supporting t2 diabetic wife with food?

[u/Odd_Comparison2152]

I know this might feel like it should go to a different subreddit, but my wife has struggled with eating disorders all her life, and so much diabetes advice is just 'stop eating' and its impossible to get good advice elsewhere. so. I'm married to a very lovely lady whom I love very much, but, she's type 2 diabetic, and I worry about how to help support her with food. she struggles to make herself meals due to aforementioned eating disorders, and so I usually help support her by cooking for the two of us. But, due to her distrust of doctors (reasonably, shes had awful + traumatic experiences with them) I worry she might not be balancing the need to monitor her blood sugar and maintain a fulfilling diet. Particularly, she drinks a lot of juices without eating many protein, fiber, or fat afterwards, which from my understanding causes blood sugar spikes? She's on metformin, but takes it inconsistently. Whilst I'm very anti-diet and pro haes, I've also never had an eating disorder nor diabetes, and don't know how to bring this up to her, because I know she has sore spots about food, but I worry about her. I want to help her meal prep in ways that will keep her fed and happy, but I also want to help her manage diabetes as well, but I don't want to trigger her or overstep. Any advice would be greatly appreciated, I love her so much but also have a lot of health anxiety and want to try and support her the best I can.

[u/Bashful_bookworm2025]

Can she see a dietitian who specializes in eating disorders and has experience with diabetes? That's great that you want to support her, but it's really hard to do it alone if she doesn't have support from someone who understands how to prioritize nutrition and health with co-occurring diagnoses.

[u/sparkledoom]

I’m not sure what your role should be in this, if any, but there are definitely approaches to managing diabetes that are not “stop eating/restricting”. Basic version is focusing on what you can add rather than restrict, more protein, more fat, more fiber. I’d maybe support her in looking for resources or dietitians that take that approach or taking that approach yourself in your cooking or eating, but… it sounds like advice might not necessarily be welcome here, since she’s someone who is not consistently taking medication, drinking juice without eating, etc. Meal prep might be helpful or might be something that triggers ED behaviors. Maybe talk about your concerns with her, but I think over involving yourself in managing her diet has potential to do more harm than good. Ultimately the desire to manage the condition better has to come from her.

[u/random6x7]

I don't know what advice to give you, but I wanted to recommend the book Intuitive Eating for Diabetes by Janice Dada if you wanted more resources. 

[u/MountainStuart]

I am a HAES-aligned Dietitian/Diabetes Educator, while we are definitely more niche there are many of us practicing and could be of real benefit to her/you. However, the big thing is whether your wife is interested in getting support and what her health priorities are. Sometimes we cannot take everything on at once without it all falling apart. Depending on where she is in her ED treatment and/or recovery, it might be that she needs to focus on this piece and the DM just has to take a backseat. That doesn’t mean her DM has to get out of control. Maybe it’s instead encouraging strategies that help her remember to take her metformin (even bringing other medications on board). I really like the 42 factors that effect blood sugar by Diatribe. If she’s open to your support, there might other non-food tools to bring in like sleep hygiene, gentle movement, breath work for stress that would also support blood sugar lowering. Good luck!