THANKS for GIVING me a high blood sugar

Cholesterol doesn’t influence A1C; carbohydrates do.

As a vegetarian and a person with diabetes, traditional Thanksgiving foods don’t excite me. I have a choice this year between family and friends and will go with the friends because I know there will be vegetarian friendly options as well as salads and fresh vegies.

My suggestion to survive Thanksgiving is like others have said, to have small tastes of the high carb items but stick with the turkey (for carnivores), vegies and salads. Also, not get caught up in the prevalent Thanksgiving motif which is more is better. A nice plate of food, a glass of wine and then focus on the pleasures of being with loved ones which is the real reason to be thankful after all!

I know that choloesteral does not influence A1C; however, the American Diabetes Association recommends that diabetics maintain all of the three ABCs with good numbers. As you may have noticed in my my previous post, I recommended way to make some traditional items with less simple carbs. Baked sweet potatoes do not contain the sugar of candied yams for example. Putting stevia in a homemade stevia sauce or whatever requires sugar may also lower the simple carbs in that recipe. It is nice to see that there are other people who choose not to eat the turkey on Thanksgiving. If you prefer not to kill animals, I suggest you rethink dairy and eggs. The male calves born from dairy cows go straight to the veal industry because they are of a breed, jersey, that does not grow large enough to be profitable for an adult meat product. The cows are impregnated often so that they will lactate. The male chicks of egg laying hens are also killed in an inhumane manner. I used to LOVE imported European cheeses and thought I could never give these up. Now I think of the mother cow baying for her calf for days after it was born and taken to the veal industry. No dairy product is worth paying an industry that continues this practice. Happy Thanksgiving.

And by homemade stevia sauce I meant homemade cranberry sauce. One of these days I will get into the habit of proofreading.

Its has been my “good fortune” to spend Thanksgiving alone for the last seven or eight years due to divorce, and the kids being at mom’s. This will be my first Thanksgiving diagnosed as a diabetic, and so it won’t be any different than any other day as far as I am concerned. Not sure if that is a blessing, or not…

I also have a lot, but its hard to toss in the “thanks for the good health I have enjoyed” when giving thanks at the end of the day, or on such a holiday. Kind of hard to choke out those words when I have this hanging over my head.

FWIW, holidays are a waste of time for someone who is, and lives alone. Just another marker for the passing of time.

John

Remember there still is some good fortune in your life. I was diagnosed so young that I do not remember life without type 1 diagnosis. The glucometer is a serious upgrade to the old way of checking our icky urine in a test tube with acidic tablets that turned various colors according to what our sugars were three or four hours ago. Explaning the urine test to my friends when they spent the night in grammer school felt humiliating. They were usually intrigued eventhough I was horrified everytime I would have to explain my secret of having to collect and test my urine to another friend. When I lived by myself I would invite friends over. Sometimes everyone else already had plans so I would make myself a small T-day meal with the items I wanted the most. It is strange that you do not get to see your kids every other T-day but that is not my business. I hope you find a way to enjoy your day.

Thanks Sarah.

I have no idea how politically correct this is, or how it will be received, but I often wonder if its better to be born blind, or to lose you sight after thirty years or so. It would make one’s outlook different, I am sure.

Sorry about your trauma as a child. Its hard to imagine what that was like.

FWIW, I raised three of my four children for ten years after the divorce till they moved out. My oldest lived with her mom, and didn’t care too much for me so I always insisted that the other three went to mom’s for the big holidays, as I wanted them to all be together. I think its important that as much of the family be together as possible.

Its just another day to me and I long ago learned to live with that.

I have good vision fortunately still. I think there is no way to answer your previous question. There are fortunate and unfortunate aspects to both never being able to see or losing the sense of sight. Maybe people experiencing this issue on this site would be more helpful.

Sarah,

What I meant was, I often wonder if it would be better or worse to have diabetes all of your life, or to get it halfway through, and be forced to give up so much that one used to enjoy.

I just didn’t want to make light of anyone’s life or problems, so I use blindness as an example. Hope I didn’t offend.

The person who fixed the plate above doesn’t seem to know diddly squat about making the right choices and PORTION CONTROL. We had a Support Group Meeting today and the Guest Speaker, a dietician and nutritionist, spoke about making Thanksgiving Dinner diabetic friendly. It was an excellent meeting and if everyone who was at the meeting has the opportunity to practice what they learned they should do well with their post prandial blood sugars.

Probably the most difficult situation is when you are at friends for Thanksgiving dinner and you are not sure what is in the various foods on the table. The best solution is to take very small amounts of everything and taste it. You can then decide to finish it or leave it. If you are at home or with the family you might have more control over the foods that are being served and you might be able to nibble on the raw veggie platter, have a few shrimp, and some cheese bits. Try to stay away from the chips, crackers, and pretzels. When it comes to dinner itself, the turkey, with veggies, and some sweet potatoes are good choices. For more carbs, the stuffing, gravy, and rolls in moderation. Watch out for the cranberry sauce. A substitute would be home made with whole cranberries, half the amount of sugar or maybe even Splenda.

Its not that difficult to have a healthy, diabetic friendly, delicious tasting Thanksgiving Turkey dinner. A little SELF CONTROL, PORTION CONTROL, and good choices. Have a Happy Thanksgiving, enjoy the day, the food , the family and tell the Diabetes Police to take the day off. When all else fails take an after dinner long walk or have a Family game of Touch Football.

Florian

Oh i wish it was that simple to separate the wonderful feelings of food with thanksgiving! But alas that is what I look forward to when eating with my family, because we all sit around eating our fave rich foods and talking! (then filling full and complaining about eating to much and then conquering dessert, come on the fun stuff)
As for me the only food that i really have to ignore is the delicious apple dumplings with ice cream!
this season i’ll be goring out on cheese ball and mac and cheese, i always forget to get turkey!
I was thinking of making a lean cuisine turkey and stuffing meal to just fit in. LOL
I say do whatcha want, if you can afford it take a off day or if you feel guilty then do just portion control.

Eat what you want if you can burn it off! My pre-Thanksgiving dinner snack shown below. Of course, this was after a 30 mile bike ride!

50 grams of super-burrito, awesome drink of Fresca, diet ginger ale with lime and Angastora Bitters! Yum!

The operative term here is “sit around eating”. Throw in some exercise and even a diabetic can eat hearty!

6:00 is cornbread. Hey, the white bread rolls, potatoes & stuffing aren’t enough starch:) Those strawberries look strange. Maybe it’s compote?

Its all in your mind set – first, remember that meat is a side dish. Have your deck of cards and that is plenty. The MAIN dish is the veggies. I’m on the Delmonte Green Bean Team. Not drenched in cream of mushroom soup, either. I always have a big relish tray full of raw veggies and a tossed salad. I stuff a turkey with apples and mushrooms and onions and zuchini and walnuts. Everything is about portions so the stuff that has EAT ME written all over it on the table I take ONE forkful.spoonful/mouthful and that is it - a taste is plenty. Those tastes usually add up to all the carb I need. I also use a smaller plate. That makes me feel like I’ve eaten plenty. There are some really funny children’s plate sets that make me laugh. I’m grandma so everybody comes to my house so i do make “real” food for all – I just pull my beans before the sauce and have a grandma version. It goes with the territory – I also make vegetarian friendly for some of the family, too.

Can you tell us what the Del Monte Green Bean Team is? My husband used to work for Del Monte, and I’m just curious…

When I was a girl Del Monte had BILL COSBY (he’s the man!) as a spokes person. He used to ask the kids to be on the Del Monte Green Bean Team and eat their green beans. It was hilarious. We now always say it around my house. I’m 50 so its been a few years!

I think both the peeps who have had D their whole and the newly dxd are dealing with some lifestyle changes because new discoveries and changes in D regime are popping up all the time. No one knew about the glycemic index, for example, when I was young. I just went to the nutritionist and learned that I am supposed to make some changes again. It does not seem to end, changing what we eat. It is always a struggle for all of us so try to do your best unless you know you are headed for Diabetic Burnout. I have definately had that. I sort of need to get more motivated now, again, and write down everything more and analyze it and actually follow the nutritionist’s advice which I have been too lazy to do lately.

If you are referring to me, as a vegan there are almost no choices for me on the big T-day at most family gatherings. So for me it is a matter of hoping there will be something I will eat.

I did well this Thanksgiving - thanks to Byetta - full after only a few bites! :slight_smile: