A few weeks ago, my body was beating me up. I felt horrible most of the time, and I kind of knew why. I have a sugar addiction, and I just couldn't stay away from the sweets. I'm diabetic, and my glucose had been averaging around 205, though I was spiking as high as 300 every once in awhile. Not good at all.

Two weeks ago I decided I was going to go cold turkey for six days, just to prove I could do it, not eat anything considered dessert. Now, one of the other things we decided to do was cut down on carbs at the same time, because high carbs promotes sugar cravings. I hadn't thought much about it, but things such as rice and potatoes, though they're considered as natural carbs (as opposed to things like pasta) will still give you cravings for sugary items, so I cut those out also.

Instead, we opted for chicken with alfredo sauce and mixed vegetables for most of my meals. I had an omelette for breakfast every morning, and one night my wife made something else for dinner, still with no carbs. I could still eat popcorn, which has way less carbs than one might believe, but my staple was carrots and dip; I could live with that, even though carrots are high on the glycemic index (interesting reading if one wants to take a day to learn all about it).

Well, it was amazing. I started on a Sunday, The only day I had real cravings was day 3, which figures because I'd always heard that third day was a monster for people trying to give up other things, but that was it. Initially glucose didn't really do anything, but by Wednesday afternoon I noticed a relatively significant drop, and by Thursday morning I had the lowest glucose reading for an overnight fasting that I'd ever had since being diagnosed, 117. Friday morning it was even lower, at 107; just amazing. Luckily, it was still within parameters, because I am on insulin also and the last thing I need is to drop too far.

Friday night we went to dinner at a fish fry place, and the next morning glucose was up; not at those really bad levels, but the highest since Tuesday afternoon, and I still hadn't had any dessert. But it was dessert day finally, and oddly enough, I didn't have this need to rush to eat anything, and it wasn't until 3:30 when I finally had a Barnes & Noble cookie.

So, I've learned something about eating right and meal planning that I hadn't quite put together before. Eighteen months ago I lost weight by going on a meal plan, but my glucose didn't drop, it went up. On that meal plan, I had rice with every meal, though a low serving; still, that many times a day, I guess, was too much. This time around, I haven't lost any weight, but glucose has dropped; can't quite figure it out.

This week, glucose has stayed low, but not quite as low as the readings from last week. But that's okay because it's within normal parameters, and that's what we wanted to get to. I think I can live with this particular eating plan, and also recognize that if I go off it one day that it's not such a big deal. It's really nice to know that I really can still control everything with diet; maybe I'll find a way to get off all these medications within a few months. That would be wonderful.