Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog ~~
Today, I wanted to post about what I eat in a typical day as I’ve seen a lot of YouTubers posting this in their videos lately. Because I have Type 1 Diabetes, I do watch how much carbohydrates I eat at each meal to determine how much insulin I should give, what is my blood glucose at that meal. Sometimes I have to make very difficult decisions for my meal choices. For example, if I am craving something sweet, do I forgo my main starch (i.e. rice, pasta, potatoes, etc.) during the meal to “save room” and give in completely to my sweet-tooth? Or eat just half of my main starch and eat a small portion of dessert to satisfy that craving? Either way, that changes how much insulin I give at a meal, or if I end up eating more than I planned, then I need to inject additional insulin to cover that or go for a walk to prevent a high blood glucose later.
So currently, I am not working regularly so I’m mostly a homebody and due to the quarantine, I prepare almost all of my foods at home. I don’t think I’ve eaten out since the beginning of last month when I tried German schnitzel for the first time. Anyways…we are diverting from the main topic, so time to get back on track.
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~ The Food Diary below is from Saturday, April 4th, 2020:
8:45 AM – Breakfast with a BG of 64 mg/dL, Novolog (short-acting insulin) @ 4.5 units
My blood glucose decided it wanted to stay low despite me having to have a snack in the middle of the night (it was 62 mg/dL at midnight *sad face*). I’m someone who just CANNOT sleep and I keep tossing and turning when I’m low during the night. Some diabetics may sleep through it, which increases the chances of them having a seizure/going unconscious. I slept in a little today when I normally wake up sometime between 7 AM and 7:30 AM. I like to eat my meals relatively around the same times to stay consistent with my insulin. I don’t want to surprise my body with too much; it seems to like routine and being predictable. I decreased the amount of insulin I gave this morning since I was low twice in a row.
I like to start my morning with a cup of coffee (not pictured and side note that medium roast is my favorite!) with a splash of soy creamer because I don’t do so much dairy unless it’s yogurt or cheese. I used to drink two cups of coffee (one at breakfast and one after lunch), but I’ve limited it to coffee just in the mornings.
I cook for myself and my boyfriend so it depends on my mood if I want to plate food on separate plates or on one plate to share. I was kind of lazy this morning, hence everything on one plate. The veggie and cheese omelette has spinach and sun-dried tomatoes inside. I’m a bit disappointed that the yolk hadn’t set yet inside and it ran on the plate, but the English muffin came in handy for scooping that up. I love having fruit with my meals, especially breakfast since it gives me a fresh dose of nutrientsfrom whole foods. As I attended Bastyr University, I loved learning about the concept of whole foods. Not to be confused with the grocery store, I like to say “Food first, then supplements” and the shorter the ingredient list, the better.
As you can see from the picture, the English muffins we have here today are whole wheat and they are from Trader Joe’s. Obviously, I’m not advertising TJ’s or having them sponsor this blog post but they do carry some of my favorite products. I plan to do grocery haul posts in the near future so stay tuned! I do prefer whole wheat over the plain, white version because it is rich in vitamins + minerals and fiber. The key here is mostly the fiber for a healthy digestive system and keeping you fuller longer. Combine that with a hearty 3 to 4 oz portion of protein (ideally) for optimal blood glucose management. However, it is essential to note here that every individual is different, which means that eating the plain English muffins may do nothing to their blood glucose. Sometimes, it is just about experimenting what works and doesn’t for your body.
11:45 AM – Lunch with a BG of 70 mg/dL, Novolog @ 5 units
I usually try to have some sort of leftovers in the fridge for lunch. It’s easy and sometimes, my blood sugar can’t wait for something hearty to be made. So, yesterday when my blood sugar was at a level where it could wait, I made Spam Fried Rice and saved a portion of it as leftovers. I was proud of my work when I made it so here is a picture from yesterday! I probably had about 1 cup total since I filled half of my 2 cup Tupperware.
So some of you might be thinking “Oh my gosh, it’s Spam…that’s not healthy for you *gasp*” but I like to have the mindset of there’s no such thing as “Bad” Foods. Yes, spam is a processed food and is high in sodium but when I flavored the fried rice, I would cut down on the soy sauce and replace part of it with chicken bouillon powder (that’s my secret ingredient for any stir frys…shh!). Also, I like to add plenty of vegetables to help balance it out. I put in green beans, green peas, carrots and onions. I also like to use sesame seeds as a garnish. I tend to do this a lot with Asian cooking. Another thing I want to mention is that I used brown rice for this fried rice. Like with the English muffin example from breakfast, white rice is traditional, but for blood glucose management purposes, I recommend brown rice, where there is a lot more vitamins + minerals and fiber.
7:00 PM – Dinner with a BG of 61 mg/dL, Tresiba (once-a-day, long acting insulin) @ 22 units and Novolog @ 5.5 units
Something new my boyfriend an I just started during quarantine was at-home date nights. We cook at home often but this is the first time we’ve designated it as a date night at home since we can’t go out anywhere unless it’s takeout. One of the things I like to do is watch fast-forwarded cooking videos on Facebook. We were inspired by a video on BuzzFeed Food/Tasty (shout out and thank you!) to integrate two of the beef recipes that were in this video. It didn’t exactly turn out like the videos (fail >_<) but overall, it still tasted great. It was just a deconstructed version of what we intended to do. The brown rice and quinoa grain mix was a microwavable one from Costco. I would have cooked my other sprouted grains mix over the stove top, but by the time we were almost done cooking, we completely forgot about the grains. Oops! Anyways, I garnished it again with a little bit of sesame seeds per usual since we flavored the steak with teriyaki flavor.
Between lunch and dinner, I usually like to go take my daily walk since exercise also helps with glucose management. I definitely hover over my Weather app to see the hourly weather to check when the rain would come and get my steps in for the day. I do use a Fitbit to track my steps and MyFitnessPal to track my food intake. I had a total of 8,934 steps (a bit low even if I hit my daily goal) and 1,130 kcal with 135 g of carbohydrates, 63 g of protein and 18 g of fiber. Overall, I do feel like I eat enough since I eat foods that definitely fill me up. Some days I might have a bigger appetite and some days not so much. But again, what works for me may not work for you since every body is different.
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Okay! So, there you have it 🙂 I currently use the FreeStyle Libre sensors, which makes it super easy to check my blood sugars. I have the app on my phone and I can just scan the sensor for the check. I replace the sensor every 14 days with a new one and the graphs on the app shows me different trends, like is my blood sugar heading up or down, how fast it’s changing and averages over the last xx number of days. For reference, let’s see how my blood sugar did, trendwise, on my sensor.
The green represents my target blood sugars (80 mg/dL to 180 mg/dL) and ideally, it needs to be inside this zone for tight control. The red parts of the graph means that my blood sugar was below 70 mg/dL, indicating lows. The blank spot you see from 6 PM to a little bit before midnight indicates that I haven’t checked for 8 hours because the sensor will save up to 8 hours of data at a time.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments and suggestions for what kind of content you would like to see. Thank you everyone for reading to the end of this post and see you next time! 🙂
~ Foodie with a Passion ~ 