The Diabetic Cookbook and Meal Plan for the Newly Diagnosed: A 4-Week Introductory Guide to Manage Type 2 Diabetes

I am afflicted with Type 2 Diabetes. Not so much a newly diagnosed, however. I have been working with medical staff and a nutritionist at the Veteran’s Administration. Despite the media headlines, at least in North Dakota, the people have been very good to work with and to perform the necessary tests and treatments. It also is noted that I am a Health & Safety employee (certified First Aid/CPR & AED Instructor). I also am a disabled veteran, having served during Vietnam. I have health issues in addition to diabetes that may be a result of occupational exposure to radiation (my lifetime dose is less then 10 REM and, possibly due to exposure to Agent Orange. Such information is offered so readers may understand that I may, or may not, have a better grasp on certain health issues addressed by this book. It is not offered to seek sympathy or to clutter my review of this book. Only to advise readers that I might have learned some points from my nutritionist and my doctors and nurses. I am going to state right at the start that the information this writer provides is spot-on in agreement with everything I have learned thus far. I am so appreciative of her east-to-read explanations and instructions for getting control of one’s A1C, etc. So appreciative I am including two excerpts and three screen shots. As I stated, most of this information I did know, but, simple-minded and stubborn as I sometimes can be, I needed the reinforcement provided. Also, the explanation of what constitutes pre-diabetes and non-diabetes was helpful and straightforward. But, the greatest value in this book comes from it easy-to-use meals. You’ll get a glimpse by looking over the screen shots wherein links to, for example, egg bites makes preparing such entrees easier than using a hardbound cookbook. The screenshots were taken using my iPhone, but it would be better to use an iPad for preparing these dishes. Aside from the above comments, I will let the two excerpts speak for themselves. Excerpt 1 ‘…number to know. Your A1c is the average of what your blood sugar level has been throughout the day for the past two to three months. It measures how much sugar is attached to your red blood cells. Knowing this number will give you the big picture of how well you are controlling your diabetes. HERE ARE THE RANGES: • Normal: Less than 5.7 percent • Borderline (also called prediabetes): 5.7 to 6.4 percent • Diabetes: 6.5 percent or greater Once someone has been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, the aim is to keep hemoglobin A1c below 7 percent. You always want to check with your doctor to see if he or she has specific and personal goals for you, but these are the general guidelines from the American Diabetes Association. HOW DO MY MEDICATIONS WORK? When should I take them? What should I do if I forget a dose? If you have been given any medications to help with your blood sugar levels, it’s important to understand the why and the how. Ask your doctor to explain why he or she is choosing the particular medication and how you should take it. Make sure it is a medication you are able to afford every day. The more you know about your medications, the better you will be able to take them and recognize how well they are working or report any unusual side effects. CAN I HAVE A BLOOD SUGAR MONITOR? Checking blood sugar levels at home is one of the best ways to immediately understand how food, exercise, sleep, and other lifestyle habits affect your blood sugar daily. Ask your doctor when you should check your blood sugar level and what your goal levels should be.’ Zanini RD CDE, Lori. Diabetic Cookbook and Meal Plan for the Newly Diagnosed: A 4-Week Introductory Guide to Manage Type 2 Diabetes (Kindle Locations 280-295). Rockridge Press. Kindle Edition. EXCERPT 2 You’ll notice that the plan includes a snack after every meal. As I point out in my diabetes management program, For the Love of Diabetes, snacks should be eaten about 2 to 3 hours after your main meals. If you are hungry less than 2 hours after a meal, you will likely need to evaluate whether you are eating balanced, satisfying meals. If it has been between 2 and 3 hours since your last meal, focus on snacks that are low in carbs: nonstarchy veggies, proteins, and healthy fats. If it has been more than 3 to 4 hours since your last meal, include at least 1 serving of carbs (15 grams of carbs) in addition to a veggie, protein, and/or healthy fat. Having a snack after dinner can be helpful if eaten at least an hour or more before you go to sleep. Since it is recommended to avoid going more than 10 hours without eating, a bedtime snack containing 15 to 20 grams of carbs, combined with a protein, prevents the liver from releasing stored glucose in the bloodstream and assists in the management of fasting blood sugars the next morning. Zanini RD CDE, Lori. Diabetic Cookbook and Meal Plan for the Newly Diagnosed: A 4-Week Introductory Guide to Manage Type 2 Diabetes (Kindle Locations 867-874). Rockridge Press. Kindle Edition. BOTTOM LINE A solid five stars for this book. Did this review answer most of your questions and concerns? I encourage you to leave a comment below to help me provide reviews that work for you. Further, I am writing a book for aspiring reviewers and for product suppliers seeking reviews in an effort to help improve the process and to understand the value of Amazon’s Customer Review process. Together, you and I can build something great. Will you join me? One request: Be respectful and courteous in your comments and emails to me. I will do likewise with you. Thank you.

I've only had this book about a week, so far I'm really happy with it! I am prediabetic and have struggled trying to figure out what I should/shouldn't eat even after seeing a Dietician who gave me a guide with a plate for what types of food I should eat but I needed a little more hand holding because while I liked all the "should eat" foods I struggled with how to make a meal out of the ingredients. The meal plan in this book is a great guide! So far all the recipes I've tried have tasted better than I expected, theyre easy and I appreciate the nutritional info with each recipe as well. I would definitely recommend this for someone who needs a little hand holding or even for someone looking for diabetic friendly recipes. The other bonus is my daughter has celiac and these recipes are either gluten free already or easy to modify for gluten free

This was a informative cookbook. It had a lot of useful and helpful information about type 2 diabetes. The language was easy to understand. It talked about diet, medication, exercise, and more. There are some nice recipes and a meal plan to follow. All to help you maintain and improve your health and build healthier eating habits.

Great, practical cookbook for newly diagnosed diabetics. Especially appreciated the early chapters, which explained the condition and the metabolism behind it. I purchased the spiral bound copy, and I'm glad I did. It lies open when I'm cooking, making it easier to use than cookbooks with standard binding. The recipes use readily available ingredients and are easy to prepare, which is a big plus.

My husband was recently diagnosed with diabetes. I started searching for recipes and cookbooks. It's a learning curve, for sure but we have found a few great recipes in this book and I have not had any complaints from him. I will continue to try more of these recipes.

My wife was recently diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and I need to shed a few pounds, so we really liked the idea of a meal plan for the first four weeks so we could have some time to settle on a long range meal plan moving forward into this new territory. The recipes generally require more prep than we're used to because all the fresh veggies, but are generally tasty and not all that difficult to prepare. But then we hit a dinner that took 1.5 hours to prepare--mostly because the two recipes that made up the meal were oven-baked--at two different temperatures. Between the baking and the prep and the additional broiling required for one of the recipes, we wound up with recipe too cold to be tasty any more. We both work. Fortunately, I work from home and could accommodate the additional time required--but this isn't s five course holiday meal and I had better things to do than spend an additional hour of my day in the kitchen. Most diabetics I know are older. Most are retired. This kind of work on hard tile for this long is a no-go from the git-go. In another example, left-overs are used for meals--and that's great--but we hit a meal for one more leftover than is accounted for in the plan. In this case it was tortilla chicken soup (which is quite tasty) that's supposed to be for four servings. But there were two following leftover meals. If this plan is for one person, we didn't know. The other leftovers seemed to work out okay for serving two at each meal. Either the information needs to be very, very clear and up front that this plan is for one person or the extra leftover meal has to be deleted. I get that the author is a nutritionist. I'd suggest that the author employ a senior diabetic to test the entire plan before publishing it.

Good

If you are learning to cook for a diabetic this is THE book to have. I am a retired chef and these recipes are all delicious! The author doesn't just make the recipes healthy but so tasty even non-diabetics in the family will love them. They also work - our numbers were within acceptable range in just 4 weeks and our doctors asked what we were doing to get them down so fast and said keep doing it. I have recommended this book to everyone I know, not just the diabetic friends. Those that bought it said the same thing: they couldn't believe this was healthy cooking it was so good!

Beautiful book and so informative

I thought this was going to be brilliant but there are far too many ingredients that are not available here as this is obviously aimed at the American market so a bit of a waste of money in my view but I will adapt certain recipes so it’s not all bad.

Recent health issues related to potential diabetes diagnosis led us to change our diet and I found this cookbook on Amazon. What a find! I have tried over 30 of the recipes now and they have all been very good! I've added red pepper flakes or cayenne pepper to the recipes the second time around if the flavors have been a bit mild, but overall, I highly recommend this cookbook! This is a keeper! Lastly, the "complete the plate" section at the end of each recipe is a great way to ensure the proper balance of your meals. Even if you aren't diabetic, this cookbook has delicious recipes for just plain old good cooking!

Great

This books great for people who want to either cook something different or want help with what they can have that will help their condition