, low calorie diet that you can live with the rest of your life.
iii) calculate and record your daily calorie intake. Find a calorie intake where you lose about 1 pound per 100 pounds of body weight per week.
iv) get the weight down to the range of "low normal" to "high normal"b) Exercise
i) do resistance anaerobic exercise on a regular basis to build up muscle mass and raise metabolism, thus lowering weight
ii) do regular vigorous aerobic exercise for at least 50 minutes at least three times a week for heart health
iii) exercise at least once a day to keep the insulin resistance low
(if aerobic exercise is done 4 times a week and anaerobic exercise is done 3 times a week, all three requirements are met)c) Diet: because this list is so long people tend to think it is more important than weight control and exercise. It isn't! Weight control and exercise are more important than diet.
i) eat no trans fat or deep fried foods
ii) do not add salt to food and avoid salty foods such as olives and pickles.
iii) do not drink non-diet sodas, natural fruit juices, sugared teas or sugared coffees, or anything with high fructose corn syrup in it
iv) do not eat the "white stuff", namely high glycemic refined grain based carbohydrate foods (rice, potatoes, popcorn, flour products, most breads, pizza, crackers, corn flour, baked goods, cakes, most pastas, cookies, sugar, candy, potato chips, most "snack foods", most "whole wheat" or "whole grain" products)
v) avoid dried fruit, melons and tropical fruits such as bananas and pineapple.
vi) eat only small amounts of apples, pears, peaches, cherries and berries.
vii) eat only small amounts of complex high fiber unrefined grain carbohydrates at any given time (50% fiber cereal, "100% whole grain" products, old fashioned stove top oatmeal).
viii) rarely eat only small amounts of "lean" red meats (beef, pork, dark meat chicken or dark meat turkey), eggs and fatted dairy products
ix) eat moderate amounts of very high fiber carbohydrate vegetable foods; kernel corn, beans, nuts, peas and carrots
x) eat lots of white meat chicken or white meat turkey .
xi) eat lots of fish, especially trout, salmon and albacore (white) tuna
xii ) eat unlimited amounts of low carbohydrate vegetables and salads (especially spinach, broccoli and brussels sprouts)
xiii) eat a maximum of 25 to 100 grams of digestable vegetable based carbohydrates per day for each 100 pounds of body weight (just enough to avoid ketosis while maintaining sufficient dietary variety to maintain compliance)
xiv) get two blood glucose monitors and regularly take your blood glucose readings, record them and your food intake (food, calories and carbohydrate) in a diary
2) Sometimes Essential:a) Take insulin injections, medications for cholesterol lowering and/or medications for blood pressure
3) Beneficial for a person with Type 2 Diabetes:
a) take oral diabetes medications as recommended by your doctor (some experts list this as a fourth leg, we do not list this as a "leg" for reasons we will go into in the next chapter).
b) use phytosterol butter substitute on bread and vegetables
c) get a blood pressure monitor and regularly check blood pressure
d) take fish oil supplements
e) take flax seed oil capsules and use flax seed salad dressings
f) take two 75 mg aspirin per day
g) take liquid magnesium supplements (Epsom salts) regularly
h) take moderate amounts of vitamins C, D and E (2 to 5 times the Daily Value [DV] as prescribed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration)
i) try to keep stress low (easier said than done)
Of course stopping smoking belongs at the top of the list, just as stopping any addiction such as alcoholism or cocaine use would also top the list. We didn't list these factors above as smoking or addiction really aren't part of the diabetes disease picture per se. They just add their own considerable medical problems to all the medical problems associated with diabetes. Smoking is very damaging to the heart and the deaths from type 2 diabetes are linked to heart disease in 70% to 80% of the cases. So the negative effects that smoking will have with type 2 diabetes are obvious. Of course we all know about the crazy smoker with emphysema and lung disease who is on oxygen and who puffs on a cigarette between puffs of oxygen! This type of addiction dies hard. But a type 2 diabetic who smokes is doing just about the same thing as the emphysema or lung cancer victim who continues to smoke, it is just not as obvious. For a type 2 diabetic to smoke is just pouring gasoline on a fire.
All the experts agree that the actions that prevent diabetes from developing in the first place are exactly the actions that are most healthy for someone who has received a diagnosis of diabetes. Most of these experts agree that being overweight, having a sedentary life style and diet (eating too much refined carbohydrate, trans fat and saturated fat) are the three most important factors causing the type 2 diabetes epidemic sweeping the United States. So, obviously, the way to treat type 2 diabetes becomes the three legs of the stool: losing weight, exercise, and diet control (calories, refined carbohydrates and saturated fats). It also has to be emphasized that all the recommendations that we make for living long with a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes are identical to what the experts recommend for everyone, diabetic or not diabetic! So everything that is written in this book applies to individuals without diabetes, with pre-diabetes, or with diabetes, anyone who wants to live a long healthy life.
This Chapter 2) TYPE 2 DIABETES CONTROL
a) Introduction
b) The Range of Severity of Diabetes
c) Current Expectations for a Person with Type 2 Diabetes
d) Summary of How a Person with Severe Type 2 Diabetes can Live Long
e) Specifics of How a Person with Severe Type 2 Diabetes can Live Long
f) A Fatal Error: Relying on Diabetes Medication
g) The Consequences of not Controlling the Disease
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