Confessions of a Diabetic Trying to Survive the Holidays at the Office (Literally)

November 14 is World Diabetes Day and I think I speak for a lot of diabetics when I say that the weeks between Halloween and New Year’s Day just … suck! And working in an office during that time can really suuuuuuuuuuuck!

Hey, it’s not that we diabetics are a bunch of Grinches running amok, wanting to ruin your good time. It’s just that it’s easy for you guys to forget that we can’t eat 99 percent of the food that’s available for food days, food delivered as vendor gifts or the inevitable “I made too much for my family so I brought in leftover cookies” days.

So, as a 20-year veteran of the type 2 diabetes struggle, I elect myself to lay some information down for our non-diabetic co-workers and friends who we love nearly unconditionally. Until you bring in that box of “healthy” bagels with decadent cream cheese spreads that can blow our carb intakes for the whole day. Then we really just despise you. I’m just sayin’ ….

“I Can’t Diab-Eat This!”  

Not to bring you down, but here are some sobering numbers about diabetes from the American Diabetes Association?:

Overall Numbers, Diabetes and Pre-diabetes

·        Prevalence: In 2015, 30.3 million Americans, or 9.4% of the population, had diabetes.

·        Approximately 1.25 million American children and adults have type 1 diabetes.

·        Undiagnosed: Of the 30.3 million adults with diabetes, 23.1 million were diagnosed, and 7.2 million were undiagnosed.

·        Prevalence in Seniors: The percentage of Americans age 65 and older remains high, at 25.2%, or 12.0 million seniors (diagnosed and undiagnosed).

·        New Cases: 1.5 million Americans are diagnosed with diabetes every year.

·        Prediabetes: In 2015, 84.1 million Americans age 18 and older had prediabetes.

·        Deaths: Diabetes remains the 7th leading cause of death in the United States in 2015, with 79,535 death certificates listing it as the underlying cause of death, and a total of 252,806 death certificates listing diabetes as an underlying or contributing cause of death.

The other piece of this puzzle is that research shows adult type 2 diabetics are more than twice as likely to suffer from depression than a healthy adult. Considering the high incidence of depression among the general population during the holidays, double that for diabetics. That makes it almost a certainty that any adult diabetic you know has some degree of depression. Seeing a gorgeous holiday spread with nothing that you can eat more than a spoonful of is just a virtual middle finger to a diabetic and only adds to the isolation many of us feel with our condition. (Diabetics can feel alone even in a room full of other diabetics. It's weird.)

So now you know what you’re dealing with and the chances that one or more of your co-workers is diabetic is pretty good. If you get nothing else out of this article, get this one piece of advice: the next time you start planning food days, find out who has diabetes, food allergies or other special dietary needs before you organize the menu. We diabetics don’t ask for much, but something other than a single veggie tray would be nice.

Other things you need to know about your diabetic co-workers

Most people associate sugar as bad for diabetics and they’re right. You’ll hear diabetics discussing their blood sugars, or you may even see a co-worker pricking their finger to measure their “sugars” with a glucometer. For healthy non-diabetics, blood sugar readings sit between 70 and 100. About an hour after you eat, your sugars might rise to 120, but will soon go back down under 100.

On the other hand, I’m hyperglycemic, which means my sugars run high. We had our office Thanksgiving lunch on Tuesday. I took a spoonful of stuffing and mashed potatoes to eat with my turkey, green beans and salad. No rolls, no dessert. I drank ice water. Not a terrible holiday celebration meal for this time of year.

Unfortunately, I ran out of my insulin that I keep at work the day before, so I couldn’t take it right before eating. My blood sugars an hour later came in at a whopping 325, nearly three times over what yours would have been. That means my blood was the same as a super high-octane fuel burning through those tiny capillaries throughout my body. Now you can see why diabetics suffer from diabetic neuropathy and lose feeling in their fingers and toes after a few years.

Carbs on food days are just as bad as sugar

It’s not just sugar that gives diabetics trouble. We run into as big, or bigger, problems with the wrong kind of starches and carbohydrates too. Both of these turn into sugar in the body so we need to avoid potato dishes, noodle dishes, rice and breads.

If you don’t do it now, closely read the nutrition labels on the food you buy at the grocery store. You’ll get a better idea of how hard it is to maintain a diabetic diet today. For busy parents running two kids to two different soccer and band practices, fast and easy prepackaged meals and desserts that you grab for dinner are packed with sodium, carbs and sugars. Fast food? Forget it for diabetics.

Even things that you assume are healthy, such as fruit waters or yogurts, are full of sugar. Some are alarmingly high.

Some people bring wonderful salads for holiday lunches that are full of leafy greens like kale and spinach that a diabetic could literally eat as much as they wanted without raising blood sugars. But then they add fatty nuts and dressings packed with bad fats and sugars, making that nice salad the nutritional equivalent of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese from McDonalds.

“So, what should I bring for our department holiday food day?”

It just takes a little bit of research to come up with tons of new recipes that are delicious and a thousand times healthier than those homemade Christmas marshmallows you’ve brought to the last 17 years for food days in December. And, if your heart is set on bringing the marshmallows, bring them. But plan ahead and also bring something new that you have never made before, like sliced cucumbers with hummus or this terrific 7-layer Mexican dip that the vegans in your department can eat.

Here’s one of the best links I have found with 45 healthy “guilt-free” snack ideas for your next office party. It’s by blogger Ashley Bell for the Snacknation blog. And for those of you that don’t cook, no problem. The author even gives you non-foodies some great choices you can grab off the grocery store shelf to bring in with zero prep and no mess!

Remember that the holidays are a time for sharing. However, don’t try to share sugary high-carb things with us diabetics or else we’ll start calling you “Scrooge” behind your back.