I have a small surgery coming up and my sugars are supposed to be well controlled for 2 weeks prior. I’m a couple days short of that because I can’t seem to get control with my stress and anxiety. I’m thinking of going hardcore just steak and water or something along the lines of carnivore for the next week and a half. Anything wrong with that? It’s short term so I can’t see what would be. Might even be like a cleanse.
Lemme know tips, etc. if you’ve ever done this or similar!!
Why not focus on the stress? Meditation, yoga, exercise of any type including armchair exercise helps.
I’ll try all that, but I also need to achieve the low sugars which I can only do when I don’t eat or eat like bacon only. Even when I get a day or so that seems to work, the very next day won’t with the same goods and insulin. It’s gotta be my high stress life, which I’m hoping will settle down, but in the immediate future I need a strategy that will definitely and consistently work.
@beans_betes Every time I go for steak (granted sometimes with half a baked potato) I end up having a hard time controlling a relatively high BG (going from 90-120 to 160-180) for a few to several hours, even with trying to account for the protein/fat. Once I hit 170-180, it seems to take a lot of added insulin to bring it back down, i.e. a few to several .5 - 2 unit corrections spread over a 3+ hours. I’d go with eggs, omelets, and fish which doesn’t seem to have the same impact. Also, like @elver says, better to focus on the cause than the symptoms, i.e. the stress, if that’s truly where the increase is coming from.
Really? Good to know! I love fish, so good backup. Omelettes can be good too. I’m sipping my frothy butter blended w coffee right now. Not too shabby! Totally agree at getting to the core, but not right now, I need immediate good control in a high stress life and I’ll work on that after the surgery. For now, foods the only aspect I can control, unfortunately. I know I have the power to control my reactions and all that, but that’s a skill and one I’m far from mastering.
To answer your question, will the low carb work for a few weeks, I think @TomH has answered pretty well and I suspect the consensus of the group would be probably.
Are there any risks to going low carb for a few weeks, none that I can think of.
The last question is the far more interesting one to me. What are your plans to get a plan that works once you are done with the surgery? For my son when he gets far off the rails he goes back to 5-6 meals that he knows exactly how to dose for and weighs the high carb foods to ensure his dosing is as close to perfect as possible. Then once he is back in control he starts to venture farther afield.
I reached out to my Endo and Dr about how much I’m struggling with overeating junk food a while back, it’s like I’m rebelling or something, and only want everything I shouldn’t eat. Anyhow, neither of them had suggestions for me, which was disheartening. I looked up overeaters anonymous thinking that’s helped people, but I never heard back from the email in my community, and when I went to the meeting info posted, the library said the group hadn’t met there in years LOL. I thought about seeking a low carb nutritionist, but the last experience I had with a nutritionist was beyond annoying. I saw a dietician and she was super old school recommending the traditional food pyramid carb heavy choices. I saw a CBT psychologist, and she basically told me to stop focusing so much on food and counting, and it was clear she didn’t understand how that wasn’t an option for me. So yeah, I feel like it comes down to willpower. IDK, I guess the short answer is I have no plan at all longterm.
I personally don’t think full (<20 grams) low carb is the answer for most people. There are some who it works perfectly for, but my son isn’t one of those. Even if you wanted to eat junk all day, the issue is how do you dose for it, not should you eat it or not. The should you eat it or not is really the same problem for non-diabetics as diabetics. The reason that scaling back to known meals works is that you take out many of the dosing variables. Then add in the stuff you want to eat slowly while perfecting the dosing.
If you want a benchmark, my son did very well for a few years on 100-120 carbs a day maintaining a sub 7 a1c, then as his dosing skills improved he has upped his carbs without increasing his a1c. Might be worth trying once you are clear of your surgery.
There are many strategies that help with this, i.e. prebolusing, using different insulin combinations, etc.
Glad he found what works for him. My issue is more mental, like when I start eating carbs I turn into a monster and don’t portion just binge. Even when I set out to portion. When I do portion it works one day and not the next. I feel like an absolute loser lacking control but it’s not helpful to add that to the problem, and knowing what I should doesn’t always mean I can make myself do it. Idk if that makes sense to someone without my issue, but it’s the best I can explain it.
There is a way to deal with that type of eating if you aren’t worried about your calorie count. You can always estimate what you want to eat then dose a considerable amount more than are planning for, then eat your way out of the low over the next couple of hours.
I am worried about that. I’m absolutely terrified of gaining weight. I’m a normal weight, but as it is I want to be thinner. That’s the main issue I think.
@beans_betes I think you just hit the nail on the head: willpower. I think we all have to work at it regarding something in our lives, whether food, clothes, staying hydrated, whatever. It isn’t easy, most of us tend to start off well, then think “Well, just this little bit…” and pretty soon its a whole bag of potato chips or box of Vanilla Wafers latter…. (the latter used to be my downfall!). While psyches might help with advice, it’s pretty much up to you to implement. I went cold turkey staying relatively low carb on diagnosis (15-40 carbs per meal, 0-20 for a “treat” once a day…how I miss crunchiness). I know most of the time if I give in to well intended offered “bites”, I wont quit (kinda of like you and junk food). That’s not to say I don’t give in once in a while, but if I don’t severely limit them I know I wont quit. Fortunately, I have supportive family and friends that help without being intrusive and I’m past the age of partying frequently, otherwise it would be much more difficult. If you frequent the junk food with associates and you need help, can you ask them to help you restrict yourself until you’re broken of the habit? I haven’t worked with it, but Noom has good reviews for changing your mental perspective, can you afford that or try it? I know you need a short term fix, for surgery and don’t have more helpful guidance, but remember T1 needs long term perspective and fixes. Go with eggs (fried, scrambled, with a “little” cheese, some ham, some peppers, some no sugar hot sauce or salsa, maybe huevos rancheros with black beans, avocado, just a dab of sour cream (ok, I’ve got to go cook breakfast!) and fish….(no rice with that fish either…instead try brussels sprouts cut in half fried in just a bit of butter face down until brown)… Wish you the best!
Thanks, Tom. Yeah, thank goodness I don’t party anymore, or I’d be even worse off. I have had a particularly bad few months, but things are settling stress wise. Still, yesterday I got an A1C of 9.6, and it’s hard not to feel total and complete shame because I know it’s due to my bad eating habits, “starting tomorrow” and overall mentality towards life and self care of late.
Anyhow, no one is going to do the work for me, so I just gotta put on my big girl pants and try harder! This week is low carb as well as I can do (ie yesterday I was craving junk BAD, but I got a keto crust pizza from blaze pizza, and that went well and kinda hit the spot craving wise). Maybe this week or so of eating keto will help with the intense cravings and then onwards I’ll look at making better choices longer term. It’s just hard because I’ve already tried for years. But, sometimes it’s that last try that sticks?
Cheers
@beans_betes is there a flavor that you abhor? Say vinegar? If so, take your favorite foods pour vinegar on them and eat away. Not so much fun then and you definitely won’t eat as much. Works great to recondition those old junk food habits. I used it for Mac and cheese, donuts and a slew of Southern favorites. Now I see them, want them and instead of slobbering like one of Pavlov’s dogs the thought of that vinegar sort of turns my stomach.
Ha ha! Nice technique! I HATE the taste of watermelon and cucumber. Especially cucumber, I’ll start gagging even if I’ve eaten a carrot next to one that has absorbed its flavour lol
Sounds like a cucumber flavored diet is the way to go then…
@elver Not sure your rec for vinegar would work with me…I LIKE the vinegar taste!
To each their own, but everyone has a flavor profile they abhor.
I think if you try to go low carb, or even 0 carb, abruptly it willl be very hard to be satisfied. I think you need to set a goal of how many carbs a day you want to consume, and then take a couple of weeks to get there gradually. Your food craving may have several components, one of which is with high BS your body/brain is starved for sugar; i.e., you aren’t getting (comparatively) enough glucose into the cells (brain and gut) to signal satiety. Your craving for more carbs, and overeating, demonstrates this. Until you work out your basel it will be harder to work out your meal dosing; your meal dosing in part may be supplementing your basel dose, but because it is a bolus dose you can crash. And, complex carbs are better.
Not being a doctor, I would think you are insulin resistant. You are type 1, but are also type 2 insulin resistant. However, you don’t need to do this alone. You can see your endo and discuss your diet and craving food, and ask about the new drugs for type 2 on the market. Ozempic, for example, regulates satiety and aids in regulating diet and craving. I have no relationship to the pharma company, and only use it as an example.
I would recommend rather than trying shortcuts that are not long-term solutions, start down the road for longer term success.
Also, I recommend taking a course on mindfulness for pain and eating. It can really help.
Take care,
Mike
58 years T!D
I’ve never thought of mindfulness for eating. I’ll try that. I have told my Endo, but he has said he cannot help me with cravings. His request was no matter what I eat, still count and bolus. It doesn’t work like that for me—when I have cravings that are intense I’m literally binging, shoveling food in as fast as I can and food without labels such as restaurant takeout. Anyhow, it’s beyond embarrassing to admit, but yeah. He did tell me about that drug, but said he didn’t recommend it for me. I think it’s because I had a terrible reaction to another type 2 drug (invokanna) and ended up in DKA.
I am going to try really hard to count my carbs and bolus even if it scares me the huge bolus it suggests and also try to eat non processed and real food that I can accurately count. At this point, I’m not going into my surgeries with good #s anyhow, so I’ll forgo the quick fix low/no carb route. Pretty sure I narrowly avoided DKA today, so yeah, it’s not going well for me and I have to do better than this. At my aunt and uncles funeral today my cousin (their daughter) said something that struck me, that it wasn’t his cancer that took him from my aunt (they died very close together), it was his uncontrolled diabetes (he was a type 2) and urged us all to eat healthy, exercise, etc. I am fantastic on the exercise front and a normal weight perhaps even thin (not that I see myself as such, yet another issue), but my relationship with food is destructive and ruining my life. I gotta find a way.