Other illness

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PrincessDinky

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
As well as having diabetes I also have chronic fatigue (ME) and Fibromyalgia. This is a problem as I am too tired to cook and prepare food my partner does his best any ideas on what food I can get that's easy to prepare? I dont want to have microwave meals unless healthy
This really is problematic. I am sure my fatigue may improve if I eat properly. Also I really struggle to drink water and am dehydrated most of the time. I drink tea and coffee
 
I get prepared veges so it means I can cook just the amount I need for the meal. I don't eat them, but chips and ready made Yorkshire puddings for my husband are easy to cook or heat up.
Joints of meat which last for several days are cooked in a halogen oven, which has both temperature and time controls.
 
PrincessDinky said:
As well as having diabetes I also have chronic fatigue (ME) and Fibromyalgia. This is a problem as I am too tired to cook and prepare food my partner does his best any ideas on what food I can get that's easy to prepare? I dont want to have microwave meals unless healthy
This really is problematic. I am sure my fatigue may improve if I eat properly. Also I really struggle to drink water and am dehydrated most of the time. I drink tea and coffee
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Something like a pack of pre-prepared Med vegetables roasted in the oven and accompanied with pre-roasted chicken is quick and low carb. Your husband could have bread with his or cous cous.

You can also get prepared salmon in various sauces. It’s all ready to bake. Again, accompany with veg or salad. Also, some of the supermarket ready to bake chicken things are low carb too,

Something like a Roasting Tin cookbook also has easy recipes, often with the veg included all in one roasting tin.

Try sparkling water or add a dash of sugar-free squash in your water.
 
Slow cooker meals could be good too. You could put the ingredients in, then you don’t need to have the energy to stand over it cooking it. Or on better days when you can cook, you could do some batch cooking for the freezer then you have home made ready meals. If you have better times of day eg the morning you could cook then and just reheat later on.
 
Stir fry's are quick and easy also tray bakes. You can make a big pot of chilli or curry, some for now and some to freeze for other days.
Cooked meats and salad and coleslaw. Omelettes, egg and bacon a bit more hands on but quick.
Homemade soups again some for now some in the freezer for later.
Most supermarkets have what they call lightly dusted fish fillets which you can have with veg.
For pudding you can make sugar free jelly with some berries added and have with cream.
 
Sorry to hear about the other conditions you are juggling @PrincessDinky :(

Must make things very difficult for you.
 
Hello @PrincessDinky - not sure I can help much with food ideas as I'm a type 1 and eat carbs, just wanted to say I'm juggling my diabetes with ME too, so you're not alone.

The non-carb or low-carby things I eat tend to be raw carrots & other salad bits, chunks of cheese, tins of tuna/salmon/sardines, veg which is easy to just cut up and throw in a pan of boiling water for a couple of minutes, like brocoli/cauliflower/courgettes, and full-fat yogurt. My partner does all the cooking, we don't eat any ready meals at all, but we don't do anything from recipes either, we tend to have something like baked salmon fillets with baked potatoes and cauliflower, or tuna with boiled potatoes and salad - everything we eat is quick and easy. I realise the potatoes are not so good from your point of view though.
 
I don't buy any sauces either alone or in combination - particularly fish in sauce as you tend to get a fair sized box with a slim plastic pouch inside and when heated up and emptied find a tiny portion of fish and lots of starchy sauce.
 
I meant to say, what is the problem you have with drinking water - is it the taste, or is it too cold, or is it a struggle for you to swallow because of your ME? Could you manage to drink herbal or fruit teas at all? - they'd be better for hydrating you than caffeinated tea/coffee and might be easier or tastier to drink than plain water. If it's the taste of water which is the problem then maybe you could try sugar-free flavoured water - my Mum gets that to keep her hydrated as she struggles to drink tap water (she likes the Volvic touch of fruit ones best but there are lots of others).
 
I don't like water but now I put exante flavour drops in it. It tastes nice now! It's important to be hydrated as you may be needing to flush excess glucose out. Exante have lots of little extra things that help.

Foods: prepacked cooked salmon steaks are fab with a pack of prepacked broccoli or mixed green veg. Also pre roast a few chicken breasts in foil with herbs and those are good for main meals. Eggs for breakfast or full fat greek yoghurt with a desert spoon of mix of nuts//low sugar granola
 
As far as hydration goes, there is no significant difference in the level of hydration using these fruit teas. I drink approximately 2 litres of PG Extra Strong (with no milk) each day, soda water with meals (or IrnBru Extra with no sugar). And I'm well hydrated. It's easy to check your level of hydration by checking your urine. Dark yellow means you are underhydrated, clear water means you are tad overhydrated. Aim for a pale yellow. Job done.

This monitoring falls down when you eat beetroot or red cabbage, of course, because they cause the urine to become red, and if you put a lot of turmeric in your curries that will produce a vivid yellow.
 
mikeyB said:
As far as hydration goes, there is no significant difference in the level of hydration using these fruit teas. I drink approximately 2 litres of PG Extra Strong (with no milk) each day, soda water with meals (or IrnBru Extra with no sugar). And I'm well hydrated. It's easy to check your level of hydration by checking your urine. Dark yellow means you are underhydrated, clear water means you are tad overhydrated. Aim for a pale yellow. Job done.

This monitoring falls down when you eat beetroot or red cabbage, of course, because they cause the urine to become red, and if you put a lot of turmeric in your curries that will produce a vivid yellow.
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A bit like the Bristol Stool chart then.
 
That's interesting, Mike - I was told long ago, oddly enough by a speaker at an ME group meeting (I think she was a dietician or nutritionist) that the diuretic effect of caffeine meant that coffee & tea weren't suitable for hydrating us - but I've just had a quick google and I see that's out of date thinking, so you are right, sorry. The research I just found said that you'd have to drink 5 or more cups of coffee at a time for it to be harmful rather than helpful, so apparently it's only people who have several double espressos for breakfast who are in danger of dehydrating rather than hydrating themselves with coffee!
 
That is interesting because if I have coffee on a morning I visit the toilet a lot more frequently and an hour later I I am thirsty, whereas if I skip my coffee or have decaf tea, I don't get that, so I assumed the caffeine in the coffee was triggering my kidneys to function more than normal. I would say that I have no more than 2 cups (usually just one) and I drink it medium to weak. Definitely not strong!
 
rebrascora said:
That is interesting because if I have coffee on a morning I visit the toilet a lot more frequently and an hour later I I am thirsty, whereas if I skip my coffee or have decaf tea, I don't get that, so I assumed the caffeine in the coffee was triggering my kidneys to function more than normal. I would say that I have no more than 2 cups (usually just one) and I drink it medium to weak. Definitely not strong!
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I think that caffeine can also irritate the bladder which triggers more loo visits.
 
rebrascora said:
That is interesting because if I have coffee on a morning I visit the toilet a lot more frequently and an hour later I I am thirsty, whereas if I skip my coffee or have decaf tea, I don't get that, so I assumed the caffeine in the coffee was triggering my kidneys to function more than normal. I would say that I have no more than 2 cups (usually just one) and I drink it medium to weak. Definitely not strong!
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Well, it is a diuretic so presumably will make you go to the loo more, I think it's just that the quantity of fluid hydrating you verses the diuretic effect dehydrating you should tip towards the former unless you drink it in large amounts. But it may be you are sensitive to caffeine, or it could be what LeadingLights suggested, I don't know. I can't drink coffee at all, with or without caffeine, it upsets my insides, so I mostly drink bottled water (wish I didn't have to but am allergic to chlorine so can't tolerate tap water) and herbal tea.
 
I'm sure one of those companies who deliver meals, they even put them in the fridge for you. Wiltshire farmfoods is one i can think of.
 
Hepato-pancreato said:
I'm sure one of those companies who deliver meals, they even put them in the fridge for you. Wiltshire farmfoods is one i can think of.
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I looked at a brochure for them and they were all quite high carb meals but you could always half the amount you have and bulk out with fresh veg but I suppose that defeats the object.
 
Do you have a slow cooker? One of the things I find with my fatigue is that I have pockets of being able to do stuff but by the end of the day cooking is too much. Having things you can prep (or someone else can prep) and then dump in the slow cooker takes a lot of the effort out of that. There are loads of ideas for bulk prep of slow cooker meals on Pinterest so bags can be made up and frozen too. The other advantage of slow cooked meals is you can cook a large batch then freeze it so you only do one lot of cooking and prep for many meals.


Other things I do is buy ready chopped veg, especially onions or sofrito (onions, carrots, celery used as a base for stews etc) which you can buy fresh or frozen. Or I’ll make a batch of sauce that gets used on three different things. I buy tins of ratatouille and use them to bulk out meals without the chopping (your carb tolerance may vary with things like that).

Cauliflower cheese is often easy to buy as a ready meal. Some places do broccoli cheese too. Look at the things that get sold as vegetables accompaniments to meals (the non starchy stuff not mash etc) as there are often veg based things that you can then eat with some meat or fish. Buying frozen cauliflower rice is an easy way to reduce starchy carbs like potato. Buying ready grated cheese means you can just grab a handful and add it onto things with less effort. Buy cooked meats if that makes it easier. Boil up eggs in bulk and stick them in the fridge for snacks. Egg mayo is great as it’s carb free. I think a lot of the effort with food is thinking what to eat and planning shopping and meals so having protein you can grab with some salad or some cooked non starchy veg makes it easier.
 
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