Introduction --- But if I write it down, especially if I have the habit of, writing it down before I eat it. And, using a scale and measuring, oh, now I'm making a conscious decision to overeat, if that's where I'm going, it's a lot better than just doing it mindlessly. At least I'm honest with myself. 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. Please head over to SolvingType2Diabetes.com for all those links and more now onto the show. I hope you have had a fabulous week. I'm having a great week. I'm currently on board, rural Caribbeans Enchantment of the Seas, and, so far this cruise has started out great. so my weekend review, My Week in Review --- I drove home from Williamsburg, Virginia. We spent, about four nights there and, we saw the grand illuminations, that's the, recreation of, activities and events that they might typically have had. around the Christmas season back in the mid 1760s. And, we saw that we saw a ton of fireworks, a lot of, really interesting handmade Christmas wreaths and various decorations around the restored colonial area. It was very enjoyable. we had a lot of fun and, we came home on, Monday and then. On Friday, I got back on, board, a cruise ship, and where I currently am, it's Saturday now, so it's day two, but in between, I had three days of driving Uber. Now I think I mentioned before that I am retired. But I was looking for something a little extra to do and I thought, Hey, why not, make a few bucks and it is a very few bucks, but you know, it's something to do. So I had three days of driving Uber, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. And so it's made for a full week so far on board. The cruise ship. I've had several good meals. I've been posting pictures of my food on, my Instagram and Facebook stories. If you follow me there, you can, see pictures of everything I've been eating on the cruise ship so far and I plan to continue doing that. It's, often makes for better, pictures when I take pictures of what I eat, either on a cruise ship or at restaurants rather than what I make myself. Cuz when I make it, sometimes it's not all that. It's just something that's, either good for me or something I want at the moment. But, eating here in a restaurant every single meal and likewise, at Williamsburg it was easier to take the picture. So I've been doing that a lot. So that's pretty much my. Week. My Numbers --- let's look at my numbers now. I only closed my rings four days this week. one day we spent, a leisurely morning getting ready to come home, and then spent about five hours driving home. And by the time I got back late in the afternoon, eh, didn't really feel like it getting out for a walk, And. Three days of Ubering. And ah, man, I need a plan for how I get my walks in while I Uber. but through the three days I Ubered, I really didn't do any, intentional movement. but I have gotten in on the other days so far, two days in a row here in the ship, and then also our last day at Williamsburg. Got in good walks and, this week when my walks. Indoor, it's often that I'm outdoors, even though I record it as an indoor walk. Because when you walk on a cruise ship, if you say outdoor walk, it's gonna use your gp s and of course the cruise ship is moving along at, 15 knots or whatever. So when you're moving with the cruise ship in the forward direction, it looks like you're going very fast. Then when you turn the bow or the stern and you start walking the other direction, then it looks like you're going very slow. So I've learned, just to turn off the GPS while I'm walking and the cruise ship is moving, because that way, it just, tracks the time and whatnot. But, once in a while, if it's rainy outside or just too. I will walk in the treadmill, but that is my least favorite thing to do on a cruise ship. I like to get out on a deck and walk, or if we're in port, you'll see later this week when we stop at Charleston, South Carolina, and then Port Canaveral and then a Nassau. Those three days will actually be walking out on land. So close my rings four times this week with regards to my seven day glucose reading, I have a seven day 24 7. Average reading of one 18, and that equates to an A1C of about 5.5. You may remember on last week's episode, I mentioned that I had a doctor's visit and the 90 day A1C was 6.0, and that's, that's pretty darn good. That's, well down into the pre-diabetes range. currently I'm in the range lower than pre. Diabetes, I'm in the normal range and that's great. So we'll see how that continues. On my body fat percentage, I did step on the scale one time this week and it was 26.5%, so that's good. just a couple of months ago was around 28%. So slowly but surely I'm creeping that body fat percentage down because quite frankly I just wanna feel better, move more easily. when I run, maybe run a little bit faster and having less excess body fat will certainly help with that. And they also say it helps with your type two diabetes, that's a win-win for my macros this week. Over the course of seven days, I average 72. Grams of carbohydrates each day, and I'm shooting for about, 70, 80, maybe up to 90 grams of carbohydrates a day. So 72 grams across the seven days. that's a good average and protein was a tad low for what I like. it's honestly totally fine. I averaged 118 grams of protein across the past seven days each day. I actually shoot for something a little bit higher than that. I shoot for around one 50 only because I believe that to, hold onto the muscle mass, especially if like you are like, I am walking and getting an intentional. To hold onto that muscle, you need protein there. I go a little high, not excessively high, but probably higher than, some folks do on their protein. So one 18, most folks would say, Hey, that's plenty, but it's just a little bit lower than what I've been shooting for, so I gotta look on that. I have noticed that on cruise ships when I don't bring. Protein shakes, or I don't bring protein bars. I do have a little bit of a struggle getting in protein. now today for breakfast I had eggs and bacon and sausage. Now that's a little bit more fat than it is protein, but still good sources of protein. And then for lunch, I just had, a salad with, some diced up chicken. again, trying to get some protein. And then dinner tonight I happen to notice is beef tenderloin, so I'm gonna be enjoying the heck out of that. So hopefully my protein stays great for this week on the cruise ship. I will let you know. Challenge this Week --- All right, so my challenge for the week, and honestly, I did not turn it into a. It is still a challenge for me that I must work on. My challenge for this week is the fact that when I Uber and I do that normally like 11 in the morning until maybe seven o'clock at night, I try and treat it seriously when do eight hours. and that's time that when I would normally be walking, I like to get out and walk, especially in the wintertime, early to mid-afternoon. Gets dark around four 30 some days. It doesn't wor warm up until around noon or one, so especially during the winter. I like to get out and walk mid-afternoon. that's also when I Uber. Now I really need to realize I'm lucky and I do not need to do Uber. for income. So I really need to prioritize my walking over my Uber. So I think what I'm gonna do, and check me on this, I will keep you posted, but I think what I'm gonna do is only Uber if I have already completed my walk for the day. if I've gotten out there and walked, let's say four miles, Then I'll allow myself to Uber, because Ubering, if I'm doing that from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM I'm just sitting in a car, for eight hours. I take a couple of breaks, whatever, but I don't like to, stop for an hour in the middle because to me then I'm losing. . so anyway, I think I'm gonna address this challenge by getting out there before the Uber session starts, even though I'm not a huge fan of getting out in the winter, in the morning, I'm gonna do it or I simply won't Uber or I'll Uber later and I'll uber fewer hours, but I am now putting it here and I think it's solid in my. That when I get back on land and go to Uber again, I will make sure I get my walk-in first. So check me about that, ask me about that, see how it goes. So that's my challenge and that's been my weekend review. News --- Okay, so let's take a look at the news. This first article is simply called Exercise and Type two Diabetes. It says here that regular exercise helps moderate blood sugar in people with type two diabetes. It says, in addition to helping with blood sugar levels, And managing your type two diabetes, 20 to 25 minutes of exercise per day can improve blood pressure and cholesterol. It said it can also aid in weight loss if that's needed, and just generally increases happiness. Now, I think. We've talked about, intentional movement and how much I think, movement is important. Even though I did Slack on it this week. it's, interesting here when an article backs me up on that. And it says that, one of the main benefits for exercising is improving. Body responds to insulin or reduces insulin resistance, and it says that it also can help reduce the risk of, diabetic health complications because it has been shown if done consistently and with intention to lower your blood sugar levels. So it says benefits here of exercise. If you have type two diabetes, again, reduces insulin, improves sleep, and your overall. , it can be helpful in reducing ldl. Some people call that the bad cholesterol. It also raises hdl. Some people call that the good cholesterol. It can promote weight loss like we discussed and also improve the quality of life. Also, it says it can help to regulate blood pressure. So those are all some interesting things. What is, so what does it recommend? What it says, if you have type two diabetes, you should. Weekly, a minimum of two and a half hours total. So that can be, half an hour, five days a week, maybe 20 to 25 minutes, every day. but basically getting in two and a half hours across the. Period of a week. And even this article says, it's always great to talk to your doctor first, and obviously I'm not a physician or a exercise physiologist or any of that. talk to your experts, when you're starting something new for yourself. I think that's always a great idea. So anyway, it says here the best type of activities can be, just active living. Dancing or gardening. you could use cardio machines. You can get out for walking, like I do. they also say that resistance and, weightlifting type activities are just using bands or something like that can be helpful. And also yoga. Yoga is a great form of exercise. So I thought that was a very interesting article. And, check that one out. The next one here. Now this is about a. that is in the news. you might have heard of, Manjaro. that's a Tze Peptide new medication that was approved for, type two diabetics, just a few months ago. it might have been May or June of this year, but now this article says Type two diabetes drug tze peptide put on fast Track for. For weight loss. So I think what they're finding when they did these studies, for folks with type two diabetes is that one of the benefits of taking this drug. Again, the trade name is, Manjaro, one of the benefits was really dramatic. Weight loss. there was one study here that it links to and folks on the higher, dose, and I think this was for six months, no, 40 weeks, it lowered their weight by 22%. So let's say you weigh. I don't know, 300 pounds. And they put you in this study for your type two diabetes, and after, let's say nine months, you lost 22% of that 300 pounds. that's over 70 pounds or right at about 70 pounds. And they're comparing that. To the results from the traditional bariatric surgery. So some folks have heard some physicians call this drug, bariatric surgery in an injection. So while only. Currently approved for folks with type two diabetes. I think there are physicians who, prescribe it, what they call off-label. And and doctors can do that. they just discuss it with a patient and so the patient knows, Hey, we're not using this drug exactly for what it's used for. But I think there are a lot of doctors now who will prescribe this off-label, even if you don't. type two diabetes and they simply prescribe it for your obesity, and they're finding some really dramatic results. Again, this thing has only been available since maybe June and it's so six months ago. And, they're saying that this drug is really game changing. So now if the FDA approves this and they're thinking maybe by. As early as next April or May of 23, that you don't need a type two diabetes diagnosis, to take this. You could take it simply, for a diagnosis of obesity. So I thought that was very interesting. And if you wanna see those studies, they did, they are linked inside the article itself. Now this next article is a little counter to that. It's related, but it's a little counter. It says that currently, again, don't forget this drug manjaro is only approved for people with type two diabetes, but now they're tightening that down and enforcing that. the manufacturer, Eli Lilly. Anyway, let me give you the article here in this third article. It's. Eli Lilly tightens access to diabetes drug. Frustrating some people with obesity. So Eli Lilly, the manufacturer, has this coupon program and for a while now, if your, insurance, doesn't pay for it or whatever, because it is a brand new drug, you could use this coupon from the manufacturer and basically you get a month's worth of the medication. For $25. Now, keep in mind that the sticker price on this medication is a thousand dollars a month. So instead of paying a thousand dollars, you could get it for $25. Now, originally, let's say June through maybe last month, They weren't too strict on enforcing the fact that you have type two diabetes when you're taking this medication. But because it's in short supply, because it's become instantly wildly popular with doctors and patients, they're now enforcing it. They now make you, assert when you sign up for this coupon that yes, in fact you do have a diagnosis of type two diabetes. And in fact, I've heard, stories. And articles about how certain pharmacies are actually checking with your health insurance to make sure that you have a diagnosis of type two diabetes before they will fill this prescription. So anyway, you can read this article. It's fresh. It just came out December 6th, and they're talking about how. That because it's in such a short supply, they're really locking down on people using it off-label, like we said in about in that last article. So that's another interesting one. If you're interested in this, medication. Manjaro, Manjaro. You can check this out, but you might be disappointed if you do not have a diagnosis of type two diabetes, at least until it gets approved and they think that for sure it will get approved for people with obesity, even if they don't have type two diabetes. But that might not be until next spring. Alright, so the last article here is about continuous blood sugar monitoring using a cgm, and the article is, Continuous blood sugar monitoring. Is it right for you now, as you know, if you've been listening to the podcast, you know that I wear a cgm. and I, think it's fabulous. I think it's wonderful. But there's a new trend out there for folks who just are health conscious, just who are aware. Of the dangers of a lot of processed foods and excessive sugar, even though they're not diagnosed with type two diabetes, they wear the monitor simply as another tool, to track their overall health and see what they eat does to them. To me, it's no different than someone taking their blood pressure. Even if they're not diagnosed with hypertension, they can still take their blood pressure. to me, I don't see the difference, or getting an EKG at an annual physical. Even if you're not diagnosed with any form of heart disease, the doctor still takes the reading. to me, wearing a cgm, even if you don't have. Type one or type two diabetes or pre-diabetes, is no difference. I love information. I love data. I'm a numbers guy, and, you can see by all the things that I track ev every day. So having this, continuous glucose monitor to me has been life changing. it is something that I use, multiple times a day every single day to let me know what I'm eating, and how it's affecting me. I actually used it on a cruise I was on, just a few weeks ago, and my nighttime drink when I'm having a drink on board, listening to live entertainment, whatever is Tito. The Tito's brand, vodka with Sprite, zero. And uh, some people might say, well, alcohol's not good for you. Whatever. Yeah, I know. it's not my, main nutrient that I have every day. In fact, 99% of all the alcohol I ever have is on a cruise ship. And when I'm not cruising, I don't have any at all. And when I am cruising, it's only, a few handful, during the. Anyway, I realized that my blood sugar had spiked one evening and I had a very normal low carbohydrate dinner, and yet about nine o'clock at night, my blood sugar started going up. Well here I realized that one of the bartenders was giving me Titos with regular Sprite, and I don't drink regular soda ever. but that monitor. And then the next day I went and I said to him, Hey, look, I have to have Sprite, zero. and he apologized. He said, yeah, they didn't, they ran out. They didn't think it would make a difference. but anyway, it, the monitor really helps you in strange little ways like that. this article talks about what is continuous glucose monitoring and what are the benefits, and I think we've talked about that a little bit here, but you can actually read this article and see maybe if you're not wearing a c. if you, think you'll benefit. Now if you have type two diabetes, most insurance plans, I believe cover the use of this monitor. Certainly if you have type one, they cover this. If you don't, you can get it through, online doctors like I do. And I use the company Nutrien. And when you look at my blood sugar readings every day on my Instagram stories, you'll see that, the screenshot I take is from their app. and I pay about a hundred bucks a month, and they're not a sponsor, so I don't get any kind of discount. but the company's very good. They have dieticians, they have nutritionist and uh, MDs, and you're screened by an md in the beginning of the process, and then you're hooked up with, a dietician and all kinds of great stuff. But I just love it. I get, a shipment about once a month and, contains two sensors. Each sensor's good for about two weeks. So anyway, long story here on this article, but check that out. And as always, all of these news articles are in the show notes and over in the website SolvingType2Diabetes.com so if you're interested in. Four articles, check 'em out and read them for yourself. I think that's much better than just, listening to my summary. Alright, that's it for the news. Why I track my macros --- Let's talk about the main topic and today's main topic is why I track my macros. Now, as part of my weekend review, we looked at my numbers and I was able to tell you, how many grams of carbohydrates I. How much protein I average, and that's because I track my macros. Now with my type two diabetes, I know for a fact that I have a much better chance of keeping my blood sugar in control. You know, along with my medications and my movement, I have a much better chance of keeping it in control if I keep my carbohydrate intake somewhere between 70 and 90 grams, per day. Some days are a little bit higher, some days are a little bit lower. If I'm not being careful and prudent, some days are much higher and then you know, I have to deal with that, but I need to keep my carbs in line. If I'm gonna be successful in keeping my blood sugar in line because it's one-to-one related, I can show for a fact. I have the data when I eat higher carbohydrates, especi. If it's processed food, bread, cookies, pretzels, those types of things, if I eat those for my carbohydrates, they can go very high very quickly. So I need to keep track of that. And quite frankly, I think I'm pretty normal in this, but I can't trust my memory. I can't trust at the end of the day, how many carbs did I have so far today? I can't trust that I just think it's very, oh, I only ate a little bit. I only ate this. But then when I do track it and I put the same amount. That I had yesterday onto a food scale, or, you just write it down. I realize that when I don't track it, I eat more than I think I kid myself. I lie to myself, tell, call it whatever you want. , but I can't trust myself without some form of record keeping to know how much I eat. Now, I'm mostly concerned with tracking carbohydrates because that directly and immediately impacts my blood sugar levels, but I also like to track my protein. I think, as I mentioned a little bit earlier in this episode, I have a little bit higher than what I think is typical for my protein. simply because I want to make sure I'm not losing any muscle mass as I get older. And that's one way to help, is by having sufficient protein. So those are the things I track. Now, I also track the fat because that's just how the app works. I don't care too much about the fat, although I don't wanna overeat, I don't want to, be putting on excessive body fat. So again, by tracking, I realize if I am or am. eating, really more than I need. And once in a while, hey, that's fine, go for it. But day in and day out, if I'm above where I should be, then that's gonna add to my body fat percentage increasing instead of slowly going down. So what else does it do? by, measuring and. Recording. It avoids just grabbing handfuls of something. It forces you to add in a slight pause. And I do it before I eat it, Hey, let's go get some mixed nuts. Great. I've got a couple of options. I can just dig my hand in the jar and just stuff my. In my mouth and keep walking along, or I can just pour 'em into a bowl, or I can pour it into a bowl that's sitting on top of a food scale. and then if I want two ounces or three ounces or whatever, my plan is for what I think is gonna be best for me. I know when I have it, trust me, two ounces of mixed nuts is a lot smaller than I think it might be smaller than you think as well. but having a food scale and then writing it down. It eliminates those issues of overdoing accidentally or mindless eating. If you're writing everything down, you're really not doing mindless eating because that's, I think, for me anyway, really trips me up is, oh, I'm just gonna go quick. Grab something. I don't need to write it down an hour later. Oh, I'm gonna go quick. Grab something. I might have even. Gotten what I grabbed earlier by the end of the night, I might and not have any honest recollection of everything I've eaten, after dinner. But if I write it down, especially if I have the habit of, writing it down before I eat it. And, using a scale and measuring, oh, now I'm making a conscious decision to overeat, if that's where I'm going, it's a lot better than just doing it mindlessly. At least I'm honest with myself. and aware. Another great benefit, to tracking my macros is that I have historical information, I have trends. I can see that, oh look, my a1c in the past one 90 days. . it was 6.00 look, my average carbohydrate intake for the last 90 days, it was 80 grams a day. That's pretty darn good. Now, what happens if I did 70 grams a day? Would my A1C go down to 5.6, 5.7, 5.8? I can do little experiments like that. That's how I knew that my carbohydrate intake a few months ago was a little bit lower than I needed it to be. If you remember, I used to average. 50 grams of carbohydrates a day, but then my A1C was coming out 5.1, 5.2, and it's just, much lower than I needed to be. So I upped my carbs a little bit. So by tracking my macros, I can make smart, informed decisions like that. Now, when I track my macros, what I'm talking about is using the app. On my phone called MyFitness Pal. MyFitness Pal might be just about one of the most popular, food tracking apps there is, and I do use the premium version. There are a few, features on the premium version that I really like. You don't need it. You could use the free version. the premium version, I think it's a few bucks a month. I'm not, I pay it once a year, so I honestly don't remember, but it's not insane for the value I get out of it. if I'm spending. 200 bucks a month on my continuous glucose monitor, I can spend four bucks or three bucks a month on my Fitness Pal. they're both very valuable tools to me. And I also use a food scale. I have a real little one, my daughter found for me that I use for travel. And then I have a little bit more robust one that I keep on the kitchen counter at home. So why do I track my macros information? Information that I find very helpful, when. Solving my type two diabetes. Questions --- All right, it's time for your questions. Now, last week, Krista had sent in some really good questions and I had fun answering those. check those out. you can see the links that I provided to her in the show notes for last week's episode. This. We have not yet gotten in a question. so that's okay. you can't send it in a question every week. I understand that. But hey, you haven't sent in any questions at all yet. I'm encouraging you. I'm asking, please send in a question. Let me know what you're. Thinking, maybe you have a comment on something that I've said. Maybe you would like to see a different type of news article featured. Maybe you want me to talk about something completely different. whatever it is, I'd be very happy to hear from you. Now, there's two good ways to do this. The first one is send, please send me an email. Tom@SolvingType2Diabetes.com I'll get the email, be happy to answer your question or provide you links or maybe point you in the right direction. The other way is to go to the website SolvingType2Diabetes.com and clicking on feedback, little form popup. Put your name in there, your email address, and type in your question, your comment, your feedback, and send it on. And I'll get that right away. So I encourage you to do that and love to hear from you. What's Next? --- Okay, so what's next, next week and I'll be recording this episode. probably I'll be getting off the ship, so this might be the only episode that I'm recording on board. But anyway. Week's episode, will be, can carbs be good or bad? Now, as you know, I track my carbs and uh, you know, I hear some people say, oh, carbs are bad for you. what does that mean precisely? And, carbs. tree bark. that's a carb, granulated table. Sugar, that's a carb. a carrot is full of carbs. pretzels have carbs. are you trying to say that a carrot is bad for me? I don't buy that. Anyway, next week we're gonna be focusing. Can carbs be good or bad? So I'm looking forward to that. Thanks! --- Well, that wraps up another episode of the solving type 2 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.