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A strange new world

Food is something I care about.  I have to, not understanding how food works in the body is not possible for a type 1 diabetic.

I do not diet per se.  I do count my carbs, that is the foundation of my bolusing decisions: if I am not aware of what sugar, protein and fat is in a food, I cannot hope to get the bolusing correct.

Bolusing?

That’s the extra insulin I give to cope with food digestion and sometimes with the release of glucose stores when exercising or when stressed.

When I say food, that’s anything with sugar, fat and protein.

I don’t necessarily give insulin for fat but a higher concentration of fat makes the carbohydrates I eat act behaviour differently in my body.  Very few foods are purely fat, sugar or protein.  All mammalian meat has some stores of fat and sugar because that’s how mammals work.  We store energy in our muscles. Birds and fish do this in a suitably different way. Beans also provide some fats and sugars along with the base proteins.

What you end up with is a wonderfully tasty mix that’s hard to quantity in terms of what sugar is entering your body at any one time.

Honey’s there – I don’t count honey as sugar

It works with my insulin exactly as sugar does.  It might provide some trace elements, but I need to bolus for honey exactly as I do for sugar.  Weight for weight.  Sorry, but I have the bolusing facts to back it up.

I don’t produce insulin any other way, so it’s pretty conclusive.

Hmm, OK, we’ll leave that there.  Bolusing decisions?

Fibre does make a difference, if a food is very fibrous I take off the fibre from the carb count and bolus the difference.

Fat slows absorption but doesn’t affect the amount I bolus.

Protein is a whole different and fun ball game.  Hard to measure and harder to know when it will act.  I keep my protein count down low to keep things easy, about 100cals spread throughout the day.

Complicated!

Yes, yes it is.  I didn’t get it right when counting a new home made recipe and ended up fighting to get my blood sugar down most of Sunday evening.

Butternet squash soup tastes great but needs bolusing in a suitably different way to my approach on Sunday – I propose giving the bread bolus over a 15minute extended bolus and the soup needs more quick bolusing – possibly 40g of carbohydrate for a bowl of soup.

Wow, you’ve completely lost me!

Have a great evening 😉

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