Introduction --- Now. I wanna give you five tips for traveling if you're dealing with solving your own type two diabetes. Now these are things that I do. you might have other ideas, other tips. If so, please let me know. But these are things that I've found that I think are really the most helpful things for me 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're having an absolutely fabulous week. I'd like to ask you a favor before we get started today. Would you please share this podcast with someone who you think might get some value from it? Maybe they have a diagnosis of type two diabetes. Maybe they care for someone who has type two diabetes. Either way, if you could share this podcast with someone, I certainly would appreciate it. My Week in Review --- So this has been a great week for me. I have been at, Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort, for this past week with, several family members. And, the weather's been great. this is really one of my absolutely favorite areas to come visit. we've been here. I guess we've been coming here since about 2005. Probably averaged probably once a year, sometimes more often, a couple years during, the pandemic we missed out. But, I'm saying we probably have been here close to 20 times and I don't see us stopping anytime soon. Now we are members of the Disney Vacation Club. And this is A D V C, A Disney Vacation Club Resort, but anybody can make a reservation here. it's not just limited to D V C members. And to me, this resort really epitomizes that low country vibe. If you've ever traveled through North, South Carolina, northern parts of Georgia, you know what the low country is. It's that marshy wetland area that, is between the ocean and the land. And it's just a great. great, vibe. I really like, the tall grasses, the tidal waters as they come in and go out. it's just relaxing. you have palm trees, you have, live oak trees. You have the moss hanging from the trees. It's so nice to be outside. And this time of year in April, it gets up into this high seventies. maybe up to 80, but, just beautiful. So we've been enjoying that. here at the resort there, you have a pool here, by all the villas. And, they also have, all kinds of outdoor activities. They've got tabacchi, they've got human size checkers, they have cornhole, they have all kinds of things, horseshoes. They rent bicycles and, just lots and lots of activities. here. they also have a beach house, which is about, almost a mile and a half away on the ocean side of Hilton Head. And, That makes for a great walk mile and a half each way. So the round trip over to the beach house, you get in, three miles. If you're walking, if you're riding bike, it zips by real fast, 15 minutes and you're there. or you can drive, they do have a parking lot if you wanna drive, maybe you're taking over a bunch of beach chairs or umbrellas. Things you just don't wanna walk with for that whole time. The beach house is great. They have food over there. They have a, an indoor. area that's air conditioned if it gets too hot. and it's, according to the name Beach House, it is right on the beach and, you walk right out into the sand and it's a nice wide beach here at Hilton Head. So that's really nice. And as far as bike paths go, walking paths for me, they have them all over the place. They literally run north and south, east and west across the entire island of Hilton Head. So you can ride bike for hours and not, have to use the same trail twice. And for me, it just gives you all kinds of walking opportunities. And I've gotten in some really great walks. I guess unintentionally. I've had some long walks, this week in addition to walking over to the beach house a few times. I've also just walked to various places on the island and I got in some walks of, five miles, which I haven't done in quite some time. So really great, time at, Hilton Head at Disney's Resort. And, in a couple of days we head south again, and now we're going to Port Canaveral. Next we'll be on Royal Caribbean's. which ship is that? I think it's the. Independence of the seas. Yeah, independence of the seas. It's, I'd call it a mid-range ship. And we're looking forward to four nights there before hitting down to Disney's Vero Beach Resort. as I mentioned last week, we've got a total of three weeks of travel, before we go back home. Now the other thing that happened this week and it, just been happening for the last 24 hours or so, I think I might have be having a CGM failure with this Lire three. Now one of the, listeners had written in asking a question about it, several weeks ago. It was back when I was first starting to use the Libre three, might have been a couple of months ago at this point. But, the person asked, have I had any. Abnormally low readings that I didn't think were real. And at that point I had just started with this particular model, the Libre three, and I hadn't had any issues. But now for the last day or so, I've been getting these alarms, these low. Blood sugar alarms, and I did know that if you're laying on it, let's say you're sleeping on your side and you're laying on the sensor, that can cause a low alarm. But when I'm in sleep mode on my iPhone, I do not, Get, those alarms, they do not ring through. But now, this past day or so during the day, I've been getting these low blood sugar alarms. In fact, today, this afternoon while I was out walking, got in a nice walk before recording this and, enjoying the day out and about and all of a sudden the CGM alarm starts going off and I look down and it said my blood sugar was 54. And then a few minutes later it says it's low. And what low means is it's too low to read on its scale. And I think that happens when it goes below 50. I gotta tell you, there's no way in the world my blood sugar was below 50. I was out walking, having a great time, enjoying myself. listening to a podcast, which I'm used to doing, during my walks. And, I was feeling no issues whatsoever. and still I'm not, and it's gone off three times since I've gotten back from the walk. But I don't know. It's, nothing's perfect and I do, go to the doctor here soon. So we'll check it with an actual a1c. I just checked and the C G M for the past. I've been wearing this model now for about 48 days and I've averaged, I think 5.8 on the gmi, over 48 days. So we'll see what that compares here, to the A1C at the doctor's office. Anyway, CGM failed. Hopefully it's temporary. I guess this is about my eighth one that I've worn of this particular model, and, this is the first time that's happened, so I'll keep you posted. My Numbers --- So looking at my numbers this week, all right, let's get to my numbers. my rings. I was able to close my rings five out of the last seven days. one day I was driving all day down here and in fact, two days I was driving. We took two days to drive and, I could have gotten some walking in or whatever on those two days of driving, but I just didn't feel like it, so I didn't, so no big deal. closed my rings five outta seven days, which is perfectly acceptable. My seven day average glucose reading. Now take this with a grain of salt. again, I just described my CGM failure that I've had this week. Anyway, my seven day glucose, according to the CGM average 95 and that equates to a GMI of 5.6. And again, we'll see, we'll see how this CGM goes. Right now I'm currently a little disappointed. My body fat percentage, I have been away from the house for a week now, and so I have not stepped on a scale. When I got on it about eight days ago, my body fat was reading right at 21.0 and I'm headed towards 17%, body fat. That's in the healthy range, and in fact, it's the top of the, what they call the fitness range, so that'll be good. right now, according to my, little app that comes with my , smart scale, my body fat percentage is in the acceptable range. Now, other places, other charts label it as overweight, so I still have a little overweight, by about four body, fat percentage points, which that's about seven pounds. I'm thinking, really at most, lose another seven pounds of fat eventually. And, all the doctors, all the charts, everybody should be happy. For my, macros, I've had average 77 grams of carbohydrates each day over the past week, and I've averaged 131 grams of protein, per day each week. And the protein is in a great level. the carbohydrates are in a great level. if my CGM is anywhere close to accurate, it's suiting me well. Mounjaro Update --- Let's take a look at the Mounjaro update for the week. this is a bit of status quo here, I think I am still at the 7.5 milligram dose. I've been using Mounjaro now for just over four months. The first month was at 2.5 milligrams. The second month was at five milligrams, and now for over two months, I've been at the 7.5 milligram level. And I'm having no issues. I'm really having no negative side effects whatsoever. I gotta say that the combination between this Mounjaro and my Fara seems to be perfect. the Mounjaro, in addition to all the things it does with helping with insulin, is also certainly controlling my appetite. I'd be hard pressed to overeat. I gotta tell you. And the Fara what excess sugar there is. I can pass that out through the kidneys, with a Fara. So I think it's working very well. Now I do go in for blood work in three weeks. This'll be my first blood work. It's been about five months so far. So this's be almost six months, since my last blood work. So I'm very interested in seeing, how this Mounjaro is, affecting my, blood work. So we'll see that in just a few weeks. Challenge and Win --- My challenge in win for this week, has got to do with traveling. Now. We drove down here and, we took two days to do it. It ended up being, just a hair over seven hours. Of, driving each of the two days. So very nice and easy. Nothing major, nothing, draining. But we did stop several times. for gas stops, rest stops, overnight, we stopped and that presents a lot of opportunity for, vending machines, things like that. So you know that can be challenging also here, while we've been vacationing, I don't call it vacationing, I call it traveling, but for the other folks that were here, this was time off of work. This was away, this was their actual vacation. this big high carb snacks tend to be out and about all the time. Everybody seems to be munching on cookies, crackers, chips, pretzels, candy, that type of thing. that's been a challenge, I gotta tell you, between the vending machines, the staying in a hotel, everyone else having all their snacks and snacking, grazing all the time, That could be a challenge. Now, yes, the Mounjaro helps because I'm not really that hungry, but it's hard to pass up just not walking by a bowl of chips or, cookies or something and popping 'em in your mouth. So the way I overcame that, if I ever did feel a desire for that, I grabbed one of my protein bars. Now, you know, I'm on the Quest brand right now. I happen to like those right now. So I have brought with me protein bars, I brought with me my, the Caramel Nut almond. little candy bars they have with Quest and also brought their quest, peanut butter cups. Now, again, I'm not sponsored. I just happen to like this brand a whole lot right now, so I'll call that now when. News --- All right, let's take a look at the news. This first article is for, I think it might most benefit folks just starting out with a diagnosis of type two diabetes. this article right here is called. Starting Metformin. Here are nine things your doctor wants you to know. Now I have, Talked before about how metformin is you know, it's usually the first go-to medication if you've got pre-diabetes or if you have, a newly diagnosed, type two diabetes. They usually like to start the metformin, it's very low harm and, has some positive benefits. It's not what I'm gonna call a block. Buster medication, some of the SGLT two inhibitors are, or, glp agonists, things like that. but it is what they start off with. So what are the things you should watch out for? The first one is GI issues. They say, sometimes it's diarrhea, sometimes it's nausea, but, they say that's something you should look out for. The second thing is, now this affects women of course, but it might, impact your, monthly menstrual cycle. it says to watch your alcohol intake. Because alcohol can suppress your body's production of sugar if you have more than two drinks. And because Metformin does that too. that could be a double whammy. And no, for folks wondering, my low blood sugar is not from alcohol intake. at least not this week. you should be screened for anemia. It says here that metformin can decrease the amount of vitamin B12 you can absorb, which could possibly lead to a vitamin B12 deficiency and vitamin deficiency anemia. So people on metformin, they're recommending, to get screened, for B12 levels. It's saying here. And most people would not mind this, but it's saying here, Metformin may cause you to lose weight because there is a very, and I'm gonna say minor, very mild, possibility of getting a slight decrease in appetite with metformin. I never found that, but they say it can happen. It says here, you could experience some changes in vision. It says also that you. Could get this rare, but a serious, side effect called lactic acidosis. it warns here that the pills are large. okay, that's fine. they are big, but, I don't know. I wouldn't, that wouldn't keep me from taking the medication. But if, I guess if you have an issue with swallowing, maybe it would. And then finally they say you can't rely on Metformin alone. it's best when combined with a healthy lifestyle. And we all know that eating things that are helpful to you, getting in your movement, those are all things that really make a difference. This next article is, interesting. it's something I did not, ever consider, but it says here that type two diabetes can directly lead to lung damage. And they did a study. And it says that high blood sugar levels can play a causal role in lung complications such as pneumonia. Fibrosis and lung disease. They studied more than 5 million people, with type two diabetes. And they said that, these are the types of issues that they have found. And they said that, it's dramatic. if you, have a 20% increase of blood sugar over, normal blood sugars, that it can, lead to these, issues. Now you can read this study. It's a in depth here, but they do link to it and, they, I don't think they've found the exact reason, but they did definitely find a correlation. Between, blood sugar levels and those types of lung diseases and lung damage. So that's very interesting. Now, on the positive side, here's an article about, the SGLT two inhibitor, Jardiance, the particular brand, Jardiance, this was done on, but I'm, I don't know. I've gotta believe that, Any SGLT two inhibitor might have the same benefit. It says here that Jardiance slows kidney disease. Now, I was just talking about Fara and I take Fara, and that helps eliminate sugar from the kidneys instead of reintroducing the sugar back into the bloodstream. what the kidneys do is first the kidneys filter out sugar from the bloodstream, but then most of it, almost all of it, naturally goes right back into the bloodstream. So it's just. Temporarily hits the kidneys and then goes back into the bloodstream. But what they're saying here is that, with these SGLT two inhibitors, you can, actually slow, disease. So there's a benefit. Not only does it help with your blood sugar, but it actually slows. kidney disease and which is great. you take the medication because you have high blood sugar, and high blood sugar does actually, cause or, worsen kidney disease. So here's a medication that not only lowers your blood sugar, but then can help, that, kidney disease progression. so that's a positive thing. That's good. And finally here, this is something that I think. Common sense wise, maybe we've known. But it says here, scientists just quantified the shocking extent of type two diabetes due to poor diet. Now in 40 years, this article says the risk of people having type two diabetes and the amount of people having DI type two diabetes has grown from about a hundred million back in the 1980s. To 500 million currently. So that's a dramatic increase. But they're saying now with this study that they have, investigated and found that there's just a few major things, major reasons, from the diet that's causing a lot of that dramatic increase. So they collected data from 184 countries, and this data ranged from 1990 all the way to 2018. And they basically just pulled information from public health databases, other studies, demographic records, things like that. And they said they found 11 factors in the diet that were, contributing to this rapid increase of type two diabetes. But the three that they said were most, significant out of those 11 factors. And you can read all 11 factors. Some are very minor, but the three they said were very significant were insufficient hole grains, too much refined grains. And too much processed sugar and processed meat. I'm not sure why those are lumped together. But anyway, so basically it's not enough whole foods and too much of the factory processed foods, So this I think is something that we, new. But they did this study, and people from 184 countries, and, they said it's definitive. it's no doubt about it. these are, the three top things in today's eating that, really leads to an increase, a rapid, dramatic increase in type two diabetes. I thought that was really interesting. 5 Travel Tips for Solving Type 2 Diabetes --- All right, let's look at today's topic. Now. I wanna give you five tips for traveling if you're dealing with solving your own type two diabetes. Now these are things that I do. you might have other ideas, other tips. If so, please let me know. But these are things that I've found that I think are really the most helpful things for me, and I do a lot of traveling. this week we're in a, I'm gonna call it a villa. It's almost like an apartment, if you will, here at Disney's Resort. there's a living room, a full kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms, of course. And, I, so there's plenty of space here, to live and it's not like a hotel room. So this really, I'm talking about what I'm doing for this week, but you can really interpret these five traveling tips for almost any scenario. So let's get started. My number one tip, and I'm gonna start with number one. Maybe I should do this backwards, but here it goes. My number one tip is to pack your own food. Now, like I said earlier, this week, folks, here staying with me are eating chips, cookies, crackers. I'm looking right now at this, kitchen and there are at least I'm counting four different kinds of cookies. All of the packages are open. Some of them have had to be replenished this week. I know that for a fact. There's two different kinds of ice cream in the fridge. there's pretzels, I think about three different kinds of chips. So anyway, it's everywhere. So what do I do? I pack my own food. If I'm gonna want something crunchy, I'll pack pork RINs. If I'm gonna want something sweet, I'll pack some of my protein bars or protein quest, protein snack type foods. I make sure that, we have, protein shakes, all the things that I need, even my, diet soda. And, maybe that's not the healthiest, but, I do have some, time to time and so I pack it to make sure I have it. I pack my little yellow packets. My, I think they're Splenda packets, for the coffee. I pack my, flavor water, zero calorie enhancer. I call it spritz, but it, it has a brand name, but I think it's a Walmart brand. But I pack that, to put my water. So I drink lots and lots of water. So pack your own food. I found that to be, very helpful. the next thing is it goes with that and it's cook in your own. Accommodations in your own villa. That's what they're called here. but do your own cooking when you can. we have, I think we've eaten out one time, and that was for our breakfast. Otherwise, every meal's been cooked here. Now the other folks did eat out a few different lunches. I usually have leftovers for that. But they did eat out. they went out and at the pool bar or something and had chicken strips or whatever. But basically we're cooking here in the villa so I can make sure that in these meals there's stuff that I will enjoy and stuff that's helpful to me. So we have eggs to make for breakfast, but they also have English muffins and bagels. we have, sandwich stuff, for lunch. I make sure that I get cheese that I like and meats that I like, and I get that low carb, 6 47 bread. it's just a brand name. any of that low carb, high fiber, bread, would be good. And then for dinners, I always make sure this good meat and veg. we made Mississippi, pot roast this week. We made a chicken salsa this week. So I always make sure there's good, foods that are cooked right here that I can eat, and then the following day for lunch, if they're out getting chicken strips and french fries, I'll have some leftovers and really enjoy it. Number three, get movement in your new location. So here we are in Hilton Head Island, and like I said, I really love the atmosphere of this place, South Carolina low country. I'm looking out here now and I see these marshes and they, drop down and rise up with each tide and different birds, gulls, herons, once in a while, a few, small hawks. How you see outside and, yeah, it's just beautiful. So it's a joy to get out and get in my walks, explore new areas, and, with my smartphone, I always know I can get back to, the resort wherever I go. The fourth thing, sample local cuisine. So if you are going out to eat, make it special. Don't just eat the same old junk you can get at home, but if you are going out to eat, like around here, a shrimp is a very, good, thing that they have, fresh here. Also, a lot of fish is fresh here. So get something that's, that the local place is known for and make it special. Make it an occasion. no need to over-indulge in the same old thing you can get at home. Just get a reasonable amount of something that they do really well. make it special. And then the fifth thing, the last thing, the last tip I'm gonna give you here is to track everything. Now, if you're anywhere near like me where you travel a lot, You can't really let things go off the rail and still stay on your plan. If it's a, maybe a once a year or just a few days, then, yeah, it's not really in the long run gonna make a tremendous difference what you do for just a few days, once a year. But if it is, more like, you know, our retirement lifestyle in that. we travel quite a bit. I'm gonna say we average one week out of every three away from home. So I can't afford to be different, when I'm traveling than I am at home. So I track everything. I use my Fitness Pal, I use my Apple Watch. I make sure that I'm tracking my movement, all of that to keep myself on my plan. Even though I'm traveling. So those are the five tips for traveling that I wanted to share with you today. Questions --- Okay. It is time for your questions. We do have a question this week and I'm really happy about that. Really excited. And if you want to send in a question, it's too easy ways to do it. You can send me an email, just email Tom at solving type two diabetes.com. Or you can go to the website solving type two diabetes.com, click on feedback and send in your questions. Send in some feedback on the podcast. Let me know what you like, what you don't like. Let me know possible topics that you would have covered in the future, or just simply say hi. We got an email in this week from Steven. Now, Steven had written to us previously just a couple weeks ago, and he says here, hi Tom. Thanks for answering my question on how you got the Libre three system having type two diabetes during the time between my question and today. My insurance carrier finally approved my Libre three request, so I'll be getting the Libre three sensors any day now. I've been trying a free sample from freestyle through CVS for the past five days, and it's great. The feedback I get from eating various foods is eye-opening. By the way, I'm not from the uk, but from Glendale, Queens, New York. I know you're from pa. And coincidentally, we're frequent visitors to Lancaster, pa, particularly Kitchen Kettle Village. Keep up the great work, Tom. Thanks Steve. Well, thank you Steve. yeah, I had previously identified Steve as being from uk. I think that week we also got a. Question him from another Steve, who was from the uk. So I might have said they were both from the uk. My bad. So sorry about that. and waving, shout out up there to Glendale in Queens, New York. yeah, so Lancaster County. Is, very close to us. It's about 30 minutes south of us. the county is five minutes south of us, but Lancaster itself is about 30 minutes south of us, but I have never been to Kitchen Kettle Village, so I'm gonna have to look that one up. So thanks for that tip, Steve. Yeah, so good luck, with your Libre. Three. I'm glad that you are able to work things out with your insurance company and, take what I said today about the Libre three with a grain of salt. I have thought it's been working well for the last two months and this one particular sensor I have on now just seems to be really acting up, for the past day or so. But hopefully that's not a trend, and maybe the next time I put on a new sensor, it'll be fine again. So thanks for writing in Steve. Appreciate that. if you like Steve, are getting some value out of this podcast, I'm gonna ask you for a favor. Again, please take a moment to share this episode or share the podcast, a subscription link with someone who you think could also benefit from the podcast. I would super greatly appreciate that. What's Next? --- Okay, so what's next? next week I will be on a cruise ship again, and so I would like to revisit some of my cruising tips for people with type two diabetes people who are trying to solve their own type two diabetes. So that's coming up next week. Look forward to that. Thanks! --- 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.