Monday, March 19, 2012

When Life Throws You Curves

Undoubtedly, when you think you have things figured out change occurs. Some say that change makes life interesting. But, when diabetes is involved, change just means problems. As most of you know, blood sugar is affected by stress, illness, exercise patterns and, of course, what we eat. But, what if you've maintained your good blood sugar levels for some time and then your levels raise? What then?

I first started to examine my eating habits to see if something was different. Then, I reconsidered whether my exercise program was enough. Lastly, I monitored whether I was somehow missing my medications. These things do occur due to human error. I found that nothing had significantly changed except that I was drinking more coffee. Coffee had not affected me before. So, I started to read up.

There are pro and cons about diabetes and coffee. But, as is the case in everything we consume, we need to see how it affects us individually. As I said before, coffee hadn't affected me before. Did I say that I used creamer in my coffee? Yes, you guessed it. The increased creamer changed my blood sugar levels enough to make morning levels pretty high (167).

Being a relatively smart guy, I dropped the creamer entirely and so dropped my blood sugar levels. Currently, my morning levels average 100. Much better than before. Such a little thing, I thought, changed everything. So, I think we really need to take great care in our habits. Also, read labels to find out how much sugar things contain. Plus, educate yourself of the other names of sugar, ie. powdered corn syrup extract. Well, I'm doing better. I hope for maintained good blood sugar levels and health to all of you.

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