The Oatmeal Experiment

For the first two weeks of January I tried a dietary experiment by eating half a cup of sugarfree oatmeal for breakfast every day for seven days, and then other things every day on the following week. The other meals I had were all according to my diabetic diet, so breakfast was the only thing I changed. I tested my blood sugar every morning, and here are my numbers.

The Week of Oatmeal

1/1: 132
1/2: 133
1/3: 112
1/4: 113
1/5: 115
1/6: 117
1/7: 127

Average: 121

The Week of Other Things (usually zero sugar yogurt or a whole grain English muffin)

1/8: 124
1/9: 125
1/10: 109
1/11: 143
1/12: 116
1/13: 108
1/14: 132

Average: 122

There are a couple of things to take away from this experiment. I started out the year with (for me) high blood sugar, which I know was partly due to holiday stress and partly to the fact I wasn't able to exercise. Once I got calmed down and back to my regular routine, my blood sugar dropped to the 112 to 117 range, which is where I usually land if I'm doing and eating everything I should. It could be lower, of course, but it's not horrible.

Not eating oatmeal during the second week didn't much affect my average, but it had me bouncing around a lot daily on the blood sugar scale. Disclaimer: the one morning I tested at 143 was another anomaly; I'd had a sore throat the night before and drank some lemon herbal tea with honey to soothe it. Honey is great for a sore throat, but of course jacks up my blood sugar.

During the week I did eat oatmeal, I noticed a couple of other side effects. I didn't have any indigestion, which tends to be a problem for me toward the end of the day. I seemed to sleep a little longer at night. I also wasn't as hungry, so I didn't eat as much and also lost a couple of pounds (which I promptly put back on during the week I didn't eat oatmeal.)

End result: I'm not convinced that oatmeal actually lowers my blood sugar, but it does seem to keep it more stable. Oatmeal also fills me up, which helps me avoid overeating during lunch and dinner. So I'm going back on sugarfree oatmeal daily for breakfast, but now and then I will have yogurt or an English muffin if I want to break up the monotony.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

While hubs is not a diabetic, he's noticed he stays fuller during the day after a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast as well. I have oatmeal occasionally, but not as often as I should. My mother was a Scot. I ate a lot of porridge growing up. A lot. Of porridge...

January 17, 2023 at 11:41 AM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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