Springtime Renewal and Diabetes Management

During the spring, I mean, just the word spring thinks, oh, it's a new beginning, it's going to be when I'm going to change my life, I'm going to do this, and I do tend to, so this spring I've decided that I am going to cut out my chocolates, I'm going to have chocolate because I actually love it but I will have 70% dark chocolate which is under the guidelines of how much I can eat and I've decided also that I'm going to start weighing my food so I understand my portion controls to help me I'm going to start going out and my mission is to this spring is to join Kew Gardens where I can see the spring flowers and the bulbs coming out because that always makes me feel happy during the beginning of spring and I can see the changes of different flowers flowering in the springtime. So I feel I'm really positive, I want to make changes and I feel more upbeat and really happy to be able to say right I'm starting this and I'm going to continue this throughout the exercise starts you've been hibernating like for example I was hibernating most of the winter the weather was awful but now it's spring I'm ready to go out rain or shine I'm meeting a friend meeting friends that were making plans together this is what we're going to do this week the following week so it's motivation encouragement from each other because although she's not diabetic but she is really health conscious and I will bring maybe a picnic of things and she won't eat them she said no no and then I don't eat them because I know it's not good for me so she's a real motivator for me and we plan to do lots of things this spring to really enjoy the new blossoms that are blooming now. And can you give me an example for resolution that you've made to do with your health, or particularly the diabetes, in the past, where you've succeeded? In the past, I wasn't able to succeed in controlling my diabetes because I've obviously had it for 23 years. It's purely because I didn't have the knowledge of exactly what the food in my diabetes the damage it was doing because I thought oh I'm making a healthy choice I'm having a lovely cheese sandwich and I'm having just a packet of crisps and a piece of fruit but if I look at the contents of each of my things that I've had for lunch it was the wrong choice it was the wrong choice of bread, the packet of crisps was unnecessary, the fruit although I I thought it was healthy had a high sugar content. So I was going wrong in all different levels. So I understand that I've had the knowledge now to understand the healthy choices and what kind of foods. It's a huge, vast complicated area of food that you have to rediscover and make alternative choices. So I feel that those challenges I'm going through, I'm now starting to understand and change my life, just not for one season or two seasons or for the year, it's something that I want to do permanently. So that's the way I've started now and that's the way I'm going to continue. And looking inward but also thinking about other people with diabetes. Can you give us a motivational message for people with diabetes, you know, to motivate them on how they can make a resolution and succeed on that resolution? I think first of all they, as I said before, you need to make sure if you are going to convince people to start changing their lifestyle and making a new beginning and resolutions to start, they have to stick to it and they can only do it through the right channels. They'll need to be referred and to know exactly what their blood sugar levels are and an understanding of what that means and what target they need to meet at, what target they need to go because only through that then you can understand where you are going wrong and then to refer to the doctor and say my sugars are really high and the doctor will obviously give you that evidence. Can I have another blood sugar in three months? So you are then checking it with with the nurse or the doctor whoever takes your blood, the HSB1C, so they can check okay we're going to do a monitoring for the first year every three months until we see improvement. If it's not going down and it's still constantly high then we look at the food contents. Write a diary plan. What are you eating that's really high in carbs? Carbs is the sugar so don't include sugar separately. Take the carb. How much fiber are you eating? What's the daily recommended? What's the alternative you can do? And you can talk to each other, friends, things that you've tried who have diabetes as well and encourage them well I've tried this bread a lot of people don't have the knowledge and know and it's sometimes you don't want to go through books and read things oh this is the keto diet it's the no carb but that's no good you can't encourage people to be consistent by doing fad diets and diet you have to look at your food intake and think okay I'm having like 300 grams of pasta, can I reduce that down to 200? Can I reduce it down to 150 now? So it's the constant looking and changing of your food balance. I'm thinking, oh, okay, this is a plate. I need half of it with vegetables and the other half, the quarter with protein and a bit of carbs. I don't need a lot of carbs, but my whole plate should really consist of salad. And another thing that I didn't know, but I learned it through the community was that it's no good having salad by itself. It needs a dressing because it doesn't get absorbed without the oil, which I never knew if I would have cucumber, lettuce, tomatoes with no salad dressing, because I thought, oh my God, that's going to be fattening. That's the fats that I need and I need it for the fiber to be absorbed by my body. So and only the knowledge that you get, you can pass it on to your friends, you can pass it on to in the community and that's all part of that process of learning. And also, just thinking about this advice that you were giving, how do you think an online community can help preparation for these spring months? I think the online during the spring time will benefit a lot of people because it is the beginning as I said before it's the beginning time of the year and people will think yeah I need to make changes. Face-to-face online zoom is usually really good but a lot of people do have problems with technology but they don't have to use it completely they don't have to put their videos on but I think just having a topic of the day the host chooses a topic of the day and thinks okay well obviously asks people what they would like to discuss and choose that topic and this and give them an agenda okay next week we're going to do that so that's more motivating and encouraging for them to keep coming back and back online and to gain further knowledge and then speaking about the experiences in different forms and that will help them to think oh that's what I do I get really thirsty at night and it's like why is that yeah well maybe check your blood sugar, maybe it's too high. So it's just like general advice people can do more easily online and through the audio or face-to-face because they feel that there's somebody listening to them and offering them suggestions and advice which works much better than someone from the professional side, don't eat this, don't do that, it's always don't, don't don't but someone says and gives them that sort of solution and helps them through it chunk by chunk because sometimes it's too difficult to absorb so much in one go so concentrate on one particular subject and and then discuss when everyone's discussing it and they can say oh yeah I did this or I did that oh I didn't know about that so it really is good to have a dialogue online thank Thank you. And just one last question. If you can pick up the piece of paper again, and just next to you there, and just pick out one behavioural characteristic that speaks to you in these spring months. And what are you going to do about that? Well, this spring I've decided really to eat a lot of healthy foods and to look at the certain types of food that I eat. I've discovered that protein is really important plus fibre. Fats are very good as well. I've started to eat more avocados and it seems to be the trend now, avocado on toast. I don't have it on toast but I like it by myself or I like it by itself or on salads and I feel yeah I'm discovering foods and things that I never used to, superfoods that I never used to even look at thinking okay the glycemic index, these fruits are really high but maybe I should have them much earlier in the day when I'm doing physical activities afterwards so I would avoid having fruits in the evening because I know my sugar is going to go high with it so I'd have them before and before I'm doing a physical activity maybe with my lunch and then after an hour or so go to to do a bit of walking. So yeah that's that's one of my main goals this spring is to make sure that I eat healthily and I make the right choices and I don't need to snack up. I've discovered nuts are delicious okay but they are high in calories but they're good fats, they're filling and they're a nutritious snack as long as you have it within the limit but it's much better than taking a snicker bar and eating a whole snicker bar and thinking you know what have I just done to myself, why did I do it? So it's that mindset, changing your mindset and thinking okay what can I have instead of that and it's just a bit of thought, a little voice behind you think okay yeah that's a good idea I'm gonna have those nuts now. Carry them in your bag, carry less sugary stuff, watch out for things that are supposed to be healthy like protein bars but they're loaded with sugar, which I discovered. So avoid all these processed stuff. Just think I don't want processed, I want to have home cooked or I've made something myself. Really simple, rustle it up and just eat that. And it's springtime, it's lovely to enjoy fresh food, refreshing food and it's just nice.