A couple of days ago I went to my doctor to get the results of a physical I had done. I was feeling pretty good: I have been going to the gym pretty regularly, eating better. I expected a clean bill of health.
So I was a bit surprised when my doctor looked over my test results and began, “Well, we’ve got some things we need to work on…”
He showed me my glucose levels — too high –; my cholesterol levels — too high. Ugh. He showed me a test result that said “5.9.” You know what “6.0” means?” he asked. “It means you have diabetes.”
Diabetes runs on both sides of my family. Mostly late onset and non-debilitating, but lots of familiy members have it. I don’t want to be one of those people.
The good news is that there are lots of things you can do to get that number lower,” my doctor counseled. “Basically you need to eat better and take Omega-3 fish oil supplements every day.”
He gave me a sheet of paper with a recommended diet that he created combining the best aspects of Atkins, South Beach and Weight Watchers into a very simple system. It had a drawing of a plate with 3/5ths of the plate taken up by vegetables, 2/5ths by protein and 1/5th by starches. It looked like no meal I had ever eaten in my life.
The traditional Filipino diet is largely made up of rice. In fact the verb “to eat” basically means “to eat rice.” Lots of developing countries have similar diets of course, based on the high price of meat and fresh vegetables.
In my household growing up, we ate rice with everything — spaghetti, mac n’cheese, beef stew, whatever. We typically put two heaping scoops onto our plates and layered whatever else we were eating on top of that starchy sediment.
So for my doctor to tell me to cut back on my starches was basically advising me to stop eating food.
I’m going to take small steps so I don’t become completely miserable: Switch to brown rice (ugh), eat smaller and more frequent meals, stock up on nuts and fruits to keep me from junky foods, read up more on healthier eating.
What I am not going to do: swear off sweets or stop eating rice completely. If I can’t have a stropwafel cookie or kare-kare and rice every once in awhile, you might as well shoot me now.
Louisiana, where I’m from, is a rice-eating culture, as well, for many of the same reasons. Rice is cheap, readily available, and grows in the swamp. Also IT IS DELICIOUS.
Like you, diabetes runs strongly in my family, but unlike your family, it has been quite debilitating in mine. End-stage diabetes is not pretty.
So, I started making some changes to my diet when I turned 20 or so. I saw what my dad went through when he cut out simple carbs/sugars altogether at 40 (he won’t even eat carrots b/c they’re too high on the glycemic index), and decided I’d prefer a more gradual approach. I’ve never been able to make the transition to brown rice, so instead I eat whole wheat pasta, couscous, bulgur wheat– I’m discovering a whole range of whole grains I didn’t know before! And now, when I eat rice, it’s a treat, but at least it’s the rice I love.
Good luck with your new diet– it’s not as hard as it may seem at first, and just remind yourself that small changes now means keeping your vision, your feet, functioning kidneys, and the ability to eat rice and chocolate on occasion for the rest of your life.
Thanks so much for the encouraging words, Adri!
本溪旅游网
本溪旅游网
Beef and dairy products are as filthy as the diseases
they contract and the hormones and other therapy that they receive. If the dairy product/beef is
contaminated with material that destroys the pancreas
then those who eat the beef and dairy products
develop incurable diabetes.
Stick to rice, beans, and fish and you will live
much longer.