Visit the official website at EmotionalEatingwithDiabetes.com.

In life with diabetes, everything revolves around food! Inevitably, this can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food where we use food to rebel against the disease, we starve ourselves in an effort to be perfect during the day but wind up bingeing late at night to compensate, and we restrain ourselves from certain foods only to end up abusing them during low blood sugars or “moments of weakness.” Learn how to create a positive relationship with food with my new book, “Emotional Eating with Diabetes.”

• Buy the eBook, paperback or audiobook here!
• Read reviews of the book here.
• Watch more diabetes videos at my YouTube Channel.

“I never thought I needed a life coach or health coach, but while writing last month’s post on diabetes coaches, friend and fellow PWD Ginger Vieira kindly offered me a one-month trial to experience what it’s really like working with one. Intrigued, I decided to take her up on her offer.

For the past four weeks, I’ve been having calls with Ginger once a week and exchanging occasional text messages, to take a look at the challenges I have in managing my diabetes and to brainstorm some solutions for what I can do differently. We just completed our fourth (and for now, last) call and while I haven’t lost more than a couple of pounds, I definitely have a renewed “I can do this!” attitude toward my diabetes.

I shook up my diabetes management this past Spring when I switched from the pump to Lantus (yep, I’m still on a pump vacation), but I hadn’t spent much time thinking about the other areas of my life that affect my diabetes. That’s where Ginger came in.”

Read the rest of this article here at DiabetesMine.com.

The emotions underlying your eating may be as immense as a divorce or a death in your family, or as simple as the fact that you were so overwhelmed at work there wasn’t any time for lunch. Instead, you made up for the calories you didn’t eat at lunch later that night before bed. All at once.

Here are a few common behaviors in emotional eating:

• You eat very little all day, and too much all at once when you get home after work or school.

• You turn to food so you can avoid feeling your emotions: fear, stress, anger, sadness, loneliness, guilt, and pain.

• You regularly try to eliminate a type of food or entire food group in an attempt to gain control over your behavior around that food.

• Your behavior around food leaves you feeling guilty and ashamed of yourself.

• You use food as a way to punish your body and spite your diabetes.

• You think about food constantly, leaving you feeling trapped and haunted by this part of your life.

When we try to improve this habit in our lives, we tend to skip the very important step of truly acknowledging what’s going on, and looking deeply at the habits and “rules we’ve created around food that simply do more harm than good.

This isn’t a part of your life that is going to change overnight. It took time to develop this habit, and it will take time to overcome it, too.

If you’re looking for more support in your own relationship with food, check out 1-on-1 cognitive wellness coaching.

The link below is to an article at DiabetesDaily about the idea of a cure for diabetes.

Do you dream of a cure, someday, for diabetes? I certainly do. While a non-diabetic might assume, “Well, of course, you must dream for a cure constantly!” and assume it’s easy to imagine life without diabetes…it’s actually incredibly difficult.

Can I picture myself going an entire day without taking an injection or checking my blood sugar? No, I really can’t. I can’t imagine eating a bowl of cereal and not worry about the high blood sugar that might occur two hours afterwards. I can’t imagine. But I want it.

To read this article, visit DiabetesDaily.com.

For the most part, my relationship with diabetes is a positive one. Checking my blood sugar and taking shots doesn’t evoke any significant negative emotion in my mind (although, don’t get me wrong, I’d love a cure). However, treating a low blood sugar with something I’ve used a hundred-zillion times before, like glucose tabs, tends to make me feel sick to my stomach. Literally, the idea of consuming another juice box to treat another low makes me feel sick to my stomach and it evokes a sense of disgust.

“I don’t want to drink another freaking juice box or eat one more freaking glucose tab!”

Today, I no longer buy juice boxes for treating lows. And I have dozens and dozens of glucose tabs…but I am sick of that taste. Sick of the connection of how I feel when I’m low with whatever food I’m using to treat it. It’s an emotional connection I’ve made to my diabetes management that is negative.

To continue reading this article, visit this link at DiabetesDaily.com.

• We all have different needs when it comes to the kind of support we want in diabetes.
• You, as the person who loves us, really want to make sure we’re safe and healthy, and sometimes that might come off as overbearing or controlling or nosey…but really, you just really love us.
• We don’t always behave the most wonderfully when we’re having a high blood sugar or a low blood sugar. And while we can’t always control that behavior, it does make communication a lot harder for you, the person who loves us.

To help you be the best support system you can possible be for the person in your life with diabetes, here are a few tips:

• Ask us what we need. Personally, I don’t need someone to remind me to check my blood sugar or help me count my carbohydrates. That would irritate me. On the other hand, it is incredibly helpful when my boyfriend reminds me to take my Lantus before bed, and I sincerely appreciate when he asks me what my blood sugar is after I check. To me, that’s great support.

To read the rest of this article, visit this link at DiabetesDaily.com.

*Click the links for the full articles at Diabetes Daily.

Introduction to Diabetes Burnout

Step #1: Acknowledge What’s Going On
We can’t solve an issue or fix a problem until we’ve really acknowledged what’s happening, what’s causing the problem, how we’re truly feeling.

Step #2: Create an Inspiring Goal
Usually, we might tell ourselves, “I have to take better care of my diabetes.” That isn’t inspiring! It sounds like a lot of work. Instead, let’s create a goal statement that touches on why it’s important to you to take care of yourself, to live a healthy and happy life.

Step #3: Make a Plan
And the final step is to create a plan to is reasonable, and not overwhelming. We can’t expect ourselves to go from burnt out to doing everything perfectly. Instead, let’s create small steps, reasonable expectations, and specific actions that we’ll take to make diabetes a priority in our lives again.

For further support in moving through and beyond your burnout, schedule a free consult in diabetes coaching.