It’s good to hear this. And I think it’s wonderful you not only fight, but teach Liam to fight as well.
I know I keep saying this, but it’s because it is true… that I’m listening and evaluating and just taking things in. I admire what you are about, just as I admire the attitude of the group in general, but when it comes to food choices, I’m pretty rigid. I know what I should eat. I know what I shouldn’t. I don’t mean that in a positive way, but in a… rigid way. And as long as I continue thinking in that way, and I think @Katers87 mentioned something along these lines, I continue to maintain a strained relationship with food.
This is a tough area for me. And, in the end, it’s going to be the one that gets me. Too much depends on these choices, and in knowing that, they can be difficult to navigate. I think I need to think… try to process things. And then if I can just stay away long enough to say this, I’ll be back.
For what it’s worth, there are plenty of us whose improved/tighter diabetes control has come only with restricting carbs. So while being able to eat whatever works for some, and while I try to not restrict myself from any treats I badly want, for day to day, it makes no sense whatsoever for me to eat things like cereal. I know there others on here are who do the same too, like @Jen. I also think it’s easier to handle high carb when your diabetes and general health are stable day to day—if you’ve got things like menstrual cycle variability and chronic inflammation from other health problems that mean you do not have a reliable insulin:carb ratio to use, high carb means you’re going to end up making bigger mistakes. So there may be significant individual differences to consider in terms of why eating large servings of cereal is workable thing for some and not others.
I also don’t think eating low-carbs is a sign of somehow not being as “unlimited” as eating whatever carbs one wants. It’s not just a matter of “it’s easier” (because it’s not actually easier, you’re just putting effort into different things), it’s a matter of using trial and error over many years to figure out what works best for each individual. For me, I tried high-carb for many, many years before I switched over to a low-carb way of eating; and even now, I periodically try going back to a high-carb to see how I like it and ensure that I’m on the right path. I think that process in and of itself, of trial and error and determining what methods truly lead to the best level of control, the best qualtiy of life, the lowest risk of severe highs and lows, and the least intrustion of diabetes into one’s everyday life is in and of itself important. Isn’t that what being unlimited is all about? I eat low-carb not because I have to (I’m not going to die if I go and eat an entire box of cereal), but because I choose to. It’s empowerment, not limitation—at least in my mind.
Also when I go to Paris next week, am walking constantly and driving myself low, and am surrounded by so many delicious carbs, I’m definitely going to be doing the high carb thing temporarily because screw it, it’s worth it (omg the pastry!), and I don’t mind the possible caloric gain from feeding my lows for week. That’s not a sustainable everyday approach for me for everyday life for a lot of reasons, but I think part of being Unlimited would be deciding what strategies work best for you in what modes of life (including factoring in things like how much tight control vs other things matter to you in a given moment) and flexibly employing them.
As someone who doesn’t have diabetes myself, I can only imagine what the daily struggles look like when you’re doing it by yourself. So, as much as I stand by what I said and what I believe…I will support Liam in whatever path he chooses when he’s old enough to choose for himself, and he’s doing the work himself. If he wants to restrict his carbs and that makes sense to him, then I plan to be fully supportive to him as I am to everyone here who chooses this lifestyle for themselves. Unlimited is what you envision it being and as you’ve said, the choices you’ve made have empowered you and I think that’s great.
I just want Liam to feel unlimited and if that’s high carb, low carb or somewhere in between…as long as his perspective is that he’s unlimited and he’s living a healthy lifestyle, then I’m A-OK with whatever he chooses for himself!
Yeah, I don’t think unlimited means needing to eat cereal or not eating it or anything having to do with carbs necessarily. To me it simply means fully pursuing what you are passionate about without letting the disease get in the way.
You are so right. I don’t always eat a big pastrami and corned beef sandwich, or just decide to eat a gooey pastry. But there are times that, that is exactly what I want to do. That to me is being unlimited, not being a pig who just eats everything in sight all the time.
The rest of the time I vary between 70g and 100g carbs per day. Those days are certainly much easier to deal with than high carb days. But the high carb days once in a while are doable.
There are so many really, really awesome points of view on this thread. I’m so glad I joined FUD. You guys are making a tremendous impact on my self-care. Quantifiable.
Sometimes when I make a dish – usually but not always a dessert – and the sky-high BG afterwards doesn’t bear any relation to my carb count, I’ll keep adjusting the carb count upwards for a couple of nights, but if I’m still getting crazy numbers, I’ll maybe decide not to eat any more of it. It’s just not worth being high all night for more than one night. If I liked the dish, I’ll certainly try again another time. I don’t think I’d ever say, “I’m not eating that EVER AGAIN IN MY LIFE.”
@Nickyghaleb, I totally, totally relate to your questions and your experience. So, so much.
For me, Unlimited means:
My children grow up watching their mom take good care of herself, and they do not witness any “scary” events.
That my diabetes self-care doesn’t occupy my time so much that I miss the little moments with my kids.
B/c of #2, I myself do a cost-benefit analysis for my food choices at this stage of life. I try to keep all decisions within a “one juice box” margin of error. I’m the solo parent so much of the time, that it’s just not worth my time to experiment with eating certain foods right now. That doesn’t mean I’ll never do it, but it’s not my priority right now. (Pizza and queso will always be experiment-worthy. Always).
Not being afraid. I want to get to the point that fear occupies less space in my decision-making. And in the last few months on FUD and intensive self-care-trial-and-error, I’m getting there.
As to your other questions about if we all have the same disease…I’ve wondered that myself. I’ve always been the best controlled diabetic I knew…until FUD. Some of the Dexcom graphs are equal parts intimidating and motivating for me. That’s where I go internal and focus on running my own race. I absolutely have to not eat one bite of certain foods b/c I have no self-control. If I wasn’t a T1D, I’d be making a living as a competitive eater. I. Can. Pack. It. All. Away. I don’t see self-restraint in certain areas as counter to being unlimited. I see it as what works for me. I would never tell other people to do that to themselves or to their kid. But I know that is the best boundary for me in some areas.
You raise so many good questions. Hopefully we’ll both get back in the wagon together. But you run…and I won’t do that. I admire runners but holy heck, no way. If there is a zombie apocalypse, just make sure you’re with me. All you have to do is run faster than me and that’s not a high bar to achieve.
I mean, I think almost all diabetics rule out some things as in no way worth the bother, such as sugary drinks if not being used to treat a low—to be fair, I and others seem more willing to bend this for some alcoholic drinks, but I know almost no diabetics who would consider trying to bolus for a regular soda or juice as a normal component of their diet, because that’s just super hard to do correctly and not generally worth the trouble for most. It’s also why I don’t find most sugary candy worth the effort (both a lot of effort and I’m not that into it) but definitely will make it work for chocolate (both a little easier to manage and way more appealing to me).
Re: meals, pad thai and similar dishes is one thing I just can’t make work in a way that makes it worth it, even though I like it. I can do ok with other thai dishes I like as much if not more though, and I’ll happily steal a couple of bites someone else’s noodles, which I can manage.
But this isn’t only relevant to diabetics. As far as sugary drink are concerned, juice boxes, sodas, etc, no one in my house, diabetic or not drink this stuff except maybe once every six months or longer. Not because of a disease, just because we know they aren’t healthy.
So not drinking these things as a diabetic I look at more as being a lifestyle and health choice over not partaking because of diabetes… If that makes sense?
So yes, there are certain foods and drinks we very rarely indulge in… But it has nothing to do with diabetes and everything to do with just making smart and healthy decisions as much as we can.
Until you stated it so clearly, I never truly grasped that some people feel actual fear because of diabetes. The only emotion I get from an unfolding low is an “Oh bother. Better bite some more of those glucose before things get out of hand.” Now I’m feeling quite privileged, and undeservedly so.
The topic may be worthy of its own thread, where those who have experienced it can share the nature of the fear, what triggers the fear, how they cope when it happens, and ways they have solved it so that the fear doesn’t occur.
I agree that this definitely could warrant its own thread.
I didn’t used to. I was SO aggressive with MDI when I started. I was afraid of HIGHS and DAMAGE so I was super aggressive and had great A1C’s. My endo always shook his head at me, but I carried on.
Then it changed. I’ve never seized. I’ve never lost consciousness. But it changed. At the tail end of MDI, nothing worked. My body did crazy things. My husband would have to come get me from work because of unbreakable highs.
It’s getting better. But when I was in the thick of “nothing is working as advertised”, which has happened a few times for sustained periods of time, EVERY bump in the road is terrifying. You don’t know if the downward trend will stop. You don’t know if the upward trend will stop. You don’t know what to do. You feel trapped.
Dale Earnhardt, Jr was asked in an interview one time about a super fast rookie on the Nascar circuit. Dale responded, “Wait til he crashes. Everyone’s fast until they crash.” I think that describes my most recent phase of fear.
The other HUGE problem for me is hormone variation due to being a woman. This is not represented nearly well enough in the diabetes medical literature. If you take a mistake on a low hormone day and repeat it on a high hormone day…you end up with a much bigger problem. The sort of problem where my neighbor has to come over and watch me and my kids as I train her on Glucagon real quick as I slam my fourth juice box that just barely got it to stop dropping. There wasn’t even a rebound high that day. Gender differences in this disease matter. A lot. I’m convinced of it.
That may be true for you/your family, but I think broadly, there are many people who do it because of the diabetes. Also probably an occasional glass of juice is fine for a non-diabetic (I know if I weren’t, I wouldn’t regularly drink it, but if I were somewhere with fresh-squeezed/pressed stuff, I’d probably have some), but still may not end up feeling worth it for most diabetics. Same even with sodas—I’m not tempted by mass market stuff, but there are craft sodas and sweet drinks and things that are incredible, and I’d probably occasionally partake if not for my diabetes, which keeps the cost:benefit in the not worth it range.
Yeah, it’s a truism that every diabetic is different. We definitely give Liam freshly squeezed OJ…it’s too healthy NOT TOO give to him…the health benefits of it outweigh the struggles we may have to deal with in him in figuring out how to dose correctly.
Could you look up the health benefits of mozzarella sticks, too? I’m eating those every night in an attempt to gain five more pounds. No one can make me not eat them. Just saying.
