Coffee and Choices, & Kelly's Big D Soap Box

Behold the power of coffee. I need a cup of that magic elixir in order to start my day.

I prefer a nice Costa Rican or good ol Dunkin Donuts, but either one, I HAVE to HAVE my morning cup of Joe.

I take it with cream and 2 teaspoons of sugar. Light and sardonically sweet, kinda like me.

Why no artificial sweetener? Well, after 30 years with the big D, I've had my fill of the stuff.
I've said it b4 in Diabetesaliciousness Land and I'll say it again, I have so much artificial preservatives running through my veins, that my family will get a discount from the mortician when I die!

I consider my cup of coffee to have about 12 to 15 grams of carbs and bolus for it accordingly.
It's how I start my day and is my drug of choice. Insulin is my must have drug, there is choice regarding it.
My Endo is OK with my coffee Du jour, as long as I don't have a juice in the morning (actually,I rarely drink the stuff) he actually prefers that I drink the coffee w/cream and sugar over the juice .
I only have 1 to 1.5 cups of it in the morning. For the rest of the day it's water, maybe a cup of herb tea, & if I'm really tired, I go for a cup of green or a dejaarling (Sp) in the afternoon.

It's all about CHOICES. I choose my coffee in the a.m and forgo juice. That works for me.
When I talk with newly diagnosed diabetics, food choices are the number one complaint I hear.
"I can't give up chocolate," or "I'm addicted to bread," or the good old "but I already drink diet soda!"

I spoke to a woman at the dentists office on December 5th ( I remember the date because that was when I got my teeth cleaned and was in pain for two daysafterwards. I think my dentist was punishing me for my "hot topic" talk in the waiting room) who was diabetic (she said pre diabetic, but all signs pointed to type 2) and she told me she never even looks at labels when buying food. I couldn't believe it! She had the choice to actually stop her diabetes clock from ticking and she just decided to ignore it entirely. I asked her how many times a day she took her blood sugars. "Not that many," she said somewhat embarrassed. "Look, you need to take them at least 7 times a day to get a grip on what's going on in your body." SHE LOOKED AT ME LIKE I WAS NUTS. "That's 35 seconds a day, I know you've got 35 seconds to spare. If you did 10 times a day it would be under a minute." SHE STILL LOOKED AT ME LIKE I WAS CRAZY. Finally I told her, "look you have the opportunity that many of us don't and your wasting it. This is your health, be proactive. You can ignore your diabetes and it won't go away, but it will hurt you in the end. Your an adult and your choosing to let diabetes own you, instead of you owning it." "Yeah I know, but I'm waiting till the New Year and then I'll start fresh."
That really didn't sit well with me. "Start making choices now, even if their small. You live in the United States, you have the freedom to pick and choose what you put in you body. In some other countries, consumers don't have that choice. Go see a diabetes educator, read books on the subject, visit websites and blogs and don't buy anything with High Fructose Corn Syrup in the first 5 ingredients, own your disease woman! Cancer patients don't have the give to chose like diabetics have. Actually, WE ARE VERY LUCKY."


Once again, Kelly K was on her Diabetes soap box and telling it like it was, and probably offending someone in the process. But I so wanted this lady to embrace and own her life, which included diabetes. To think I started this blog about coffee and went off in a direction about choices, GO FIGURE?

As diabetics we are lucky, we have the gifts of choice, options, technology and education. And we need to use all of those gifts to succeed.