WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Part 3: "I have diabetes. Please help me."

“My son always talks about food, but since attending the Growing Healthy Kids’ program, he only talks about eating healthy foods now.”                        -- Parent of a 12 year old boy in a recent GHK program

For the past two weeks, Wellness Wednesdays has been about diabetes.  Guess what! Due to the amount of social media response we've received, we’re doing it again!  This issue of Wellness Wednesdays will wrap up our September diabetes series by sharing resources from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) AND a delicious recipe created in the Growing Healthy Kids Test Kitchen!  

When someone tells me they can’t afford to eat healthy, my usual response is, “Give me an hour and I’ll show you how.”  What I REALLY want to say is, “You think eating healthy is expensive?  Try paying for diabetes.”

For the sake of our children, parents owe it to themselves to learn how to lose weight, eat healthy, and be more active.  Then teach your kids how to eat right and be more active.  Here’s the problem:  I see a lot of parents who take great care of themselves and then buy crap for their kids.  Don’t be like them.  I’m talking about the parents wearing the cool fitness or yoga clothes with their high-priced salon hair shopping with their children with a grocery cart filled with crap for the kids.  You know what I’m talking about:  cases of those high sodium ramen noodles, cases of sodas filled with high fructose corn syrup and 3 days’ worth of sugar, pizzas with 850 mg of sodium PER SLICE, and don’t forget the case of honeybuns! 

Eat healthy and be more active. Shop at the local farmers market and buy vegetables and fruits that are in season.  Plan your week’s menus around those foods.  Let the kids tear up the salad greens you just bought from the local farmer and make the salad dressing in a jar (to encourage recycling and reusing).  Create your own Wellness Wednesdays Salad Bowls.  Cook up a pot of quinoa, then layer up salad greens, shredded carrots, sliced celery, diced organic tomatoes and avocado.  Top with a ½ cup of cooked quinoa, add the vinaigrette dressing (2 parts olive oil, 1 part apple cider or red wine vinegar, a little local honey, and fresh black pepper) and dinner is served.   Simple, delicious, and healthy in under an hour! 

Lesson for preventing diabetes in adults:  lose weight, eat healthy, and be more active.  For your kids?  Eat healthy and be more active.  Got it?  Good!  Now, off to the kitchen to cook up some quinoa for Wellness Wednesdays Salad Bowls!

America needs Growing Healthy Kids, not kids with diabetes.  Be the change.  

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. 

For more information about preventing diabetes, go to CDC's website by clicking here.  For more healthy recipes to prevent diabetes, click on the link on the top right of this page and get a copy of Nourish and Flourish!  

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: Part 2: "I have diabetes. Please help me."

“Monitoring carbohydrate intake, whether by carbohydrate counting or experience-based estimation, remains critical in achieving glycemic control.”  

       -- from Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes 2015, American Diabetes Association

“What was your last A1C result?” 

Whenever someone asks me for help with their diabetes, their answer to this question tells me volumes about their relationship with their doctor and their health literacy about diabetes.   This is because the A1C is the most important blood test for someone diagnosed with diabetes.  Understanding its significance is, without a doubt, the key to gaining control. 

It ALWAYS bothers me when their answer is, “What’s that?”  It means their doctor has not taught them well. 

Class is now in session.  What is the A1C and what does it mean?  It is a blood test that measures one’s average daily blood sugars over the past 2-3 months.  Fasting is NOT required for this test.  Here’s the bottom line:  the higher the A1C, the higher the chance of complications from diabetes. The longer an A1C remains elevated, the greater the chance the damage may be irreversible. However, when the A1C remains stable at goal, as determined by 2 or more consecutive tests at or below the goal, it is the best test of how well controlled one’s diabetes is.  

What is the A1C goal for most people?  In non-pregnant adults, it is below 7%, according to American Diabetes Association.  In older adults, the goal may be less stringent (less than 8%).  Diabetes is diagnosed by a physician when the A1C is 6.5% or higher, so for this reason some doctors set goals for their patients lower than 7% because they want to help the patient get their blood sugar to levels as normal as possible. 

Why does all this matter?  In last week’s Wellness Wednesdays was data from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that lays out the scope of the problem.  We have a very big problem with diabetes in this country and it is up to us, the adults, to do something about it for the sake of our children’s health. The diabetes epidemic is directly related to our obesity epidemic.  

What’s the solution?  Sugar.  Eating huge amounts of sugar has to stop.  Sugar, just like salt, is added to all kinds of foods and many people mindlessly consume foods and drinks that are toxic to their health.  When those people are parents, their choices affect their kids.  When someone has diabetes, one of the first things I talk with them about is what they drink.  Like my friend I told you about last week, her answer was that she drinks Cokes all day long!   She has made changes and you can, too.  She has now stopped drinking all sodas.  

Be mindful what you eat and drink.  Start training yourself to be a nutrition detective by looking at food labels for sugar and fiber content.  You may be very surprised by all the hidden sugars you find in what you normally eat and drink. Once you (and your kids) start cutting back on foods and drinks containing added sugars, such as high fructose corn syrup, your clothes will probably start fitting better.  Nice side effect of being a nutrition detective! 

So if you have diabetes (or prediabetes), what can you do starting today to improve your A1C? 

1. Stop drinking sodas.  
2. Drink water, not soda.   
3. Eat real fruit instead of drinking fruit juice.  
4. And please, talk with your doctor about your A1C goals.  

Do you have a question about what to eat?  Then please send me an email at growinghealthykidsnow@gmail.com and I'll pick one reader's question to feature in an upcoming issue of Wellness Wednesdays in October.  

Now, off to the kitchen for another piece of crustless spinach quiche!  

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. 

WELLNESS WEDNESDAYS: "I have diabetes. Please help me."

“Over the past 32 years, from 1980 through 2012, the number of adults with diagnosed diabetes in the United States nearly quadrupled, from 5.5 million to 21.3 million.  Among adults, about 1.7 million new cases of diabetes are diagnosed each year.  If this trend continues, as many as 1 out of every 3 adults in the United States could have diabetes by 2050.” 

          --Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014 Diabetes Report Card

The majority of what the US spends on health (read: sick) care is on chronic (read: preventable) diseases like diabetes.  It is taking down some of our best and brightest adults.  The lesson is clear.  We cannot afford to continue down this path.  Our children are in trouble…unless we stand and act. 

I often speak about the need to improve the quality of foods kids have access to and eat.  Whenever I am shopping for food, I always notice what others have in their grocery carts, especially if there are kids in tow.  The foods that many parents choose to feed their kids are feeding diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure.  Foods and drinks high in processed sugars and salt are NOT what kids need.  All kids need – and deserve – access to whole, plant-based foods.  But, as I have said here before, we need to put on our own oxygen masks first before we put on our children’s masks.

This week, it happened again.  I ran into a friend who stopped me to ask for help because she has diabetes.  She has a stressful job running a department for a local county municipality and said she needs help knowing what she can eat.  She and I have already had our first education session to begin empowering her for her own health.  We will have another in 2 weeks.  But what about her children? What about the health of her employees?  Many of them have sedentary desk jobs, a red flag for diseases like obesity and diabetes.  What about the health of her employees’ children? 

I can help my friend become more literate about diabetes, control it, manage it, and hopefully, reverse it.  While I am educating her, I will also be educating her family and her staff.   With 9.3% of Americans estimated to have diabetes (diagnosed and undiagnosed), and another 1 in 3 Americans with prediabetes, the stakes are clear:  the health and quality of our children’s future lives are on the line unless we step up and accept the challenge to take care of ourselves.  If we are going to help our children, we have to help ourselves.  Please pass the crustless spinach quiche and sparkling mineral water!

For kid-tested tips and recipes to prevent diabetes and put your family on a clear path to healthier foods, check out Nourish and Flourish. Click on the link in the top right corner!

In gratitude,

Nancy Heinrich

Founder, Growing Healthy Kids, Inc. 

PS-If you have a family member with diabetes or prediabetes and have a question about what to eat, write to me at growinghealthykidsnow@gmail.com.  I'll send you the new recipe for Crustless Spinach Quiche, brand new from the Growing Healthy Kids Test Kitchen!