Did the light meals and frequent snacks and then had a nice dinner, and I have to tell you, I feel the best I have in a long time. Definitely completely restructuring my diet.
Tonight we had the cod filets in a red pepper puree, and they were delicious. Shawn really liked the quinoa salad I made the other night, so I made that again, and then we had steamed cauliflower with some cheddar cheese. Dessert was another one of those Edy’s pineapple fruit bars, which I really like. he spent a lot of time at Schofield and loves pineapple, and it seems to not fuck with him at all sugar wise, so we are doing a lot of pineapple. Plus, I throw the remains of the pineapple (except the stalk) when I cut it out to the starving deer, so nothing goes to waste.
Had some weird fluctuations with his sugar. Did a random and it was 130, then before dinner a couple hours later, having had only a handful of peanuts and the like, it was 158. After dinner, the 1 hour was 151 and the 2 hour was 136, all of which is light years better than when he got here, but still too high. Again, we both think it is about the trend right now and establishing a baseline, or as we have been joking, zeroing the M-16.
Regardless, I feel better, so I am going to keep eating this way from now on. And the knee is almost back to 80% or so, so I can start exercising again.
SuperHrefna
I’m so glad. I really need to get my diet back under control. I did really well with it the year before last and lost fifty pounds, then last year I put it all back on again. Sigh.
rikyrah
The diabetic diet reports are good. Thanks.
Mama had diabetes so dealing with the diet was quite a battle.
Culture of Truth
uh oh
ACT
Easy, it takes time. Y’all have only been at this for one week.
trollhattan
@Culture of Truth:
Hopefully, starting with teebee remote curls.
pseudonymous in nc
Weird shit is the rule, not the exception. Bodies aren’t machines. You could eat the exact same diet two days in a row, have the same basic routine, and if you can’t find your car keys one day and stress out for 15 minutes until you find them, it’ll skew the BG readings.
It’s definitely worth doing some kind of logging whether via the meter or a website or an app or just writing stuff down, because that’s a way to see longer-term trends. But the early stages are going to be about getting a rough sense of what’s going on, but also not getting too hung up on the weird anomalies. Because there are numbers, it feels like a contest where you’re being judged with success or failure, but you have to get past that in order to live your life.
Stacy
Also remember that the home meters have a wide margin of error. It’s possible that those last two readings weren’t actually different.
Villago Delenda Est
The blood sugar level fluctuating like that is not so unusual, especially over short periods of time. What you should concentrate on is the overall trend, and the meter should be able to give you averages over different time periods.
One thing Shawn needs to look out for is his blood sugar getting too low, say below 70 or so. This is definitely not good at all, and he should have something handy to compensate for it. Fruit juices work well for this, or smarties candies. If he starts sweating, feeling dizzy, with a queasy stomach, that’s a sign his blood sugar is too low. I’ve had this happen to me, did an immediate check, and found my sugar in upper mid double digits. Not good.
Ideally, you should be in the 100-110 range, but it will spike and dip over the course of the day as you eat anything and any medications kick in.
GRANDPA john
@Villago Delenda Est: even though I rarely get low andneed them,I keep vials of sugar pills around including in my vehicles. Any time I am traveling I have them with me.
LT
This has all got to be very weird for Shawn.
Shawn. LT here. How’s it going? I play guitar. I think bass players are more important than watercolor artists. There – I said it. How are your bowel movements, by the way? Okay, talk to you later.
GRANDPA john
John, what Villago said :Individual readings will vary, its the long term ave that is important. Most meters will give you a 14 or 28 day ave. Your diabetic support team usually has soft ware for downloading readings some meter companies will even provide software so you can download to your computer and keep your own readings
Villago Delenda Est
@LT:
LT has a pretty specific connotation for current and ex Army guys, and we’re not talking Lawrence Taylor.
I was the LT once, some lieutenants didn’t like it, but I wasn’t offended by it…my soldiers (especially when I was a platoon leader) used it with both respect and affection.
LT
@Villago Delenda Est: Oh – not intended. They are my inverted initials, initials of my rockstar name.
Shawn – I am not an Lt. – I’m LT. Okay.
Cassidy
@Villago Delenda Est: Anyone ever teach you the hand signal for LT?
Good exercise site if anyone is interested.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est:
Depends if the troops put “fucking” in front of it or not.
ulee
Just give in. Be a drunk and exercise by stumbling around. Big life changes never work.
Omnes Omnibus
@ulee: Come on. You made changes, right? I remember some posts from a while ago – if Cole is working on some shit, let him. Jesus fucking Christ.
ulee
@Omnes Omnibus: You’re right. I’m just naturally nihilistic.
Aaron
Sugar on your testing finger can spike the results. I had gotten watermelon juice on my finger, and tested high. I washed my hand and retested, and it was back to normal.
Omnes Omnibus
@ulee: I am not. I am one of natures optimists. Cynicism bugs me, cheap or otherwise. I’ve seen a lot of it today. Both regarding the UAW vote and the Dunn trial. If people become cynical and just say, “well, what did you expect?” nothing good will ever happen. I expect better and I am will to do something, how ever small, about it. God damn it.
ulee
Omnes. I agree. I’m not really a negative person, Between the losses and the shaking that makes it difficut to do my job, I am happy, I wish I could stop shaking. Good Luck to John with his diet.
sacrablue
Shawn is very new at this. The metformin hasn’t fully kicked in. His numbers will drop substantially when it does. I found that it was very helpful to get a food scale and to diary everything. Portion control is really important to keep the carbs in check.
Cheryl from Maryland
RE: desert —
Per Wayne’s Doctor, we looked at the South Beach Diet Cookbook. As with most of these books, some good, some bad, theory is everything. But it had a good desert — Ricotta Cremes.
1/2 cup part-skim Ricotta Cheese, 1 package sugar substitute, 1/4 tsp vanilla extract. For chocolate, mix with 1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder, add 5 mini chocolate chips on top. For Lime, and 1/2 tsp lime juice, mix together, tops with 1 tsp silvered almonds. For lemon, add 1/4 tsp lemon juice, mix together, top with 1 tsp pine nuts. For Almond, replace the vanilla extract with almond extract, top with 1 tsp silvered almonds.
Also, chocolate squares 70% or over cacao. The higher the percentage, the less you can eat. As in, one square at 90% fills you up. However, chocolate can’t be a regular treat.
GRANDPA john
@sacrablue:
3 main rules
1, learn to count carbs
2. small portions
3. Exercise
Counting carbs is especially import for those like me who are using an insulin pump