My 6 Tips for Managing Type 2 Diabetes: It’s About Trade-Offs
Key takeaways:
Managing Type 2 diabetes is about making healthy choices, Cynthia Zimmerman says.
Successfully managing the disease also means having a good relationship with your doctor and asking a lot of questions, she says.
For her, it’s about trade-offs and not cutting things out completely.
For the last 15 years, Cynthia Zimmerman, of Brownsburg, Indiana, has been managing her Type 2 diabetes through medication and diet.
Dealing with her elevated blood sugar hasn’t been easy, she says. But her strategy has been centered around eating well and making sure she listens to her doctor and her body.
At 75 years old, Cynthia wants to enjoy life and not limit herself too much. Having spent a good portion of her life in Georgia, just outside of Atlanta, she craves Southern staples, like mashed potatoes and fried foods. Instead of cutting them out altogether, she plans out her meals to make sure she’s keeping the right balance.
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Communication and education are at the top on her list of how to manage the disease. These are her tips for others trying to manage Type 2 diabetes:
1. Establish a good relationship with your healthcare provider
Cynthia went to the same doctor in Georgia for years. They monitored her condition together until the doctor finally came to an official Type 2 diabetes diagnosis. Then, they were able to come up with a plan to manage her symptoms and find the right medication for her.
“I went to the same doctor for 26 years,” she says. “So, we knew each other and could talk things through a lot easier.”
When she moved to Indiana, she had to get established with a new doctor. That doctor put her on a new plan and a different medication.
2. Consult with a nutritionist
A nutritionist helped Cynthia not only learn what choices to make, but why they were important.
“If you get the chance to have a one-on-one appointment with a nutritionist, see them,” she says.
Even though she grew up with a brother who has Type 1 diabetes, she didn’t have all the answers about what she was supposed to eat. Her nutritionist gave her a good explanation of what to eat and why.
3. Manage, don’t eliminate
Cynthia says for her, it was the salty snacks that were the problem, much more than sweet desserts. Making sure that she stayed away from breads and mashed potatoes was her first step. But she decided at her age, she didn’t want to be miserable for the rest of her life depriving herself of everything she craved.
“You have to manage it, because it's definitely a food-control disease,” she says. “I’ll occasionally have mashed potatoes and gravy. You can have them, you just need to portion it out and think, ‘OK, if I eat the gravy, I’ll leave the roll alone.’ You have to negotiate with yourself.”
4. Make healthier choices
Occasionally, she and her husband go out to eat. While it presents some challenges, they are not unsurmountable.
Mostly, it means making healthy choices based on what is offered at the restaurant. But sometimes, she says, it’s about making changes elsewhere.
“I just have to be wise when I choose from the venue and get something with more salads, more vegetables, less starchy vegetables, and stay away from the mashed potatoes and the fried foods,” she says. “I have not struggled with that at all. But, if I decide at lunch Thursday, ‘I really want Wendy's.’ I just go ahead and eat it and then I tell myself, ‘OK, that was your splurge, now we're back on the regular diet.’”
5. Listen to your body
Cynthia says that she has learned how she feels when her blood sugar is off and what she needs to do about it. Handling that aspect of the disease means being prepared, she says.
“I know when things are off,” she says. “If we’re traveling, I will keep a snack in the car. If that doesn’t help, I will tell my husband that I need to stop and get something to eat.”
6. Use external resources
One of the first things Cynthia did after her diagnosis was to buy cookbooks geared toward the low-carb diet. After a few months of learning recipes that reflected her new healthier lifestyle, she was able to adjust many of her existing recipes to make them healthier, too.
Managing Type 2 diabetes doesn’t have to mean cutting all carbs from your diet, Cynthia says.
Working with her healthcare provider, she was able to come up with a plan, supplemented by medication. This allows her to occasionally eat the carb-heavy foods she likes, while staying on top of her blood-sugar levels.
Being educated on not only what to eat, but also when your body is telling you that you need to eat, are keys to staying on top of her Type 2 diabetes, Cynthia says.
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