High BP, Pre-diabetic. WHAT THE F*CK AM I SUPPOSED TO EAT????????????

[csziggy]

53. My husband was diagnosed pre-diabetic in 2001. He still is pre-diabetic.

We still eat some things with sugar, but have cut back.

We dumped most packaged products (but not all). Eat a lot of whole grain (brown rice, not white or riced cauliflower instead) and not much simple carbohydrates. Lots of salad, green vegetables. Most vegetables are bought frozen (no salt) and I nuke them with no salt. I cook with very little salt - salt added at the table is tasted more and we use less of it.

I cut back on sauces - rather than recipes with soup as a sauce, I now make plain roasted chicken with fresh herbs, or sauteed fish with lemon juice, for example. I recently tried a recipe for a lemon vinagrette dressing with fresh thyme that I didn't like, so I used it as a light sauce over some baked fish - it was delicious.

When I cook desserts, they are mostly fruit based, with little added sugar - or I use sugar substitutes.

It's a hard adjustment. One of the things that made it easier for us is that his insurance paid for a consultation with a diabetic dietician. We had two sessions with her, talking about life style, foods, and how to make the changes.

We didn't cut out ALL premade products - one of my husband's favorite snacks is raw carrots with peanut butter (:wtf . There are no sugar added fruit spreads - maybe try some of those mixed with plain yogurt to sub for your sugar added yogurts. Find changes you can make without cutting out all of what you do like. Don't try to do it all at once. Make small changes as you can.

All that said, I have the advantage that I do like to cook. Because sometimes my life gets complicated, I have learned to go for the simpler meals and not the gourmet ones.

The Cooking & Baking group could help a lot, even though there may be a lot of recipes posted that will be very tempting to make.

Good luck - it is a fight for your life.