I guess this one could probably be filed in the “Mike is slow” category.

Have you heard of TURKISH DELIGHT????

I remember them eating it in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but I kind of just skimmed over it and thought it was something super foreign.  Then I’m listening to Madonna’s newest album and she mentions turkish delight.  And I think, “What the hell is it?!?!”

After some googling I find out that it is candy made from starch and sugar…often flavored with rosewater and lemon.  It’s soft and jelly-like and usually eaten in small cubes dusted with sugar to prevent sticking.

Gross.

Do Americans eat Turkish Delight???

I had an epiphany.

I have never seen a fat juggler.  Think about it.  Am I wrong?

I want to write a book called The Juggler’s Diet and it’ll be full of puns about how we juggle life, yadda yadda yadda, and that if you pick up some juggling balls you can start to shed pounds, yadda, yadda, yadda.

When you’re learning how to juggle you do a lot of bending over to pick up the balls that you dropped.  You’re also standing.  Standing and bending is good for you.

I can’t wait to cash my first check.  Don’t steal this idea.

If you’ve known me for more than a year, then you’ve been around to experience me quitting diet soda once or twice.

We all know that soda is unhealthy for us, and I always have these moments of clarity where I go cold-turkey, and I always have these moments of weakness where I cave and start using again. If you’ve seen the TV show Intervention, you know my life.

Well I read an article in Diabetes Forecast in the Research Shorts section about diet soda. I don’t usually re-print entire articles, but this isn’t one you can find online…so here:

Diet Soda Fizzles
-Bridget Murray Law

You may want to put down that diet soda. New research inserts a question mark after the “diet” part of your drink.

In the study, people who drank a can or more of diet soda daily showed a 34-percent higher risk of developing the metabolic syndrome: a cluster of cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk factors including elevated waist circumference and high blood pressure, blood lipids, and fasting glucose levels.

Why would that be? Study coauthor Lyn Steffen, PhD, MPH, RD, says she is as mystified as the rest of us. But she offers some possible explanations. “It could be an ingredient in the soda itself, like the artificial sweetener, which might be causing something like insulin resistance,” speculates Steffen, associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota. “Or it could be something to do with the behavior of people who consume diet soda–what other foods they’re eating and how much exercise they’re getting throughout the day.”

Her research team tracked the dietary intake and health status of 9,500 men and women over nine years. They found that people who ate the most meat raised their risk of developing metabolic syndrome by about 25 percent. And those who regularly ate Western-style cuisine like refined grains and fried foods upped their risk 18 percent.

But diet soda involved the highest risk–and, Steffen notes, a recent Purdue University study suggests a possible reason. In that study, rats eating saccharin-sweetened yogurt consumed more of it, and gained more weight, than rats eating sugar-sweetened yogurt.

In Steffen’s study, most diet sodas “were likely sweetened with aspartame, not saccharin, but it could be the two work similarly,” she says. “So maybe diet soda consumers are eating more.” This isn’t the first study to link the metabolic syndrome and diet soda. However, past studies show the link with sweetened soda as well as diet versions. This study showed no such association between sweetened beverages and the syndrome.

But that’s no reason to start drinking sugary sodas, which are loaded with empty carbohydrates. Instead of reaching for soda (regular or diet), Steffen suggests trying water or green or black tea. Another good bet is skim milk. Steffen’s team found that low-fat dairy products help starve off the metabolic syndrome.

The American Heart Association published the diet soda findings online on January 22, 2008, in its journal Circulation. The saccharin and weigh-gain study appeared in the February, 2008 issue of the journal Behavioral Neuroscience.

I’m in that group of fatties that drinks a daily Diet Coke, and I need to stop. I’m going to take baby-steps…so here’s the plan:

Limit Diet Coke consumption to meals only
After 2 weeks of limited Diet Coke intake, make Diet Coke a weekly treat (still at meals only)
Slowly switch to water as my main beverage

Think this time will stick? If not, when will I cave?

If you don’t know why this photo is funny click here.

Mr. D. bought me 2 packages of sugar-free Peeps, so I couldn’t be rude and not eat them, right?  Yeah, I totally gobbled them up.  And then I needed to post a picture of me eating them…so I was forced to go out to Wal-Mart and purchase another package (or 2).  I make major sacrifices for this blog.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I absolutely love Peeps.  Love.

When I was diagnosed as a diabetic, the second thing that came to my mind was, “does that mean no more Peeps?” (The first thing I thought was, “kick-ass, maybe I can get a free meter from Liberty Mutual.”)

My first Halloween was tough (read here),  Christmas wasn’t too easy either.  And do you know how tough it was to avoid conversation hearts this February?  But the greatest test of my will power is approaching…Easter.

I walked into the grocery store yesterday and saw the Easter candy aisle, and I couldn’t help but walk down it to see if there were any variations on the traditional Peep. (Does anyone remember Christmas Tree Peeps or the lesser known Pumpkin Peeps?)

I googled it and found a Peep made of Splenda, but its way over priced.  And I’m a strong man that does not need to cave into a dependency on some mass-produced piece of candy.

My mom isn’t a wonderful cook…that’s no secret.  She gets teased often in our house because she will have a recipe and at the last minute decide to alter it, and ultimately ruin the food.

Last night she was cooking potato soup, and the recipe called for 1/3 cup of flour, and 3 cups of milk.  And my mom was doubling the recipe.  I guess she looked at the recipe card cross-eyed or something because she thought it said 3 cups of flour…and she doubled that.

So instead of 2/3 cups of flour, my mom put in 6 cups of flour.  6 cups of flour.

We seriously could have taken the soup and rolled it into balls, baked it, and made potato biscuits.

We ended up trashing the soup and making pasta and salad.

I went to see my doctor again on Friday. The new medication she put me on a few weeks ago wasn’t doing the trick. My blood-sugar level just wasn’t coming down.  My insides hurt.  My energy level was low.

So now I get to shoot-up.

I inject myself with a 70/30 twice a day. Initially I was really scared of injecting myself, but now that I’m 4 days into it, I’ve realized that it isn’t so bad.

You know there are a lot of things I can get down on when it comes to diabetes management:

• When my parents say “how you doing?” they are actually asking “how’s your blood sugar?”
• When I say I am “high,” it isn’t a good thing
• My fingertips are numb because of all of the testing
• If a waitress accidentally brings me a regular coke instead of diet, the rest of my evening could be ruined.
• The high cost of testing supplies, insulin and doctors visits

And the list could go on…but out of all of the pains, the one that is the most difficult to deal with is the fact that food is no longer enjoyable to me. In fact, food scares me.

I am aware that skipping meals is just as bad (if not worse) than eating poorly, but it’s really getting more and more difficult to sit down and put food into my mouth each day when I am so uncertain how that food is going to make me feel.

Today I am controlled by diabetes, but one day soon I’ll conquer this disease and learn to control it.

This is a recipe that I created myself. Last Sunday (Superbowl Sunday) we had company over and after dinner everyone (except the diabetic) sat around and drank coffee and ate pastries. Since then I was craving something to dip into my coffee, and I came up with this sugar-free almond scone recipe. The ingredient list is below the video.

• 2 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1 cup of margarine
• 1/3 cup of Splenda
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 cup of finely chopped almonds
• 1 teaspoon of crisco
• 1 egg

The web is headed toward more and more video content, so I’ve been experimenting with moving pictures. Here’s my first video blog; it is a how-to video that teaches you how to make sugar-free, super-sweet, cotton candy punch. Really easy. Really tasty.

I took my old oatmeal cookie recipe and made it diabetic friendly. I think that is how I need to start looking at baking. In the recent past I’ve been searching for sugar-free or diabetic recipes, and I’ve been pretty disappointed. Instead I just need to tweak the recipes that I know work.

Here’s how to make these incredibly easy and amazingly scrumptious sugar-free cookies:

1 cup of margarine (2 sticks of butter) softened
1 cup of brown-sugar substitute
1/2 cup of Splenda
2 eggs
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of salt
3 cups of oatmeal

* Heat your oven to 350°.
* Beat together margarine and sugars until creamy
* Add eggs and vanilla; beat well
* Add combined flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt; mix well
* Stir in oats; mix well
* Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheet
* Bake 10 minutes (until golden brown)
* Eat a few at a time…these aren’t carbohydrate free!