Posted by leah
Eating right may help protect your nerves from diabetic neuropathy.
If you have diabetes, you already know the drill. What you eat, when you eat, and how much you eat can send your blood sugar skyrocketing — or make it plummet. For better or worse, “diet and diabetes” go together like salt and pepper.
So if you need a little motivation to eat better - and who doesn’t? - consider this: with diabetes, you’re at high risk of the nerve pain and damage called diabetic neuropathy. What can start as a little tingling or numbness in your feet can turn into major problems with walking, working, and leading an active lifestyle. Diabetic neuropathy can also wreak havoc with your digestion, your sexual response, and make it hard to feel normal body sensations - like the signs of plummeting blood sugar or a heart attack.
Fortunately, a balanced diet that helps treat nerve pain is really no different than the standard diet advised by the American Diabetes Association, says Dace L. Trence, MD, an endocrinologist and director of the Diabetes Care Center at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle. “The emphasis is really on blood sugar control,” she says. “Certainly, if a dietary change might facilitate that, of course, it would be advisable.”
Good glucose control can protect the health of your nerves - and may even help prevent diabetic neuropathy, says the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (NDIC). You see your doctor only every once in a while, but you eat several times every day. No matter what medications you may be on, your diabetes diet has a constant - and colossal - impact on your health and well-being, with every bite you take.
Here are Some Tips:
1. Eat a Balanced Diet
Remember the good-old food pyramid you learned about back in school? A balanced diet includes a variety of foods: carbohydrates (starches), fruits, vegetables, milk and dairy, meat, poultry, fish, and healthy fats. Eating a balanced diet helps you keep your glucose within target levels, control your weight, and reduce the risk of complications like neuropathy, heart disease, and stroke.
The goal. Step out of any food ruts you’re in. Try new foods, and include all of the major food groups in your diabetes diet.
The shape of your diet will depend on how active you are, whether you’re a man or a woman, and whether you’re trying to lose weight. The American Diabetes Association offers these general guidelines, but check with your doctor to fine-tune your specific plan:
* Choose a variety of nutrient-dense foods and beverages among the basic food groups.
* Balance calories from foods and beverages with physical activity to manage body weight.
* Choose fiber-rich fruits, vegetables, and whole grains often.
* Eat 2 cups of fruit and 2 1/2 cups of vegetables daily (for someone eating 2,000 calories)
* Make at least half the grains you eat whole grains.
* Decrease saturated fats and trans fatty acids by choosing lean meats and poultry, and low-fat or non-fat dairy products.
* Substitute monounsaturated fats and polyunsaturated fats (from fish, nuts, and vegetable oils) for saturated and trans fat fats.
* Choose and prepare foods and beverages with little added sugars or caloric sweeteners.
* Eat less than 2,300 mg per day of sodium.
* Limit alcohol to no more than 1 drink for women and 2 drinks for men.
* Regular physical activity of at least 30 minutes a day for adults and 60 minutes for children.
Posted by leah
A balanced diet means getting the right types and amounts of foods and drinks to supply nutrition and energy for maintaining body cells, tissues, and organs, and for supporting normal growth and development.
Well-balanced diet
A well-balanced diet provides enough energy and nutrition for optimal growth and development.
TOP FOOD SOURCES
Milk group (milk and milk products)
* Cheese
* Milk
* Yogurt
Meat and beans group
* Legumes (beans and peas)
* Meat (chicken, fish, beef, pork, lamb)
* Nuts and seeds
Fruit group
* Apples
* Berries
* Grapes
* Peaches
Vegetable group
* Cauliflower
* Lettuce
* Spinach
* Squash
Grain group (breads and cereals)
* Enriched breads
* Pasta
* Rice
* Whole-grain breads
Oil
* Light salad dressing
* Low-fat mayonnaise
* Vegetable oil
TOP SIDE EFFECTS
An unbalanced diet can cause problems with maintenance of:
* Body tissues
* Brain and nervous system function
* Growth and development
It can also cause problems with bone and muscle systems.
TOP RECOMMENDATIONS
The term “balanced” simply means that a diet meets your nutritional needs while not providing too much of any nutrients.
To achieve a balanced diet, you must eat a variety of foods from each of the food groups.
The most important step to eating a balanced diet is to educate yourself about what your body needs, and to read the nutrition label and ingredients of all the food you eat.
Balance your calorie intake with exercise. Slowly decrease the amount of calories you take in while increasing exercise to prevent gradual weight gain over time. Exercise regularly and reduce activities in which you sit.
Eat 2 cups (4 servings) of fruit and 2 1/2 cups of vegetables (5 servings) per day for an average 2,000-calorie per day diet.
* Eat 3 or more ounces of whole-grain products per day.
* Consume 3 cups per day of fat-free or low-fat milk or milk products.
* Get fewer than 10% of calories from saturated fatty acids.
* Avoid trans fatty acids.
* Limit cholesterol intake to less than 300 mg/day.
* Make total fat intake no more than 20-35% of calories. Choose “good” fats such as fish, nuts, and vegetable oils containing polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acids. Lean, low-fat, or fat-free meats, poultry, dry beans, and milk or milk products are preferable. Total fat intake can approach 35% if most of the fats are “good” fats.
* Stay away from added sugars.
* Consume less than 2,300 mg (approximately one teaspoon of salt) of sodium daily, and limit added salt when you prepare food.
* Do not consume more than one alcoholic drink per day for women, two per day for men. Certain people should not drink any alcohol.
Lack of sleep increases overeating
Researchers from several separate studies 1 have found a link between sleep and the hormones that influence our eating behavior. Two specific hormones are involved. Ghrelin is responsible for feelings of hunger. Leptin tells the brain when it’s time to stop. When you’re sleep deprived, your ghrelin levels increase at the same time that your leptin levels decrease. The result is an increased craving for food and not feeling full. Add the fact that sleep deprived people tend to chose different foods to snack on—mainly high calorie sweets and salty and starchy foods—and it’s easy to see how these small changes can lead to long-term weight gain.
Most people need between seven and nine hours of sleep a night. Some more, some less. Very few of us actually get the minimum of seven. How do you know how much sleep you really need? Experts say to sleep as long as you want for several days (best done on vacation). Then, your sleep should stabilize and you’ll find yourself waking up after the same number of hours daily, within 15 minutes or so. Once you know about how much sleep you need, start getting into a steady routine. Set a regular time for sleep. Start getting ready ahead of time. And experts say, avoid using the bed for watching TV or doing work.
Sleep + exercise + a healthy diet = weight loss
Don’t think snoozing a few hours longer each night will solve a weight problem. It won’t. Exercising and eating healthfully is still the way to go. But, lack of shut-eye may soon be considered another risk factor for obesity. Especially since 65 percent of Americans are overweight and 63 percent of people don’t get eight hours of sleep a night. Interestingly, many of those who are overweight also don’t sleep enough.
One thing does seem to be clear. When your body is not hungry for sleep, it won’t be so hungry for food either.
Posted by leah
There are many techniques of being on diet:
1.Verbal and Mental Techniques
Contemplation, imaging you are engaging a close friend in a conversation thereon. Consider how you life has changed since you have become fat. Think about the quality of life of your slim friends. Think about what you have done to yourself and how you are reversing that trend. Plot out a course of action. Repeat to your self various statements as though you are rehearsing a speech. Practice repeatedly this mental dialogue, for such practice makes future discussion that much easier.
2. Conversations: Tell everyone about how you are going on a diet. Describe how important it is and that you are now being a new phase of your life. Talk about how so many important things will be improved, such as your health, ability to work, play sports, sex, and your marriage. Ask them questions about diet. Engage your friends in conversation about diet.
3. visualization, Carry a photo of you when taken when prior to becoming fat and a current photo. Put similar photos on your desk. Have a picture taken of you in a bathing suit, make copies of it, and place them in several places such as the refrigerator, kitchen table, and desk, where they will remind you that you are on a diet. Visual participating in activities that you dont (or dont do well) because youre fat, such as sports, lovemaking, jogging, cycling, hiking, swimming, etc. Imagine yourself thin and having to carry 50 or more pounds of fat around wherever you go.[i] Now visualize yourself as thin doing those things. Visualize how much happier your spouse will be when you become physically attractive again, and how this will improve your relationship.
4. Readings and Studies: Find books on diet and read them. Find medical articles on metabolism, diet, and medical intervention. Take notes and discuss the subject matter with friends. Especially study the negative health consequences. The moderately obese person lives on an average 5 years less than the person who is not obese, and 8 years less than the fit person. Many diseases are drastically increased with weight gain including cancer (most carcinogens are fat soluble), arthritis, diabetes, and coronary disease being the most significant.[ii] Knowledge is one of the cornerstones to success.
5. NOTE TAKING: Keep track, a journal, of what you have done: the hours, the subjects, and any good ideas. Carry a stenographers tablet with you. And while you are about keep a journal include a section concerning your eating habits. Pay particular attention to those events preceding your eating too much or eating when not hungry. Also note the amount and what were eaten, and how hungry you were. Keep a daily log, then weekly work out your cumulative record. Enter the log in your computer. Records are much, much better than recollections.
FOOD TO EAT
1. Avoid foods which you are likely to eat too much of.
2. Drink water or diet soda. Many people consume over a 1,000 calories per day in fluids.
3. Avoid foods with more than 10% fat content. Fats contribute 3 times as many calories per gram as carbohydrates.
4. Avoid foods that arent filling such as fruits and sherbet, and other foods that increase your appetite or reduce the amount of time after a meal that it will take before you are again hungry.
5. Dont use calories as a guide,[iv] rather the percentage of fat and of simple carbohydrates. Cellulose calories are not an accurate measurement of the energy derived from foods.
6. Eat foods that are high in protein or cellulose.
EATING HABITS
1. Before beginning to eat, discuss your diet with your companions. Bring up, among other things, what you are doing to limit the amount of food to be consumed.
2. When eating by yourself, get out the amount you plan to eat and put it in your plate, and then put away the containers you got your food from.
3. Don’t leave out snacks or leave them in handy places. Some people even put a lock on their refrigerator, to make not so easy to open it.
4 Avoid large meals.[iii] If going to a restaurant, chose one with small portions and cheap food.
5. Putt off the first meal as long as possible. Wait till you are good and hungry.
6 Put off each subsequent meal until you are good and hungry.
7 Don’t eat a couple of hours before going to bed.
8 Eat only enough to take away your hunger.
9 Eat slowly, this will give a chance for what you have eaten to take away your hunger.
10. Eat small snacks between meals to help reduce the number of meals. Moreover, by snack you wont need to load up at the dinner table to prevent between meal hungers. .
11. Control the portions of your snacks. If necessary, have pre-measured portions in baggies.
12. Eat less than your normal portion.
13. Learn to eat slowly (obese people typically eat faster).
14. Choose filling, low-fat, low sugar, high protein meals and snacks. Avoid foods that improve your appetite and things that are not filling such as fruits and chocolates.
Posted by leah
Verbal & mental techniques
1. CONTEMPLATION (a silent verbal process): Think about positive effects of being slim, and conversely the negative effects about being fat. Imaging you are engaging a close friend in a conversation thereon. Consider how you life has changed since you have become fat. Think about the quality of life of your slim friends. Think about what you have done to yourself and how you are reversing that trend. Plot out a course of action. Repeat to your self various statements as though you are rehearsing a speech. Practice repeatedly this mental dialogue, for such practice makes future discussion that much easier.
2. CONVERSATIONS: Tell everyone about how you are going on a diet. Describe how important it is and that you are now being a new phase of your life. Talk about how so many important things will be improved, such as your health, ability to work, play sports, sex, and your marriage. Ask them questions about diet. Engage your friends in conversation about diet.
3. VISUALIZATION (a visual process): Carry a photo of you when taken when prior to becoming fat and a current photo. Put similar photos on your desk. Have a picture taken of you in a bathing suit, make copies of it, and place them in several places such as the refrigerator, kitchen table, and desk, where they will remind you that you are on a diet. Visual participating in activities that you dont (or dont do well) because youre fat, such as sports, lovemaking, jogging, cycling, hiking, swimming, etc. Imagine yourself thin and having to carry 50 or more pounds of fat around wherever you go.[i] Now visualize yourself as thin doing those things. Visualize how much happier your spouse will be when you become physically attractive again, and how this will improve your relationship.
4. READINGS & STUDIES: Find books on diet and read them. Find medical articles on metabolism, diet, and medical intervention. Take notes and discuss the subject matter with friends. Especially study the negative health consequences. The moderately obese person lives on an average 5 years less than the person who is not obese, and 8 years less than the fit person. Many diseases are drastically increased with weight gain including cancer (most carcinogens are fat soluble), arthritis, diabetes, and coronary disease being the most significant.[ii] Knowledge is one of the cornerstones to success.
5. NOTE TAKING: Keep track, a journal, of what you have done: the hours, the subjects, and any good ideas. Carry a stenographers tablet with you. And while you are about keep a journal include a section concerning your eating habits. Pay particular attention to those events preceding your eating too much or eating when not hungry. Also note the amount and what were eaten, and how hungry you were. Keep a daily log, then weekly work out your cumulative record. Enter the log in your computer. Records are much, much better than recollections.
ACTIVITIES
A. EATING HABITS, QUANTITY AND TYPE OF FOOD, AND SITUATIONS:
1. Before beginning to eat, discuss your diet with your companions. Bring up, among other things, what you are doing to limit the amount of food to be consumed.
2. When eating by yourself, get out the amount you plan to eat and put it in your plate, and then put away the containers you got your food from.
3. Don’t leave out snacks or leave them in handy places. Some people even put a lock on their refrigerator, to make not so easy to open it.
4 Avoid large meals.[iii] If going to a restaurant, chose one with small portions and cheap food.
5. Putt off the first meal as long as possible. Wait till you are good and hungry.
6 Put off each subsequent meal until you are good and hungry.
7 Don’t eat a couple of hours before going to bed.
8 Eat only enough to take away your hunger.
9 Eat slowly, this will give a chance for what you have eaten to take away your hunger.
10. Eat small snacks between meals to help reduce the number of meals. Moreover, by snack you wont need to load up at the dinner table to prevent between meal hungers. .
11. Control the portions of your snacks. If necessary, have pre-measured portions in baggies.
12. Eat less than your normal portion.
13. Learn to eat slowly (obese people typically eat faster).
14. Choose filling, low-fat, low sugar, high protein meals and snacks. Avoid foods that improve your appetite and things that are not filling such as fruits and chocolates.
B. RECORD KEEPING:
1. Set up a log and in this log track when you got up, when you ate, how much and what you ate, how fast you ate, and what things you should have done, such as cooked a smaller portion.
2. Track special circumstances, such as with company, during break at work, etc.
3. Record any causal observations.
4. Purchase a copy of the USDA handbook on foods, Composition of Foods, from the Government Printing Office. Read it and type out a table of the foods you commonly eat, their percentage water, carbohydrate, protein, and fat grams.
5. Purchase and read a university nutrition book.
6. Take notes on these books.
C. SOCIAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF EATING:
1. From your log you will learn what occurred prior to you over eating. Avoid those situations.
2. Avoid social situations conducive to over indulgence, such a spot lucks, dining out, and drinking parties.
3. Avoid friends who have eating problems, they will reinforce behavior inconsistent with weight loss.
4. The more ritualized your meals; the easier it is to control your consumption. Thus by eating at the same time and same location, it is easier to establish a pattern of good choice of foods and amount of foods, and repeat that pattern.
5. Try not to make the meal something looked forward to. Limit its social setting; choose bland foods, find other activities that you prefer, so that eating is taking you away from those enjoyed activities. In other words, try to turn eating into an activity like refueling the car, a necessity, rather than a pleasure.
6. Avoid cooking for others (and thus the social reinforcement), rather do the dishes and clean up.
7. Tell your beloved that he/she is not to make preparing a meal an expression of love, rather to keep it simple, nutritional, and low in fats and sugars.
WHAT TO EAT:
1. Avoid foods which you are likely to eat too much of.
2. Drink water or diet soda. Many people consume over a 1,000 calories per day in fluids.
3. Avoid foods with more than 10% fat content. Fats contribute 3 times as many calories per gram as carbohydrates.
4. Avoid foods that arent filling such as fruits and sherbet, and other foods that increase your appetite or reduce the amount of time after a meal that it will take before you are again hungry.
5. Dont use calories as a guide,[iv] rather the percentage of fat and of simple carbohydrates. Cellulose calories are not an accurate measurement of the energy derived from foods.
6. Eat foods that are high in protein or cellulose.
ACTIVITIES AND DIET
1. Increase your metabolism by engaging in more physical activities: walk more, climb stairs, mow the lawn, and such. Take up active sports such as running, cycling, tennis, roller-skating, and swimming.
2. Increase your muscle tone, and thus increase your metabolism. Join a gym and take up weight training. Do isometrics and isotonics (tightening your muscles) frequently throughout the day.
3. Get your family and friends involved with you in sports and weight training. Set a schedule for sports and weight training.
DRUGS:
1. Avoid drugs that make you relax or make you make you doppie. You need all your energy so that you can exercise, so you can work harder, and so you will have the sharpness of mind and drive to stick to your diet. .
2. Avoid alcohol; it contains empty calories and will reduce your activity level.
3. If you must take a recreational drug, choose amphetamines or LSD; both suppress your appetite and increase your activity level.
4. Take a diet drug at the beginning, it will surpass your appetite and will increase your motivation to lose weight. The best routine would be to take 5 or if necessary 10 mgs of amphetamine (a small dose) in the morning, for it will reduce your appetite and increase your drive.[v] Do this for about 2 weeks, so as to establish good diet habits. After that discontinue for you will grow tolerant of the drug. Thus if some months later you find that you are going off your diet, start again with 10 mgs, but continue only for a week.
FOOD AS A DRUG
Why it is so difficult for humans to follow the dictates of reason and do the very obviously prudent things? The remaining discussions are designed to shed light on human behavior and the obesity phenomena. It is one thing to set down the techniques of weight reduction (as I have done in the previous sections); it’s another to implement them. There are deeper reasons for gaining weight, reasons deeper than the afore described taste of food, social setting, and peer conditioning. There are deeper answers than: The obese person eats to much, has bad eating habits, and is week willed. It is the deeper reason that I am about to set out. There is a better way to understand animal/human behavior. Insight is power.
There is a relationship between behavior and environment. In the previous section I went into social reinforcement;[vi] that is an obvious example of how environment influences eating behavior. The pattern of reinforcers that create the behavior problem is far from obvious. Many of the reinforcers are mild. Think of vectors forces (as in vector algebra) deciding the direction of an action. Only with humans, the types, and intensity of forces are hidden in the complex and long history of the person. Further complexity is added by the biological inheritance that establishes the proclivities to respond in certain ways to stimuli. However, a listing of the events that reinforce (for the following example) Toms problem behavior is instructive.
Consider the example of Toms drinking a pint of milk and eating the last half of a Maria Callanders cherry pie for an evening snack. Tom will, being lactose intolerant, have a gas attack, later energy from the sugar in the pie, prevent the negative reinforcer of hunger, and deprive others of the pie. He likes the kidding he gets about his great appetite. Moreover, this evening there is nothing interesting going on, so he agreed to watch on television a movie with his wife. Adding the desert to his large meal insures that he will feel tired during the film, and thus be less bored. Moreover, about the time the movie is over, the sugar from the pie will take effect, and he will have energy to work on several business correspondences, an activity he will find more enjoyable than to continue to watch television. By depriving others of the pie, he is expressing hostility in a subtle way, which is mildly enjoyable. A similar pleasure is derived from the foul odor caused by his lactose (milk sugar) intolerance. His wife will become annoyed and they will quarrel some, a thing that will break up the monotony of the movie. And he likes the taste of cherry pie, and the milk to wash it down. The list goes on: the activity of eating the pie and milk during the beginning of the movie is a mildly reinforcing distraction from a film that bores him. He will sleep sounder this night following a second snack. These are the principle reinforcers that occur that evening.
There are other long-term ones. Given Toms dislike of physical exertion, being obese permits him to avoid such exertion. Given their less-than-loving marriage, being physically unattractive yields subtle reinforcements. Man by instinct will strike out against the source of both adversive stimuli and the cause for the blocking of the obtainment of pleasures.[vii] In this case his wife, being physically unattractive and poor in bed are two subtle ways of disappointing his wife, and thus they add to the vector algebra of his obesity. By far the greatest long-term reinforcer is the effect of weight upon his physical energy level. A large percentage of our society at least several times a week take substance (alcohol, valiums, marijuana, etc.) that reduce their energy level; food in quantity does the same, as also does obesity. It is these long-term and the prior mentioned short-term reinforcers that are stronger than the prudent rational reinforcement that would come from properly managing his weight.
Many small, some long term, others like breaking wind, short-term contribute to the total of reinforcement Tom gets from eating more than he burns off. While Tom could easily, if challenged cease from any of the weak reinforcers such as the silent but chocking farts he makes near his wife, or the consumption of the last slice of cherry pie. He cannot overcome at the same time the collection of these reinforcers. They result in Tom eating more than he burns. Changing the pattern of reinforcers, so that he would obtain those associated with a person of normal weight is like climbing over a mountain to get out of a valley. Tom is in the valley of obesity and he cant escape its pattern of reinforcers to get onto the other side and be one of the beautiful people.
[i] My friend Terry told me in 1985 that when he joined weight watchers, at his first meeting he was given during this meeting from their refrigerator a package of fat in a clear plastic bag that was approximately equaled to his excess weight. He then spoke to the group while holding this package.
[ii] Weighing the Risks
Posted by leah
Best Diet Tip No. 1: Drink plenty of water or other calorie-free beverages.
People sometimes confuse thirst with hunger. So you can end up eating extra calories when an ice-cold glass of water is really what you need.
“If you don’t like plain water, try adding citrus or a splash of juice, or brew infused teas like mango or peach, which have lots of flavor but no calories,” says Cynthia Sass, RD, a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association.
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Best Diet Tip No. 2: Think about what you can add to your diet, not what you should take away.
Start by focusing on getting the recommended 5-9 servings of fruits and vegetables each day.
“It sounds like a lot, but it is well worth it, because at the same time you are meeting your fiber goals and feeling more satisfied from the volume of food,” says chef Laura Pansiero, RD.
You’re also less likely to overeat because fruits and vegetables displace fat in the diet. And that’s not to mention the health benefits of fruits and vegetables. More than 200 studies have documented the disease-preventing qualities of phytochemicals found in produce, says Pansiero.
Her suggestion for getting more: Work vegetables into meals instead of just serving them as sides on a plate.
“I love to take seasonal vegetables and make stir-fries, frittatas, risotto, pilafs, soups, or layer on sandwiches,” Pansiero says. “It is so easy to buy a variety of vegetables and incorporate them into dishes.”
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Best Diet Tip No. 3: Consider whether you’re really hungry.
Whenever you feel like eating, look for physical signs of hunger, suggests Michelle May, MD, author of Am I Hungry?
“Hunger is your body’s way of telling you that you need fuel, so when a craving doesn’t come from hunger, eating will never satisfy it,” she says.
When you’re done eating, you should feel better — not stuffed, bloated, or tired.
“Your stomach is only the size of your fist, so it takes just a handful of food to fill it comfortably,” says May.
Keeping your portions reasonable will help you get more in touch with your feelings of hunger and fullness.
