Ok, I'm, hitting a mental roadblock in this running thing.
I'm on strike (literally) at work at the moment, so that threw my pace off a bit. I normally run home from work. So now I'm running to my strike.
And there is a killer, killer hill that I need to get over to get there. Yesterday the outline said, "Run 40 minutes, walk 1 minute, run 20 minutes." Yeah, right. The outline didn't see that hill!
I almost made it up without walking. I tried to be tough. But when your running speed slows to below walking speed...well, it's a little discouraging.
I figure that this hill is mine to conquer. Once I'm back to work (soon, please!), I will make this my weekend run. If I can get up this danged hill, a marathon should be a piece of cake. Right?
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Friday, July 13, 2007
Just a few of my Diabetes Rules!
When I was thinking about my last post, I decided to make a note of some of my personal “diabetes rules.” I stopped when I got to the end of my piece of paper. It got too overwhelming!
Whatever happened to that “eat well, take your insulin, and exercise” myth about diabetes management?
Everyone’s body is so very different. These are my rules for my body, gleaned over two years of diabetes. They include:
Exercise:
If I exercise right before a meal, I set my basal (background) insulin to 25%
If I exercise for up to 3 hours after a meal, I need to eat to bring my blood sugar up to AT LEAST 9, then monitor several times during exercise to make sure I don’t go low.
If I plan to exercise right after a meal, I give myself 2/3 of the insulin for the meal (less if it will be strenuous exercise), and give myself 50% up front and 50% over the next hour.
Meals:
For breakfast, I take my insulin all at once. I can eat eggs, Red River cereal, steel cut oats or buckwheat, tofu, or yogurt and fruit. That’s all. Anything else makes my blood sugar NASTY.
At lunch, my body is a bit slower to digest the food. I take 50% of my insulin up front, and 50% over the next two hours.
For dinner, I take 50% of my insulin up front, and 50% over the next three hours.
If I want to eat fatty foods, I take less up front and more over time.
I eat low-glycemic foods that reduce the “spike” in my blood sugar. If I eat high glycemic foods like corn or potatoes or melons, I take more insulin up front.
Treats:
Because treats aren't really meals, but treats are good for my mental health.
I can eat dark chocolate, the occasional cheesecake, and Breyers light ice cream. Any other sweet treats need to be eaten right before a walk so that I can bring my blood sugar down right away. Cake and cookies and other baked goods like muffins are OUT.
Sleeping:
2 hours after dinner, my blood sugar should be around 7. If it is not 7, I correct by eating. If it is too high, I wait and see.
At bed time, my blood sugar should be 7 or just under. Repeat the process above.
Every night, I wake up 1-2 times a night to make sure that my blood sugar is not too low or too high.
Sites:
I change my pump infusion site (where the insulin goes into my body) every 2.5 days. I change it in the mid-afternoon or before dinner. That way, it doesn’t stop working (or not even start working) overnight, and I don’t have a high blood sugar catastrophe. Theoretically.
I use one sort of pump site on my tummy and another on my – ahem – rear end.
So this is what’s going on in my head during the average day. And more. Oh yeah, and testing my blood sugar 10-12 times a day, correcting it with food or insulin. Woo hoo! Diabetes. It sure ain’t “eat well and exercise” anymore, baby!
Whatever happened to that “eat well, take your insulin, and exercise” myth about diabetes management?
Everyone’s body is so very different. These are my rules for my body, gleaned over two years of diabetes. They include:
Exercise:
If I exercise right before a meal, I set my basal (background) insulin to 25%
If I exercise for up to 3 hours after a meal, I need to eat to bring my blood sugar up to AT LEAST 9, then monitor several times during exercise to make sure I don’t go low.
If I plan to exercise right after a meal, I give myself 2/3 of the insulin for the meal (less if it will be strenuous exercise), and give myself 50% up front and 50% over the next hour.
Meals:
For breakfast, I take my insulin all at once. I can eat eggs, Red River cereal, steel cut oats or buckwheat, tofu, or yogurt and fruit. That’s all. Anything else makes my blood sugar NASTY.
At lunch, my body is a bit slower to digest the food. I take 50% of my insulin up front, and 50% over the next two hours.
For dinner, I take 50% of my insulin up front, and 50% over the next three hours.
If I want to eat fatty foods, I take less up front and more over time.
I eat low-glycemic foods that reduce the “spike” in my blood sugar. If I eat high glycemic foods like corn or potatoes or melons, I take more insulin up front.
Treats:
Because treats aren't really meals, but treats are good for my mental health.
I can eat dark chocolate, the occasional cheesecake, and Breyers light ice cream. Any other sweet treats need to be eaten right before a walk so that I can bring my blood sugar down right away. Cake and cookies and other baked goods like muffins are OUT.
Sleeping:
2 hours after dinner, my blood sugar should be around 7. If it is not 7, I correct by eating. If it is too high, I wait and see.
At bed time, my blood sugar should be 7 or just under. Repeat the process above.
Every night, I wake up 1-2 times a night to make sure that my blood sugar is not too low or too high.
Sites:
I change my pump infusion site (where the insulin goes into my body) every 2.5 days. I change it in the mid-afternoon or before dinner. That way, it doesn’t stop working (or not even start working) overnight, and I don’t have a high blood sugar catastrophe. Theoretically.
I use one sort of pump site on my tummy and another on my – ahem – rear end.
So this is what’s going on in my head during the average day. And more. Oh yeah, and testing my blood sugar 10-12 times a day, correcting it with food or insulin. Woo hoo! Diabetes. It sure ain’t “eat well and exercise” anymore, baby!
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
The diabetes rules
What are the diabetes rules?
A friend at work was discussing her recent first aid training. The firemen who were teaching the course actually talked about the symptoms of low and high blood sugar. A first, in my books. I've never gone through that in level one first aid before.
This got me to thinking about the general public's knowledge about diabetes "rules". Well, that and the fact that my great-aunt's chocolate cake recipe is heading to the newspapers tomorrow. You see, I do a bit of work with the media through my job as an education coordinator. Today I was asked to submit my favourite recipe to the local newspaper. I thought. I pondered. I decided that my great-aunt's chocolate cake was a sure winner.
Now, I am involved in a local project to connect those who can't afford fruits and veggies with yummy, locally-grown produce. I am a member of a local organic farm and eat truckloads of organic greens every week in the summer. My fridge is full of them as I write. Am I shaming myself as a person with diabetes and a greens lover? Am I setting a bad example?
There is a prevailing myth that people with diabetes can't eat refined sugar. But it's not that simple. You see, I use insulin to eat. To eat ANYTHING. Heck, even soy burgers and my bean sprouts have carbohydrates in them. Insulin turns soy burgers and sprouts and yes, even chocolate cake into useful energy for my body.
It's a fine balance, and it's a lot more complicated than "don't eat sugar." All sugars are not equal. Corn spikes my blood sugar, because it's a fast-acting carbohydrate. An equal amount of pasta will raise my blood sugar slowly, over a number of hours. A meal with fat slows the food in my tummy down, reducing spikes in my blood sugar. It doesn't matter whether that fat comes from ice cream or avocado. It has the same impact on my blood sugar. Ok, maybe not on my arteries, but my arteries are currently VERRRRY happy, thank you very much. Oh yeah, and I can eat very few sorts of food on an empty stomach, since everything I eat seems to barrel right on into my bloodstream.
So, diabetes rules are complex. They're personal, to a degree. And although chocolate cake isn't really on my list of favoured foods for everyday eating, dang it - it's an important part of a happy lifestyle. Isn't it?I'm not going to outlaw chocolate cake. The world would be a more dire and dismal place.
By the way, I compromised. I added the option to substitute whole wheat flour and grated zucchini in the chocolate cake.
Now where's my halo????
A friend at work was discussing her recent first aid training. The firemen who were teaching the course actually talked about the symptoms of low and high blood sugar. A first, in my books. I've never gone through that in level one first aid before.
This got me to thinking about the general public's knowledge about diabetes "rules". Well, that and the fact that my great-aunt's chocolate cake recipe is heading to the newspapers tomorrow. You see, I do a bit of work with the media through my job as an education coordinator. Today I was asked to submit my favourite recipe to the local newspaper. I thought. I pondered. I decided that my great-aunt's chocolate cake was a sure winner.
Now, I am involved in a local project to connect those who can't afford fruits and veggies with yummy, locally-grown produce. I am a member of a local organic farm and eat truckloads of organic greens every week in the summer. My fridge is full of them as I write. Am I shaming myself as a person with diabetes and a greens lover? Am I setting a bad example?
There is a prevailing myth that people with diabetes can't eat refined sugar. But it's not that simple. You see, I use insulin to eat. To eat ANYTHING. Heck, even soy burgers and my bean sprouts have carbohydrates in them. Insulin turns soy burgers and sprouts and yes, even chocolate cake into useful energy for my body.
It's a fine balance, and it's a lot more complicated than "don't eat sugar." All sugars are not equal. Corn spikes my blood sugar, because it's a fast-acting carbohydrate. An equal amount of pasta will raise my blood sugar slowly, over a number of hours. A meal with fat slows the food in my tummy down, reducing spikes in my blood sugar. It doesn't matter whether that fat comes from ice cream or avocado. It has the same impact on my blood sugar. Ok, maybe not on my arteries, but my arteries are currently VERRRRY happy, thank you very much. Oh yeah, and I can eat very few sorts of food on an empty stomach, since everything I eat seems to barrel right on into my bloodstream.
So, diabetes rules are complex. They're personal, to a degree. And although chocolate cake isn't really on my list of favoured foods for everyday eating, dang it - it's an important part of a happy lifestyle. Isn't it?I'm not going to outlaw chocolate cake. The world would be a more dire and dismal place.
By the way, I compromised. I added the option to substitute whole wheat flour and grated zucchini in the chocolate cake.
Now where's my halo????
Friday, June 22, 2007
Mental wanderings
A friend died recently. More of an acquaintance of long standing – he didn’t let a lot of people in. He had a lot of questions about life, and at the end, I don’t think that he had found the answers that he was looking for. That was hard.
During a longer run last week, I started thinking about lives and how they are lived, and about my daughter’s future.
I would like her to:
Experience joy.
Feel freedom, the freedom that she can do and be and go anywhere she wants, any time she wants to.
Appreciate what it feels like to give of herself to someone else, unconditionally.
Feel trust in herself and in others.
It has taken me two years to occasionally feel trust and freedom again. At the beginning of this diabetes journey, I felt that I would never be able to let my guard down. Diabetes is such a 24 hour a day disease, requiring vigilance even during sleep. My body was not to be trusted. I still feel this way to a degree, but I admit that sometimes there are snatches of time when I forget that I need to remain vigilant. And they are wonderful.
Friday, June 15, 2007
On being normal
"It's good that there's so much technology out there to help manage diabetes. You can still live a normal life."
Sure?
Well, for one thing, I've never lived a normal life, not even pre-diabetes, but I digress. Normal is what you make of it.
But honestly, life with diabetes is not normal. Diabetes is an invisible disease, only visible in its complications. It is not readily apparent that something is "wrong" with me. This does not mean that life with diabetes is easy.
One night before dinner, as I put the food on the table, my daughter and my husband started to eat. I went off to change my pump site. Then I wandered into the kitchen to test my blood sugar and record the results. Then I counted the carbs in my dinner and put all of that through the pump, which delivered the insulin. I was ready to eat. My husband was almost done.
I said, "Did you know that some people don't have to change their pump site and test their blood sugar before they eat?"
"Yes," he said. "They're on injections."
"No," I said. "People like you!"
The other day, I was thinking about what would happen if my daughter developed diabetes. Again, she can "live a normal life." But here's the thing: I don't want her to have to try to be normal.
I test upwards of ten times a day so that I can live a normal life. I plan every bit of eating and exercise I do throughout a day, and I move around a lot. This is hard. It's hard to think about everything you eat and every step you take throughout a day! I've even gone low at library story time, when we were doing a lot of bounces with the babies (it was right after breakfast, and I'd given myself a normal amount of insulin for the meal, never thinking that baby-bouncing would count as "exercise").
This normal life also has a toll on those around me. I forget that. I don't want to think about it.
My darling daughter appears quite healthy, so far. She enjoys playing with my old meter. She likes to have a "poke" and change her "site" when mama does.
Last night, I was making up some pretend test strips for her to put in her toy meter. She knew exactly where to put them, which makes sense, because she sees me do this umpteen times a day. I did a quick calculation and discovered that since my daughter was born, I've tested my blood sugar more than seven thousand times, likely approaching 8000. I thought that this was somewhat amusing, and it explained why my child whips out the test strips and inserts them in the meter like a pro.
I told this to my husband. His response was that he hated this damn disease and its impact on our lives. He ranted on for some minutes about this.
This is my normal life.
Sure?
Well, for one thing, I've never lived a normal life, not even pre-diabetes, but I digress. Normal is what you make of it.
But honestly, life with diabetes is not normal. Diabetes is an invisible disease, only visible in its complications. It is not readily apparent that something is "wrong" with me. This does not mean that life with diabetes is easy.
One night before dinner, as I put the food on the table, my daughter and my husband started to eat. I went off to change my pump site. Then I wandered into the kitchen to test my blood sugar and record the results. Then I counted the carbs in my dinner and put all of that through the pump, which delivered the insulin. I was ready to eat. My husband was almost done.
I said, "Did you know that some people don't have to change their pump site and test their blood sugar before they eat?"
"Yes," he said. "They're on injections."
"No," I said. "People like you!"
The other day, I was thinking about what would happen if my daughter developed diabetes. Again, she can "live a normal life." But here's the thing: I don't want her to have to try to be normal.
I test upwards of ten times a day so that I can live a normal life. I plan every bit of eating and exercise I do throughout a day, and I move around a lot. This is hard. It's hard to think about everything you eat and every step you take throughout a day! I've even gone low at library story time, when we were doing a lot of bounces with the babies (it was right after breakfast, and I'd given myself a normal amount of insulin for the meal, never thinking that baby-bouncing would count as "exercise").
This normal life also has a toll on those around me. I forget that. I don't want to think about it.
My darling daughter appears quite healthy, so far. She enjoys playing with my old meter. She likes to have a "poke" and change her "site" when mama does.
Last night, I was making up some pretend test strips for her to put in her toy meter. She knew exactly where to put them, which makes sense, because she sees me do this umpteen times a day. I did a quick calculation and discovered that since my daughter was born, I've tested my blood sugar more than seven thousand times, likely approaching 8000. I thought that this was somewhat amusing, and it explained why my child whips out the test strips and inserts them in the meter like a pro.
I told this to my husband. His response was that he hated this damn disease and its impact on our lives. He ranted on for some minutes about this.
This is my normal life.
Monday, June 11, 2007
Tomorrow's run
Tomorrow I go for a 52 minute run.
I will run up into a local park, along a road inhabited by other runners, bikers, and dog walkers.
I’ll run past a spring, through alder forests and over a waterfall.
I’ll listen to the thrushes that only live here in the summer time
And look at the salmonberries.
I will find a quiet place in my mind.
Tomorrow I am running 5 minutes on, one minute off.
I hope I’m prepared.
Wednesday, June 6, 2007
I can't believe it!
I just submitted my record attempt to the Guinness Book of World Records. That feels so good. And intimidating.
Does this mean I really have to do this?
AAAAAHHHHH!
Does this mean I really have to do this?
AAAAAHHHHH!
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