“You ready for breakfast?” I ask as I walk into George’s room.
“Yeah, let me brush my teeth, and I’ll meet you downstairs in a sec, “he said.

George is a friend of mine from class who was diagnosed during his freshman year at college with Type 1 diabetes. I can tell he just tested his blood sugar ‘cause the black case he always has with him is open on his desk.

George started taking an interest in weight training to help keep him healthy, and hopefully build some muscle. Along with taking him on as a training partner, I suggested he tag along with me to learn about eating better for his diabetes, which will actually really help him in the gym, too. But I know balancing nutrition and exercise is going to be challenging at first while balancing his blood sugar, so I hope he's willing to be patient with his progress.

As we walk into the school cafeteria and grab our trays, George starts to tell me that he usually just grabs a bowl of lucky charms and a banana for later.

“Lucky charms?” I said. “No way, that’s all sugar. Follow me.”

First stop, we hit up the omelet station. I order an all egg-white omelet.

“Oh, nasty. Why are you getting egg-whites?” George asks. 

“That’s where all the protein is,” I explain. “The yolk is full of saturated fat which is something we are trying to avoid.” George shrugged with a look of minor disgust but orders the same thing. He sees me put a few spoonfuls of salsa on my eggs and does the same.

“Not a lot of carbs in salsa, right?” he asks.

“Exactly,” I nod my head. "And most protein is very low in carbs so you'll get good fuel for your body without spiking your blood sugar."

Next, we walk over to the cereal bins. As George grabs a bowl and puts it under the lucky charms bin, I reach out to stop him.

“Whoa, whoa, hold on. We’re not eating lucky charms. We’re grabbing some good old-fashioned oatmeal.”

“Eww. dude, I haven’t eaten that since I was a kid,” George complains. “Why?”

I try to explain, “Oatmeal has a much lower glycemic index than other carbohydrate sources, so it will be digested slower and won’t cause an intense blood glucose spike like some of the sugar laden cereals like lucky charms.”

George shrugged at me again and said “Can I put syrup on it.”

I chuckle and tell him, “No, man, that defeats the purpose. Throw a packet of Splenda and half a cup up banana on it. I guarantee that you will be using less insulin in the future eating like this.”

“Because of eating foods with a lower glycemic index I’ll need less insulin? Even if the total grams of carbs are the same?”

“You got it,” I say as we head over to a table. "And insulin is a storage hormone, remember? So it stores any extra carbs you eat as fat on your body."

Sitting down and eating now, George laughs and says, “Wow, this really isn’t that bad. I can eat this on a regular basis. What do we eat for lunch?”