Monday, April 9, 2012

Surviving the Feast Days

I am pretty disciplined with my diabetes.
But, there are always times when you allow yourself to "go off the reservation" a bit and embrace a little chaos. In fact, in my last few relapses of poor control, it was really just a stringing together of these kinds of justifications that led to an extended hiatus. "Oh, birthdays and ice cream only come around once a year..." "Well, we are out for dinner".

I do really well with my daily routine, but when there is a "feast day" of some kind, extended family, booze... it all gets kind of whacky, and no matter what, I end up with an evening and overnight of high blood sugar, even without serious missteps. Here's the thing... I eat too much of whatever I eat. Low-carb, no-carb, I just eat too much because it's a celebration and it's fun. This eating too much thing is really my problem. My stomach gets stretched, glucagon is released (read about Dr. Bernstein's "Chinese restaurant effect" theory), and now I have insulin that is outmatched and useless.

Let's look over today, our family's Easter feast day. I started by eating some deviled eggs and some smoked salmon and some olives for appetizer. Quality food. I was already full. Of course, I bolused. Next up, ham, salad and grilled veggies. All good stuff. So, all together, not to much in the carb realm... but, I was beyond full.

I saw my sensor BG level hitting 140 mg/dl post meal.

I got out my secret weapon. Walking. I took two brisk laps around the block and during that time I saw my BG hit 160 mg/dl and then change direction and return to 130 mg/dl. Then it started creeping up again...

When I got home I tested and found that my sensor had it wrong. I was 200 mg/dl. I took our dog for a brisk 20 min. walk and saw my post walk BG at 111 mg/dl. Okay, so hopefully I'm stable enough to go to bed and not see any more rises.

My insulin seems to work slowly, unless I exercise. When I do, I find that it accelerates everything. For me a correction has become a bolus and a walk. Done.

Hopefully, someday...  I will figure out how to approach a celebration without consuming more food than usual. Or, I will just plan to walk a lot.

3 comments:

  1. This is so challenging for me, too. I do really well and then something like Easter comes along (and I am reminded of how much I love chocolate). This year I chased after the kids all day and that helped immensely. I don't know what I'll do when I'm not running after them in a few years. lol

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  2. I pretty much never get to eat food that I didn't cook, so that helps... I would have more trouble if I was with you and your family, with so many great options. I don't know... Is once every few week or once a month so bad, really? For me, it's a quality of life issue-- being able to enjoy a celebration, which of course means enjoying the food and just doing my best to dose appropriately. It's a real bonus if I get it right, though.

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    1. Yeah, Ariana, one day, once in a while is fine. I just haven't been able to eat different or more and ever get predictable results. I think for me the quality of life part comes in with how I feel for the next 12 hours. I could be happier "tasting" everything and not going out of range at all. I think it helped that I only ate one long meal yesterday, only one mystery to solve.

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