Delusions:
When I first started This journey to lower my A1C by diet alone, I would just eat my normal foods during the day and then record them at night. Each day I ate normal foods just the way I always did but this time I weighed and measured the food. Then at night I would put the numbers in the food journal. Wow, when I saw the numbers at first, I was astonished as to how high the saturated fats numbers were and how high the glycemic load numbers were. So I thought: well OK I’ll just cut the volume of the foods. Well that helped a little bit but not as much as I had hoped.
Realizations:
What I began to realize was that I was not going to be able to eat the normal foods that I had been eating all my life and still be able to keep the journal numbers where they belonged. I guess that’s why my lipids and A1C numbers were so high to start with. It was because of the type of foods that I ate.
Substitutions:
So I started substituting foods that had high glycemic index and high saturated fat numbers with foods with lower glycemic index and lower saturated fat numbers. That’s when my daily journal numbers started coming down. However I still had a long ways to go.
Plan First:
I learned that if I made a meal plan for the day first, before I ate anything. And I made it so that it fit within the journal numbers, I was more likely to stay within the goal for that day. If I just went through the day and ate what I wanted or ate what I thought I could get away with and recorded the numbers at the end of the day, the journal numbers for that day were always higher.
So I started making a meal plan each morning before eating anything for that day. I started getting pretty good at knowing what foods were gonna keep me within the journal number range that I wanted to be in for that day. As time went on making a meal plan that kept me within the journal numbers for that day took less and less time.
Finding The Sweet Spot:
Eventually I came up with combinations of foods that I enjoy and like, and meals that I enjoy and like and still stay under the Journal numbers for that day.
Now I have about a dozen or more different foods that I use in different combinations that give me enough different meals through the week to be satisfied and allows me to maintain that lower A1C and Lipid count.
Planning Is Everything:
Meal planning is vital in the beginning of your journey. Until you learn how much each food item is going to cost you on the numbers in your food journal, It’s always best to start your day by planning your meals for the whole day. Sometimes it would take me 3, 4, or even 5 different meal plans before I came up with one that kept me within the journal numbers for that day. And by the journal numbers, I mean 6% or less of saturated fat and under 100 on the glycemic load.
When you first start out working this meal plan you will find out a lot of the foods that you want to eat or that you want to eat more of, are not going to work for your full day’s numbers. And if you are serious about dropping your A 1C’s and/or lipid count you are going to need to stay within the journal numbers.
When I first started this journey and I created this food journal I thought: wow this is great, all I really have to do is just decrease the quantity of food that I eat and I’ll be good. However what sounded good in my brain didn’t quite work on paper.