I’ve been doing that for three years before I got my pump. MDI they call it and I did about four or five a day. I was high a lot than I had to fight hypoglycemia.
How true, but in addition to carb counts, one must also take into account personal physiology and activity. I can calculate how many carbs are in a meal, but if I know that I am going to take a long walk or rake leaves or shovel snow right after that meal, I have learned what MY body will do with that exercise, and I try to adjust the carbs I program into my pump. I am very sensitive to insulin, so I know, for example, that if I take a 2 mile walk, my numbers will drop by 100+ points, even if I have set my OmniPod 5 pump to “activity” mode. Everyone is unique, so we all must add our own physiology into the equation. Most of the time the carbs I enter and what the OM5 calculates I need for insulin are correct, but if the meal is a take out (“pick-up”) and the carb count is a WAG (wild-ass guess), then sometimes the carb count and insulin don’t work. In the end, we all just learn to make what adjustments we personally need.
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@Liam-M crashes so quickly when he begins any physical activity that I’m “trying” to get him to remember, at least for now, to take preventive measures BEFORE beginning to be active…turning zero temp basal on for an hour (thanks to my good friend, @Eric for even showing that functionality to me after using loop for years not knowing about it), having at least 1 full serving (25 carbs) of fast carbs. And if I know activity is coming up, he may enter NO carbs for a meal he’s just eaten, until AFTER he’s done playing / being active…the rise will happen eventually, but as soon as he starts being active, if he hasn’t taken those precautions, it’s a sudden nose dive of BGs.
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In my opinion Carb Factor is just too much trouble for everyday use. Here’s how it works:
Example 241 g can of sweet corn.
25 g total carbs 25/241=0.104 or a carb factor of 10
23 g carbs minus fiber 23/241=0.0954 or a carb factor of 10
I go by total carb grams - 50% of fiber per serving and bolus according to my carb ratio. For 24g I would bolus 1.26u, well my pump would. When I was MDI probably a fat 1u. You now a hair above 1u.
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Same, I can see this being super useful for chefs and bakers/cooks with T1D who create their own foods and want to also eat them…definitely have to compile nutrition info for that use case so that you know what to bolus…if you want strict adherance to I:C…we aren’t strict at all. When I know carbs, I ask Liam how much he wants…we enter carbs (minus fiber), bolus, done. If he wants something we don’t know carbs too, we just estimate, bolus, adjust/correct as necessary once he’s consumed it. It’s still a great core skill to know / understand just in case it’s ever needed though, and I’m glad to have learned about it!!
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That’s for sure! I made a WAG (love the term!) about a Thai meal the other day and needed a correction later on….and then more carbs.
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TLAs are a minefield; that one has a different meaning in British English. duckduckgo is currently giving me both meanings; the aphorism, “Two peoples separated by a common language.”
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I love carb factors.
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I lived and worked in the UK for 3+ years, military with 1/3 of the unit being RAF Regiment, MOD Police, etc. We’re definitely two people separated by a common language, though it was fun and interesting. I used to use the phrase “it strikes my fancy”, no longer…totally different interpretation. Talked with my neighbors one day and mentioned putting our four year old daughter in “child care” for day trip to London, you’d have thought they saw a ghost! You learn to read the room pretty quick! BTW, what does “TLA” mean?
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I am sure the translations ARE a minefield and a hoot! Case in point: napkin. In America, we use napkins at the dinner table! In Britain, only babies need a napkin. I taught Oral Interpersonal Communication for 30 years, but I admit that I do not know what “WAG” means in Britain. Please educate us all!
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Three Letter Acronym; the bane of modern English since there are only 17,576 of them and most of them are useless. I wasn’t even aware of that (US) meaning of “child care”, and I think the usage has crept in to English:
“Wives And Girlfriends”, used productively as a noun these days. The American usage would be translated as “stupid guess”, I guess 
I haven’t lived there for 45 years and the language has certainly changed a lot.
So “HAB” is a thing too? Husbands and Boyfriends?
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@jbowler I think the language has changed or been adopted over the years. At the time I was in the UK placing a child in “care” meant the state taking children from parents for cause (mistreatment, abandonment, drug use, etc.) and placing them in state custody, we learned many were not nice places. Our UK neighbors, once we asked why the reaction, were horrified we weren’t the nice US people they thought and we might have voluntarily given up our 5 year old daughter to “care.” I think the US military was far ahead of the rest of the world and society in developing such centers to allow military parents/spouses to work and even go out for a short evening once in a while, particularly overseas. BTW, thanks for the education on TLAs! 
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All languages constantly change in pronunciation, meaning, and usage. I have an unabridged dictionary from 1880, and to prove my point, I asked my college classes to find words like “television,” “iPad,” “microwave,” or even “nanosecond” in that book. Of course, those words were not in there. Then I would ask them what a “dry sink” or a “button hook” were used for. They had no idea. Times, technology, tools, and vocabulary all change. They always were shocked when I would play a portion of a poem read in the original Old English (c. 450 - 1100 AD). They could not understand a word, yet it was English.
If a people develop their own way of speaking, they become a culture, and their language reflects what is important to them. The Inupiatun dialect of an indigenous people in Alaska, for example, have over 50 words for various types of snow. You would know by looking at their language that this was not a culture located in the tropics!
We diabetics have our own dialect and acronyms which, technically, makes us a unique culture also. We talk of “dawn phenomenon,” (a.k.a. “Feet on the Floor” (FOTF.)) We have “time in range” (TIR) or “time in tight range” (TITR), etc. Just look at our glossary of terms to see what makes us part of a unique culture. Language both separates us while it unites us at the same time.
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What are Liam’s favorite fast carbs?
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It changes, as expected. But right now Sweet tarts. Before that, Starburst Minis. We has to swap because he recently got his second set of braces, so no chewy stuff for him for a while.
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