Cruising with type two diabetes. Again, it can be a challenge, but it can also be rewarding. I record some of my best numbers and find sticking to my plan easiest sometimes when I'm on a cruise ship.

Hi, and welcome to the solving type two diabetes podcast. I'm Tom. And I'll be your host as I share what I'm doing in my daily life to solve my type two diabetes. Listen in, as I share the food, movement, and tools that I'm using each day. This podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only. For a full transcript or to follow the solving type two diabetes podcast on social media. 



This has been a busy, busy week. If you remember on last episode, I was recording from my state room on the Disney Wish. We got off the wish. I was there for my birthday and uh, we got off Monday morning. And we took two days of a nice casual drive to drive home and we stayed overnight in North Carolina on the way home to Pennsylvania, and it was a relaxing drive.

We like to break it up. We don't like to normally drive more than eight hours a day, and that's about exactly what it was, eight hours each day. So that was nice in relaxing. No big traffic problems. The hotel overnight was great. And then we got home and we got to spend two full days at home. And uh, that's something that sometimes when we do this traveling and we take these trips, we, uh, cut it a little shorter than that.

Other times it's several weeks in between trips. This time it happened to be two days. So then we drove to New York and got on the Adventure of the Seas, Royal Caribbean ship. It's a medium size ship that holds about 3,800 people. And we got on. On Thursday, and I'm recording this on Saturday, and we're currently in Boston.

So the big topic for this week is Cruising Life with Type two diabetes. So I'll be getting into that later on in this episode. But just to say it has been a really busy week. So we'll get into the main topic a little bit later, but for now, let's take a look at my numbers. 



Okay, so here are my numbers for the week.

These are my Apple Watch rings, and this is showing the month of September, and you can see that I did in fact, close my rings every day for the month of September. And as I mentioned, I'm recording this on Saturday, October 1st, and I've started this month off in the same fashion, so that's good. This has been my first, they call it a perfect month in the Apple fitness world when you close your rings for an entire month.

This is really the first month that I've had my rings closed, I think in about six months or so. So I'm happy about that, and I think I've said this before, but one of the main reasons I'm doing this podcast is for my own personal accountability, and I think it's worked. My first podcast episode went up on Monday the fifth.

And this is the fifth episode. It's gonna go up on Monday, the 3rd of October. And I think these numbers show that it's working. I don't want to not be successful in front of you. So thank you very much for being there, for listening, for watching. I appreciate it. So let's move on here. My seven day glucose reading from my continuous glucose monitor.

My average over the course of the seven days was 1 0 1 that is very well into the good range. It is lower than prediabetes. In fact, if that were converted to an a1c, that would be converted to about an A1C of 5.0. So that is something that I am very happy with. I've mentioned before that. When I was first diagnosed with type two diabetes, my A1C was ranging around 11, at least for the first a few months until we started medication and things like that.

So to go from an 11 and now it's averaging, I think last week was 5.5, this week was five. I gotta be very happy about that. So here, if you look at my macro, You can see that my carbs averaged just about where they should. Within a few percentage points of my goal, I was averaging about 16% carbs and my goal was 11%.

I was getting in my protein every day. I averaged over a hundred grams of protein every day. So if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see the graph there. Otherwise, just know that my macros were really in line with my goals, which. Which always makes me happy. That's a good. Now if you look at my body fat percentage here, you see it as trending up just a trifle.

Over the last three weeks, it's gone up by 0.3%, so that equates to about half a pound. So I certainly don't want my body fat percentage going up, and these scales are only so accurate, but it could be a real thing, so I gotta keep an eye on that. It had dropped three weeks ago by quite a bit, by over two pounds of fat.

So to be up by 0.3%, almost a half a pound, that's, that's something to keep an eye on, but it's not, it's not devastating yet, especially since all my other numbers are just absolutely fantastic. So let's look at my exercise for the week, and you see that I did complete an exercise period every day over the past week.

In fact, I got in a five mile run. One day, and that's more I think that I've run in several months. I think maybe four miles was the max that I've been running lately. So I did five this week and I do have a half marathon coming up, so my running is going to be ramping up a little bit. My goal is to run nine or 10 miles before the half marathon and then the day of the race.

It's usually been my experience that adrenaline carries me through for the rest. So that's my. Those are my numbers for the week, and let's look at small wins that can turn into challenges. All right, so small wins and challenges. So as we'll be talking about later this episode, cruising with Type two Diabetes.

The cruising itself, quite frankly can be a challenge You'll see later on, or you'll hear if you're on the podcast version about how there is literal. Food everywhere. There is food 24 hours a day. The pizza place, the snack shop, they don't even close. They're running all night long and the breakfast buffet starts at around six in the morning and the last buffet closes about nine o'clock at night.

So there's restaurants, there's fine dining, there's casual dining, there's buffets. It is everywhere, which is a great thing. It's also a challenge. So with type two diabetes, one of the things I need to win at and so far so good is avoiding those things on the buffet line or on the menu that really aren't helpful for me.

Now, do I have bread or something that's fried once in a while? Absolutely I do. But for the majority of the time, I stick with real food. I find that just eating real food. Is my biggest win that I can do nutritionally, and you can do that on a cruise ship. There are tons of places to get fresh salads, make your own chef salad.

There's fruit, There's lots of great variety of meats, carved meats, stews, It's a, it's amazing how many different types of food they have available at every meal. So what do I do? What was my win for the week? Avoiding snack. Trying to stick to three meals a day and just eat real food. That takes away the challenge when you have a plan and stick to it.



Okay, now onto the news. The first article I found this week that I thought was very interesting was called the Mayo Clinic Minute. Managing Type two diabetes. Now, this is a little blog post put out by the Mayo Clinic, but it's actually a link to their video. They have a YouTube series called the Mayo Clinic Minute, and this one is about type two diabetes.

They start off by talking about type one, type two, and also gestational diabetes, and they talk about the complications, especially from type two diabetes and we've spoken about those before. Heart disease, kidney disease, various other types of issues like site and things like that. And they say here in this article that diabetes can affect certain racial groups more than others, for example.

The CDC says that more than half of Hispanic adults in the US are expected to develop type two diabetes. So it goes on talking about lifestyle changes the same way we do, and about the fact that when it comes down to it, type two diabetes is simply the inability to control blood sugar, the inability to properly use insulin.

They talk. Proper eating. They talk about exercise, you know, what we call movement. So it's a really interesting article. It links right to the one minute video. So I would say that's worthwhile watching. And of course the link will be in the show notes. The next article was put out by cnn, their opinion page, and it was written by the Mayor of New York, Eric, Adam.

And this was put out on the 28th of September, and it's just an opinion piece by the mayor Eric Adams. And it goes on to describe, he writes about how he. Was diagnosed with type two diabetes after he noticed his vision was failing and he never knew he had high blood sugar when A got tested and immediately got a diagnosis of type two diabetes.

Now he used lifestyle changes like I have. And to reverse his type two diabetes so that he is no longer actively suffering from the complications of type two diabetes. And he believes strongly that other people can also reverse their type two diabetes. So he of course, is being mayor, has a lot of control over the public nutrition programs in the.

Whether it's school or shelters, there's a lot of places where the city is involved with what people eat, so he wants to get actively involved in that. Get more fresh fruits, more fresh vegetables, and a lot fewer processed foods. And it's an interesting article. It's his opinion, and some of the things may or may not be backed citations of science, but nonetheless, it's a short.

It's maybe a three or four minute read. So I found that one very interesting and you can go read that for yourself. The last one put out by the Washington Post says, What are ultra processed foods? What should I eat instead? Now, this is an excellent article because what a lot of people think. Just food, normal food.

The grocery store sells it, so it must be food really are products that have been so processed. It's hard to tell how they started out to where in a label there might be more chemical names than names of things that grow that you can actually identify. And they do say in this article, Diets high in ultra processed foods do cause chronic disease, such as type two diabetes.

They also say it can be blamed for a lot of cancer that people get. So it's this ultra processed food that's really turning out to be a downfall of our modern society. They go on to talk about how to avoid eating ultra processed food, what you should eat instead, how to notice if a food is ultra processed.

Again, if it's unrecognizable from how it started out in a field or. In a farm, something like that. Then it probably falls in the category of ultra processed. So this, again, is a very interesting article. It's a little longer. They do go into numerous details here and what they're talking about. They cite studies and databases of over 50,000 foods typically sold in grocery stores, things like that.

So it's really interesting. And they do have a website here you can pull up in your phone called True food.tech. That's True Food dot t e c h. And that website you can look up foods and see where the ingredients are and they get, rate them on a scale from natural to ultra process. So I thought that was very interesting.

So check that out in the Washington Post. And the link for that article will also be in the show notes. All right. 



Today's main topic, cruising with Type two Diabetes. I thought the best way to do this would be to give you a video overview some of the things you see on a cruise ship, and then talk about the challenges and the things that are involved.

If you have type two diabetes and you're on a cruise ship now, we cruise quite frequently. I'm a loyal to royal member and we cruise Royal Caribbean a lot. We also enjoy Disney Cruise. I'm working my way up to platinum on there. We do this a lot, but for me, with type two diabetes, I really have to treat it as if it's any other day with regards to my eating, with regards to my movement and tracking those things that are important to me.

So here's the video and I will do my best to describe it, uh, for those. Listening in on the podcast, but I encourage you to check out the YouTube channel so you get to see the videos and the pictures and the things that I put into these podcasts as well. So here we go. We were in the Bayone, New Jersey cruise port, and that is right across the river from the island of Manhattan.

In fact, you can see Liberty Island there in front. You see the Statue of Liberty. This view of the wake is actually one of my favorite views, and it is taking us right under the Verno Narrows bridge. I don't know why I like this so much, but you see here that we are going under the bridge, and I'm gonna turn here to the left.

You see the bridge Super structure there. And we're under the bridge right now. I'm told that we have a clearance of about 20 feet. You see the mass now going under the bridge, and of course we clear it. They clear it every single week. So I guess there's really no surprise there. I'm hoping we clear it on the way back in as well.

But this was really nice out on the deck. Now what you're seeing here is the jogging track. And this is one of my favorite spots on the ship to get in some movement. It is similar to the promenade deck. I guess they call it out on deck four. That's just a broad walkway, but this is, if you want some sunlight, if you want the scenery, this is the place to go.

It's crowded sometimes, as you can see, but on a windy sea day, this is rough sometimes. So if you have to go inside, you can go to this, I'm gonna call it a state of the art gym. They have traditional equipment, they have, You see the treadmills, the ellipticals, the stair climbers. Those stair climbers can really kick a butt, Let me tell you.

They do mine anyway. Here's my friends, the rowers. Those are the rowers that use water. They have a bunch of what I call Nautilus machines. I don't know that it's Nautilus anymore. You can tell how old I am. They have a bunch of machines. They have tear XX bands. They have free weights, They don't have barbells, and I guess in a little ship, you don't really want a bunch of barbells.

We're gonna get a ton of dumbbells, benches, they've got kettlebells, all kinds of stuff. So here we are just walking through the main promenade. They're selling everything. They have restaurants, they have sushi, they have soda machines, they have espresso bars, they have pizza. They have everything all day long.

So stick to the plan and if you work the plan, the plan works. Now, here's the buffet. You're greeted very well. I have the sound turned down on this, but they're playing Mona. And what is available now, this is just dinner one night at the buffet instead of the main dining room. And I just wanted to give you an idea for all the food that's available.

Lots of fresh meat. Lots of fresh vegetables prepared. Dinners, we've had Mexican Night, we've had American Night, we've had Italian night, all kinds of different things, and you can easily find food that fits your requirements. Food that's helpful to you without any problem now. You can also find a place if you want, if it fits your plan to get the occasional treat.

And they have a wide selection here that you can see. All kinds of desserts, cakes, pies, puddings, cookies, Oh the cookies, and it's a lot. But they also have some fresh cut fruit that's yummy too. And if you don't need a lot of sugar, an apple can taste surprisingly sweet. So here are a few more dishes. Of course, they always have Indian cuisine.

I'm not sure if that's for the crew or for the passengers who like that the most. But they always have that. And you see here some chickens, some salmon, some steaks. Of course hot dogs and hamburgers, french fries. They really have it all. This is just one meal. Ah, there's make your own SCU board. And salad bar.

You can make your own salads, get some veggies on there, get some meats on there, and it's really great. Now, after dinner, you can relax in the schooner bar. This is a picture of the schooner bar, and they all usually have a live music here around nine o'clock at night, lasting into the early hours.

Football was on when I recorded this. I think it was Thursday night Football. That was on, but it's a great place to have trivia. They have other things, lots of activities you don't always have to be eating, but there's not too much movement there either. Cruising with type two diabetes. Again, it can be a challenge, but it can also be rewarding.

I record some of my best numbers and find sticking to my plan easiest sometimes when I'm on a cruise ship. I think it's because there's so many things to do. Even though there's a great amount of food available, I think that the fact that you can have activities all the time and it's relaxing, it's not stressful.

It helps me anyway, stick to my plan. And people talk about gaining 10 pounds on a cruise, 15 pounds in a cruise, whatever. A lot of times I'll leave a cruise ship down a pound or two. I think it's just amazing. All right, so that was my experiences cruising with Type two diabetes, and I hope it was helpful to you and beneficial.

And I would encourage you to cruise. I know that I feel like more information on Royal Caribbean Cruises. I'm gonna recommend my friend Matt Ho's cruise blog and it's called the Royal Caribbean Blog Podcast. And I will put in a. To his podcast page. And also if you wanna know more about Disney cruises, then I'm going to recommend the Disney Park Princess podcast, Three friends of mine, all big Disney fans and Disney Cruise ship fans.

And I'll put a link into their page as well. Just check out the show notes and you can check them out if you wanna know more about cruising on either Royal Caribbean or Disney. All right. 



Here is the section of your questions. Now we're still just a little podcast. We don't have any questions this week.

So let me take an opportunity to tell you how you can ask a question or leave feedback. Hop over to the solving type two diabetes.com website solving type two diabetes.com, and right at the top of the page, there's a feedback link. Click that and question. Leave some feedback. Leave a comment, and I will get an email right away.

So I hope you do that. I would really encourage you to do that. I am looking forward to getting more questions. We've had one so far, but I would love to have some more. If you wanna know more information about my daily numbers, my exercise, my blood sugar on a daily basis, you'll find that on the Instagram and Facebook stories and again, links to all of that is over at SolvingType2Diabetes.com 





next week I'm gonna be talking about my tools, those things, not apps, that's for later, but those pieces of equipment and gear that I use in solving my type two diabetes. We'll talk about my continuous glucose monitor. We'll talk about things like my food scale.

We'll talk about my Apple Fitness Watch. Those things that I use that really help me with solving my type two diabetes. So thanks very much again for watching and listening. I really appreciate the fact that you're spending time here and I get to share this with you. My hope is that at a minimum, at least, it's interesting, but I'm also hoping it might be useful.

Well, that wraps up another episode of the solving type two diabetes podcast. I hope you found it valuable. Please follow and leave a five star review, as it helps other people find the podcast. By subscribing you ensure you won't miss the next episode. You can always get a full transcript of the episode at solvingtype2diabetes.com There you also find the links to leave feedback and links to follow on social media. I'm very interested in hearing from you with comments and suggestions. Thanks very much for listening. Please remember that everything I share is just from my own personal experience and should not be taken as medical or health advice. 

Please consult your own medical professionals. This podcast is intended for entertainment purposes only.