The older we get, the less mobile we seem to be. I get caught up in what is expected behavior. Sit here. Don’t get on the floor. Don’t get your clothes dirty. The truth is the more we play and stay active the healthier we will be, When we quit moving or move less, we affect our bodies negatively in multiple ways. Motion helps keep the circulation in our body. This helps keep feeling in our extremities like our hands and feet. Circulation helps get oxygen, nutrients, electroly

Summer is in full swing. The heat index has been over 100° in many cities all around the US. With that type of heat, no one wants to turn on the stove. We definitely look for recipes that don't require cooking. Many people choose to eat salads this time of year. The long days make for more time for the sun to heat up the earth. We tend to want to eat vegetables that are lighter and have more water in them. The ones that provide a bit more hydration. It’s great because this is

I’m sure you can relate. The holiday just passed, and we're exhausted. Now we really want to take a break, but we have to go back to work. I thought this week would be a perfect week for an easy way to re-energize, Between helping someone with the surgery, work, and getting ready for the holiday, this last week was a bear of a week. I’m going to the doctor today for a routine checkup and starting another busy week. This week's article is going to be extremely short with an ea

I’m definitely looking forward to the upcoming 4th of July holiday. It’s another holiday coming right after graduations and Memorial Day. As human beings, we tend to incorporate food in most of our gatherings. There are times when we don’t have a lot of time to cook or do things. I’m going to share a few tips and tricks preparing for the holiday and throughout the year. Not all vegetables are equal, it's quite interesting. Some of the harder gourds that will make fruit in the

It’s frustrating. Recently I’ve been sick. I had to have some lab work done before going to see my general practitioner. I waited until I was better and went and had my labs done. It was difficult just getting the labs back, but that’s another story… My general practitioner did a quick test in the office since we couldn't access the lab work done the previous week. He told me my A1c was a 6.7. Supposedly quite healthy. When I finally got into my LabCorp results, my A1c showed

I’m so excited. I just watched a fantastic NBC news segment. It was about an exciting new way to treat type two diabetes. It may be possible to reverse it completely. It was about using a low carb diet. You may have heard about this if you’ve read a few articles here. I'll reference the study a little further in this article. Diet is an excellent place to start; but for some long-term diabetics, we may need to take it a bit further. The NBC segment aired June 8th, 2022. You c

Sorry I missed you. I was sick last week. No, it wasn’t Covid. I tested to make sure. It was some sort of summer cold or flu. I know when I sleep a day away with chills, sweats, headache and body aches, I’m definitely sick. This is not normal behavior for me. It got me thinking... What is normal recovery for a diabetic after we’ve been sick? We want to get better quickly and get back to normal. This probably isn’t realistic. How fast we recover really depends upon blood suga

It’s turning hot. Did we even have spring? Planting for the summer harvest is just about over. Now it’s time to water plants for their growth and fruits. We also have to make sure we’re staying cool and hydrated too! This past weekend, it was in the 90's. I spent a few minutes weeding in my mother's garden around some of the transplanted plants. I put them in for her last year. Before I left that day, I drank one bottle of water immediately afterwards and took one for the roa

As the seasons change, we have a tendency to do the same thing. We tend to change with them. With the onset of spring, the weather warms up. We end up outside more. We start to do more, like weekly walking trips to Chattanooga's riverfront. Some of the old basics, like cleaning house and doing laundry, fall to the wayside. This is because we’re trying out new routines and habits. This time of growth causes us to stretch our abilities. You may start a garden and end up with po

Sometimes it can be tough. Everybody struggles with good and bad days. When you’re diabetic, you struggle with high blood sugar and low blood sugar. While occurring for the same reason, blood sugar, they have quite different effects. What you may not realize is that it plays a role in your relationships. This is because blood sugar affects your brain and personality. When your blood sugar is low, you become confused and frustrated. If it gets too low, you can add body shakes

You feel jittery inside first. It’s kind of like a shaky feeling on the inside of your body. Of course, it becomes the shakes on the outside of your body, if you don’t act fast. The confusion sets in and is annoying and sometimes scary. It’s that time of year that some diabetics start having more hypo events. Your blood sugar seems to drop like a stone more often. It’s probably because the weather is getting better. We tend to get outside more. We move around more naturally a

April is a really tough time for me. It’s Easter and the caramel filled chocolate eggs are out. I have a wicked sweet tooth and always end up succumbing to it when I see these eggs! It led me to start thinking about my life and the factors that may have led to me becoming diabetic. Once I thought about it, I realized I was destined to become diabetic due to my questionable, uneducated food choices throughout my life. It started in my childhood. This is when our eating habits

This week, I read a really great article written by another diabetic. She was testing out fasting. She did an excellent job. She didn’t just try one type of fast. She tried two different ones. She wasn’t afraid to make changes. She has a fantastic understanding of the fact that each diabetic is unique and has to find their personal solution that is timed perfectly. It’s quite interesting. There are as many fast as there are people on the planet. A fast usually means you’re ju

This past week, friends and family have been telling me about different diets. They want me to look into them. I really don't need to actually examine them. I discuss with them the goals of the diet and which foods are recommended to get a feel for how successful the diet will be for that individual. All diets are about three dietary components mixed up with differing amounts and timing. The timing is usually eating more during the day instead of late at night. There is usual

Diabetics like sugar or carbohydrates. Once we find out we’re diabetic, we have to change our eating habits. We get laser focused on watching our carbohydrate counts and sugars in the food we eat. We learn about portion control. As we learn new recipes, we can lose sight of other foods that we use as a substitute for sugar and carbs. These ingredients may have a negative effect on our bodies. It can be quite easy to exchange one addiction like sugar for salt or dairy. These

Winter is over. I don't know about you, but I struggle to work out in the wintertime. I get more exercise when it's above 55 degrees outside. This might be because I'm not a huge fan of cold weather at all. I get trapped inside to keep from freezing. I feel like I've been in a dark tunnel with the promise of warmer weather being a moonlit path guiding me to another season. Thank goodness, it's finally spring! I've got all these fantastic gardening ideas. I want to get out in

It’s really weird. I had a different article for today. I wrote it. It was ready to go. It just didn’t seem right for some reason. Everywhere I looked I was getting signals to write about something else. The diabetic support group paired me up with people that needed to hear this. In my personal life, several people that I knew suffered the same thing. They weren't able to get a night's good sleep to heal their bodies. Inflammation in our bodies shows up as different symptoms

As we go through life, we experience change. The external changes are easier to see. It's the internal ones that are invisible. Or are they? Many changes have signs. We just may not know them... Like the ridges running parallel up and down your fingernails may be a sign of diabetes. Once you know you're diabetic, you learn that hunger may be a sign of your blood sugar being high. Or it could be that you're just actually hungry. Being diabetic is tough; and it's normal to star

It’s quite interesting how the human body works. Sugar imbalances do affect the body. Many times, we spend a lot of time focusing on the physical aspects of high or low blood sugar. What about the emotional aspects? When your blood sugar spikes, do you notice a change in your personality? What about your friends & family? Do they notice? It happens; and you aren’t alone. Your diabetes is showing. High and low events do affect our personalities. When our blood sugar is high, w

There are different types of exercise for diabetics. We need exercise to help maintain our weight, control blood sugar, improve mood, and reduce our risk of heart disease and stroke. Doing household chores is easy exercise and doesn’t stress large muscle groups. Sprints, weight lifting, or anything that affects large muscle groups may cause extra sugar stores to be released into the bloodstream. Working in the garden all day can cause my blood sugar to drop like a stone. In t