Living with diabetes.

I was diagnosed with diabetes in 2006, so I've been a diabetic for 6 years.  Before that, I thought I'd been eating healthy.

Pre and post diabetes, my breakfast consisted mostly of toast bagel and coffee,  then lunch varied from packed lunch of rice and meat to restaurant dining, mostly Italian, Chinese or Greek/Hungarian. Dinner was light, and coffee had been a constant.

I was also on eating out, usually on Sundays,  either Japanese, Thai, Italian and Canadian-American restaurants such as Red Lobster.

My favorite Thai resto - Golden Thai at Church and Dundas in Toronto

But what was unique to me was that I never ate on time for lunch.  My work entailed seeing clients, and a lot of times lunch had to be served after the last client had left, sometimes at 3 p.m. To appease the pangs of hunger, I'd munch on a bar of chocolate or chip and a can of regular Coke.

I think this pre-lunch ritual did me in for diabetes.

So I went to re-define my eating habits.

A Red Lobster yummy for me. Whenever I'm in TO, I frequent the Red Lobster in Scraborough.

For breakfast, I settled for a small bowl of oatmeal, or sometimes cold cereal with pieces of fruit and a piece of wheat bread toast with a slight spread of cream cheese or peanut butter and coffee.  My lunch was tuna salad without dressing.  I did away with soda and any form of chocolate.  

Dinner was small serving of rice and fish, veggie or meat.  When I got hungry at night, I made a peanut butter sandwich.  Eating out was still there, but I watched what I was ordering.  Plus of course there was exercise involved - low aerobics or dancing.

I got the occasional dessert, and red wine, too.

With this diet, my blood sugar dramatically went down, my FBS was consistently below 6  and my family physician said I was doing the right thing. And it helped that I kept tracking my blood sugar and maintained a diary of the food/menu I was ingesting.

Segue to living in Manila for sometime to visit ailing Mom.  There was food all around me served liberally throughout the day, ( e.g - two breakfasts, constant snacking and eating out).

White rice, Filipino dish such as kare kare, sinigang na baboy, asado, adobo, bulalo,  and Filipino merienda (snacks) like turon, bibingka, guinatan, puto (rice cakes) at home, and outside - more food.

Next time I was at my doctor's office, the blood tests showed an increase in blood sugar, although still tolerable.

Now, with the whole Manila household on full diabetes alert, we'd done away with two breakfasts and snack on boiled camote or saguing, and done a lot of grilling.  In the kitchen cupboard are brown rice, wheat bread, sugar- free sugar and sugar- free jam, Diabetamil cookies, low salt crackers and low salt everything, 1/3 less fat Philadelphia cream cheese. No pancake mix, chips nor chocolate.

If there's spaghetti, it's with own-made sauce (tomatoes, tuna and herbs), and guinisang ampalaya and other veggies are eaten generously.

No more bonchon, Italianni's and Mediterranean cuisine, for now.  Japanese food is still on the list when eating out, so is Sbarro's and Mesa for local cuisine, occasional Thai and tuna sandwich at French Baker and sariwang lumpia at Goldilock's.

A healthy favorite of mine - Lumpiang sariwa at Goldilock's

Note: I also discovered that one diet works for one and not for another. So, beware. Constantly monitor your blood sugar two hours after eating, at least 3 times a week and keep a journal, so you would know what kind of food will trigger your blood sugar or what will keep it down.