Day 15

Hello Friend,

I am still more than excited about learning about the diabetes super food called "beans."  Who would have thought, that the lowly, inexpensive, laughable bean would be the thing that would turn around not only diabetes, but reduce cholesterol and triglycerides helping to prevent heart attacks, too? You have got to read that chapter starting on page 217 -- for day 14 -- and get to know about all the healing powers of beans. Dr Rip and Jim Healthy also provide a few bean recipe ideas in the book and then give you a web site to see more.

I was especially interested in reading about the "resistant starch" that is found in beans (and also a few other foods that are listed at the end of the chapter). I had never heard of that before, but, as the name suggests, this is starch that resists the break down into sugar in the intestines. Dr Rip even says that some of this kind of starch never actually gets turned into sugar in the human body, so: have at, eat as many beans as you want. Have some at every meal and he promises that you will soon be loving your weight loss. Fortunately for me I have a can of beans (with no preservatives) in the cupboard and one bag of navy beans, too.

I had spinach, eggs, and beans all scrambled together for breakfast about an hour and a half ago and am still feeling completely full. Dr Rip says that is because beans even help to turn on the "I'm full" reactor. Yippee!! That is the opposite of the eating machine where you eat and eat and eat and nothing satisfies, so you just keep hunting for more to eat, knowing your stomach is full, but still feeling hungry. That is a never ending cycle, making you feel out of control and depressed, and also leading to very rapid weight gain. I am so happy to report that this program has turned that off for me. Thank God!!

Since beans are so filling, I am no longer worried about the whole grains that have been added to the program. I will be having beans with every meal and if I choose the whole grains that are on the list of starch resistant foods at the end of the chapter, that should take the worry out.

So the focus for a meal that I need to keep in my mind is: first vegetables, second beans, third protein, fourth whole grains -- and if I have those for every meal, in descending quantities of each, I will soon be seeing the good results I want. What I mean by "descending quantities" is the amount of each item on the list. The largest quantities should be the vegetables, following in lesser portions of beans, meat, and whole grains. I am wondering if perhaps the whole grains and the proteins could be swapped in order, making it OK to have more whole grains than proteins. I think that perhaps it may not matter so much to be so formally and technically correct. I am still figuring this out, but some of these things I won't know until I do them for a while and see how it goes.

What I am looking forward to is losing weight, lowering my blood pressure, and no longer being pre-diabetic which means I will no longer be in danger of becoming a full blown diabetic. And especially no medications which are both expensive, and cause dangerous side effects.

I am hoping to get rid of my high blood pressure medications, too. There are only two that I am taking, and on their own, they don't really lower my blood pressure anyway. One of them is a diuretic, which helps to reduce my ankle swelling, so that one does have a good effect that I can monitor myself. I have no way of monitoring the other one (coozar) but do know that it does not actually lower my BP.

Every other blood pressure medication that my doctor has prescribed has caused some major complication in some way, and I refuse to try any more. Just as an example: the drug called amlodipin (I may not get the spellings of these perfect) made me swell up so much that the diuretic never really could make my ankles normal sized over the period that I took it. But worse than that, I came down with a really bad case of bronchitis in January that did not let up, no matter how many antibiotics I took (and I took 4 of them) until I arbitrarily stopped taking the amlodipine in April and then had to take medication to get rid of the yeast infection in my sinuses that the antibiotics had caused. (Don't worry I consulted my doctor about this within one week.) The bronchitis began to get better immediately. There is more to the story but I don't want to take up time and space relating that in detail. If it comes up later for some reason, I will.

That is 4 months of bronchitis. That is not a cure in my book. And the lisinopril caused me to have asthma for three weeks after taking only one pill. That was a good cure. Not.  There was another one that I took but I do not recall the name of it, which made me super depressed with only one pill. Another one I tried, gave me the symptoms of a small heart attack, after only one pill, also. I am not going down that road again.

But, thanks to "The 30 Day Diabetes Cure" I don't think I will have to worry about that. I am only on day 15 and have already seen an improvement in my BP readings. I am still hovering around a 10 pound weight loss, but am expecting to see more in that area soon. I will be going to see my doctor on the 7th, so will be hoping that she likes what I am doing and hoping she does not hollar too loudly about the weight. She is expecting more, I know. I had begun to put on weight, not lose weight, after my last visit, so I know that I've taken off the 10 pounds I put on, but I will be showing up at the same weight I left, so, she will not see any progress there. But I'm hoping she will be happy with my explanation and new efforts.

Note: I made a pot of chocolate tea sweetened with stevia and it was not too bad. I think I liked it better than tea alone. I had thought about the mixture known as "mocha" for a combination of coffee and chocolate and wondered it anyone had ever put tea and cocoa together. I wanted to see how it would taste so I put one green teabag in the filter of my coffee maker and put one scoop of baker's chocolate in the bottom of the coffee pot and let it process. I put the chocolate in the bottom because I already experimented with putting it in the filter and that does not work. It just gets clogged and wastes the chocolate because it is hard to get out of the hot wet floppy filter. 

I'm not sure I would use the word "delicious" but it was on the tasty side. I did prefer it to tea all by itself, and wanted to get the antioxidants from both of these ingredients. So, try it, if you are not a tea or coffee lover. It ain't really too bad. I will finish the pot over the course of the day and will report later if my impression changes -- which it sometimes does. If I don't say anything, it probably continued to be pleasantly drinkable, but not worthy of garnering more attention, because I forgot about it.

On to Day 15: Reducing Stress. Stress raises blood sugar. So incorporating anti-stress techniques should begin to help moderate blood sugar levels. Dr Rip suggests the usual meditation techniques but I shall focus only on the ones that I feel will make a difference for me. First, I have a decision to make in my life that is making me feel anxious and a little worried. After reading his suggestions I am praying that the Lord will direct me to the person with whom I should discuss this matter.

Dr Rip suggests making a list of the things in your life that are causing you stress and categorizing them, like you would the mail. There are some that need to be handled right away, like bills, for which a person sends a payment to solve the most immediate part of the problem for the moment. There are some that are relational which may mean being honest about remaining in close contact with a stress causing individual. It really is up to you how much time you spend in circumstances that affect you negatively. If it is not working for you, you may first want to consider why, and if the problem can be either solved or eliminated, then take steps to make that happen.

Sometimes we need to discuss a particular problem with a professional counselor trained to help folks in that area. I know from experience that speaking to a professional for one or two sessions can help me get on track and headed in the right direction, whether it be emotional or financial. And there are some things that can just be run through the shredder because we are being anxious over something that is only in our minds. The shredder in this case would be to make a reality check, and a counselor can help with this, if you are not able to just put some things aside by yourself. This could be your Pastor, too. Don't overlook this person. I often feel a little intimidated when thinking about speaking to a pastor. But I also realize that is just an emotional reaction and may or may not have anything to do with actually sitting down and talking with him.

My best stress releasing activity is prayer and Bible reading, followed by exercise which really makes me feel good. You need to actively incorporate whatever method or technique you know works for you.  If you don't know the Lord, Jesus, getting to know Him may relieve your burdens in a way you were not suspecting. You won't know until you have experienced Him.

So, reduce your stress and reduce your blood sugar at the same time.

Be back soon

--Marcia