Doesn't mean my blood sugars need to give me a lesson in standard deviations and variability. Yesterday I felt awful, but as so many of us have realized just because our blood sugars are all over the place doesn't stop our life from continuing. High blood sugars that were resistant to insulin started Sunday evening. My basal rates continue to edge down from getting back into a workout routine so Sunday morning I encountered a series of lows. I took this as a green light to have a "fat day" and ate a big Harris Teeter Cheeseburger for lunch, with a tomato stuffed with orzo, pine nuts and feta cheese then an enormous bowl of ice cream (I went on a 40 mile bike ride Saturday, figured I deserved it!) By Sunday night I was in a war with my blood sugars at learning team as I was above 200 for 3 to 4 hours.
I woke Monday morning to a blood sugar of 140 but was greeted by 230, 2 hours after a breakfast of egg whites on a piece of whole wheat toast. Throughout all my morning classes my blood sugar was above 200 and did not get under 120 until after 2 pm.
Although I really didn't have that many carbohydrates on Sunday the high fat meal at lunch made it that much more difficult to correct my blood sguars. I'm continually surprised by how big of an impact the nutritional mix of food has on insulin needs. A low glycemic, low fat food requires less insulin to account for the same amount of carbohydrates in a high glycemic, high fat food. While Type 1 diabetes acts much differently than Type 2 diabetes most of the time, the nutritional mix of what we eat is the most direct comparison between the two diseases. I'm not going to give up the occasional burger but I know I'm not chasing that burger with pumpkin ice cream anymore, the 24 hour long headache, shaky eye sight and irritability just isn't worth it.
3 comments:
Having spent most of my career in statistical modeling and analysis, I can say that the notion that blood glucose levels will remain under the curve of standard distributions makes a very big assumption that all of the elements yielding a predictable outcome are known (e.g. food, exercise, insulin), when the reality is that we know only 3 of perhaps a dozen or more factors.
Having said that, one of my favorite quotes applicable to this topic is as follows:
"Most chemists believe that the course of a chemical reaction is always predictable. But some catalytic reactions in both inorganic and organic chemistry can behave in bizarre and unruly ways."
From Stephen Scott, Clocks and Chaos in Chemistry
December 2, 1989, New Scientist magazine, Issue 1693
FINE! only salmon burgers and fresh strawberry frozen yogurt going forward :)
All I have to say is PUMPKIN ice cream? What were you thinking? :)
I am currently chasing my post-ironman bg's all over the place. I am waiting for the day my body allows me to workout again. This is getting old.
Good to see you've moved onto other big challenges!
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