War on Diabetes Newsletter 20th July 2025
Welcome to the sixth War on Diabetes newsletter, your weekly tips and ideas from someone who has had diabetes for five years and learned a lot about it. It's a practical and actionable guide to details your doctor probably won't have time to tell you about.
This week I've been struggling with blisters again, having made them worse by overdoing it in my new shoes before I'd healed properly. I've still managed to add another 93,000 steps to my One Million Step Challenge.
I've also joined a local gym that I can easily walk to and am starting a weight training regime. This should hopefully help keep my glucose levels in check and combat age-related muscle wastage.
I've also been foraging for more tea leaves and found a great spot to grab some farm-fresh eggs. Leaf teas are good for fasting days as they contain some electrolytes and also help keep the hunger cravings at bay.
What I learned this week
I've been swotting up on natto and am determined to make it a daily habit. It has powerful cardiovascular health benefits and recent studies also indicate it can help with blood glucose control.
Read moreI've finally got back down to a 7-day average glucose level of 5.7 mmol/L again after struggling for a few weeks. My target is 5.4 which is a healthy optimal level.
Progress Update
After a bad case of reactive hypoglycemia following a couple of beers last Saturday, I've got myself back on track and had three sessions at the gym.
Read moreThis week's food heroes
Strawberries
Having a beer-induced hypo last weekend was no fun, so had a decent portion of strawberries after a dinner of roast beef and cheese which helped bring my blood glucose back up nicely without sending it too high.
Scrambled eggs, bacon and sugar snaps with red pepper
A really filling late breakfast after a two-hour morning walk was satiating without bumping glucose up by more than 1 mmol/L. I added some red pepper to include vitamin C to promote good (nitric oxide-related) things from the bacon.
Mega salad with natto and dark chocolate
Yes, that's chocolate on a salad... It might seem weird but dark chocolate is one of my top two sources for electrolytes after fasting or exercise (the other being nuts). It's also high in fibre so keeps net carbs down. Goat's yoghurt has a slightly cheesy flavour and helps to mask the gloopy texture of natto. Wasn't very hungry at dinner time after all this so just had some yoghurt with nuts and berries.
New Recruit Tip
Wondering what to eat? Food planning is especially challenging when you first start out on your diabetes journey. I found the NHS' DESMOND course to be incredibly patronising and inaccurate in its food recommendations. It can feel like a long, drawn-out battle to get access to the right nutritional information. My Instagram profile has my daily food log included so you can see what I'm trying. I really enjoyed "Genius Foods" by Max Lugavere as an audiobook - it goes into detail about what foods contain which nutrients and how they contribute to metabolic health.
Recommended reading - Max Lugavere "Genius Foods"Diabetes Veterans
Mattel has released a new Barbie doll with type 1 diabetes. I've only had type 2 diabetes as an adult and I'm lucky to have the confidence and maturity to deal with stigma in a positive way. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to have to deal with the stress of feeling different as well as managing a complex medical condition as a child. Hopefully this doll will at least help children with diabetes feel just a little bit more normal.
Read more about type 1 Barbie and people's reactions
Sponsored
I struggled to find where to buy non-homogenised milk locally and eventually found The Modern Milkman. Their organic whole milk in my area is non-homogenised so I've been getting milk and eggs from them for two yeas now. Use this link to get 50% off your first two weeks and they'll give me 50% off my next delivery as well. Cheers!
