#lowcarbhighfat Week three of my low carb lifestyle change

This is my third week of changing my entire way of eating and living with Type 1 Diabetes. I am following Dr. Bernstein's way of controlling Diabetes.  No grains, no startch, no real sugar, no fruit and only 30 carbs a day 6-12-12 and I actually am eating less than that someday.

It has been a difficult task to overcome carb addiction.  I am still craving crappy ole fast acting sugar and grain loaded carbs.  I have even given in a couple times since starting. 
Two nights ago I ate two stupid caramel rice cakes and even took my insulin ahead of time.  Yeah guess what happened.  I went from an awesome 120 blood sugar straight up to 300 in a matter of ohhhhhh maybe TEN minutes!  Its just not worth it to live that way, to fight your own body nonstop to control blood sugar spikes.  Its so much easier to be less stressed out and maintain a more steady blood sugar and know in your mind that you are doing the best you can to prevent diabetic complications later on in life.  Keep in mind I am still craving carbs and its very hard to stop myself so don't be fooled into thinking this is a walk in the park.  Its hard and the group that supports this way of living is called TypeOneGrit for a reason, it is freaking HARD. It is also so SO worth all the work and frustration because in return I have less frustration when looking at my Dexcom graph and wondering what sort of things are being damaged by the high post meal blood sugar spikes.


Cooking all of your food can be overwhelming.  Just knowing that I can't go grab something to eat out of a box or bag can be aggravating to say the least.  BUT I do know that if I do give in and grab something out of a box or bag that my blood sugar will spike and spike high because I am so so sensitive to grains and sugar.  Our family is going to start cooking things on the weekend, freezing them and then cook those things throughout the week.  Some meals are easier to cook on the fly after work but sometimes we are just sitting down to eat at 645-700 and that is just too late with a 2 year old and I am shot from working all day, coming home cooking for an hour, doing the dishes, eating and then doing more dishes.

Another huge benefit for me is that I am having way less low blood sugars.  I am one of those lucky people who can go low at the drop of a hat and any activity makes me go low and I was constantly eating glucose tablets, fruit snacks or drinking juice boxes.  Fruit snacks are just dumb because I would always go high afterward but in the midst of a low its like COMPLETELY impossible to not eat the whole little packet of those sugary things.  The way I understand it is that because I am taking such a MUCH smaller amount of insulin there is just less insulin floating around in my body, so when I do physical activity (which causes insulin to be used up much faster) I go low less because there is less insulin to get grabbed up really quickly.  I actually ate dinner at a bg of 90 last night ate super low carb food, didnt take any insulin and went outside and played with our daughter and we rode around on our four wheeler and I DIDN'T GO LOW!  If I was at 90-120 before low carb I would have had to eat something to go outside and play.  Not anymore.  I feel so liberated! I even went grocery shopping last weekend and did not go low, this is actually the first time in my life I have grocery shopped and not gone low.  Doesn't that just sound crazy?!

 I was stuck on the crazy diabetic circle.

This was posted to a group I am in yesterday.

This couldn't describe my issues any better.  Its insanity.  Then change the words a bit, make it take insulin, eat food, get high blood sugar, take more insulin to counteract, then get low blood sugar, eat more food to counteract and so on and so on.

This is my blood sugar Dexcom graph from yesterday showing me eating lunch, not spiking and then all afternoon until I went to bed, no insulin for dinner because of all the activity.  (granted I know I am not yet as low as Bernstein's guidelines are, but I want to gradually get there so I dont feel like I am low or going to die all the time)  Sorry my picture is sideways, no time to fix it right now.

This graph is my overnight last night...I did over react and drink some juice when I was a little too low for my comfort level, so I have little blips over 130 but then I woke up at 85.  For me, that is amazing!  

My high alarm is currently set at 130 and low still at 90 because I do still go low faster than Dex can keep up so I like it to alarm at 90 vs a lower number.   A high alert at 130, that is also amazing for me!  I use to have it at 180 or even 200 because after every single meal I would spike to 200 or higher.  Not anymore! 

I believe I have known deep down in my heart that I have needed to go on a super low carb diet for probably 4 to 5 years because for me there is just no getting ahead of the post meal blood sugar spike and snacking is always a losing battle.  I could go on being high from the time I ate supper until halfway through the night because I decided to snack on some super high carb junk (insert carb addiction and my weakness to give in).  For example, rice cakes, pop corn, chips, candy, graham crackers, etc etc. I was eating things that I previously had no clue about all the hidden sugar, for example maltodextrin--its in EVERYTHING even freaking frozen sausage...forget about buying store bought bacon...most of it is loaded with sugar too!  Most things labelled sugar free would always still spike me because they had one form or another of sugar that is known to spike people with Diabetes' blood sugar.  There is also grains in EVERYTHING!  Grains also spike those of use with type 1 Diabetes blood sugar...they have grains stuffed everywhere, it is just ridiculous!  

I know this post is long and probably not written like a professional writer, but I am not a processional writer nor do I claim to be.  These are simply my thoughts and feelings on my journey to eating low carb and me blogging my life with Diabetes.  (some people seem to feel the need to leave me rude comments telling me how terrible my writing skills are....sorry your comments mean nothing to me and I will keep labeling your comments as spam.  =D  Have a great day!)