Birthday Party

It's hard to throw a birthday party for teen girls and keep your diabetes under control.  We had pizza and cake.  I had a bit of both. Had to keep portions very small because neither are a diabetics friend. The temptation is a bit high for me since I love both cake and pizza.

I've read that the best thing to do when faced with a party and dietary restrictions is to pick carefully what foods to partake and then be careful of portions.  So, one piece of pizza and a small piece of cake are all I had.  They were probably too much, but it was my daughters birthday.

Have been counting my carb intake for about a month now and the one thing I've learned is that I cannot keep my carb intake within a certain range.  One day I'm around 140-150 and the next I'm over 200. This is so much harder than I could have ever imagined.  I haven't decided whether I'm glad not to be checking my blood sugar throughout the day or not.

This last week I began a new job and I've found that my eating habits are changing because of that.  I have a very long commute to and from work.  Because of that I found that from the time I have a snack in the afternoon until I get home I am having low blood sugar.  This has made me take an extra snack for the ride home from work.  Low carb, high protein snacks are so important in this case.  I am having low fat cheese sticks or a 2 tbsp serving of peanut butter to keep the overall carbs as low as I can.

In two weeks I'll have my A1C level checked again.  Honestly, I'm worried that it won't be as low as it should be.  While I can imagine insulin is in my future, I'd like to postpone that as long as possible. I'd also like to postpone having to check my blood sugar throughout the day as long as possible.

So thus far, I'm realizing more fully just how hard living with diabetes will be for me.  I wish I could say that it will get easier, but I know that it won't.  All I can suggest for myself and others is to keep learning as much as possible.  This is the only way to give yourself the best chance to be healthy as a diabetic.  I don't know about you, but I'm not giving up, no way.  I'm all in.

Meals Away From Home

As you can see by the title of this post, I've been away from home this week and meals have been a challtenge.  I've been at a hotel in an orientation program for a ew job I start next week. Breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks each day were provided.  While the food was very good, although sometimes cold when it should have been hot, it was a challenge to put together a diabetic friendly plate at mealtime.

Selection at breakfast proved to be difficult because the hotel caterers had the same choices each morning; eggs, oatmeal, toast, bagels, danish, bacon, sausage and accoutrements for the oatmeal and eggs.  So, I had eggs bacon and toast pretty much each morning.  Ordinarily I would not have eggs every morning.  I broke things up one day by having a yogurt (20 grams of carbs) and another day by having a 1/2 cup of skim milk (12 grams of carbs).  I also had peanut butter on my toast (whole wheat) one morning.

For the snacks, I had the forethought to bring some homemade diabetic oatmeal cookies and granola bars.  I know how many carbs in each and divided them between my three snacks per day.  The hotel provided chips, salsa and cheese sauce for one snack, nothing for another, cookies for another and bags of chips and pretzels for another.  I was glad I had brought my own.  One boon was that they had those tablespoon portion sized peanut butter cups for the toast and bagels at breakfast.  I swiped those to have with my snacks a couple times.

Lunch and dinner were a bit better because they had salad as a choice each time and a healthy protein choice.  However, the first two dinners and first lunch were all chicken.  It was a relief when the second lunch had pork and the third dinner had fish. My carb choices were based on what types they offered at each lunch and dinner.  I had a bit of potato salad at lunch one day and a small portion of long grain and wild rice at dinner another evening.  Another dinner had pasta as the main course so I took about a 1/2 cup serving and plenty of salad and a piece of chicken.  

Overall, I believe that, despite not always knowing the amount of carbs per serving throughout the week, I did a good job of eating well-balanced meals with a modicum of carbs.  All my hard work in researching how to assemble a good diabetic meal and learning the amount of carbs in different foods prepared me for my week away from home.  While I'm not fully prepared for things like eating at restaurants yet, I feel that I am making some progress.  My next challenge will be making meals ahead and to take for lunch to my new job starting next week.  I'll also, hopefully, be preparing evening meals ahead of time since I'll be working long days., 

The lesson for this post is that, if you do your homework, have confidence, and pay attention to what you're eating, you can be successful in eating right and controlling your blood sugars.  Now, I know I'm not tracking my blood sugars throughout the day at this point, but I am starting to notice how my body feels after I eat.  I'm also doing better at keeping my carbs to around 45 grams per meal and under 175 per day.  This is a huge improvement over my first two weeks.

During this trip away from home I started to realize that thinking about food differently and having to be selective about what I eat, how much I eat and how often I eat is becoming second nature to me rather than a chore.

So, I hope that this post has been beneficial in showing you that taking a new step in your life with diabetes doesn't have to be hard, or scary or unsuccessful.  Be confident, do your homework and keep making choices based on what you know.  

Carb Education

Following the instructions of my medical professional, I have been tracking carbs for every meal and snack, even my drinks.  In addition, I’m to become an expert on carbohydrates.  To this end I have been reading every label and only cooking with recipes that have the nutrition information for the dish.  Also, I have done some initial research on carbs.

While I’m not yet an expert, and may never be, I’m learning more every day.  Some of the things I’ve learned will be shared in this blog.  For instance, I’ve learned that there are secret carbs, hidden carbs, that carbs will probably be confusing and frustrating for the rest of my life, that there’s more information out there than I could possibly ever completely learn, and that you can reduce the carbs in your food to help your body.

Having come to terms with all of the above, I am prepared to share the first round of carb information that I’ve gathered thus far. 

Secret, Hidden Carbs:

Just from reading labels on prepared foods, I have found carbs in places that I don’t think anyone would have ever guessed to find them.  For instance, did you know that peanut butter, milk, balsamic vinegar and tomato pasta sauce have carbs?  I knew that lactose in dairy products was a sugar but never realized that this would translate into carbs in those foods.  Why peanut butter has carbs I will never know, but they are there nonetheless.  I am equally unsure of why balsamic vinegar has carbs, but the label is supposed to be factual.  As for tomato pasta sauce, I’ve been using jarred sauce.  Will probably switch to making from scratch. 

These unexpected carbs have shown me the importance of paying attention to food labels.  Even your vegetables can have carbs, like green beans and broccoli, so make sure you read EVERYTHING!!!

Confusing, Frustrating Carbs:

As anyone who has ever been on a diet or had necessary dietary restrictions placed on them for any reason, having to pay attention to everything you eat can be frustrating and overwhelming.  I’ve never been able to diet for very long during my lifetime so far because I hate to constantly think about what I eat.  I prefer to just enjoy the food I do eat and let it be a simple pleasure. 

Well, my fellow diabetics, if you’ve been thinking and acting like me you will probably go through, or have gone through, this initial frustration.  Or, it may still be with you.  For instance, I have a very good friend who has been a Type 1 diabetic since she was a child.  She told me that she’s been watching what she eats and exercising every day.  She has gone through countless changes to her routine and eating habits in order to control her blood sugar.  What this tells me is that I have only reached the very tip of the iceberg in my life called ‘diabetes.’ 

My friend has already been a great inspiration to me and a source of reassurance that I need right now.  If you don’t have someone like this in your life, someone with experience with this disease, try to find someone you are close to who can be support for your efforts.  I believe that we need someone other than our medical professionals to help us with the day to day efforts of maintaining healthy blood sugars and being healthy overall. 

As for the carbs per serving, I found several sources that told me a serving of carbs is 15 grams.  (Quick & Easy Diabetic Menus, Betty Wedman, M.S., R.D, American Diabetes Association website)  Well, if that’s the case, how do you equate that to the fact that every food has different carbs per serving and various serving sizes?  I asked my Dad about this, he’s a diabetic too.  He told me that I shouldn’t try to get that specific with it or I will be too confused.  He’s right.  I am confused.  I have no idea how to calculate the 15 gram carb serving to the varied carbs and serving sizes of the foods I’ve been eating.  So, I’ve decided that this is not something I can tackle and will be asking about it when I meet my medical professional next month for my A1C test.

Abundant Information:

As I’ve been learning about diabetes and carbs I’ve uncovered some interesting facts that I never would have known.  One thing that I’ve been concerned about is knowing the amount of carbs to eat at each meal and how many carbs should be in a serving of different foods.  I’ve actually been quite concerned about this since I’m to count my carbs and I know how important carbs are to my blood sugar.  I found out that there’s no exact number for the amount of carbs for a meal.  The American Diabetes Association (ADA) website gives a range of 45-60 carbs per meal. 

The best I can do on this point is to count the carbs I’m eating, try to stay in the range outlined by the ADA and wait to see how my A1C is next month.  Once I’m checking my blood sugar periodically throughout the day I’ll have a better idea of how the carbs I eat affect my sugars.  (This is according to both my Dad and my friend)

The amount of carbs consumed each day is important, but so is the type of carb eaten.  Some are simple and some are complex.  Complex carbs are those that break down into sugars more slowly and simple carbs break down more quickly.  Granulated white sugar and white flour are two examples of simple carbs.  Whole grains and whole fruit are examples of complex carbs.  Vegetables are considered complex carbs as well.  The fiber in our foods helps to break down sugars more slowly because fiber takes longer to digest than simple sugar or white bread or pasta. 

Conclusion:

This post is getting pretty long, so I’ll finish now.  The most important thing to take away from this posting is that you should never stop learning about carbs or anything related to your diabetes.  I believe that if I ever become complacent about my health again the consequences could be much more extreme.  So, never stop doing everything you can to keep your sugars under control.