Julie, Julia, and me

I don't particularly have anything new to write about but I just stayed up till 1am watching that movie Julie and Julia, so of course I am feeling a new surge to blog and cook. I however do not share a devout love for Julia Child and this is probably a good thing because I doubt that her recipes are diabetic-friendly. Many delicious culinary delights are not. However my friend Kyle made the pumpkin chili that I posted about earlier so at least this blog has served some practical purpose. By practical purpose I mean a purpose besides giving me a place to vent with the probably delusional belief that other people are interested in my life.

Like Julie and Julia and the moral of the movie I am also trying to sort out my life and figure out what I want to do next considering my quickly approaching graduation date. Trying to understand by body and gain some grasp of control with it is a good place to start. I've read that a reason that some people experience eating disorders is because it feels good to control one's body when the rest of one's life feels uncontrollable. I have never had to experience living with an eating disorder and do not have the delusion that I can understand what that might be like, but I do feel that I understand this idea. I just read a blog post by Catherine Price where she writes about this a bit. She writes that over the holidays it is easy to lose control, but to not feel guilty about the times that we splurge but instead to feel proud about all the little moments when we don't. All those moments take will power and should be recognized. For instance today I ate only 2 cookies. I grand feat when you consider that there are four very large tupper-ware containers full of cookies currently sitting on the kitchen counter.

And speaking of little victories I don't think that I ever wrote about my recent one (it's actually a rather big victory for me). My A1C was recently 7.5! For those of you who don't know what an A1C is and don't have to experience the joy of getting one, an A1C is a test for diabetics that measures how your body has been doing for the past few months. I don't understand what exactly it measures and how it does this but I trust that it does. A non-diabetic's A1C would probably be a 5 I think. A healthy goal for a diabetic is a 6 and a pretty horrendous number is a 9. My last A1C, six months ago was an 8.6. So that should give you an idea of what an improvement a 7.5 is for me. My goal is to get one in the 6s. My next test will be in March and I have decided that if I reach this goal I will have a large celebration. I've been thinking about it and right now I am thinking that it will involve many many many girl friends and perhaps a few select men (nothing personal boys but I do believe that women usually understand accomplishments with bodies and eating more than men do) who will convene at my apartment for delicious food and lots of wine and girly drinks followed by driving (done of course by some DD that will not be me) to the Barbary and dancing our little hearts out. It will be wonderful! I will let you know when my body will be worthy of such a celebration. Well a celebration of a similar sort may have to happen before my next A1C but this would not make the A1C celebration any less significant.

Well it's now 2am and my blogging itch has been satisfied, now it's time to fulfill the sleeping one.

PS: despite how much I would love to look like Amy Adams alas that picture is not me, it's a still from the Julie and Julia movie.

SNOW and COOKIES

It's not even Christmas yet and Philly has already experienced its first snow storm!!! Wonderful news in my opinion, and I spent this first delightful winter wonderland in the most ideal way, baking Christmas cookies with my mom. I came home to good ole' Bucks county (where my parents live) for the weekend before the snow hit. Here my mom and I spent ALL DAY yesterday making cookies and sitting by the fire while they baked, it was truly wonderful, except of course for my body. Christmas cookies and diabetics are never a great combination. I did my best, I pushed my will power to its limits and actually only ate two cookies the whole day (although my arch nemesis is really the dough) but still suffered the consequences. I swear that when I bake my skin actually absorbs the sugar in the air. Before the first sweet sugary bite has even grazed my lips my body is preparing for take-off. My blood sugar has been on a roller coaster ride ever since.

But besides my mom and mine's sugary creations, just being at home is tough on my blood sugars. My parents buy different foods than me and cook things differently than I do. Mainly they actually have a full pantry of food just begging to be eaten and when they cook dinner they actually have more than one course. It seems that one poor eating decision just leads to another.
I don't mean to really complain though. I have a wonderful family to come home to in a warm house with a cozy bed and fireplace waiting for me. I have to let myself enjoy the holiday season for what it is, a season, and not the way that I will eat all year.

a good article

Thinking About Diabetes With Every Bite by Catherine Price

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/23/thinking-about-diabetes-with-every-bite/

Wine and Buddhism

I woke up this morning at 10 am with a blood sugar of 35! Being that low, and especially dropping that low in my sleep scares me. It makes me feel a little lonely and nervous about sleeping alone. For the past 13 years that I've been diabetic I have always woken up when my blood sugar was low or high (knock on wood) but I fear that one day I won't and there won't be anyone around to notice that something is wrong. In the past, sadly the fairly recent past, my body has been so used to my bloodsugars running high, that if my bloodsugar grazed 60 I would wake up feeling miserable, so not waking up till I'm 35 makes me uneasy. This is why I rarely drink very much and don't enjoy weed like every other art school kid seems to, I dont like the feeling of losing control. I think it's a rational and healthy fear for me to have.

But anyway, it wasn't so bad that my bloodsugar was so low this morning because I think that I figured something out. Usually I take my lantus dose at 11pm and I have had trouble with lows then around 6 am. That's where I've found that eating a snack before bed eliminates those lows. Last night I went out and didn't get back and take my lantus until 3am. So then this morning my bloodsugar was low at 10 am which is exactly 7 hours later, the same amount of time my bloodsugar bottoms out when I take the lantus at 11pm. TA DA! So it's a little discovery, but I feel I can rely now on my bloodsugar bottoming out 7 hours after my lantus dose, no matter when I take it. That's a good fact to know about myself.
I didn't have a snack last night before bed because I was all off schedual and my bloodsugar was 200, so I wasn't sure that it was necessary. I read recently, although now I can't rememeber where, that beer and wine will tend to make bloodsugars drop. I dont understand why that is, perhaps it takes more energy to digest the alcohol than the drink gives you. I had two really hearty helpings of wine last night so thats probably another reason why my bloodsugar dropped as low as it did. That's also a good fact to know.

I've had this disease (actually it's a chronic condition, my friend Allison always corrects me when I call it my disease)for 13 years, so since I was 9 years old. I feel like I should have all the answers by now and know all the facts; I feel like taking care of myself should be an old hat. I've had this disease through the awful puberty years, through highschool and the first times that I experimented with drinking. I've had it through prom nights and church retreats, and through my freshmen year of college where I frequently binged on peanutbutter and icecream with my room mate. I even studied abroad in Rome with this disease where for four months I ate nothing but carbs and gelato (oh, man I really miss that food). I even traveled in Tunisia, where the whole trip I had no idea what I was exactly eaten and little less how many carbs were in it. Anyway, my point is that I have lived with diabetes for so long and through so much that I feel like I should know how to do this, but I really don't. Every day my body does something that I'm not expecting; I'm constantly trying to figure it out; everyday, every meal, is a new puzzle. I recently had an appointment with my endocrinologist and I talked with him about this. Our bodies are always changing and moving so I will never be able to find a routine or figure out a formula that will work forever.

On this though, I just finished this book When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron. Pema Chodron is an American Buddhist nun so the book is overall about using Buddhist practices to get you through difficult times. I'm not that interested in studying Buddhism; meditation sounds like torture to me. I really enjoyed this book though because the overarching concept is that pain and challenging times are a part of life and have always been, yet for some reason we act shocked and feel angry or like life is unfair when we experience these times. It's healthier to realize that there is no way to avoid pain and heartbreak in life and to accept that we have very little control over anything. She teaches to realize this and because of this enjoy the very moment you are in. Enjoy the good times more because you know that they won't last forever, and to get through the challenging times also knowing that they won't last, but also realizing that they can teach you something and make you better. She says to remember that a problem won't fully go away until it has taught you its lesson. So in a way I'm very blessed to have Diabetes because it reminds me of this everyday. Everyday my body reminds me that I want so badly to be in control of everything, but look, my very body is a mystery to me. It teaches me to live in the moment and deal with what is happening right now, because lord knows I can't predict what will happen next.

pumpkin chili on a chilly night

This is quite possible my favorite thing to make because it's easy, cheap, and to-die-for-delicious. The recipe goes as follows with a few changes that I made:

3 lbs ground beef (WAY too much meat for me, I used 1 lb ground turkey)
1 medium onion
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 t salt
1 t pepper
2 t pumpkin pie spice
2 cans (10 oz each) condensed tomato soup undiluted
2 cans (16 oz each) chili sauce
1 t sugar
1 t chili powder
(and I like to add a few cans of different beans, this time I used a can of red and a can of white)

In a large soup kettle cook the meat and onion till it's no longer pink. Add remaining ingredients, stir well, bring to a boil then let it simmer for about an hour.
*taken from the Taste of Home Halloween party cookbook :)

I like this chili because it doesn't have too much of a chili powder taste, it's sweeter. Also it makes a LOT but it freezes exceptionally well.


It looks like sludge here but it tastes like heaven

low low low

It's 10:57 and I feel like crap. My blood sugar dropped and is dropping really fast (so forgive me for my typos) but I'm trying to wait it out. I think that one of my problems is that I am too quick to eat and over eat when my blood sugar feels low and that causes a rebound. It's only 62 right now but I'm sweating and shaking a little bit. I really want to gorge myself on the life savers and dried fruit that I have in my bag but 62 isn't a low number, it's actually a healthy number, all you non-diabetics are probably 62 right now and you feel great. I feel like shit though because I am used to running a higher number and because my blood sugar dropped quicky to this.
This is the story of my morning...but I guess that it really starts with last night. I went to the gym last night and even though I ate 15g of carbs worth of lifesaver gummies before working out my blood sugar dropped to 43. That's a very low number for me but I actually didnt feel that bad. My bloodsugar went up rather quickly after I ate something and even though I ate a big dinner it stayed in the lower but healthy numbers all night. I'm in a routine of eating 8 saltine crackers with peanut butter before I go to bed to keep me from dropping low in the morning, but since I was already running a little low I ate 10 saltines instead. When I woke up this morning my bloodsugar was 205, still a good number for me but I usually run low in the mornings so that's higher than usual. I ate a normal breakfast, boiled egg and muffin (I should have skipped the damn muffin probably and had low carb toast instead) but around 10 am my blood sugar spiked quickly to 250. I gave myself 2 units and this is what I think caused the low. In an effort to avoid over eating and another rebound roller coaster I ate a few almonds and a serving of cottage cheese (9 carbs) and here I am in my studio at school, writing on this blog as a way to distract myself and wait it out. I think that its working, I feel much better now that I did when I started this post.
Lets take a look... 69.
I'll take that, feeling better so I'm going to start painting again...

sweet potato vs the regular kind

Tonights fun and oh-so-healthy diabetic dinner: SWEET POTATO FRIES!!!!! MMMMMMMM and a side of campbell's soup (actually either one could be the side, you pick).
Kristen's FANTABULOUS sweet potato fries recipe:
cut a sweet potato into wedges, place on a cookie sheet smeared with olive oil, bake at 450 till crispy and delicious!

one sweet potato: 118 calories, 2g protein, 30 carbs, .4g fat
vs
one regular potato: 220 calories, 4.7 g protein, 51 carbs, .2g fat

The moral of this story folks, sweet potatoes equal twice as nice and half the carbs!!!



*when i typed "sweet potato" into google images this picture came up

adventures in diabetic baking/ I hate Bob Green

I borrowed The Best Life Guide to Managing Diabetes and Pre-Diabetes by the infamous Bob Green (if you are unaware he is infamous because he is Oprah Winfrey's personal trainer). I have been trying to cook like a good little diabetic and this book has quite a few recipes in the back. So far I have tried three of them and I won't be trying any more! I've come to suspect that Bob Green doesn't actually eat, at the very least he doesn't cook. Last night I tried my hand at his Popcorn and Oat Cookies, the recipe goes...
combine 1 cup popped popcorn, 1/4 cup uncooked old fashioned rolled oats, 1.5 t sugar, .5 t baking powder, 2 T olive oil...
SHIT.
Actually, maybe I shouldn't be so hard on poor Bobby Green, as I'm writting this I just realized that I didn't add the additional .5 T soy milk.

okay, well anyway, the recipe continues with mixing those ingridents in the blender till the popcorn and oats break up, then dividing the dough into four cookies on a greased cookie sheet, to be baked at 350 degrees for 8 minutes.
Obviously, it didnt work out for me. It produced a crumbly mess that lacked enough substance to bake into anything. The soy milk was apparently vital.
After my first failed attempt I tried to doctor the recipe myself. I did everything as above except that I used 2T soft butter instead of olive oil, and added an egg to hold everything together. TA DA!!!!!


A cookie that actually resembles a cookie! They weren't really worth the effort though. So far I have found through my adventures in diabetic baked goods that while sugar free treats are usually not revolting they don't quinch a sweet tooth. Better to actually eat a real cookie every once in a while and get it out of your system. Or better yet, eat a helping of the darkest dark chocolate you can get your hands on.

The baking adventure does not end there though...
My baking itch still itching, and my sugary carb craving unquenched I baked again tonight! This time a box of Krusteaz Fat Free Wild Blueberry Supreme Baking Mix.

One regular size muffin contains 130 calories, 0g fat, 31 carbs, and 15g of sugar. All things considered I could have done far worse, right?

The Beginning!

I have had type 1 Diabetes for 13 years but have been really struggling with it for the past four or five, those being my college years. I'm making this blog because, to be honest, it can be a bit lonely to be diabetic. The only diabetics that I know are parents of my friends, and while their advice can be incredibly helpful at times it would be nice to commiserate with someone my age and who shares my lifestyle. I'm trying to let this wonderful world of the internet help me in this area. I'm realizing that there are a lot of diabetic blogs out there but I have yet to find one that discusses the topics that I want to talk about. Some of those would be:

- wtf can I eat on a college campus that won't send me into diabetic shock
- what to cook that's healthy, cheap, and requires very little culinary skills
- how much it sucks to be diabetic and have a f-ing period!
- how much it sucks to be diabetic and have a f-ing period and be tempted by a crepe truck on the way to class
- what to do when my blood sugar crashes in the middle of a final exam
- how to handle a breakup without gorging myself on ice cream
- when to tell a cute boy that I'm diabetic (I usually go for the first date, why beat around the bush?)
- how to have sex without pulling out the sensor for my Medtronic Guardian blood sugar monitor
- how demeaning it sounds that someone actually named a diabetic device "The Guardian"
- how to feel sexy when I have a million little baby bruises from my injections decorating my belly
- how to bolster that will-power when I'm drunk, it's 3am, my blood sugar is already 300, but I REALLY want a cheese steak

and most importantly: how to smile and be patient and kind with people when I feel like shit and there's no one who really understands

So we'll see where this blog goes, maybe it will help others or maybe it will just help me, either way seems worth it. I'll start with a helpful link that I found today, its "100 or so beers and their alcohol and carb content"

http://www.battlediabetes.com/beer-and-diabetes/