Re: Need diet advice

Here's how I handle type 2 diabetes (and I'm not on meds).

My husband and I switched to a mostly vegan diet which we follow roughly 5 days a week. 2 days a week, I usually aim to eat some fish for my main meal.

We're on the treadmill 3 days a week for just over 30 minutes at a time. Each session comes out to a 1 1/4 mile walk.

We take vitamin D-3 everyday. The proper dosage is 1000 i.u per 25 lbs. of body weight. In other words, someone weighing 100 lbs. would take 4000 i.u. per day.

We also take 3 cinnamon caplets per day plus some Chromium GTF. For blood Sugar control 400 mgs. of gymnema sylvestre twice a day. For metabolizing of carbs, prickly pear cactus. Swanson Vitamins has prickly pear cactus capsules and per the label, we take 2 capsules twice a day. Take the gymnema sylvestre and prickly pear cactus 1/2 hour before eating. Recently, we added green coffee bean extract and raspberry ketones to help with weight loss.

This regimen has helped us a lot. However, I would like to add --- if you are taking any prescription meds, be sure to go to a website that shows drug interactions and enter everything you are taking, along with any supplements. It's important to do this before starting any regimen.

I've lost weight (although now I've plateaued) and have kept my A1C well below 7.0

A vegan diet does not have to be boring or hard to follow. Many supermarkets are now carrying a good selection of vegan foods. Also, Whole Foods has an extensive selection. Be sure to read labels when shopping as sometimes things that seem to be vegan are actually vegetarian. If you like milk, try soy milk, rice milk or almond milk. You can have the occasional sweet as long as it is vegan and you don't go overboard. I once read an article by Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld where he said that it isn't the sweets per se that give diabetics a problem but it is the amount of calories consumed.

I understand that you are pressed for time when it comes to preparing meals. Again, there are many pre-made vegan items that don't take long to prepare. Fresh vegetables are ideal but frozen is fine. The steam-in-the-bag varieties that don't have any sauces are easy to pop into the microwave. Gardein makes a large range of fake meat products that you either heat in the oven or saute for a few minutes.

If you like to go out to eat, these days many restaurants offer up choices for vegans/vegetarians. Also, there are restaurants around that only do vegan/vegetarian food. Chinese and Thai places are always good when it comes to good vegan selections.

If you can go full-time vegan and be happy, then go for it. We tried it for a month. While we lost weight, we admitted that we missed having some non-vegan foods from time to time so we modified our diet to be a mostly vegan one. I found that by doing so, I could still keep my A1C in check.

Good luck with things. With a little experimentation when it comes to finding the right diet and the right herb/supplement combination plus some exercise, you should be able to make good progress. Tweet