[Debbie Sue]

1. When is the best time to exercise?
a.Before or after a meal?
b. How long before or after?

2. How do you balance diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol eating?
a. Is there a happy medium?
b. Would a dietician be helpful?

3. Have you ever experienced muscle pain from your statin drug?
a. If so what did you do?

4. Does cinnamon do anything good for your bg#'s?
a. How many mg's do you take daily?

[Moonglo]

Okay, this is just my opinions, but here ya go:

1) The best time to exercise is whatever works best for you. I personally prefer to exercise at night, at least an hour after dinner, because this seems to help my morning bg numbers. But everyone is different.

2) With that many different factors to consider, I strongly urge you to see a dietician.

3) and 4) I don't have any experience with these, but I bet others here do and will share their feedback shortly. As far as the pain goes, have you talked with your doctor about it?

[fgummett]

1) best time for daily activity is to make it part of every day

2) I focus first on BGs and the others fall in line behind

3) I stopped taking it and started researching the risks vs benefits of statins

4) don't know.. have you tried it and tested to see if it affects your BGs?

[diabetic_z]

1. For me, personally, the best time to exercise is in the morning. My bg will be lower throughout the day.

1a. Definitely after a meal. I once tried exercising before eating breakfast, on an empty stomach, and boy was that a mistake. I felt sluggish and lightheaded the whole time.

1b. I usually give myself an hour or two after breakfast before exercising. If it's two hours, then I will eat my mid-morning snack (protein bar) just before going to the gym. Also, if my exercise routine lasts for more than an hour, I will drink a Muscle Milk Light shake after the first hour of exercise.

2. Eating healthy for diabetes has improved my cholesterol and high blood pressure by default. My typical day is as follows.
Breakfast
Shake - 2 protein packets (pineapple-orange & strawberry creme flavors combined), 1 tablespoon of Greek yogurt, 3 frozen strawberries, 1 cup of ice, 3 cups of water, cinnamon and vanilla extract for taste.
Mid-Morning Snack
Protein bar
Lunch
Low carb bread, English muffin, tortilla, or bagel.
Lean sandwich meat or 2 eggs.
Reduced fat Sargento cheese slice.
Lettuce, tomato, and onion cut for sandwich or wrap.
1 whole dill kosher pickle.
Mid-Afternoon Snack
Roasted and salted pumpkin seeds with the shell (1/4 cup).
Dinner
Fresh garden salad.
Lean meat (usually tuna).
Reduced fat Sargento shredded cheese (1/4 cup).
2 sugar-free Jello snacks.

When I go off diet or feel rather carnivorous, I will modify my lunch or dinner. My breakfast and snacks are almost always the same.

2a. Yes. For me, the happy median is eating what is tasty and not feeling deprived or starved.

2b. A dietitian is very helpful. I see a dietitian on a regular basis and she is invaluable in my journey for better health and weight loss.

3. When I was prescribed Lipitor many years ago, I did have muscle pains in my legs shortly after taking the drug.

3a. My doctor took me off Lipitor due to the adverse side effects.

4. I found this link to have some useful info on cinnamon. The World's 7 Most Potent Disease-Fighting Spices

4a. When I first started my diet, I added cinnamon to my oatmeal and pancakes. Now that I limit my soy intake, I no longer eat the oatmeal and pancake protein packets I once did. As a result, my cinnamon intake has dropped. I now just add a couple of dashes of cinnamon to my morning shake for taste.

[fgummett]

Originally Posted by fgummett

...started researching the risks vs benefits of statins

For example : New Views of Cholesterol; Statins and Heart Attacks

[ShottleBop]

Originally Posted by Debbie Sue

1. When is the best time to exercise?
a.Before or after a meal?
b. How long before or after?

Whenever you can fit it in. Dr. Bernstein recommends that you not engage in strenuous exercise in the morning, because strenuous exercise raises stress hormones, which can raise blood sugars, and which most folks have more difficulty dealing with in the a.m. I think you should test, and find out what works for you.

Even a half-hour walk after lunch (or 15 minutes out and 15 minutes back, around lunch) helps greatly. Half an hour is the limit of my attention span; I tend to hit the treadmill at the Y for half an hour late in the afternoon, or the stationary bike at home for half an hour, any time in the evening. I don't strive for a particular timespan before or after a meal.

2. How do you balance diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol eating?
a. Is there a happy medium?
b. Would a dietician be helpful?

Regulating your blood sugar may very well improve your blood pressure. Getting your blood sugar and blood pressure under control are critical to preventing kidney damage. Since diagnosis, my HDL has doubled (to 79) and my triglycerides have been cut by 2/3 (to 41). LDL has increased by 25 points (to 219)--but I've learned to let that be. I can keep up a half-hour on a treadmill, at a heartrate in excess of 140, without stress; I figure I'm OK.

Dieticians, unless they are fully dialed-in to control of blood sugars by restricting carbs, are less likely to be of assistance than would Dr. Richard Bernstein's book, The Diabetes Solution and Gretchen Becker's The First Year: Type 2 Diabetes. (You can read a lot of Dr. Bernstein's book online, for free: if you google "Bernstein Diabetes Solution readitonline", it should show as the second choice.)

3. Have you ever experienced muscle pain from your statin drug?
a. If so what did you do?

My wife did. She stopped taking it. Check out the UCSD Statin Effects Study website (easily located by Google). According to them, there is no evidence that statins reduce total mortality for women at all--and for men, they think the benefits outweigh the risks only for middle-aged men who have already had one heart attack or who are otherwise at high risk for heart disease. Poke around under "Other medications", there is tons of stuff addressing statins. Check out "spacedoc.net"; google "Miles Kendrick cholesterol" or "Uffe Ravnskov cholesterol". Read Gary Taubes's Good Calories, Bad Calories and/or James Gardner's Genocide--How Your Doctor's Dietary Ignorance Will Kill You.

4. Does cinnamon do anything good for your bg#'s?
a. How many mg's do you take daily?

Just read a Men's Health email that says:

Cinnamon helps control your blood sugar, which influences your risk of heart disease. In fact, USDA researchers found that people with type-2 diabetes who consumed 1 g of cinnamon a day for 6 weeks (about 1/4 teaspoon each day) significantly reduced not only their blood sugar but also their triglycerides and LDL (bad) cholesterol. Credit the spice's active ingredients, methylhydroxychalcone polymers, which increase your cells' ability to metabolize sugar by up to 20 times.

How to Eat It: You don't need the fancy oils and extracts sold at vitamin stores; just sprinkle the stuff that's in your spice rack (or in the shaker at Starbucks) into your coffee or on your oatmeal.

[Debbie Sue]

1. When is the best time to exercise?
a.Before or after a meal? I usually exercise in the morning since I consider myself a morning person, but I'm going to start doing this in the evening to see if it helps lower my morning bsl.
b. How long before or after?

2. How do you balance diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol eating?
a. Is there a happy medium?
b. Would a dietician be helpful?

3. Have you ever experienced muscle pain from your statin drug? I am experiencing it right now. The pharmacist recommended stopping the drug and telling my dr. I am going to wait for a couple of weeks to see if the pain is related to the statin or if it's pain related to my hyperparathyroidism.
a. If so what did you do?

4. Does cinnamon do anything good for your bg#'s?
a. How many mg's do you take daily? I started taking 1 gm a day since this past Saturday. I found a bottle of cin. caps at GNC and bought them. It is funny though that I now burp in cinnamon!

Thanks for the feedback and help folks. You've definitely given me renewed hope and a few new ideas.

[fgummett]

Originally Posted by Debbie Sue

3. Have you ever experienced muscle pain from your statin drug? I am experiencing it right now. The pharmacist recommended stopping the drug and telling my dr. I am going to wait for a couple of weeks to see if the pain is related to the statin or if it's pain related to my hyperparathyroidism.

I would follow your Pharamcist's advice to stop now OR see your Doctor very soon. There is a potentially very serious side-effect named Rhabdomyolysis. If you stop the statin and the pain goes away there, is your answer without waiting 2 weeks.

[Debbie Sue]

Originally Posted by fgummett

I would follow your Pharamcist's advice to stop now OR see your Doctor very soon. There is a potentially very serious side-effect named Rhabdomyolysis. If you stop the statin and the pain goes away there, is your answer without waiting 2 weeks.

I stopped taking the Lovastatin this past wekend and the pain seems to be getting less, but sometimes it flares up full force, like yesterday after taking a brisk walk on the treadmill for 25 minutes. That has never happened before to that extreme. I still get achy from just moving around but it seems less uncomfortable for now.

I hope I have found the root cause of my aches because it was getting worse. When it first began my dr. told me it was referred pain from IBS and Bursitis. I was never tested properly for Bursitis. I did get an xray of my hips to check for arthritis which was negative. Drs... can't live with them or without them.

[fgummett]

Please check out the presentation I posted above and ShottleBop's links... I don't take a statin anymore (my LDL is up but so is my HDL and my Trigs are way down), but if I were a woman I would have even less reason to take one... especially considering the serious side-effects.