An Unhealthy Appetite

When a child eats vigorously and with relish (as well as mustard), the grown-ups will say “That boy has a healthy appetite.”

I have been in Diabetes Hell for 15 years now. I can tell you that there is also such a thing as an “Unhealthy Appetite.”

As a Diabetic, I have to avoid sugar. The photo above depicts one of my achilles’ heels, the dreaded donut. As Homer Simpson (a future Diabetic if I’ve ever seen one) would say, “mmmmmmmmmmm, Donuts, arglh.”

Yes, tasty as they are, donuts are a sugar bomb. There is literally nothing good for your body in a donut. Yet, just writing about them, I want one right now. Good thing I don’t have any around the house.

Another culprit trying to kill me through diabetes? Bread. Friggin’ bread. The staff of life. The most basic of foods. And bread wants me dead.

Because bread has those complex sugars in them, another thing a Diabetic has to avoid. I recently had a checkup at the VA where my sugar was very high. “Do you eat a lot of bread?” the doctor asked. “Uh, yes,” I responded. “Don’t,” he said.

So now I have to avoid the near occasion of bread. Which means, at best, I can one serving a day (two slices). This means that if I have toast for breakfast, for the rest of the day I can’t have a hamburger, a hot dog, a sandwich, or any other food contraption encased in bread.

As you might notice, looking around, our civilization seems to run on bread. Nearly every fast food franchise includes bread. The closest to something I can eat is a burrito–as Monty Python would say, it doesn’t have much bread. Still I gotta be careful.

Thing is, I didn’t think I was doing so badly, other than allowing myself an ice cream cone (one scoop) every Saturday night after church. But no, even that simple weekly pleasure has been exiled from my life.

Lean meat and vegetables are what I am reduced to. They’re not bad. But try to get them when you’re running around out there and need to refuel. You end up going hungry or “cheating,” except the only one you’re cheating is yourself.

Sigh. I guess I have to take this stuff seriously. My mother died from complications of diabetes at 83. Some friends of mine also succumbed to the disease. Thing is, it’s a disease that can be controlled.

All you have to do is stop eating those things that make life worth living.

Sigh.