Step 4 in the great banana split experiment: we prepared caramel fudge
Unfortunately, we don’t have unsweetened evaporated milk at hand. So, instead, we are using 3 ounces of fat-free half-and-half (again, the only thing we have) with 4 ounces of Walden sugar-free caramel syrup:
This Walden caramel syrup is really flavorful and my son loves it! Here is the caramel fudge:
Step 5 of the great banana split challenge: dosing.
Now that we have all the ingredients, we are ready to dose:
1 medium banana: 27 carbs
60 grams of Ben & Jerry’s NY Superfudge Chunk: 16 carbs
60 grams of Haagen Dazs Vanilla Beans: 14 carbs
60 grams of Haagen Dazs Strawberry: 13 carbs
strawberry fudge: 5 carbs
hot fudge: 11 carbs
caramel fudge: 3 carbs
Cool Whip whipped topping: 2 carbs
Nuts topping: 3 carbs
2 strawberries: 1 carb
Total: 95 carbs
The way we are dosing this experiment: we pre-bolus a normal dose, and wait until my son has fully turned the corner, and is around 90-95 in range going down fast. The clock is now running!
I useds a superbolus this morning for a glass of liqueur and a cookie and it worked splendidly.
I am wondering if the prebolus will be enough for the banana split. I think the fat will slow things down enough, but if not on round 2 (if/when you have a pump) a superbolus may be something to try.
It is pretty huge! It represents about 700 calories, but “only” 95 carbs, so an interesting challenge, with a lot of fat in the ice cream. Also, we got the best ice-cream we could find, no low-carb substitute there
We rode the low as long as we dared, actually, before eating. So we’ll see how it shapes up.
I think you are right. Round 2 may need the superbolus in place, along with slower eating of the banana split – it seems to have been gone in a New York minute!
In terms of taste: the hot fudge and the strawberry fudge were awesome in situ! The caramel fudge, while nicely syrupy, carried a little aftertaste of bitterness, so we may need to revisit it.
Round 1 is not giving us a good BG curve so far: he has been going up steadily since he ate, now past 170 So it appears that despite a really early pre-bolus that he rode into a mild low before eating, this banana split requires more insulin than regular dosing.
As @Pianoplayer7008 indicated, I’ve also read that bananas wreak havoc on diabetics?? Not sure where I read that from, but it may be worth researching.
I had swim practice 12-1pm. Drove thru Wendy’s on the way home. 10oz chocolate frosty (+ a chicken caesar salad). I should have waited for the 4.5u humalog to kick in before I ate it, but swim practice makes me feel like I’m starving. I ignored the low after since i still felt like it was digesting…
@CarolynA, welcome to the forum and WHAT A KILLER CURVE! As @docslotnick says, never waste a good low
I see you are a runner and a swimmer, that’s great: we have many runners and swimmers here! You have an amazing A1c! My son (he is only 12) is a swimmer, and has aggressive A1c goals too!
I think it is a bit safer to do it in two phases: A pre-bolus, and then another bolus right when you start.
As an example, if you need a total of 10 units, doing it all up front and waiting for the low might work, but you wouldn’t really enjoy the milkshake because you wouldn’t be “aware”.
But if you did it 5 units upfront, and then another 5 when you started eating, that makes the low less severe.
Make a note of what it takes to bring him back down from that 170 spike. That amount, plus your pre-bolus amount, is what you bring to the next gunfight.
Then it’s just a matter of figuring out how to split it up before and during.
EDIT:
As you already know, the total amount for recovering from a high would be more than what is needed to prevent that high, so you would actually use less total. You already know that, but I wanted to put that here for anyone reading.
Well, this was an ugly curve: it went over two hundred and has been hovering there for a couple of hours despite multiple injections. This makes me wonder if a hormone spike came in as he was recovering from his meal: glucose spikes typically respond very well to insulin, but hormone spikes don’t.
So I am not sure if this curve will be relevant to the analysis of the banana split We may have to duplicate round 1 with round 2 (next week!) and see if we get the same results. Either way, it was really delicious
@Michel There’s a possibility that he reached his carb threshold, and was in the territory where his C/I is just not linear.
I noted this in myself when I cut my daily carbs down by about 40%, and stopped eating 60-80 carbs at one sitting.
You remember how astonished you were that I had been taking north of 100 bolus units/day? Cutting carbs by 40% has reduced that to an average of less than 30 bolus units/day. And I’ve also decreased basal by almost half.
I did consider that as another possibility. I am not sure which it is. Another possibility is that these ice creams systematically understate carbs in their nutrition info.
Dropping your basal by half is truly extraordinary!
Over-carbifying was in big part a result of taking too much basal insulin, so much so that I had to titrate it way down to a reasonable level. Just shows how out of whack I let it get.
So it appears that despite a really early pre-bolus that he rode into a mild low before eating, this banana split requires more insulin than regular dosing.
We may have to duplicate round 1 with round 2 (next week!) and see if we get the same results. Either way, it was really delicious 