Winter Comfort Food for Prediabetics and Diabetics

JipsyJudy

Wow. It's gray, chilly, windy, and rainy around San Francisco Bay this morning. I woke up with a mad craving for warm, hot comfort food and knew my usual breakfast of cold stuff wasn't going to do the trick. After scrounging around in the cupboard, I passed on the idea of an egg white omlette and came up with a half portion of hot oat bran, a half cup of low fat cottage cheese, a tablespoon of Chi a seeds, and coffee with plain, light soymilk. OK it was hot and healthy, but there wasn't enough comfort there.

I'm following three sets of guidelines to try to get my fasting blood sugar down. First I stick strictly to The South Beach Diet, Phase 2, which means absolutely nothing, ever, on the bad carbs list. Second, I keep my calories down to a max of 1450 more than I burn with exercise each day. Third, I follow two pieces of additional dietary advice from The Insulin Resistance Diet book, which is to never eat more than 30 carbs at any meal or in any 2 hour period, and to always pair protein with carbs (never eat carbs without protein). Also, just as a general guideline I try to avoid high fat food.

To do this, I eat a lot of salads and other green veggies. This morning is the first blast of winter I've experienced since starting the prediabetic regimen. I'm going to need help to stay on the program when winter starts to rev up my appetite for warm comfort foods. Anybody else in the same place? I would love to get suggestions for high protein, low meals, especially for breakfast.

srazzack

try my blueflaximin oatmeal, search it up in the recipes tab.

MissMaryMac33

Egg beaters scramble with lean meat, veggies, salsa

Quinoa/Oat with pumpkin puree, pumpkin pie spice and walnuts...my favorit.
Quinoa is very low glycemic, high protein grain -- its perfect.

Greek Yogurt (the good stuff --- if the label says more sugar than protein - don't buy it! Buy something like Fage 0% or Chobani %0 plain) --- stir in things like pumpkin puree, sf pudding mix for flavors, sf coffee creamers for flavor, agave, nuts, blueberries etc.


EDIT: As a former Type II Diabetic and someone still living with PCOS (another insulin resistant disease) I have been eating high protein, lower carb for years --- its a very easy lifestyle, not a diet

JipsyJudy

Thank for the guide to your blueflaximin oatmeal, but when I click on the Recipes tab, I get a screen that tells me I haven't added any recipes and two links for adding recipes.

cramernh

EDIT: As a former Type II Diabetic and someone still living with PCOS (another insulin resistant disease) I have been eating high protein, lower carb for years --- its a very easy lifestyle, not a diet

Yes, it IS a very easy lifestyle... even for my extreme PCOS case with Metabolic X Syndrome

JipsyJudy

Thanks very much MIss MaryMac. Those suggestions sound great. Yes, I do eat Fage 0%. I've been eating scrambled egg whites with spinach and a tablespoon of low fat cheddar so much I'm very tired of that. Your suggestion of using Egg Beaters and adding salsa is a terrific one. Also the pumpkin etc. suggestion is awesome! That's exactly the kind of thing I was craving this morning --- winter/Thanksgiving food.

I hear you about the lifestyle-not-diet mindset. I've actually been on the South Beach Diet for ten years. (My entire family on both sides is prone to diabetes.) But even on the South Beach program my fasting blood sugar has continued to creep up every year. After my last test, I tried dropping my carbs back to 15 grams per meal as some guides suggested, but that was really difficult. So after one week of that, I decided to give 30 grams per meal a try for 3 months and then get retested to see how that works. If my fasting blood sugar continues to go up when I"m eating only 30 grams of carbs per meal, I'll have to drop to 15.