Intimacy & Diabetes. Janis Roszler

      Sweating

      Fatigue

      Irritability

      If your blood glucose level drops below your target range, don’t guzzle down an entire container of orange juice or eat fistfuls of candy until you feel better. Your level will normalize before your symptoms go away.

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      If you eat or drink until your symptoms are gone, you will consume unneeded calories, send your blood glucose level up too high, and gain weight. Treat your numbers, not your feelings. Instead, use the 15/15 Rule to treat any level that is less than 70 mg/dL (3.9 mmol/L) or below your personal target range. If you don’t feel any symptoms when your glucose level drops, check your blood more often and treat as necessary.

      Eat 15–20 grams of a glucose- or carbohydrate-containing food.*

      Wait 15 minutes.

      Check again.

      If your level remains low, repeat steps 1, 2, and 3. Once your level is above 70 mg/dL (3.9 mmol/L) or within your target range, eat your next meal or snack as scheduled to help keep your blood glucose from dropping again.

      *Servings that contain 15 grams of carbohydrate include:

      3–4 glucose tablets (follow package directions) (preferred treatment)

      4 ounces (½ cup) of fruit juice or regular soda (not diet)

      ½ can of regular soda (not diet)

      2 tablespoons of raisins

      5 hard LifeSavers candies or jellybeans (check label for amount)

      1 tablespoon granulated sugar or honey

      The 15/15 Rule

      Healthy Eating and Your A1C

      Another way to improve your blood glucose management and feel more energized is to make healthy food choices. Many experts worldwide view the Mediterranean Diet as one of the healthiest ways to eat. It not only provides you with the nutrients you need to be at your best, studies show that it can lower a person’s risk of diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s disease,

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      and heart disease. Studies show that following the Mediterranean Diet can also improve erectile dysfunction in many men with type 2 diabetes and may also reduce the risk of sexual issues in women with type 2 di-abetes. If you currently follow a meal plan from your health care team, choose your foods based on the Mediterranean Diet recommendations:

      Choose mostly plant-based foods, such as fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts, and whole grains.

      In place of butter, use healthy fats such as olive oil and canola oil.

      Use spices and herbs in place of salt to flavor foods.

      Limit your red meat intake to a few times a month or less.

      Eat fish and poultry two or more times a week.

      Be social! Share meals with family and friends.

      If medically appropriate, drink red wine in moderation (optional).

      Be physically active.

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      The Plate Method

      To help enjoy the benefits of the Mediterranean Diet guidelines, use the Plate Method to help choose the amount of each recommended food to eat. It uses a typical 9-inch dinner plate as a measuring tool. This plan offers lots of flexibility because it enables you to eat anywhere with ease. You can eat in any restaurant or even at a friend’s home. Visit Create Your Plate to create a personalized plate you can use to help plan your meals.

      Unexpected weight gain

      You may gain weight for a variety of reasons. As you age, you may become less active, consume additional calories when stressed, or may

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      take certain diabetes medications that encourage weight gain. Regardless of the cause, weighing more than your target weight can change how attractive you feel and affect your desire to connect on a physical level with your mate. To help overcome these feelings, try the following steps.

      Follow a healthy weight loss plan. There are many weight loss plans available today. Some are better and safer than others. One way to learn about how to lose weight is to visit the weight loss section on diabetes.org (https://www.diabetes.org/fitness/weight-loss). You can also meet with a registered dietitian (RD) or registered dietitian nutritionist (RDN) to learn about additional weight loss options. To find one, con-tact your local hospital or visit eatright.org, the official website of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

      Don’t skip meals. When you go longer than 5 hours without a meal or snack, your blood glucose level can drop and cause you to feel tired. If your schedule doesn’t allow you to sit down for a meal, keep diabe-tes-friendly snacks, such as nuts, crackers, and dried fruit, in your purse or car. Several diabetes companies make snack bars and meal replace-ment shakes, and these foods are often portable.

      Watch your food portions. The updated Nutrition Facts label on foods you buy can help you choose your food portions wisely. Newly up-dated, it now contains even more information about different nutrients that you need each day. The label contains information for one serving of that item.

      Eating out can be challenging because you don’t usually know all of the ingredients that the chef used to prepare the dish. You can use the Plate Method or your hands to estimate food portions. Using your hands to estimate is easy to do, since your hands are always with you (see the Easy Portion Estimations box).

      Consume a healthy amount of fiber. Fiber-rich foods can help fill you up so that you are better able to meet your weight goals and may help control your blood glucose level by slowing down digestion. Women with diabetes should try to eat 21–25 grams of fiber each day and men should try to consume 30–38 grams per day. Of this, try to in-clude at least 7–13 grams of soluble fiber. Examples of this type of fiber include oatmeal, oat bran, apples, pears, barley, legumes, and psyllium.

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      Increase your fiber intake slowly, or you may experience some unpleasant gastrointestinal discomfort and flatulence. Refer to the next page for the 10 best sources of fiber in different food categories.

      Drink plenty of water. There is a debate about how much water people should consume each day, but one fact is not in dispute—water fills you up and can help you eat less. Drink a large glass of water be-fore you sit down to a meal. It will make you feel full and help you overcome the urge to overeat. If you feel hungry between meals, drink some water first and then see if you are still hungry. We eat for a variety of reasons in addition to actual hunger. We may snack while nervous, bored, or just out of habit. If you aren’t truly hungry, a glass of water can help appease that need to eat foods that you really don’t desire. Visit

      Palm of your hand = 3 ounces. Use this measurement to esti-mate cooked meat or fish. A 3-ounce piece should be approx-imately the size and thickness of your palm minus your fingers and thumb.

      A tightly held fist = ½ cup. This measurement can help you estimate a serving of pasta or rice. It is also a reasonable serv-ing of cut fruit.