Tag Archives: diabetes

So, three days in

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I’ve had breakfast at home before setting off for work 3 days in a row now. No bacon cobs at work, so far so good. Tuesday morning I actually forgot and only remembered as we were about to leave the house but I managed to resist and scarf some toast before rushing out, instead of just going for the easy option. This morning I had scrambled egg and toast (Burgen low GI bread). Made Chilli con Carne on Monday night (all pointed up so Grete knew how many points she was having) and had the remains of that for lunch at work on Tuesday, and had sandwiches today (Burgen bread again), so hopefully that’s all better for me than the shop bought sandwhiches at work (blood sugar and fat-wise).

And yeh, I am dieting after a few weeks of indulgence. There’s a difference between knowing you should lose weight and feeling like you’re prepared to put the effort in to lose some weight. I’ve got a goal in my head but I’m not telling you what it is.

I’m also doing this because it helps Grete, and she deserves all the help she can get because she’s been trying so hard for two or three years. So if me watching my food helps her then it’s all good. It means I’ll have to be cooking more often in the evening but hopefully my reduced EQ / MMORPG playing time will give me more energy / time to cook.

The hardest thing for me is that a reasonable amount of what is considered low GI food is sometimes low GI because of the higher than average fat content (fat slows down carb absorption). So balancing low GI and low fat leads to boring food if you’re not careful. The chilli worked out pretty well, used the lowest GI rice I could find and added some corn chips (which are low GI because of the fat) and plenty of protein in the chilli itself helps as well.

So there, yeh, I am ‘on a diet’, but since I’ve been ‘on a diet’ since I was diagnosed as being type 2 diabetic, I guess it’s no change, the only thing that’s changed is I’m trying to reduce portion sizes and eat even less processed food to reduce my calorie intake as well as control my blood sugar.

Two balls in the air now, we’ll see how my juggling can cope.

Blood sugar woe

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It’s been a few days of random blood sugar. Very low a few days ago, high ever since. Not sure if I’ve got some kind of bug which is affecting my sugar, or if my diet has worsened, or if the few pounds I put on in Brighton has tipped me over the equilibrium I’d developed.

Frustrating and worrying whatever it is. I’ll have to try harder.

When I wasn’t sick

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I was going to start this post with the phrase ‘when I was young I never got ill’, but then I remembered that this wasn’t true. When I was young I used to get heat-rashes which were never really well explained, but if I experienced serious changes of temperature I would get a very itchy rash on my wrists and arms which lasted only about 20-30 minutes. Sometimes it would reach my shoulders and neck. I took antihistamines while I was younger, and continued buying my own and taking them while I was at university, and then eventually I just got bored and stopped buying them, and found the issue had gone away. I also had a reaction to the test at school for the tuberculosis antibodies, although I’d never had an infection personally, I did have to take tablets every day for a year to make sure (and I never had to have the BCG). I actually have a scar from the ‘flower prick’ test they used, I have 6 holes in my arm which have slowly migrated away from my wrist towards my elbow. Oh, and I broke my arm as well. Other than that though, I wasn’t at the doctors all the time, as far as I remember.

So anyway, then I went to university and I didn’t register with a GP, spent four years at University without going to the doctors, and then I moved around a bit, for a few years and never registered anywhere either. So that would make no GP visits from around 1987 to 1998. In ’98 I had Bell’s Palsy, and had no choice but to finally sign up with the GP. Then there was another long gap until I was diagnosed with diabetes, and since then it feels like I’ve been in every other week.

So I was going to write this great blog post about how I wasn’t really sick until I found out I had diabetes and since then I’ve been to the docs’ all the time, and how interesting that was and maybe it was because when you’re 20 you’re invulnerable and you just ignore being ill. But as I wrote, I realised that it was only actually 10 years where I never used the services of a doctor and the whole blog post idea came crashing down around me.

Still, I guess when I was in my 20’s I really did just ignore not being well, or maybe I was never not well and hence there was nothing to ignore.

And this all started because I was back in the doctor’s surgery today for a couple of things that have been bugging me for a few weeks. I moved our 27inch CRT TV around a couple of times, and I’ve had abdominal pains since then and discomfort, GP suggests it’s pulled muscles, and I have a cream for my foot.

A cream which I have to keep in the fridge! I’ve never had medicine that I have to keep in the fridge before. Because I knew I was going to the docs today I put my regular prescription in, and then the GP prescribed the cream (and some antihistamines, which is what prompted me to write this), so I got carrier bag of medical supplies from the pharmacy. I feel all grown up and adult now that a trip to the pharmacy results in an huge bundle of drugs.

I guess I should be happy that we have a free health service and that diabetes means I’m exempt from prescription fees.

Food

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Food is a topic very close to my hear. In fact, it’s a topic that’s probably congealing around my heart and arteries right now. There’s a saying, which may be a quote but a 2 second search didn’t turn anything up that some people eat to live while others live to eat. I don’t think this is necessarily isolated to food, some people go jogging to live while other people live to go running, and you can probably say the same for a lot of things, including working for a living.

The difference is that due to the health risks associated with eating some things or particular quantities of food, there is a stigma attached, or there appears to be a stigma attached to eating food for pleasure. So much so in fact that no one turns a head when it’s described as a guilty pleasure.

Obviously, I’m invested in food, so this is a partisan post, I can’t really be entirely objective about it. But I was thinking about the stigma of enjoying food for the sake of it, and whether we impose that guilt upon ourselves or not. I tried to abstract it out.

If you liked building ships with matchsticks, and found that an hour or two a day really calmed you down from work, made you feel happy and comfortable, and basically soothed you emotionally, no one would really bat an eyelid. Maybe if you made a lot of matchstick ships people might think you were a little lonely or something. But what if you spent two hours a day doing it, and it eventually caused Carpal tunnel or RSI? Your GP might suggest you cut back a little, that so much matchstick handling was causing you some damage that in later life would lead to serious issues. How would you feel?

And then I realised that sounded a lot like self-pity and unhelpful. So I thought about it some more and I think the issue is greed. It’s seen as greedy to want to eat food just for the sake of enjoying the food itself. Maybe it is, greedy in the same way as owning another car if you collect cars but can’t drive them all at the same time might be greedy. Or greedy like buying more music than you could ever sensibly listen to, because you’re a collector or enthusiast.

But that turned out to be pretty weak as well when I looked at harder.

  • Greed: Excessive desire for more than one needs or deserves

That kinda covers it, hard to really avoid that. So it’s not greedy to want to eat fantastic pleasurable food while you’re also hungry, but it is greedy to want to eat more than just mere hunger requires. The problem I guess, is that it is possible to want to eat pleasurable food while you’re hungry or without major impact but it’s still seen as greedy or a guilty pleasure.

Blurgh, I waffled and lost my train of thought and I give up. Maybe I’m just bitter about being diabetic, and how it’s affected my ability to just eat what I like, and that of course leads to the realisation that it’s probably because I ate what I liked that I became diabetic. Maybe. Or maybe it’s a combination of genetic makeup and diet, some people with my diet probably don’t become diabetic, which is doubly frustrating. It’s a lottery, the results of eating for pleasure are a lottery, while everyone who does it is viewed as greedy. Maybe thats it.

Who knows. I don’t that’s for sure, and this pointless post proves it.

Full of Fruit

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Because I know you’re all desperate to know how the fruit was: It was excellent. Still pretty crisp, except for the kiwi fruit which is actually much nicer when it’s soft anyway. None of it was mushy, and none of it had ‘turned’, so that’s pretty good news I guess if I ever feel like putting in the effort to make my own again. Should last three or four days in the fridge.

I’ll see if I manage to keep making it (my expectations are pretty low, so if I was you, I would assume not).

Fruitful

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So, Grete remembered to get the last pot of fruit out of the fridge this morning as I dragged my half-asleep ass out of the house, good job ‘cos I’d completely forgotten again! It’s lasted quite well, still looks pretty fresh. Popped it into a fridge at work, and I’m sure you’re all dying to know how it turns out, so I’ll be sure to let you know later …

Fruitless

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I hate change, I am, without the smallest shadow of any doubt, a creature of habit. I can do the same thing, at the same time, all the time, without ever getting bored of it. I don’t mind change, as long as I’m aware it’s coming and have a chance to prepare, but unplanned change makes me annoyed. I can cope, I do cope, I’m actually really good at coping with it and dealing with it, but it doesn’t mean I like it.

I’ve gotten into a habit at lunch time, when I’m in the office, which helps with the diabetes and balanced diet, and that’s having a pot of fruit from the shop at work. Melon, pineapple, kiwi fruit and mango. Been eating it now for a couple of years, every day. They changed the packaging a while back, but the content stayed the same. It’s one of my five a day, it’s good for my blood sugar and it’s 0 fat.

And now, they don’t sell it. They’ve changed to a mix of melon, kiwi fruit, blueberries and pomegranate seeds. It’s disgusting. The juice that collects is rancid, the pomegranate seeds are terrible, the blueberries tasteless, and the kiwi fruit is squished and mangled.

I miss my mango dammit.

So today I’ve got a packet of crisps instead, how is that helping exactly!

Now I need to work on a strategy to get back to some fruit I enjoy.

Whoops

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Got a take-out curry last night (we have a friend visiting, so it’s an excuse for take-away), and only ate half. No worries I thought, I’ll whack the other half in the fridge for lunch, so I did. And today I had it for lunch, around 12:30.

Around 3pm I noticed I was shaking quite a bit, it comes on slowly so you don’t always notice it. And so, 2.5 hours after eating a tub of rice and curry, I checked my blood and found it at 3.9ish. Whoops.

No wonder I was shaking.