Dawn, I'll post her simple message here. What we did this past spring to get his numbers down
quickly was to eat nothing but fruit and vegetables for 1 month, plus made sure we got our vitamins/minerals and amino acids.
We still eat meat,fish dairy and grains. We just make sure we get more vegetables than meat and more low carbs than high, and more vegetables than grains. Like her, we use agave nectar and I use stevia.
Now in our fruit smoothie every day we also get spinach, kale, collard greens, swiss chard, turnip greens and the baby spring mix lettuces, sometimes beet greens I put in a handful of each. I add some fat free, sugar-free yogurt, flax seed oil, pomegranate juice. Fruit variety: banana, pear, apple, grapefruit, orange, melon, strawberries, raspberries, mango, cherries.
We were cooking swiss chard and turnip greens, never eating Kale or collard greens. That's when I decided just to start eating all of them raw in a smoothie.
At the end of the day for a snack we eat a few nuts and seeds.
Here's Sharon's message:
Lately my favorite way to use tahini is to take a bunch of greens, such as chard or kale, chop it up (or rip into smaller pieces), and put it in
a skillet with a clove of minced garlic and a bit of agave nectar (a healthier than sugar substitute - metabolizes more slowly than sugar -
it's from a cactus), a bit of vinegar (a mix of apple cider vinegar and fig balsamic vinegar), and some veggie broth. Cook the greens in the
small bit of liquid for a bit. (Cover if necessary or leave the lid off to evaporate some of the liquid if there's too much.) I leave on the stems on the greens and cook until they are al dente and the greens are... bright green.
After it's done cooking, I mix in a spoonful of tahini, shake on extra fig balsamic vinegar and sprinkle on some black sesame seeds or raw
pumpkin or sunflower seeds. YUM... yum. yum. yum. And SO healthy.
Greens are full of protein, calcium and loads of other vitamins and phytochemicals.
My secret to weight loss and to losing cravings to unhealthy addictive foods has been to eat plenty of greens EVERY DAY. smileys/smile.gif
Oh, I've been asked to appear on a radio show about Defeating Diabetes next week. It will be archived as well. Here's the info:
https://www.drfuhrman.com/voiceamerica/nutritional_wisdom.htm
I ate few very vegetables and lived mostly on dairy, processed soy products, and white
pasta. I lost 37 pounds just making incremental changes - cooking soups, eating whole grains, doing a bit of walking.
Then I went to the doctor in January and, even though I had lost some weight, my health was in really dire shape. My A1c was 12.2, my
cholesterol was 280, my blood pressure was high. The list went on and on. That's when I started following Eat To Live and things have
completely turned around. I now follow a vegan plan and I actually eat veggies. LOTS of veggies. I don't even eat much in the way of
grains anymore and I don't eat processed food. (I was in an extreme situation and needed an extreme intervention. My doctor wanted me on
insulin instantly, as well as a bunch of other meds.)
I also have a daily green smoothie. Lately it's been one baby bok choy, 1 bunch of dino kale (though yesterday I used beet greens), a box of microgreens, a banana, frozen mango or blueberries, some unsweetened cherry juice or
mango nectar, flax seed, nutritional yeast, dulse, and a few almonds tossed in at the end. (I like the almonds to be chunky so I have
something to chew.)
My last A1c was 5.4, which is considered normal.
Studies have confirmed that a diet high in fiber reduces the risk of heart disease, diabetes, diverticulitis and constipation.
