Diet or Meal Planning? Part 2

Other Valuable Nutrients

FBS - 12/11/2013 - 97 - Good deal - starting to come back down.  I have had two mornings in a row under 100.  In both days, I had a late night snack of a balanced snack of protein, carbohydrates, and some fats.  Call it a very small meal versus a snack.  I have testing this theory out for a couple of days.

I have just learned, or think I have, that one of our readers who makes a lot of comments, Marty, appears to eat three meals and an evening snack.  A little about Marty - she is very knowledgeable on diabetes and I get a lot of advice from her in the ADA.  She is a very well managed diabetic.  I am just saying, if Marty does this, then it is probably a good thing.  I am just getting there.  Maybe she will weigh in an let us in on her little secret when it comes to meal planning.

Yesterday I had a very strange day - Monday that is.  I woke up with an FBS of 97 - another good morning since I have been struggling.  Then I had my green drink.  I had to go get Mac, my dog from the vet, and I returned to have a bowl of chicken soup with 11 crackers.  Within one hour I had dropped to 61, so I had a carbohydrate load and that brought me back up to 100.  I had my drink in the afternoon and just before my evening meal I was 95.  I ate and went to work out.  I had a small ice cream cone on my way home and was 95 within one hour and before going to bed.  I woke up today to the 97.  

It was a great day but I am now having times I go low and that should be strange since I am not on any medications that are designed to drive blood sugar levels lower.  I think my supplements are doing that and I need to be more cautious what I am taking.

Before going on, I am wondering if you all take a moment to say a prayer for Dora - remember her, she is the diabetic who has lost her legs and in a nursing home.  Marty, looks in on her and helps provide some company.   Dora was having a little set back a while back and is doing better.  But I ask that you send her name up to your higher power for continued help.

Marty's husband, Gabby is a diabetic and has many other aliments as well.  He makes me feel good that I am just a "Diabetic" and God willing - I do not have other ailments.  If you could add Gabby to your higher power conversation, I would appreciate it.

Nutrients 

In this series we are discussing "are we on diets or should we be planning our meals."  As usual, I do not try to make this a mystery, of course I am pushing meal planning.  By the way, before I go any further, it is my wife who does the meal planning - not me.  I think I would have starved a long time ago if I had to do this on my own - or I would have eaten myself into junk food heaven.  Another question - think there is junk food in heaven and we can have all we want when we get there?

THE THREE FUNCTIONS OF NUTRIENTS

1. Provide Energy 
1. Carbohydrates
2. Proteins
3. Lipids (fats and oils) 
2. Promote growth and development 
1. Proteins
2. Lipids
3. Vitamins
4. Mineral
5. Water
3. Regulate body functions 
1. Proteins
2. Lipids
3. Vitamins
4. Mineral
5. Water

An important aspect of nutrition is the daily intake of nutrients. Nutrients consist of various chemical substances in the food that makes up each person's diet. Many nutrients are essential for life, and an adequate amount of nutrients in the diet is necessary for providing energy, building and maintaining
body organs, and for various metabolic processes. People depend on nutrients in their diet because the human body is not able to produce many of these nutrients—or it cannot produce them in adequate amounts.

Nutrients are essential to the human diet if they meet two characteristics. First, omitting the nutrient from the diet leads to a nutritional deficiency and a decline in some aspect of health. Second, if the omitted nutrient is put back into the diet, the symptoms of nutritional deficiency will decline and the individual will return to normal, barring any permanent damage caused by its absence.

There are six major classes of nutrients found in food: carbohydrates, proteins, lipids (fats and oils), vitamins (both fat-soluble and water-soluble), minerals, and water.

Carbohydrates

We have spent a lot of time on this subject.

Proteins

Proteins are composed of the elements carbon (C), oxygen (O), hydrogen (H), and nitrogen (n). They have a variety of uses in the body, including serving as a source of energy, as substrates (starter materials) for tissue growth and maintenance, and for certain biological functions, such as making structural proteins, transfer proteins, enzyme molecules, and hormone receptors. Proteins are also the major component in bone, muscle, and other tissues and fluids. When used for energy, protein supplies an average of 4 kcal/g.

Proteins are formed by the linking of different combinations of the twenty common amino acids found in food. Of these, ten are essential for the human in the synthesis of body proteins (eight are essential throughout a human's life, whereas two become essential during periods of rapid growth, such as during infancy).

Protein may be found in a variety of food sources. Proteins from animal sources (meat, poultry, milk, fish) are considered to be of high biological value because they contain all of the essential amino acids. Proteins from plant sources (wheat, corn, rice, and beans) are considered to be of low biological value because an individual plant source does not contain all of the essential amino acids. Therefore, combinations of plant sources must be used to provide these nutrients.

Lipids - (fats and oils)

Lipids, which consist of fats and oils, are high-energy yielding molecules composed mostly of carbon (C), hydrogen (H), and oxygen (O) (though lipids have a smaller number of oxygen molecules than carbohydrates have). This small number of oxygen molecules makes lipids insoluble in water, but soluble in certain organic solvents. The basic structure of lipids is a glycerol molecule consisting of three carbons, each attached to a fatty-acid chain. Collectively, this structure is known as a triglyceride, or sometimes it is called a triacylglycerol. Triglycerides are the major form of energy storage in the body (whereas carbohydrates are the body's major energy source), and are also the major form of fat in foods. The energy contained in a gram of lipids is more than twice the amount in carbohydrates and protein, with an average of 9 kcal/g.

Lipids can be broken down into two types, saturated and unsaturated, based on the chemical structure of their longest, and therefore dominant, fatty acid. Whether a lipid is solid or liquid at room temperature largely depends on its property of being saturated or unsaturated. Lipids from plant sources are largely unsaturated, and therefore liquid at room temperature. Lipids that are derived from animals contain a higher amount of saturated fats, and they are therefore solid at room temperature. An exception to this rule is fish, which, for the most part, contain unsaturated fat. The important difference between saturated and unsaturated fatty acids is that saturated fatty acids are the most important factor that can increase a person's cholesterol level. An increased cholesterol level may eventually result in the clogging of blood arteries and, ultimately, heart disease.

Not all fatty acids are considered harmful. In fact, certain unsaturated fatty acids are considered essential nutrients. Like the essential amino acids, these fatty acids are essential to a person's diet because the body cannot produce them. The essential fatty acids serve many important functions in the body, including regulating blood pressure and helping to synthesize and repair vital cell parts. It is estimated that the American diet contains about three times the amount of essential fatty acids needed daily. Lipids are also required for the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins, and they are generally thought to increase the taste and flavor of foods and to give an individual a feeling of fullness.

Vitamins

Vitamins are chemical compounds that are required for normal growth and metabolism I will have this as a post by itself and we have discussed this before.

Minerals

Minerals are different from the other nutrients discussed thus far, in that they are inorganic compounds (carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and vitamins are all organic compounds). The fundamental structure of minerals is usually nothing more than a molecule, or molecules, of an element. The functions of minerals do not include participation in the yielding of energy. But they do play vital roles in several physiological functions, including critical involvement in nervous system functioning, in cellular reactions, in water balance in the body, and in structural systems, such as the skeletal system.

This also will be covered in more detail in another post.

Water

This has been covered as well in earlier posts.

You can read more in detail at http://www.diet.com/store/facts/nutrients. 

Given this complexity of nutrients and what our bodies need - we have to plan for success.  My Dad, who did not event this saying but I thought he did, always told me "Son, if you do not plan for success - you will never know when you achieve it."   I would say in our daily food intake, if we do not know what success looks like, how will we know we are doing the right thing and we have reached the right place for our bodies.

May God provide us with the courage to plan what we eat.  May we understand that he has given us a body that is complex, amazing, and yet takes a lot of care.  May he help us each day to care for this amazing body and feed it what it needs.

Bob,