Diet for a 57 year old woman with diabetes(my mom)?

[Zero V]

Hey, to make long story short I been trying to get my mother to eat better, to treat herself better, etc for over a year. My grandmother(had, passed) and sister have diabetes, it chases the females of the family.

Well she has been borderline diabetic, and like I warned her...now she has diabetes.

I know how to eat for myself, with a 24 year old body that can use its nutrients and work properly....

I want her to see a dietician but its going to be a fight to get her to go(stubborn, then again she is in college for a degree as a paralegal at 56 years old lol).

So my question is, what would be a good basic diet for me to try and get her to follow while she gets over her stubbornness and depressed state over the news?

And what kind of an effect does coffee have on it? She normally drinks about 10 cups a day(been trying to curve that too) and I tell her to limit it to 3 spread out.

She also has high BP, high Cholesterol, she has her ankle held together by pins and metal due to shattering it a few years back, and she will be having a hernia operation soon...

Plans are to get her to do water-aerobics at the local rec center to improve her physical condition.

She is a smart women, very dedicated to school and her family...I do not want to see her brought down by some damn disease that can be treated and fought through healthy living.

Any tips, ideas, help?

This is not my forte....she does not use insulin, she takes pills for it.

I really appreciate it.

 

[Natehayes]

I feel for you man, my mom is 72 and has a whole host of health problems, including frequent need for oxygen. One of her other problems was mild diabetes brought about by other conditions, the drugs she was taking and poor diet. Same as your mom, she was taking pills to control her blood sugar. Her health was so bad for a time that I wound up building a mother/daughter house so I can live next to her and help her out.

That was almost 4 years ago. Since her health was not great I have been cooking almost all of her meals for the last few years. I cook simple foods for her with every meal including a protein and a vegetable and most including a low glycemic carb (sweet potatoes are a favorite in my house). After eating this way for less than a year she was able to discontinue her blood sugar meds and is no longer diabetic.

My best advice for you if you want to try and help her with a diet is follow a simple low glycemic plan. Most of the changes are fairly simple to adopt (sweet potato or yam in place of white potato, whole grains in place of white bread, etc). If you keep the blood sugar stable over a long enough period of time her body will get control of the insulin production again and she should be able to stop taking the meds. My mom drinks as much coffee as your mom, so I would not worry about the coffee unless she likes it with sugar, in which case you may need to try to get her to cut down or at least drink it black or just with milk.

If you do get her eating right make sure she keeps on a close on her sugar levels, because once her body starts to normalize the meds will drop her blood sugars too low.

Also, I helped my mom with a wound diet after her last surgery and it made a world of difference. When the body is trying to heal it will shift its main source of energy from the usual carbohydrates to protein so it is extremely important to eat a high protein diet while healing from surgery, somewhere along the lines of 1gram per lb. My mom likes smoothies so I wound up making her a smoothie every day with fruit, some yogurt for the probiotics and a couple of scoops of whey. I also added a high dose of vitamin c (you can get the powder cheap and it's easy to mix into shakes). She has had several surgeries in the past few years and the difference in her healing this time was huge. Even her doctors asked her what she doing to heal so fast!

I hope some of this has been helpful to you. Please feel free to shoot me a PM if you have any questions or want any more info.

 

[Zero V]

Thanks for the input man, you should give me an example of a healing diet as well. She has to have a hernia operation soon :/

 

[Natehayes]

Thanks for the input man, you should give me an example of a healing diet as well. She has to have a hernia operation soon :/

Ouch, sorry to hear that man. My mom has had several hernia operations in the past, in fact they are one of the reasons her health is so poor now. They used the plastic (goretex) patch and a few years later it got infected with MRSA. The problem is the plastic patches won;t clear infections and it is so entwined with her guts now they can't cut it out either. So she has surgeries every year to try and snip away the infected parts and then hopes the MRSA won't come back, but so far it always does. If your mom needs a patch try and get them to use the bio-patch. It's organic and can clear infections like your body if it every gets infected.

The wound healing diet is pretty simple, it's basically the same as the low glycemic diet but with high protein. It's almost like a bodybuilding diet except you are shooting for 1 - 1.5 grams of protein per kg of bodyweight. Mt mom's appetite was nowhere near great enough to do that with just food so I use smoothies with whey. That 25 grams of protein in the shake plus her usual meals puts her right where she needs to be for protein.

Vitamin C is also part of the wound healing diet. I also add 1/4 teaspoon of vit C powder (1000mg) so she does not have to take yet another pill.

L-Arginine is also part of the wound healing diet, but would be contraindicated if your mom has a heart condition. This one you would want to clear with her Dr, but if he says ok then you want to supplement with 2.5 grams a day.

I also add yogurt with live cultures for the probiotics because my mom is on a lot of antibiotics, and fruit for taste and antioxidative properties.

The rest of her meals are lean proteins, vegetables and some low glycemic carbs, pretty much like a lean bulk diet with smaller quantities.

Hopefully this info will be helpful to you.

 

[3J]

yo zero... email me buddy

 

[Natehayes]

yo zero... email me buddy

Hey 3J,

Let me know if I am off based on any of this, so I can help my mom tweak her diet.

Thanks!

 

[3J]

Hey 3J,

Let me know if I am off based on any of this, so I can help my mom tweak her diet.

Thanks!

your not nate.. but your mom has a different situation.. that mrsa can be difficult to deal with.. listening to a doc at that point is the best idea... diabetes plus wounds does not work out well..

if you want e-mail me a specific diet.. ill see if any changes would be worth the while

 

[Natehayes]

your not nate.. but your mom has a different situation.. that mrsa can be difficult to deal with.. listening to a doc at that point is the best idea... diabetes plus wounds does not work out well..

if you want e-mail me a specific diet.. ill see if any changes would be worth the while

Thanks man, I appreciate it.

She has not been diabetic for a couple of years now after cleaning up her diet. The MRSA is most likely what will ultimately do her in.