So after eating right for a few days, I seem to be coming back off the heavy insulin dependence in which I use a minimum of 7-8 units for every little snack. I have been dropping too low after lunch for the afternoon to do my work, the last few days. Today, I was 96 after only 6 units and a good substantial lunch, but then I felt myself sliding down a little after that, so I ate my orange, and then some oats and chocolate, and then I still felt myself slipping down, so I tested again and I was 50 something. So I am already back to where I need to have only a few units, so I don't dip all afternoon, and exercize after lunch, to avoid a spike. After I do this I can go play basketball or sit at a desk and my sugar will stay right around 100 either way, all day and all night. - Without the use of Lantus.

Ryse Update - (Grollet)

My wife found it too confusing for me to be calling it 'ryse,' which has the same pronunciation as 'rice.' Therefore, it has a new name, which is 'grollet.' Grollet is the following soaked or sprouted, whole grains steamed in a rice cooker: Barley, Spelt, Amaranth, Millet, and sesame and/or flax optional. I generally leave out the options for straight eating but when I am going to do a stir fry type thing, the sesame and especially the flax have an amazing effect that eliminates the need for any kind of sauce like soy sauce, to make it very like authentic oriental fare.

One of my implants on the lower right, which is now over 5 years old, is failing. Slowly. Don't know how the one in front is doing. I suspect that the body robs some calcium and I lose some bone density in these grafted areas, permanently, a significant amount, every single time I get high sugar. So with this discouraging news, I stayed up all night with my sugar staying up over 200, some of the time, over 300. I didn't know what to do or think. I am discouraged paying all these major dental bills these last 5 years on myself and not the children, only to have my teeth keep on failing again. And I didn't feel like being a stud any more, and having a revival of strict psychish discipline. I will also be taking 5 Melaleuca calcium tabs daily till then, one at a time, throughout the day. I think it will actually take longer than 4 months to see how fast I am losing grafted bone density, or whether I am maintaining, but if it looks better in 4 months, great. But now that it's a new day and I am feeling good, I am declaring a psychish revival and program: I am going to be eating as darn well and disciplined as I can from this moment through April 18, 2013, when I have my next appointment and will be having an x-ray of the bone to compare to December 17, 2012. I am also going to work toward having a bike to ride to work asap. I will need an electric bike for it to be practical, and with such, I will still get as much exercise as when I rode half the distance to work on a regular bike. I may not have recorded this here, but my sugar has been really bad since October and I have been using I don't know maybe roughly 5 times more insulin than normal, and not doing a good job of keeping the sugar under control. This always seems to come with the cold weather but this time it is really worse and this is without even eating much in the way of holiday goodies.

Couple of Hours later

Yup, something's up. Ate at usual time. Ate perfect. 6 units, Apple, ryse - not too much, thin carrot and just a little collards. Flat out exercised after. 256. Then it occurred to me for the 1st time, what next: Perhaps they'll want to add glucofage to the treatment. Perhaps I am just now becoming Type II as well as I. By the way, this morning when I got up I was 97.

Unprecedented

Had an unprecedented episode last night. Sugar spiked high and wouldn't come down with an extra last shot. First time that's ever happened at all. Two more big shots and it still wouldn't come down. One last shot and it finally came down. Never happened before. Can't say what could have caused it. I was being pretty good yesterday. But I can say I have been using more insulin lately. Going to try to tighten it up and be careful and hope it will pass. Although unprecedented by insulin-related developments, this reminds me of the time I first had to go onto insulin. It used to be that if my sugar ever spiked, I would go for a jog and it would be down to normal upon my return. Then one day it spiked, I ran 4 miles to the YMCA, swam a mile, and checked my sugar. Still about 350. Nothing like it had happened before. So I went to the doc and he put me on insulin. So what now? More insulin? We shall see. I have always simply taken as much as I needed but if this continues, it would mean more than quadrupling my insulin all in one day.

More Key Hints on Cooking Rice

Just because a rice cooker automatically steams off the water and then shuts off, does not mean you can put in any old amount of water. Too much, it will be soggy and grotesque, losing all its flavor. Too little, it will be much too hard. You get a feel for how much, which depends on your altitude and how long you soak your grain. But Please, please try to get it al dente so that your health efforts can be richly rewarded with awesome flavor and texture. It should be downright dry and tacky through and through, and chewy, yet plenty soft or tender. This goes for rice or ryse or anything like that.

My brother Russ fed me lunch once when I went into the woods to visit. Browned onions and garlic then red-stemmed chard into the fry pan with just enough water to make it sloshy and cook them down. It continues as one of my favorites years later. But I also throw in ginger root, which is optional. Today I had it with fresh-steamed ryse. It was so good, so perfect, I couldn't taste any of the other things I had along because I couldn't spoil it. Here's a refresher for what ryse is and how to make it: hand-full each of whole spelt and barley, 2-4 handfulls each of amaranth and millet, some sesame seeds or a sprinkling of flax seed are optional. Throw into rice cooker. Soak overnight. Steam. Do not uncover till cool. It is key to eat it while fresh, and to a lesser degree, not to cook more than about an inch high in the pan.

I have not time yet to check whether it's optional through the settings, but the way blogger doesn't let me do spaces or paragraphs really cramps my writing style.

Observation for the Day

The nutrients in your corn flakes and the nutrients in real food are as similar as vanilla ice cream and mud. Hot, rough, dark mud.

No Wonder - Collards Do Got 'Sugar'

Generally thinking that green vegetables were all 'free' diabetic exchanges, from back in my diabetes education days of 1996, that is, I thought broccoli and collards had about the same carb content as lettuce, I was surprised to sense my raw collards were raising my sugar. Finally upon looking it up, sure enough, collards have 12 g per cup compared to 4 g/C for broccoli and 1 or 2 g/C for lettuces. Awesome Collards! Just proves it's real food, not just lettucey stuff.

Comment

Ever hear of or do you remember the little boys who became famous rappers who wore oversized trousers on backward? I heard one say on a talk show that this way of wearing pants was fundamentally cool, not a fad, and he would be wearing them this way the rest of his life. As my life gets hectic and I cycle in and out of living the way this blog idealizes, I sometimes (when I am on the out part of the cycle) feel like I should quit the blog. But it doesn't take long at all before my body goes on strike, demanding I get right back into it, and I rediscover true relishment. Thus we see that the content here is not any kind of fad but truly fundamental; it's always here and never gets old not because of my resolve, discipline or staying power but because of its own absolute truth.

Wow Lunch

I seldom have this much available at once but today I sure did (raw unless otherwise noted): Fresh picked collards from the back lawn; Soaked organic almonds; Bustin' radish; Ginger root; Semi-sprouted and steamed spelt, barley, amaranth and millet; Sharon's carrot juice, which probably contained organic apple, kale, and who knows what else; A palm full of dry roasted peanuts for dessert (ingredients: peanuts. Well after lunch, not having overeaten, but stopped at the ideal time (at the signal), without further adjustment, sugar = 107. Sometimes I ruin an ideal lunch by having dessert or overeating and put my sugar above the range in which I can absorb any of the great nutrients I just took in. Not the case today.

Doing Better Already

2 units Humalog, Perfect lunch consisting of half a fresh tomato, baked yam, ginger, ryse, baked chicken, sunflower seeds, followed by me carrying my big office chair down the steps from my office, across the engineering room, out the door outside, down the stairs to the front of the building, and back (for exercise, and me explaining myself to no one), and 20 min. later, my sugar is 100. I have found some of the best exercise is to chop wood, especially if the axis or direction of fibers of the wood is vertical, such as a standing tree trunk. Similarly, and perhaps even better, carrying a fairly heavy object out in front of you with arms extended and walking somewhere with it, lifting it and putting it down here and there and so on. Anything that makes you really exert with your core does this. Big office chairs are good because you can face them and lift them by their arms. But I do not wish to leave the impression that my office chair has arm rests. I always remove them first thing when I get a new chair. Nor do I wish to leave the impression that the route I described was far. It was quite short and just enough to get me breathing.

Specific Goals

Back on the wagon, I have specific targets. They are never to eat in a meal more than 4 units will allow and to stay under 150 at all times. I have started going barefoot as much as possible. I spent a couple of days already, so I am over the nerve wracking pick your way and try to keep your balance phase. It is really feeling great. I spent most of my Summer months until the age of 29 going barefoot 96.5% of the time. I even went to Summer semester classes such at the University of Utah. I believe one cannot be fully healthy without going barefoot enough that it feels great to do so. I am also starting to exercise a little bit for the first time since December, after being so busy getting started in a new job. Which is also why I have been careless with my sugar control. Just a little careless - generally good control except letting it spike once a day for a short time, and often eating too much. Today was near perfect sugar-wise. My feet can really tell the difference - especially when I am barefoot. By the way, I also got a new glucometer. It only cost $15 and $11 for 50 strips. It is the Prodigy Pocket. I really like having it and look forward to less expense-inhibited testing when I need it. I will test one of every batch of strips I get against my LifeScan OneTouch Ultra, which I have had 15 years and is still extremely accurate. My first batch of Prodigy strips are consistently reading about 23 points higher than actual, according to the very reliable biological meter I have inside which is backed up by the very reliable Ultra.

What I Had for Breakfast

This was very good. All cold: Ryse, sweet corn out of the can, light red kidney (my favorite) beans out of the can, cayenne pepper sprinkled on top. I also want to say although I have believed in everything I have said here all through it, the business and changes in my life sort of had me in a fog about it, and I have for the past 1-2 years pretty much overeating every day, focusing on sugar level control with regard to how much I ate, and not focusing on avoiding overeating in and of itself. But last night and from time to time, I remember again and eat only enough and wow, the power and youthful energy in which it results! I am certain that it non-linearly produces far less free radicals when we eat just enough. This is why it has been found that people live much longer who eat less even than the normal accepted amount. I gotta get back up and be that eat-quittin' machine again! And of course, if you read back in old posts, there is a long list of maladies I had that just disappeared when I first stopped overeating. Things like dandruff, acne, joint inflammation, asthma, ..... I might as well mention also that I intend to try the following tuna spread: tuna, chopped pickles, avocado. I will let you know how well it works. I think I will throw some iceberg into the mix as well. And possibly ginger, but mainly, I think the dill pickle will work for this.

Bought a cucumber yesterday, thinking it was zucchini. When I had my pan going and realized it was a cuuk, I saved it with the diced fresh tomatoes to throw on top after cooking was done. I peeled and sliced it and did so. I never peel my cuuks but I was trying to make this kid-friendly. I used a pat of butter and 3 pats of coconut oil and fried up a good portion of sliced fresh rutabaga, then added onions, red, yellow and orange sweet peppers, boiled whole wheat egg noodles, a grated carrot, 3 stalks of celery sliced up, romaine, the cuuk and tomato, and a good bit of salt. Fried up about a lb of ground turkey and got it brown, then threw it all together. I would normally have added more to the mix but was trying to make it kid-friendly. I intended to throw grated mozzarella on top but as usual I forgot. That rutabaga is real sweet and chinese-food-teki in there; better than I expected. It tasted super even without any ginger. But today, eating it cold for lunch, I had some ginger on the side. It really was good, although I still have a little problem with the slightly obnoxious and dead-ish flavor of whole-wheat pasta. But it's only slight. The net effect was superb. The vegetables were out of this world the way they smelled cooking up, and the sweet peppers were extra wonderful-smelling before they started to cook. Often, the vegetables I COOK are a little toward the rotten end. Not this time!

Ahead of the Game

Just imagine what it would do to have apples, carrot juice, raw sunflower seeds (maybe even sprouted), brewer's yeast and maybe a little ryse as a typical breakfast in your life, in place of cold cereal & cooked milk, or some kind of bagel or bread thing and maybe coffee...... Knowing that the vitamins they throw into a box of Total are no more soluable and free-radical-free than a bottle of Centrum, just read the label on a can of nutritional brewer's yeast and imagine the difference. Or if you don't have much imagination, ask yourself, hmm, would I like to look and feel like the average 26-year-old, or the average 60-year-old, when I am 30-50 years old? You decide. And remember, in my opinion, it's a lot more about nourishing your body, providing it with the things it needs daily, than about avoiding cancer and the harmful substances. More about provision, less about abstinence.

Ruts of Unsat S'toots

Here's how it is. If you could eat just what you want for a meal, you would be perfectly satisfied after the proper amount was consumed. You would have no interest, let alone temptation, in nibbling something more. If you are like me, you often do not have available the things you really want, so you eat something as similar to it as you can find. This fills your satisfaction scale bar to some level below 100%. Let's say for illustration, you want some beets and corn and can only find a tomato. You eat the tomato, and again, for the sake of illustration, let's say that does something for you and satisfies 34% of your needs. You now must do something to fill or kill the other 66%, for which there are many imaginable options, but the most common thing done by us Americans, who have plenty of artificiality available to hand, is to eat some sort of dessert or snacky thing until we are so sick and/or tired of eating that we finally stop. In such a case, we have not satisfied our need, we have merely stunned our appetite along with incapacitating the rest of our system. This appetite stun can be of varying degrees pleasant or uncomfortable, but in any case, it shuts up our appetite, but does not satisfy it. In this process, we stun or stress other system functions so that we do not feel well. This discomfort can range from merely feeling stuffed to feeling heartburn or nausea. Or if diabetic, total electrified smashdown. In any case, it always lowers our energy level. We all get into a rut. We have our personal list of grocery store conveniences with acceptable value/harmful and value/lacking ratios. We bring them home along with the things that some of us old-fashioned folk still intend to cook, but often eat them first or instead of. My thing has always been peanuts, peanut butter and nuts. It's what I eat when I want nuts and when I want something else that isn't there. My wife thinks of deli sandwiches and tacos. Peanut butter, deli and tacos are what are prepared on an average day, in place of what we really want. On occasion, there are other things besides, such as pasta, cold cereal or bagels. Rut Substitutes can be unhealthy things like sugar puffs or ramen out of a bag, or something more real such as peanut butter or a baked potato. Either way, they only get you up the bar so far. You need more real meals. My solution is to raise the priority of meal planning and preparation. Steal time from other duties and amusements and put more imagination and work into meal planning and preparation. Learn to 'fix' more than 6 different suppers, and embellish them too. Continually add variety and skill in your cooking. And if you're going to have tacos, put on or in something that makes it a real meal. How about radishes, for one? But at least you put some thought and work in, and that's what will count. The more you try, the quick and easier it will become to consistently cook real food. Raise the (sat) bar! And just think - whatever time you sacrifice to make a real meal will come back to you ten-fold in the form of increased energy and efficiency. And all will be sat.

Found Green Chilis !

Still no green chilis in sight near Pittsburgh, but I did find a bottled concoction that contained some that really worked! Frontera All-Natural Guacamole Mix, a guacamole mix to which you just add avacado. Very very good. Only thing advertising green chilis in the Pittsburgh area that I have tried that tasted good or in which I could taste green chilis at all. That includes Chi Chi's and every other brand of bottled or canned green chilis.

The best green chili thing I ever tasted was a 7-11 frozen burrito. They were about 15 in. long and came in a green plastic wrapper and cost about $1.29. Or was it under a dollar? This was in the 70s of course. They don't sell 'em now. Not here.

Lynn Wilson's green chili burritos were also great.

I'm not advocating frozen junk food here, I'm just sayin' I have only found genuine green chili cookin' in a few certain places. None here.

By the way, how many of you have tried fresh ginger root on your hamburger or hoagie yet? I'm just sittin' hjere waitin' for America to discover ginger. Right now, they think of ginger bread when you suggest ginger. That's like thinking of a strange cult when you say 'Mormon,' or Love Canal, NY when you say 'Garden of Eden.'

Yes, I meant to include the 'j.'

Here's Another Great Lunch

This was very good:

Cold ryse, cold olive oil roasted asparagus, couple of fresh organic carrots.

Then my blood sugar level dropped uncharacteristically like a brick so I also had to eat ryse, guacamole, more carrot, brewer's yeast, ton of raw organic sunflower seeds, unsweetened chocolate, which weren't bad either.

No Lunch Today - Wait, What's This?

It's one of those days when I didn't bring or have much here for lunch - just a bunch of fruit and very little ryse, and a huge ol' rutabaga.

But then I found a great combination: brewer's yeast (I keep a 14 oz can in my desk) & rutabaga!

I went a couple of years in the early 2000's eating nothing for lunch but a couple of luxurious collard leaves with almonds. It was that good, and that satisfying - never got tired of it (and my nails were growing fast [too fast] and 2-3 times thicker than normal). Well, it seems I found another such combination.

This yeast is very good; you should try it. More nutritional than most, and very good beefy brown flavor. Gayelord Hauser's Imported Brewer's Yeast, Dist. by Modern Products, Inc., Mequon, WI 53092, www.modernfearn.com

Funny Handles

They call fresh milk 'raw.'

They call regular food 'healthy.' - as having a somewhat negative connotation.

They call regular peanut butter 'old fashioned.'

What is wrong with this picture??

Reset

Just in the last week or so, having been through some life changes and becoming sloppy in what I ate and having my need for insulin increase, I just naturally and unconsciously went back to some old key practices. Nothing new here, just a re-affirmation of some essential points.

My wife's cooking centers around beef, sauces and delectable breads. Never mind about the desserts that are abundant. I concluded years ago that I could not eat it and do what I write about in this blog. But sometimes I waffle and eat her cooking because it is irresistible after a tiring day if it's all ready to eat and all I need is a little extra insulin to eat it and enjoy life.

But then I gradually go all out of whack.

My cooking centers around fresh produce and the use of grain, sans bread.

I have been unconsciously yet strictly eating my own of late. Wow, it is so easy. The food is better. You feel better eating it. You feel better right after eating it. You feel better till you eat again. You don't get hungry. You can skip that late snack without even noticing and just go to bed. You can miss a meal and still not be hungry, because you have been eating real food. And your sugar just stays where it's supposed to.

So just lose all the sugar and all the bread. Things become plenty sweet enough after you quickly get used to not adding sugar. Once you reach that point, things containing the American dose of sugar are sickeningly sweet. You only crave or have a taste for as much fat, salt or sugar as you are used to using. It's just that simple and it's just true. The only difficulty you will run into is that people around you will want to share food with you but they will be on a different dosage.

So just see yourself as eating separate from them - like the dogs do.

If you really want to be healthy and especially if you are serious about making sugar level management easy, simply never eat bread or white pasta. I still use buckwheat noodles. And of course, I eat a lot of grain - steamed in a rice cooker, usually. Sometimes I sprout it, sometimes I don't. I do different things with it, including making raw bread. But usually, I just steam it.

I love delectable breads as much as you do. I'm just giving you the facts. You simply need to say to yourself, hey there are many attractive things in the Universe. I have not tried them all. I can live without some I have tried, in order to have others that are sweeter. I had a friend who thought he liked beer more than the gift of the Holy Ghost. In other words, he passed up baptism because he feared that beer was something he owed to himself. He didn't consider that it might be optional even though he liked it so much.

If you make your own bread, it will be distinctly less sugar-charging than anything you buy. So it's better, but it won't get you all the way there. To get the most out of satisfying your need for grain while minimizing the 'carb' effect, the rule of thumb is, keep the berry whole and intact. But I still eat oatmeal now and again. It's about my favorite dish in the whole world as far as dessert-type dishes go.

Okay but I am not finished. Another huge key or two. Eat in short spurts. When you first start to think maybe you have had enough to keep you going, stop there and get up and get working again. Especially with raw foods, and real foods too, never over-eat because you will be much more uncomfortable than you would have been with fluffy foods, stuffing yourself. But with real food, you won't get hungry.

Now that you have your fuel, find something to be interested in besides fooding. Be engaged in interesting activities. This is most effective if the activities give comfort or aid to others.

Follow this pattern and fooding will fade off into unnoticed distance. But then BAM, your spouse will plunck down a pizza or something when you least expect it, and you are tired, and you want to just relax....BE STRONG, because perfect abstinence rather than periodic 'rewards' is the easy way to do this thing.

I went from the age of 14 to 27 not even caring about any sort of cake or candy. I can be that way again, and so can you.

If there is any doubt about how different this makes one feel, simply toss that doubt into the burn bin. It's like night and day. No exaggeration.

There was one other point I may have forgotten. I'll add it later if I think of it. Oh, yeah - my cooking tastes better too. It's a different kind of better but it is definitely better.

I just made a stir fry that I am pretty certain smelled better than any cooking I have ever smelled. So I thought I might as well put down what went in. It amazes me how oriental the flavor and consistency turns out in a good stir fry without any seasoning or sauce.

Coconut oil
mushrooms
onions
green onions
zuchinni
a rutabaga
celery
bagged iceburg lettuce salad (the typical kind with a smattering of purple cabbage and carrots)
fresh ginger root
ryse (including sesame seeds)

losing weight and controlling sugar...

are the same. you eat things of value and then instead of snacking on things not, you go find something interesting to do.

And here's your first basic tip after that: Never eat any bread or pasta.

But don't go crazy avoiding carbs. Instead of eating bread, do grain in a rice cooker - any grain or mix of grain you want. I know my favorite (search ryse).

If you remember just one thing I ever said, let it be that all bread group (or any other group) exchanges are not the same. A slice of bread from the store will never be anything like something homemade. Huge difference in your sugar, huge difference in your anything else. Long term as well as short. I don't care what the wrapper says about whole and multi and HFCS-free.

Update

Wow, last week, my sugar was really all over the place. I would take my standard 4-6 units of insulin (humalog) and eat a very careful spartan meal, and instead of the usual 95, my sugar level would go to 350! Then I would take an additional 4-6 units to bring it down, without eating any buffer. This went on for about 5 days in a row. It occurred to me that my being sensitive to insulin is no guarantee against becoming otherwise, and this could now be happening! In other words, on top of being Type I, I could be becoming Type II eventually, if I was not careful (even though I have never been obese, if that really is a prerequisite). I must include the note that I had not had any exercise at all that week, and perhaps none for a time previous.

Well, I guess I’m back to normal! For about another 5 days, I have been regular. Then today, all morning I was trying to get my sugar up to an adequate level (without over-shooting), having taken only 5 units for breakfast, and again, all afternoon after having taken only about 4.5 units for a lunch that included a hamburger (and peanuts later on) with a white bun and ketchup from the diner/beer store down the tracks. But I also did pushups for both as well. My sugar went into the 40’s both times and I had to repeatedly eat something like an apple, raisens or potato to bring it up cuz it kept going down. Big key to being like this seems to be the abstinence from all breads. Never eat their bread at all and it really seems to kick the diabetes off the train. And that doesn’t mean eat less grain because you eat steamed whole grains instead, and so forth.

Ultimate Frisbee and Other Slow and Klunky Games

Ultimate Frisbee is the ultimate misnomer because it is the name of a game in which one is not allowed to run while holding the Frisbee whereas the ultimate Frisbee game is the one in which running is not limited but holding the Frisbee is not allowed - one must catch and throw it all in one motion.

Related side note - one on one basketball is faster and more fun if played with no court boundaries. It eliminates the bother with "bringing it in" and arguing about 'whose ball,' which really slow the game down.

good lunch

ryse, fresh tomato, collards, daicon. Real good, even without the ginger, which I am glad I forgot because it did great without.

Great Meals

Wow, I've been having some really great meals with new constituents that jive well. I haven't been writing them all down but here is today's lunch, which compared to yesterday's stop at Panera Bread for a salmon Mediterranean salad, was much more delightful.

Started with a cold pan of plain oatmeal with nothing on, with or in. Then had a really good apple. A little later, I dug into fresh organic celery, ryse (but I was out of amaranth and by the way, I now also add sesame seeds so that's amaranth, soaked barley, soaked spelt, millet, sesame, and dash of flax), crisp roasted laver, fresh ginger root, cheddar, and followed up with a sweet organic carrot.

Best of all, I did not over-eat and now I feel like a million bucks!