let's cut the crap, shall we?

I am going to open up now about certain things that bother me about the type 2 diabetes world that I live in. I wouldn't presume that my views or experiences are universal or common, but they might be of interest to other t2ds, or not.

My early blogs tried to cover too much territory, so I will now instead try to focus on just one thing and throw out some thoughts on it.

A very short story of my entry into the t2d world: I was fat and normal as a kid, depending on activities - paper route, team sports, girlfriend who lived a nice running distance away, and inactivity when I didn't play team sports anymore.

I always had pretty bad eating habits - overeating, lots of snacking, indulgent eating - having a whole 48 oz can of apple juice, or two big peanut butter sandwiches, or a whole package or bunch of cookies. Loving mother was pretty soft on me. Rarely did I have limits imposed on me, like I have with my gals - "3 cookies is enough!".

Eating for flavour, long after hunger had been satiated, and eating way too fast, yeah, way, way too fast, so by the time I had finally finished my three helpings, my body was just catching up to tell me I had overeaten again.

Of course, the WASPy bad habit of 'cleaning my plate' - not leaving anything on the plate at all. I was praised for it, and it became an OCD behaviour. Even now, 180 lbs later, I still fight the urge to clean my plate up. And lick it 'til its shiny.

We did have set dinners and lunches, sitting down and eating nutritious, balanced home cooked meals, rarely had pizza or other junk food. We ate Italian and other ethnic food before many others in our middle class suburban neighbourhoods did. I became an omnivour as a result - I will eat almost everything and anything, vegetables, grain, meat, sweets, whatever!

Finally, in terms of bad things in my youth, and blame is not the issue, I am responsible for myself, there is the exercise thing. My Mom played badminton, bowled, walked and generally was quite active. My Dad played sports as a poor kid, but not to a high level, and then a bit of golf as an adult, until it bothered his back. Both parents did watch their weight, and would cut back from time to time, and both did some limbering exercises later on as a senior citizen. But, as parents when I was a kid, we didn't really exercise as such, and we didn't play solo sports like tennis or squash or running/jogging. We liked to watch TV, maybe munch on salty pretzels or peanuts or the like.

So, parents - watch that stuff, it's a precursor to t2d:
- set limits on food quantities
- eat slowly
- don't urge more helpings on kids
- encourage them to just eat until satisfied, even if it means waste
- exercise together, set example for your children, make it fun, but importantly, make it normal and protect part of each week, a priority
- eat for flavour, sure, but only eat that which is really friggin good, never settle for filler food for sake of just filling up

That's enough for today, more than enough. The idea here is that I want to talk about my t2d experience directly, without filtration. ciao,