1. In addition to using the app My Fitness Pal I manually recorded my medication, fasting blood glucose, exercise, and grams of carbs, fat, protein, sugar, fiber and my net carbs. Net Carbs are total carbs in grams, less fiber grams. 

This helped me quickly see what was going on and where I could improve.

2. I purchased a wearable tracker. I chose a Fitbit. I was shocked at how motivating this could be, I set my goals for 10,000 steps per day (hit this 3 times in the year!) and would try to come close to this each day. On the rare occasion when the band would vibrate to tell me I’d hit the goal I burst into my happy dance. Much to the chagrin of my family accompanying me at Costco. It seems I get my most exercise while shopping! 

“On the rare occasion when the band would vibrate to tell me I’d hit the goal I burst into my happy dance. Much to the chagrin of my family accompanying me at Costco. It seems I get my most exercise while shopping!” 

3. I revamped my cookbook library: For example I replaced “Quick Fixes with Cake Mixes” with “True Food”. 

I wrote a cookbook myself a few years ago called “CARLA’S COOKING CANADIAN COMFORT FOOD” which was a compilation of my family’s recipes from my grandmothers to my daughter. I love to cook and more than that love to eat. My background is similar to most Canadians an ethnic soup, Italian, Irish, British (which I just discovered thanks to ancestry.ca) and Native. Refined Carbs were the centre piece to quite a few of these recipes. Nonetheless learning to replace the sugar spikers with sugar regulators will be part of our journey together. 

I will post more strategies in upcoming posts. 

I’ll be especially interested in your opinions about my next post “FAT…FRIEND OR FOE?”