Maggie shares with us how she creates simple & healthy meals using the plate method. 

Note: We cannot provide medical advice. Please contact your doctor directly for specific questions about your care.

Topics

• How to do a paired testing
• Simple meal prepping
• The plate method

Transcript

Scott K. Johnson - Hey, thanks for tuning into another episode of "Coaches Corner." It's great to see you again. We would love to know where you're watching from. Please let us know in the comments. You know, one small way that mySugr is giving back is by hosting these short conversations with our diabetes coaches to talk about staying healthy in body and mind, and we appreciate you sharing some time with us. Now, I do have to give the standard disclaimer, we cannot provide medical advice. Please contact your doctor directly for specific questions about your care. Earlier this week, we talked about checking blood sugars, so we've got an example of Molly doing some paired checking. We also talked a lot about meal plans. So, next up we've got Coach Maggie taking us through some of her meal planning. First, we've got Molly with the paired blood sugar checking. Let's take a look.

Molly Wagman - Hey, everyone, it's Molly, the lead coach from mySugr, and I'm here to show you how to do a paired testing. And I myself have diabetes and I do this a lot. I look at my blood glucose before an activity, during sometimes, and after an activity, and that's what a paired testing is. It's meaning that you're doing two blood glucose checks, at least, to evaluate what the activity, how it affects your blood glucose. And that activity can be a physical activity, or it can be a meal, or it could be a stressful situation. The activity doesn't just mean physical activity. Although that is what I'm going to do today. So, I am feeling like my blood sugar's a little bit on the higher side and I want to eat dinner soon. So, I think I'm going to go for a walk. So, here's my blood glucose, 168. So a little bit above my target for where I want to be before I eat a meal. So, I'm going to go for a walk and then test it when I'm finished and we'll check in and see how that goes. Hey, it's Molly again. So, now I'm done with my walk and it's been a little bit since I finished up my walk, but I'm going to eat dinner, so I'm going to test my blood sugar again. So, this is the second part of my paired test. So, before I went for my walk, it was 168, now 142. So, we can definitely tell that the exercise had some impact on my blood sugar and brought it down a bit. Then I'm going to eat dinner now and then I'll test again in an hour or two after I finish and we'll see what happens there.

Maggie Evans - Hey, guys, Maggie here. I'm going to be showing you a couple quick tips and tricks that I've set for myself this week for my meal planning and kind of prepping. Trying to keep it super simple and just kind of use up some stuff that I already have, along with some things that I picked up from the store. So I'll show you guys a couple of things that I'm doing and planning, and some ideas, as well, for you. All right, guys, some quick things that I've done. I made some roasted chickpeas, which I'm going to show you in another video how to make. But while those chickpeas were going, it only took like 20 or 30 minutes in the oven for me to make them, I was able to boil off a little pot of quinoa that I can pick from throughout the week. I always like to either keep things plain or just flavor them with a little bit of something. Normally, I do keep quinoa plain, but this time I did add a little scoop of pesto in towards the end, so it kind of gave it a little bit of flavor, which was really nice. It actually turned out really well, so I'm happy with that. Quinoa is a really great complex carb and it's got a lot of protein in it. So, especially, I'm going to be a little bit more plant-based this week is kind of my goal. So pairing the chickpeas and the quinoa together, yet again, great combo of a lot of complex carbs and protein in both of these kind of more plant-based foods. So, they can be combined together to kind of make a really good meal for someone trying to manage their blood sugars.

Over here, yet again, while the quinoa and the chickpeas were going, I just chopped up some tomatoes that I got from Trader Joe's. And just chopped up the bigger ones. I kept some of them whole, so it only took me a couple seconds to chop some of these up. Add a little bit of mozzarella that I bought as well. And then, I had a left over cucumber that I bought like one or two weeks ago and I totally forgot about it until I looked in my fridge today. So, I chopped that up and threw it in there, and then just a little bit of basil from my garden outside. And I made just a little Caprese salad. So, I'm going to be able to eat from this throughout the week, so it'll be really helpful. I tend to serve mine with a just quick little balsamic vinaigrette. I just buy it from the store. So, I'm going to use that, yet again, throughout the week. That'll be for really quick lunches. I made dinner last night and when I made dinner, I just made extra roasted veggies. So, I'm going to have those throughout the week, as well. And then, another quick thing that I did, yet again, while everything was cooking, is I chopped up some zucchini for a really quick side dish or toss into omelets and things like that. So, that is just kind of a quick little meal prep that I did throughout the week. And when we think about creating our plates, if I have my plate right in front of me, I really kind of like to think of the plate method when I'm portioning. So, I think of half my plate dedicated to those non-starchy vegetables. So, if I'm making my lunch right now, I want to make sure, excuse me, I fill up half that plate with those veggies. A little potato in there I'm going to get out. So, half my plate veggies. And then a quarter from my protein and my complex carb. Both of these are, the quinoa and the chickpeas, have both the complex carbs and the protein, so I'm just going to do a quarter of both. Really nice balanced plant-based meal. Yet again, your carb could be potatoes and your protein could be chicken. It could be couscous or a slice of bread with whatever protein of your choice. Your proteins just don't have to be plant-based. I, just this week, had a lot of chickpeas on hand and I wanted to have some for my meals. So, yet again, just think of that plate method. Try and get half that plate of veggies. If you're not getting any veggies at all, I'd just say, start with a quarter, too. So, start with where your at. We're never expecting perfection. Just try and aim for whatever you can get during this time. So, I hope these ideas were a good place to start. Feel free to ask any questions. Ask me for any other ideas if you guys want them. That's what we're here for, okay? Thanks guys.

Hey, guys, I'm just going to be showing you really quick how I make my roasted chickpeas for the week. I like to make these just to have on hand for quick snacks, to grab and go instead of like chips. But this week I am going to use it as kind of one of my main proteins for my meals throughout the week. Right here, I just have two cans of chickpeas that I've drained and rinsed. Just basic can of chickpeas. I just make sure that I rinse them really well. I spend about 30 seconds per can just rinsing them off really well to get a lot of that salt or sodium off. And then, now I just, from my strainer, I'm just putting them on this dish towel. All I'm trying to do is just dry them off a little bit. I don't want to put them on my baking sheet when they're really wet. So, I'm just doing my best. It doesn't have to be perfect, but just kind of using the towel to to dry them off. Some of the little skins may come off. If you want to take those out, you can. I'm just super lazy when it comes to meal prep, so I leave everything on. Just try and keep it simple. So, these are pretty well dry now, so I'm going to set these just to the side. I have my baking sheet here that's already lined with parchment paper just to make, yet again, clean up a little bit easier on myself. You can use foil if you want or you can just use the baking sheet, totally fine. From there, I'm going to take my little chickpeas and spread them out. So, I want them evenly spread out. I don't want to have them crowding, 'cause if they crowd, they're not going to crisp up as well. I have a little bit of avocado oil here. You can always use whatever oil you prefer. Olive oil is fine, too. I just drizzle a little bit. Maybe about two, one to two tablespoons. Yet again, keep things easy, guys. Doesn't have to be too complicated. I have a little bit of salt here. I'm just going to sprinkle them. I'd say about half a teaspoon to even a teaspoon. If you want to, you can season these with really whatever you want. I'm keeping it simple just because I'm not sure what I'm going to kind of be putting these on throughout the week, but if you have more, say, a certain cuisine that you're planning on eating throughout the week, you can flavor it with that. I really like paprika on these or even like a little bit of cayenne with some salt and pepper. Everything But the Bagel Seasoning might be a good one if you shop at Trader Joe's. That's always a nice flavor to add. And then, lastly, I'm just going to put a little bit of pepper on here. Just coat these in a little bit of pepper. So, you got salt and pepper on there. And then, all you're going to do is just mix them up and make sure that they're evenly coated with the oil and the salt and the pepper. And then, yet again, you want to even them out again, so that they're not crowding. And then, I'm going to pop these in a 400-degree oven for about, there goes my oven, for about 20 to 25 minutes, until they get roasted and kind of crisp up. And then, that will be my protein for the week. One of my proteins.

Scott K. Johnson - All right, great stuff, Maggie. Let me make sure my microphone is on and working. You can tell it's a Friday, and I don't think I've had enough Diet Coke for the afternoon. I love chickpeas. If you're a fan of hummus, did you know, chickpeas are a main ingredient of hummus? Look at me flexing my nutrition know-how. What I was mentioning after Molly's video, so I actually messed up Molly's after dinner check video, but she checked her blood sugar again after about 90 minutes after she ate her dinner and her result was 150, which means that her insulin dose was appropriate for her meal. That paired, or structured, blood sugar checking, it's such a powerful tool, just as we saw with Molly. So, she showed us the effect of her walk by checking before and after, and then she could also determine if she took the right amount of insulin for her meal by doing that post-meal check about 90 minutes after eating. So, thank you, Molly, for showing us that, and thank you, Maggie, for talking us through some of your meal prep and tips and tricks there. I don't know if it's just me, but I always feel hungry after Maggie shows us her delicious meals and tips and tricks there.

All right, I hope that was helpful. If you have additional questions or want us to dive deeper, please go ahead leave us some questions in the comments. We are happy to follow up and address them in an upcoming episode. I hope you come back on Monday for our next broadcast, where we will answer the question, should I stop eating sugar altogether? I hope to see you there. And until then, have a great weekend, stay well, and we'll see you next time, bye.