Diabetes, Diabeetus, let's call the whole thing off

Nazis getting you down? I'll be your buddy!

My poppa and his family escaped from Austria in the late 1930's, one of the last Jewish families to leave before it became impossible. Dad never spoke much about Vienna. Even when we visited his hometown when he was an old man, other than some vivid memories of "NO JEWS" painted on park benches in yellow, he didn't have much to say about the place....except for the bakeries. A Viennese sacher torte sent his childhood heart spinning, the cream puffs and cakes and confections made him all a-twitter decades before twittering became a thing. He had the most wonderful memories of a bakery on every corner, each turning out more fantastic temptations than the next. Unfortunately, his spinning childhood heart also sent his adult insulin levels spinning, too.

My father had adult-onset Type 2 diabetes in his later years, starting when I was a teen. He credited his life-long sweet tooth for his high blood sugar, and he managed his disease well, with a focus becoming of his scientific training. He eliminated all candy and junk food, he acquired a stationary bicycle and spent a regular number of hours on it five days a week. I remember seeing my parents while on vacation from college. I'd be going out at night and my mom would be bed in her housecoat and my dad pedalling away on his stationary bike. She'd be watching TV and he'd be reading a book on a stand attached to his handle bars. They made it work.

Later in life when their exercise routine got too dull, they resorted into learning all the dance moves of Kid n' Play.

So in these past few weeks of reading and writing about sugar, I was thinking that underlining the relationship between sugar and diabetes would be a no-brainer. Except that my "common sense" assumption is, uh, wrong.

The myth that sugar causes diabetes is commonly accepted by many people. Research has shown that it isn't true. Eating sugar has nothing to do with developing type 1 diabetes.
The biggest dietary risk factor for developing type 2 diabetes is simply eating too much and being overweight — your body doesn’t care if the extra food comes from cookies or beef, it is gaining weight that is the culprit.

The American Diabetes Association goes on to say that while sugar may make blood sugar spike and make you feel crazy n' wot-not (specially if you already have diabetes), that in itself will not cause diabetes. But if you constantly take in too much sugar or any carbohydrate, that'll put you in a direct path to "the sugah".

All the buttah just makes the sugah shoot through me fastah, honey!

The NY Times recently featured a piece about a new study that shows that the best way to prevent Type 2 diabetes in prediabetic people is bariatric surgery, yick!

Over the course of a roughly 15-year period, those who had one of three types of bariatric procedures were 80 percent less likely to develop the disease than people who tried losing weight with diet and exercise advice from their doctors.

The important take away here is twofold:

1. Most diabetes comes from being fat, and when you lose the chunk, you lose the diabetes.
2. Those who choose what McDonalds and Big Sugar would recommend (the freedomy choiciness of a balanced diet and exercise) to cure their diabetes overwhelmingly fail compared to those who cut up and splay their guts with expensive, risky, painful procedures. 

Sugar may not directly cause diabetes, but it's addictive qualities do directly cause obesity, which in turn directly causes diabetes. So sweet sugar, you're not quite off the hook.

The Last Word in Diabeetus.

Tomorrow, two tastes that go great together: sugar, alcohol and -gasp- sugar alcohols.

THE COUNT:2275
The day centered around lifting weights and cleaning up the house, then some good friends coming over with kids, making pizza for all, then walking the strollers through naps to enjoy some downtown parks. It left me tired and a bit frazzled, but all the more in love with my family.

AM SNACK: 7:45am, iced green tea, 25 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, steel cut oatmeal, 375 cal

LUNCH: noon, home made margarita pizza, 14 oz diet coke, 830 cal
Every ingredient pre-scaled and mapped out, made it easy to whip out 4 pies of equal caloric content.

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, half a vanilla ice cream cone, 100 cal
Didn't need this snack, but Edie did, and I had to eat along to prevent a huge ice cream mess on her face, hair and clothes. The whole cone was about 190 cal, and I probably ate about 1/2 of it.

PM SNACK: 5:15pm, momma salad, 100 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, 6" veggie burger sub, Doritos, soda water, 760 cal
Didn't want to cook, but didn't want the questionable calories of ordering in food, so I popped over to the local Subway for some peace, quiet and certainty.

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, watermelon, 85 cal