WHY DO I HAVE TO HIT MY TARGET NUMBERS?

I get a lot of comments that for instance, "I am vegetarian, I don't need all that protein" - or "Just where did you get your target numbers?"

These numbers represent the Zone diet - which normalizes blood sugar. Why is this? It is because the body has specific biological responses to protein, and to carbs.

Carbs trigger insulin spikes, and protein triggers glucagon release, which lowers blood sugar. They MUST be in balance. You would not put diesel fuel into a gasoline engine. If you are eating the standard American diet, you are doing just that, putting the wrong fuel mixture into your body and damaging it. The human body has a preferred fuel composition, and that is a balance of protein and carbs, and low fat. If you do anything else, over time, you will become diabetic.

I was the world's greatest natural food cook. I was doing my very best to cook for my family and maintain a semi-vegetarian, natural foods orientation. Imagine my shock when I learned I was diabetic. Not to mention the fact that I weighed 283 pounds. I had to find out what went wrong.

The answer? In my zest to pursue whole grains, bread baking, lots of fruits and veggies, brown rice, granola, and lots of honey, cheese, and eggs, I knew NOTHING of food composition. I had poisoned myself, and my family, with too many carbs and not enough protein. And all the cheese I was eating overloaded my fat processing ability and gave me pancreatitis, which is at root a lipid processing problem.

The Zone diet assigns equal amounts of carbs and proteins to balance blood sugar. We have further refined that to say that it is the lean muscle mass in the body that defines your protein, carb, and fat targets.

I have helped over 600 people lose weight without hunger. The key to this is to hit those targets on the left side of this blog. It does not matter what food you use, but you must hit your targets. This means you can be a vegetarian and lose weight and control blood sugar, but you must be very careful to add some low fat source of protein to match each and every carb gram that you eat. As a diabetic, you can have protein without carbs, but never carbs by themselves. If you do that you are further damaging your pancreas and spiking your blood sugar. That all goes away when you balance protein and carbs.

The key to getting off of diabetic meds is to log every bite of food that goes into your mouth, and to hit your targets for fat, protein, and carbs. If you do that, the supplements will show a pronounced effect, and the chances that you will completely get off diabetic medications are very good. But work with your doctor to confirm your progress. You should never stop diabetic medications without the approval and knowledge of your doctor.

We have seen the evidence play out on a body composition scale with over 600 clients. If they are short on carbs, or not getting enough protein, or starving themselves and going to the gym, they lose muscle mass. It is that simple. So don't try to re-invent the wheel, it is already proven many times over that the low carb diet is wrong, high fat diet is wrong, and none of us are getting the recommended amount of protein. And a high carb approach to diabetes will only make the problem worse. Instead we need to add a source of low fat protein to match all carb grams.

Whey protein fills the bill. Adds muscle, alkalinizes the body, and puts you in a good mood! I recommend half of the recommended amounts of protein as whey protein. For me, that is around 45 grams of whey protein daily. That amount can be achieved with the protein cocoa and Reese's shake.

But thank goodness I found this information. I have half a pancreas, and my last A1C was 6.4 - and my insulin needs are practically non-existant. I am never hungry or tired, and I have lost over 110 pounds. Try it, you will like it!

CRYSTALLIZED GINGER, TAKE 2

The maximum recommended doseage for ginger is 4 gm daily. Each 1 inch cube of crystallized ginger has 500 mg ginger. So, you should not exceed 8 one-inch cubes of crystallized ginger to help drive fasting blood sugar down.

NOTE: A CUP OF GINGER TEA HAS ABOUT 250 MG GINGER, MUCH LESS THAN THE CRYSTALLIZED GINGER. IT WILL ALSO LOWER FASTING BLOOD SUGAR IF TAKEN RIGHT BEFORE BED, SO IT IS THE MILDER APPROACH.

However, please note that too much ginger can make blood on the brain, as ginger reduces platelet stickiness and thins the blood. So, people that are on blood thinners should probably not take ginger in any form.

But it continues to drive my fasting blood sugar down. I am not taking blood thinners and am very glad to have this information. The 30 carb grams in 1 ounce of crystallized ginger just disappear overnight, so you don't have to count them in your daily targets.

CRYSTALLIZED GINGER

If you read my blog regularly, you know about ginger tea and how it reduces blood glucose. Someone commented on that post, saying they eat 2 ounces of crystallized ginger before bedtime, and their fasting blood sugar has normalized, originally 130 to 140, now 85 to 100.

I was concerned because crystallized ginger has a lot of sugar in it, and Calorieking shows 30 carbs per ounce. But I decided to test the concept anyway. We are all here to learn!

I ate one ounce of crystallized ginger before bed. My fasting blood sugar this morning was 65!

Ginger acts by speeding up the body's metabolism.

So, go get your crystallized ginger slices!

And THANK YOU, kind reader, for your suggestion. It will help a lot of people, including me!

SAMPLE ONE WEEK DIET FOR A MAN, 6 FT TALL

If you are a man that is 6 ft tall, your target numbers are 30 gm fat, 125 gm protein, and 125 gm carbs. You can use the calorieking website to check the food values, but this is what it would look like: (ALL GREEN VEGGIES AND SIDE SALADS ARE FREE FOODS, EAT AS MANY AND AS MUCH AS YOU WANT)

Day 1:

Breakfast: Protein Cocoa with whipped cream first thing on getting up.
2nd breakfast: Reese's Shake

Lunch: Ham sandwich w/low carb bread like Pepperidge Farm Oatmeal Bread
Side Salad with low fat dressing - Light Done Right is a good brand
apple or other fruit, 1 cup

Snack: Balance Bar

Dinner: 4 oz ground beef, pan fried with PAM
1 sweet potato
green beans, as much as you want
Blue Bunny No Sugar ice cream, 1/2 cup

Bedtime snack: protein cocoa

Day 2:
Breakfast: Protein Cocoa on arising
2nd Breakfast: Quaker Weight Control Oatmeal
2 eggs
3 slices extra lean ham (5% fat)

Lunch: Tuna salad made with light mayonnaise - 6 oz can
10 crackers or 2 pieces low carb bread - Sarah Lee
apple or 1 cup fruit
green side salad

Snack: Balance Bar

Dinner: Mission Carb Balance Flour Tortilla
4 oz cooked hamburger
1 slice cheese
onions
salsa
lettuce
peach or other fruit

Bedtime snack: protein cocoa

Day 3:

Breakfast: protein cocoa
2nd breakfast: 1 1/2 cups Special K Protein Plus cereal
1 cup milk

Lunch: 3 oz turkey breast meat
2 slices low carb bread
light mayonnaise
tomatoes
onion
1 oz cheese
side salad
3 cups popcorn

Snack: Balance Bar

Dinner: baked chicken breast
1/2 cup lima beans or other starchy beans
side salad
green veggie like broccoli or other deep green veggie
1/2 cup Blue Bunny sugar free ice cream

Day 4: Protein Cocoa
Reese's Shake

Lunch: Roast beef sandwich on low carb bread (3 oz roast beef)
Light mayonnaise
Side Salad
Apple

Snack: Balance Bar

Dinner: Pork Chop
Sweet potato
Side Salad
1/2 cup Blue Bunny no sugar ice cream

Bedtime snack: protein cocoa

Day 5:

Protein Cocoa on rising
2nd breakfast: Turkey sausage links (3 links)
Van's Maple Oat Fusion waffles (2)

Lunch: Chicken Salad made with light mayo, pickles, onions, cayenne
2 pieces low carb bread
1 oz cheese
fruit

Snack: Balance Bar

Dinner: Ham steak
1/2 cup beans
salad
10 carb ice cream

Bedtime snack: protein cocoa

Day 6: protein cocoa on rising
Reese's shake

Lunch: Tuna sandwich made with light mayo, pickles, onions on light bread
side salad
apple

Snack: Balance Bar

Dinner: Fish
Beans - 1/2 cup starchy beans, like limas, blackeyes, black beans, etc.
Green veggie like broccoli or green beans
1/2 cup low carb ice cream

Day 7: protein cocoa on rising
Reese's Shake
Lunch: egg salad sandwich made from 2 eggs with light mayo and mustard
apple

Snack: Balance Bar

Dinner: roast beef
1/2 cup beans
cole slaw with light dressing
low carb tortilla with 1 tbs jelly and peanut butter

ABC'S FOR DIABETES

There are three supplements that are especially beneficial for diabetics. When you balance protein and carbs, you gain much better control of your blood sugar. But when you add these three supplements, the control of blood sugar becomes much tighter. All three supplements should be a daily part of any diabetic supplement plan.

These three supplements are:

Alpha lipoic acid - to carry glucose into the cells. Protects brain cells.
Benfotiamine - to prevent and mitigate nerve damage and pain, stops crosslinking of glucose and protein in 3 out of 4 pathways.
CoQ10 - to help heart muscles heal and regenerate (also good for the gums)

Alpha lipoic acid may make a biotin deficiency, so make sure you have biotin in your daily vitamin. Or, you can buy alpha lipoic acid plus biotin at Vitacost.com. Take up to 2000 mg daily, divided into doses each time you eat. But be careful, you can take too much alpha lipoic acid and cause a diabetic low. Be sure to measure your blood sugar and work with your doctor if you decide to take alpha lipoic acid. Your doctor will need to adjust your diabetic medications.

Benfotiamine is available at many places on the web. I buy mine at Vitacost.com. Take 600 mg daily.

CoQ10 is also available everywhere. There is a stronger version of coq10 that is better absorbed and thus, stronger. I also buy that at Vitacost. com

Guess you can tell I like Vitacost! I don't work for them or with them, but appreciate the fact they carry must-have supplements for diabetics.

And, if your doctor needs some encouragement about any of these supplements, point them to all the peer-reviewed scientific studies at http://www.pubmed.com - just type the terms into the search engine there. It will pull up study after study of how beneficial these substances are. They are all from natural sources.

THE CORE OF THE PROBLEM

By now most of you who are following this balanced protein and carb diet know exactly what you were doing wrong before. Too many carbs, the wrong kind of carbs, carbs by themselves, and not nearly enough protein.

Many people think they can't afford to ramp up their protein so it matches the carbs they eat. What they don't know is that the cost of the food they are eating now (mostly carbs) is not the whole cost of eating that way.

The real cost of eating carbs out of proportion to protein is the medical expense and pain of diabetes in the years ahead. Real pain, real medical bills. Add that to the cost of the high carb diet and you begin to understand that skimping on protein to save money is not a bargain at all.

All protein costs about the same, whether it is from whey protein, eggs, meat, chicken, turkey, or pork. It is all about $1 for 15 gm of protein. For most women, that means you will be spending about $6 per day on protein. That is a lot better than what it costs to be diabetic. I believe the latest statistics of how much a doctor can expect to make over the lifetime of a diabetic is something around $250,000.

The protein is cheaper.

LIKE SHARDS OF GLASS

When blood sugar is high, the sugar combines with protein in your blood to make glycated end products. These are like little shards of glass, and they cause damage in the parts of your body that have fine capillaries. This would be the lens of your eyes, your toes, kidneys, and fingers. These places are where diabetic neuropathy, or pain, can strike.

All of the pain is caused by high blood sugar. It is such a crime that all of us were fed cereal, cake, cookies, and other junk foods that make us sick. Hardly anyone that is still chowing down on junk food is aware that it will make them have amputations, kidney dialysis, or blindness if they don't get their blood sugar under control. Two thirds of American is on their way to diabetes.

The simple solution is to have a gram of protein with every gram of carbs you eat. Never eat carbs by themselves. The protein keeps the carbs from damaging your body - but you can only have about 90 to 100 gm protein and carbs per day for a woman, and about 125 gm of protein and carbs for a man.

Use your food labels! COUNT. Learn what your food values are. Learn to hit your target numbers at the panel on the left. Lose the weight. Your eyes, feet, kidneys, and heart will thank you. No food is worth your life.