Find what works and find a way to stick with it

Jen
Sun, 24 Sep 2017 12:08:58 +0000
Type 1 & LADA

I think one of the most important things to learn about diabetes is how individual it is. Just because something works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for the next person. No book or blog post can tell you how to manage your diabetes. The only thing that will tell you how to manage your diabetes is lots of experimentation.

Over the past two weeks my activity level has increased a lot because I’m walking around all day every day. Easily getting about 15,000 steps each day just as part of my work. This weekend I’m also going to throw in swimming a couple of times a week, which will increase my activity level even more.

Since I’m in a new environment with a new routine and little free time, I fell off the low-carb diet I’ve been using to manage my diabetes. I know there are lots of people who manage diabetes well on a high-carb diet, so I thought maybe it would work for me.

My basal insulin decreased a lot and my carb and correction ratios increased. Despite carefully calculating all the carbs I was eating, and not eating that high carb (meals were usually around 30-40 grams of carbs), and even with using Fiasp and pre-bolusing and having a pump and CGM at my disposal, and despite the increased activity level and halving meal boluses at times to account for upcoming activity, it wasn’t working for me. I’d spike high after every meal and crash low while trying to work—and because I had insulin on board, those lows were much harder to bring up than lows on a low-carb diet.

I finally got sick of ping-ponging from 2 to 14 mmol/L every day. Yesterday I went grocery shopping and bypassed the bread and fruit in favour of low-carb foods. I don’t have my full kitchen or baking facilities that I’d usually have at home, but I’ll make due. One day of eating low-carb and I’m back to spending the past 24 hours between 4.5 and 7.5 mmol/L.

Such a relief!

It’s so important to experiment and find out what works for you, not what works for other people. And once you’ve found what works, find a way to stick with it.

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