If you’re not familiar with the very popular Baby-Sitters Club series of books, neither was I! But they’ve been around a very long time; I wonder what I was doing as a youth but I don’t recall reading.

I heard about this close knit group of twelve year old girlfriends featured in the book ages ago. And as soon as I heard about it, I put the book that’s most about our type 1 friend, Stacey, (featured above) on hold at my library. It’s probably been on my hold list for almost a year. I don’t think there’s a rash of reading going on about type 1 diabetes in youth. At least not among the tween set. But, whatever, three days ago it was released into my care.

It’s a charming read for tweens and a fairly good representation of T1D: the fear, confusion, yearning for a cure – that of course is from the parents 😉

If you have diabetes and haven’t reached the eighth grade yet, or you have a child with diabetes, put aside a day and a big pot of tea, sit down and enjoy. Lovely winter reading.

I’ll be the first to agree dietary and nutrition advice changes like the wind. What you thought was healthy a year ago probably isn’t anymore and vice versa. Need a few examples? Eggs – good or bad? Today, good. Coffee – good or bad – Today, good. Saturated fat – good or bad. Basically good, but don’t overdo. How about those rice cakes and snack well fat-free cookies we were all gobbling a few years ago as healthy snacks? Not so much. Loads of refined carbohydrates. Which are bad by the way.

I don’t know enough about vitamins and supplements, but I’m pretty sure it’s a similar good/bad scenario depending on the year. What I do know is that I’m on a regimen of calcium and Vitamin D supplements, like many women, and now I’ve just read a book devoted to the fact that they may cause more harm than help because I’m not getting Vitamin K2. The book,  featured above, was a very interesting and fairly easy read by Dr. Kate Rheum-Bleue, a Naturopathic Doctor in Canada.

In brief, calcium, with the help of Vitamin D and Vitamin A, does help strengthen bones and teeth. But, it may not be going into your bones and teeth. It is Vitamin K that directs it there rather than where it also likes to go – into the arteries leading to your heart. And that, my friend, is a place we definitely don’t want calcium deposits. They become blockages in your coronary arteries.

I prefer getting my nutrients from food not capsules, but Vitamin K2 is very hard to get from food. It’s most plentiful in grass fed animals, think cows and chickens, and what they produce, butter, milk and eggs. Fermented foods like the nasty natto, a Japanese breakfast item, are also a good source, but few of us in the Western world eat natto. It’s basically a brew of fermented soybeans. It’s gumminess is extremely off-putting if you can even get close to it given it smells like moldy shoes. Trust me, I know, I lived in Japan for six years.

Thus, with K2 absent from our diet the hypothesis is most of us are deficient in this Vitamin. Just as an aside, there is a K1. We seem to get ample amounts from leafy greens. K1 is not responsible for bone health, it is responsible for blood clotting.

So, I’m giving a K2 supplement a try. I just got my Pure Encapsulations Calcium K/D from Amazon. I’m not pushing any products. This was what my friend and Naturopathic Doctor Jody Stanislaw recommended. So, I’m passing it on to you.

Now, let’s just wait and see if we learn next year that we need something else to activate the K2 and that coffee has returned to the ‘Do Not Drink’ list.

But don’t get excited, I didn’t find much of anything new here. Except maybe eggs are okay again as well as coffee – up to 5 cups a day to get your mojo back.

For a review from the Los Angeles Times click here.

But these new guidelines make me think. Do people in the Blue Zones, areas of the world where people live the longest, like Southern Italy and Greece for instance, follow government-issued dietary guidelines? Are there even government guidelines issued to people in Okinawa, Japan, another Blue Zone? Or do they just do what they’ve been doing for centuries? Eat as their ancestors have, native and local produce, fish out of the sea, and drink wine produced in the hood.

With US food lobbyists in bed with big food manufacturers and our government, I think you have to take this all with a grain of salt. Do your own research, look further than our guidelines, see what works for you and use some common sense to eat for your best health.

We all know obesity has risen over the past several decades in America. Today two-thirds of adult Americans are overweight or obese. Most of us also know we eat too much refined, processed foods, or food-like items, as Michael Pollan calls them, and get too little activity.

You also likely know what we should be eating to be healthy and lose some weight – vegetables, fruit, lean meats, whole grains (although I rarely do on my low carb diet) some dairy (I believe full fat is better than low fat as it’s more nutritious) and healthy fats like nuts, seeds, olive and coconut oil and avocados. In moderate portions.

If you know a bit more, you may know big business began over processing foods in the 1970’s to give them a longer shelf life, transport them more easily and make more money on less substance. Government gave, and still does give, food subsidies to farmers to over produce corn. That corn is now in most of our food like items, over processed as non-nutritious starch and turned into inflammatory high fructose corn syrup.

Still, I found it interesting to see our eating patterns in pictures – how our food consumption has changed over the last several decades. The picture above came from the article, “How Americans Got So Fat, in Charts.” You may want to have a look too.

 

 

In 2007 I published my first book, “The ABCs Of Loving Yourself With Diabetes.” The picture above is in the book. This 64 page book contains my illustrations and inspirational, resilience-building essays/exercises on how to live happier, healthier, and with more regard for yourself and your diabetes. Below I’ve reprinted the Forward from the book and plan to post some more pages here throughout the month.

The book is dedicated to my father. He was pretty much emotionally absent during my childhood. He came back into my life when in my late twenties I spurred my parents to do a series of self-growth trainings I had just completed. As a result of the trainings, I quit my advertising job and began drawing and writing inspirational cards. He couldn’t do enough to pack them into the trunk of our old car and drive around Long Island selling them to every greeting card store he walked into. Which were many by the way. By this time in his life, he was getting treatment for his depression that we never knew he had.

My father is now 93. My mother put him in the nursing home a month ago. After two years of being his sole caretaker she could no longer physically do it. I love my father, I wrote about it here in July. This new years weekend I began looking back over my book. These whimsical, colorful drawings were something my father loved, and we bonded over.

Life is so fleeting; of course you only learn this when you’re older. And while a day still takes its stubborn time to pass, years go by as quickly as water being poured out of a glass.

Priorities change. Things you appreciate become closer to home and more personal. And proving yourself to others is something you remember you used to be concerned about. But very little these days. My work now is  bringing to health providers a different way of looking at, and working with, people who have diabetes – a treatment approach that helps us flourish with diabetes, to go beyond coping. And my life is about being appreciative and being kind.

So I hope these essays will help you on the journey to loving yourself. A journey I believe we’re all on. And that the pictures offer you a smile along the way.

Happy new year and happy new day, each and every one.

FOREWARD

At 18, I developed type 1 diabetes. Looking back, it was an odd time. I was not quite an adult, no longer a child. I have now lived with diabetes for more than 35 years (today 43), in the beginning not so well, over the years better and better, and now perhaps brilliantly–or fairly close, aware that this chronic condition requires both my medical and emotional attention.

Like so many, I have been through the typical stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. On some days I go back ’round again. I’ve enjoyed additional stages like outright disgust, “You don’t understand!” and a perfectionist’s frustration. However, as I learned more I reached out more, and shifted my focus from hefting the burden of diabetes to seeking ways to ensure my best health. As a result, my A1cs, my attitude and my responsibility all improved.

Getting married for the first time at 48 was also a driving force to do my best. With added motivation and support, I got behind the wheel of my health and haven’t looked back–except to make sure my husband isn’t covered in my dust.

I believe all of us with diabetes, and our loved ones, can benefit from the emotional nurturing, spiritual principles, understanding and support you’ll find here. It is my hope that this little book will put a tiny “I love me” patch on the hearts of all who read it.

Personally, I view diabetes as a blessing, for I am quite certain without it I would not stick to my daily walking program (particularly on cold, windy days). Nor would I have learned to like vegetables so much, or mastered waving bye-bye to my beloved muffins and scones. Diabetes has also given me my work, wonderful friends who share membership in this club, and the opportunity to contribute to the world and those who live with this disease.

I hope in your journey with diabetes you will arrive at that place, if you haven’t already, where diabetes is a “comma” in your life, as in…”I love my life, and I have diabetes.” Someone once said this to me and I don’t expect to ever forget it.

Learn everything you can, put the pedal to the metal–with your personal mettle on each pedal–and make life as full, rich and exuberant as you deserve. And should some dark clouds pass overhead, give a shout or have a cry, reread a few pages here, and then get on with it.

 

 

 

 

Diabetes Health Monitor just ran this article featuring 13 great and grounded tips for living well with diabetes from four seasoned people who do it – all of whom are my friends.

Jessica Apple and Mike Aviad who manage the superb diabetes magazine, A Sweet Life. Scott Johnson who has been a wonderful advocate in the Diabetes Online Community DOC since it all began, and moi.

Do you understand the power of choosing healthy eating over weigh loss? That you can’t compare your diabetes to anyone else’s? And that “perfect” does not belong in the diabetes dictionary?

Sometimes we learn more and better when we learn from each other.

 

I just listened to a wonderful podcast produced by tudiabetes. Click the link, go down to the video and hit the play button. If you aren’t a tudiabetes member, you may need to sign up. But it’s one of the richest social media sites in diabetes.

The podcast features CDE/PWD, Associate Professor at Columbia University Jane Dickinson. She comes into the video around 10:35.

First, I have to say how small the world is. I met Jane only three weeks ago at DiabetesMine’s Innovation Summit. Immediately, we knew we were kindred spirits. In our respect for people with diabetes, making the experience of diabetes more positive as well as the language.

In the podcast, Jane shares what she learned from people with diabetes regarding how we feel about words like “compliant” and “control.” Control happens to be one of my hot buttons – it doesn’t exist! Stop saying it! Yet getting most HCPs to undo that hard wired language they hear everyday is a Herculean task. This may just be a time when WE have to teach THEM.

Jane also shares the really intriguing background of how “control” and “test” as in “testing blood sugar” came into our diabetes language.

Host Emily Coles says why don’t we talk about “pride” with diabetes for all we do? Why indeed. I will now use a great line Jane threw out when she was at her dermatologist’s office and she told her she should do something. Jane said, “Don’t should on me!” It went over her provider’s head, but not mine and probably not yours.

It’s time to change the conversation. Jane plans next to study if we change our diabetes language to rid it of the judgment and replace judgement with praise, can we affect clinical outcomes. Truthfully, I expect so.

 

It was an amazing week. I presented my Award Lecture the first day of the conference and presented with my husband about how we manage diabetes together the last day.

My Award Lecture was on a Flourishing Treatment Approach which I believe can take people with diabetes further than our current Coping Treatment Approach. Thanks to the IDF, the video of my presentation will be online this month or next. I will be sure to post it. For now, I can point you to a very short write up already in the Endocrinology Advisor. The hour presentation was multi-faceted so this is just to whet your appetite.

I cannot thank the International Diabetes Federation enough for giving me a world stage to share the work I’ve been doing in diabetes. The work that is closest to my heart – helping people with diabetes flourish and helping HCPs work with people who have diabetes in a way that helps them flourish. The fact that more than 200 people attended my Award Lecture and received it so enthusiastically makes my heart full.

The husband and I presented twice on how my diabetes helps our relationship grow. The first time for the conference participants – more than 8,000 scientists, researchers, clinicians and health care providers – and the second time for people with diabetes and loved ones.

For us, my having diabetes and how we live with it, has only made our relationship closer and stronger. Again, it is a positive position few really expect, but we have made my diabetes, ours. In doing so we have, and continue to, create ways that make it easier for me to manage diabetes and help the husband get more sleep, worry less and have a valued role in my diabetes.

I am indebted to all the support we had throughout the week and to all the wonderful new people I met at the conference with whom I now feel a special bond. My only complaint is with whoever arranged the weather. Rain, rain, rain and more rain!

I’m just about over jet lag having returned from San Francisco for DiabetesMine’s Innovation Summit. It was an exciting day meeting some great people and getting caught up on diabetes device usability.

Sunday the husband and I are off to Vancouver for the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) World Congress. IDF is the global advocacy diabetes organization and every two years about 12,000 clinicians, researchers, scientists and others in the diabetes space gather. They’ll also be the notable exhibition hall crammed with current and new products, devices and meds.

This year I am receiving the IDF Lecture Award in recognition of my diabetes education and advocacy. The Award graces me with the opportunity to give a lecture on the topic of my choice. You will find me, should you be there, Tuesday morning in Rm. 119 at 8:30 AM presenting, The Flourishing Approach: A way to treat and live with diabetes that goes beyond coping. Click here for details. I am introducing a different treatment approach for health professionals; in short, to shift their focus from the medical markers of diabetes to also involve patients and foster their strength, resilience, confidence and motivation through various tools.

The next morning Wednesday, also at 8:30 AM also in Rm. 119, the husband and I will be presenting in the Living with Diabetes stream. Our presentation is titled, How living with diabetes helps our relationship grow. We will share how diabetes has gone from mine to  “ours,” strategies we’ve developed for making life with diabetes easier for both of us, and how it has brought us even closer as a couple. Click here for details.

If you’re at the conference please do come to our sessions.

I realize just a few years ago I would have made sure I had a post up first thing in the morning on World Diabetes Day. Yet today I’m enjoyingan ordinary Saturday. Well, I must admit I have a cold so maybe I’m not moving as quickly as ordinarily. But, even so, while I am mentally marking this auspicious occasion – WDD honors the birthday of Frederick Banting who helped discover insulin -I’m basically enjoying just being an ordinary person on an ordinary sunny Autumn Saturday.

That said, I do feel I have to say something. So here is what I posted on Facebook this morning:

A friend of mine, Elizabeth Snouffer, also a fellow type 1 and editor of the Internation Diabetes Federation’s (IDF) magazine, Voices, related in a recent article something her beloved endocrinologist had said to her which I soooo took to heart. “The call for people with diabetes to self-manage without failure and achieve near Herculean results is cruelly unparalleled compared to other therapeutic categories in disease management.” Amen And so I believe today all of us with diabetes should honor ourselves for whatever we do to manage this disease, and honor others we know with it.

As for the more World Diabetes Day news, here are the highlights from the new IDF  Atlas:

-Number of people with diabetes has risen to over 400 million for the first time – if diabetes was a country population it would be third after China and India

-Half a million children now live with type 1 diabetes-the exact causes of this complex disease are still unknown (we have experts who can talk about environmental and genetic factors)

-Diabetes deaths total greater than HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria combined (WHO data used for comparison)

-Gestational diabetes (diabetes onset during pregnancy) now affects one pregnancy in seven. This an increase risk of development of type 2 diabetes in both

-12% of global healthcare budget is being spent on diabetes-this is larger than the US military budget. Total spending will reach 800 billion USD by 2040.

-There are strong links to rising type 2 diabetes rates in regions and countries where income is sky-rocketing alongside other factors such as urbanisation (as seen in the Middle East). IDF anticipates that South America or African countries could be the next diabetes hubs.

-The big opportunity: catching the 300 million people at risk of diabetes– there is still the possibility here to prevent the development of type 2 diabetes and bring blood sugars back to a healthy range through healthier lifestyles.