Where to Ordain with Blood Sugar Issues

The Watercooler
20

While many conditions are out of your control due to being a monastic, there are a numbers of things that you can control—of which a combination of many of them might result in positive changes (or rather, mitigating). I’m not aware of your knowledge of nutrition and physiology, but these would be helpful:

  1. Learn about nutrition/what you eat, particularly everything that has to do with glycemic index and glycemic load. Understand what foods are available to you, and which ones are problematic, and which are less so—honey, jasmine rice (which has a GI of 110) versus basmati rice (GI of 60), watermelon being a very high-GI fruit, etc.—and study them thoroughly.
  2. Understand your condition (particular to you). Ask doctors during checkups, read medical journals, study university textbooks, etc.
  3. Understanding the human body, its organs, its systems, its hormones (insulin especially)—and how these relate to your diet, activity levels and how you physically feel.
  4. Eat healthy; avoid junk food, soda, fruit juices, sweets, processed sugar, etc.
  5. Understand the concept of attempting to mitigate blood crashes and spikes. What partially mitigates these are fiber, fat and protein (know you fats). Eating something of high-GI, when eaten with ample fiber, protein and fat is not the same as eating a piece of cake on an empty stomach, at all.
  6. Know you body well and listen to it.
  7. Exercise.
  8. Progressively and realistically adapt the body to your diet (once the other changes are in place).
  9. Get your health in a solid state while you are not ordained.
  10. Look into supplementation to counter diabetes, particularly with magnesium, before being ordained, and during if you have someone to provide you with supplements.

Read this post and this post.

Here is a good glycemic index/load chart:
Table of Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load.pdf (334.3 KB)

Do note that all or most of these might or might not be enough, depending on your diet as a monastic, your current health and your condition. I’m also not a doctor, so any information previously mentioned should be consulted with your doctor beforehand, of which any negative results due to having not done so or due to incorrect application would be your responsibility.

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