My brother posted a comment on my post about my last glucose test. Here is my response
Scott “Sadly, due to our family history on both sides, we are at risk for type 2 diabetes. This has nothing to do with the diets that mom or dad had us on. ”
It has everything to do with the diets that mom and dad had us on. We learned how to eat from them. Having a healthy diet was even more important to us than others because of our family history. I wouldn’t touch wheat bread with a 10 foot pole. I ate so few fresh vegetables, it’s amazing I didn’t just keel over. I practically lived off of processed cheese food, margarine, and white bread for the first 20 years of my life. I don’t entirely blame them, much of it was just a sign of the times. The food in the 70s sucked. We didn’t eat that differently than most kids around us. But I have had to teach myself how to eat and cook over the years and because of our susceptibility to diabetes I have made it a mission to learn about all those vegetables and grains I was afraid of (or didn’t even know about) as a kid. I’ve struggled with eating disorders; binge eating? Hmmm, where id I learn that behavior? I get tested regularly. I have not had any problems with blood sugar since my early 20s, because I have tried so hard to live a healthier life.
Gestational diabetes is a different horse than type 2 diabetes and if I do develop it, it will probably go away after I give birth. But it is because of our family history and our learned eating habits at young ages that I am more susceptible to it in the first place. The actions I take now greatly improve the chances of my child not ever getting diabetes, just as the choices our parents made and the habits they taught us affected our likelihood of our becoming diabetic at some point in our lives. Yes, it’s in our genes, but it does not mean we have to give up. It is a controllable disease, avoidable even.