PDA

View Full Version : OK so here's a project I'm working on


ms.peachy
08-01-2010, 11:44 AM
Right, As some of you know, I'm in FL for the summer. I'm helping out my sister mainly. She is very, very overweight and as a result developed diabetes a few years ago. Continued to live in a pretty unhealthy way, and consequently has developed other health problems, and a couple months ago, she had to have one of her legs amputated at the knee.

Hopefully, finally, this has all been a big wake up call for her, and she is trying to make changes in her life. She quit smoking in December, and she was quite a heavy smoker, so I'm really proud of her for that. Now that she is in a wheelchair though, her opportunities for exercise are very limited. She wants to get fitted for a prosthesis and learn to walk again, but this will almost certainly not happen unless she can shift some weight first.

So, I'm trying to help her put together a collection of easy, low cost, low fat, low carb recipes. Stuff she can make a lot of in one go, and then freeze, for example. She was given a handful of 'healthy eating' diabetic cookbooks and they're ok except most of the recipes are somewhat complicated and I think will just cause her to get frustrated and give up. (She has learning disabilities on top of everything else, and gets overwhelmed very easily.) Also she is on a fixed disability income, so she can't splash out on things like wild capers collected in the light of the full moon by Franciscan nuns or any foofy crap like that.

Any suggestions? She has a slow cooker, and she also has a number of little single-serving type casserole dishes she picked up at a garage sale ages ago.

jabumbo
08-01-2010, 12:23 PM
i think the biggest thing i did right away was to eliminate all regular soft drinks and limit fruit juice intake to the occasional glass with breakfast. i also stick with unsweetened tea a lot when i go out if i get anything.

i have a diabetic crock pot cookbook that its pretty nice. some of the recipes are a bit tricky, but its mostly just a longer list of ingredients than you really need to include. they mostly have 2-5 steps written out, plus they chart out your nutrition info to help manage your totals.


the main thing though i think is combinations. things like not eating extra bread when you have pasta or another starch. if you can limit your meals to one major carb, the numbers should fall on their own. add a salad with fat free dressing to every meal!