Today, we’ll talk about how to stay hydrated with the food we eat!
Soups and Broths
A great way to hydrate your body is by drinking soups and bone broth. Soups based on broths like non-creamy chicken noodle soup, french onion soup, vegetable soup, and bone broths can help provide total fluid needs and are high in sodium, which is beneficial to your hydration. Sodium is lost through perspiration, and it must be replaced. If you’re athletic or highly active, replacing sodium is especially important.
Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
Food is able to meet about 20% of your hydration needs, which is why eating fresh fruits and vegetables can enhance your hydration levels. Fruits and vegetables also have various minerals and fibers that promote a healthy metabolism. Here are some fruits and vegetables and their water content percentages:
Cucumber- 96%
Watermelon- 96%
Pineapple- 95%
Celery- 95%
Lettuce- 95%
Blueberries- 95%
Tomatoes- 94%
Pear- 92%
Grapefruit- 90%
Melon- 89%
If you have trouble keeping hydrated, these are great options for preventing dehydration and keeping your blood sugar levels at a reasonable level!
Low-Carb Granola with walnuts, macadamia nuts and sunflower seeds
Looking for tasty granola that’s not loaded with sugar? If you don’t have an allergy or intolerance to nuts, this simple recipe is a fantastic alternative to original granola!
I’ve discovered this recipe in an online diabetes support group. I’ve decided to make some using what I had at the time. It was absolutely amazing! It was like eating a candy bar. I had to stop myself from eating the entire batch in one sitting. All you need is a few key ingredients and you’ll have the perfect complement to any meal or snack!
Try it for yourself and share a picture in the comments!
One of the first noodle alternatives I’ve tried when I started my lower-carb journey was zucchini noodles (also known as “zoodles”). Now don’t get me wrong: zoodles are decent, but I got bored with that pretty quickly. I started missing traditional noodles and I had not discovered spaghetti squash, palm hearts or shirataki noodles yet. However, searching through Pinterest led me to a recipe from Resolution Eats for Low Carb Egg Noodles. Even though I could no longer eat gluten in any form, I was excited to try this recipe. So I created my revised recipe it turned out amazingly well!
It’s not the same as your traditional noodles, but it is a wonderful alternative if you’re a fan of egg noodles. All you need is four ingredients: eggs, cream cheese, salt and pepper. That’s it! Once it’s done, you can mix the noodles with your favorite pasta sauce. The noodles take on the flavor of the sauce and do not have that scrambled egg taste at all.
Check out the recipe below, try it yourself and let me know what you think!
Enjoy delicious tortilla chips in less than 10 minutes and less than 5 carbs!
If you haven’t tried Egglife Wraps, then let me give you a few reasons why….
Breakfast wraps
Pizza
Quesadillas
Fajitas
Burritos
Tacos
Crepes
Sandwich wraps
And my new favorite-
Low carb tortilla chips!
Despite it’s many pros, eating strict low-carb does have it’s cons, which include eating traditions versions of all the foods below. However, one lady created a revolutionary product that has completely changed the low-carb/keto game and has empowered me to expand my food options.
Peggy John, founder of Egglife Foods, created Egglife Wraps while experiencing health issues and was told doctors to cut out carbs and sugar. Her experience in the egg industry led to experimenting with different recipes that replaced flour with eggs. This resulted in transforming carb-heavy foods like traditional wraps into wraps that are low-carb, low-calorie, zero-sugar and gluten-free!
There are five different varieties of Egglife Wraps:
Original Egg White
Southwestern
Rye
Italian
Everything Bagel
Each wrap contains between 25 calories-30 calories, 5 grams of protein, 0-1 carbs and 0 grams of saturated fat, which makes it suitable for low-carb, keto and carnivore.
Each original Egglife Wrap is made with egg whites, xanthan gum (for elasticity), salt, natural flavor and nisin (a natural preservative). The other varieties are made with egg whites, xanthan gum, salt, natural flavor, nisin and various spices.
The wraps are sold in select stores and online between $3.99 and $5.99 for a 6-count-bag. If you plan to make an online purchase, there is a $10.99 flat fee because the company just opened their online store due to customer demand. However, free shipping is available if you make a purchase over $49.99.
Out of all of the keto tortillas that I’ve made, the Egglife Wraps are the closest alternative to the traditional flour tortilla. One of my favorite ways to use these wraps is to make low-carb tortilla chips. With some olive or avocado oil, sea salt and additional spices, this makes a delicious snack or the perfect chips to use for nachos. Check out the recipe below and give Egglife Wraps a try. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I do.
It’s been said that once we are in remission from type 2 diabetes, or if you’re a pre-diabetic who has reversed their chances of being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes means that the journey is over. Most of us are unaware that a dose of reality is about to hit us head on.
Remission and reversal doesn’t mean dismissal.
It doesn’t mean that we return to our prior health and nutrition habits before our diagnosis. Diabetes is considered progressive for a reason. The more that we indulge in foods that we know are not healthy and stop the habits that helped us get to the point of remission or reversal, the faster Diabetes will further progress in our bodies, causing us to regress and erase all of the strides we’ve made. This is why type 2 diabetes is a lifelong chronic illness that we will always have to keep in check.
Friends, this is reality.
There are many of us who will continue these habits because we know that it works and we know the consequences when we don’t do it. This is the attitude that we need to adopt and live by EVERYDAY!
But for those who have backslidden and stopped implementing the very habits that have helped achieve remission and reversal in the first place: there’s no turning back!
There are no U-turns on this diabetes journey.
The constant grazing of unhealthy foods throughout the day, late eating patterns, the lack of sleep, the lack of intentional exercise and remaining in stressful and toxic environments are no longer options for us and should not be accepted as our normal. We have to ask ourselves, “Why do we even want to return to this life in the first place?”
Is it because we get to eat all of the foods that we’ve missed?
I get it. There are plenty of days when I have to battle those same feelings, especially while on a strict way of eating where you can’t eat a banana. Not all foods are bad, but for some, something like a banana can do more harm than good. Are you willing to risk eating something that you know will harm you just because you miss it?
Or is it because you just want to feel normal again…
I completely understand. I’ve mentioned this on several occasions on this blog and on some of the diabetes community platforms that the day I was diagnosed was the day that life that I knew it ended. Changing my eating habits, becoming more active, setting boundaries and staying consistent was the new normal for me. Even though there are difficult days, I know that this new normal is better in the long run. I’ve witnessed the benefits from the daily sacrifice of dying to self and taking a risk that many would find extremely difficult to do. If it wasn’t for diabetes, I would not have the knowledge of what I’ve gleaned from this journey. Why return to a chaotic life filled with inconsistent habits and ignorance?
Is it just something you had to do and now that you’re done, you don’t have to deal with this again.
“Yes”, I’ve said to myself five years after having my last child.
Dealing with a second bout of gestational diabetes really took a toll on me, causing me to give birth three weeks early. My final A1c check after delivery was 5.3. I was done. I was finally able to get on with my life and not have to deal with anything that had the word diabetes in it and if that was the case then it was not God’s will for my life. Even though I thought I was doing well because I was eating what I believed was a low carb diet (AKA: not eating much, but eating foods that caused insulin resistance.) and being active (AKA: staying busy, team no sleep, no intentional exercise), diabetes still found its way into my life. I did what I was instructed to do just to be free. That attitude brought me here.
Take a page from my book: if you return on the path that you were on prior to diagnosis, then you will find yourself head to head with diabetes at a high rate of speed and inevitably crashing.
Do you know the difference between a trip and a journey? A trip is an act of traveling to another place for a short time and then returning. A journey is when you travel a long distance from one place to another.
Diabetes is not a short trip where you can just make a U-turn, return and revert back to your old ways. Instead, think of diabetes as a long and continuous journey, discovering new ways of becoming healthier, feeling so much better than you ever had that you’ll never want to return to the way things were. Instead you’ll return with a new outlook and mindset, an unrecognizable you, who’s been inspired and forever impacted by this experience called diabetes.
So just tried hearts of palm rice from Natural Heaven and I am in love!
This brand uses three ingredients: palm hearts, sea salt and malic acid and only 4 carbs for 1/2 cup serving. The best thing is that there is no water in the packaging, which is great, because no one wants watery palm rice.
Of course, it is not going to taste just like traditional rice that we’ve grown up with, but the consistency is there and with enough seasonings, the flavor is there. There is a vinegary aftertaste (the best that I can explain it). If you ever put Accent seasoning in your rice, it also resembles that type of aftertaste as well, but it’s not bad at all.
There’s also a brown rice version made with one ingredient that I also plan to try soon.
A box of 6 of the white or brown hearts of palm rice costs about $34.00. However, it’s currently on sale for about $30.00 (does not include shipping & handling). A rice sampler can be purchased for the same price.
Out of all of the rice alternatives I’ve had so far, this is THE closest so far. Definitely Genetic Diabetic approved!
