Diabetes Diet #40: Sometimes it’s a Bumpy Ride

Diabetes Recipes:

Chicken Parmigiana
Chicken
Excellent Eggplant
Sauteed Greens and Beans

Life with diabetes can zigzag along the course, make you hold onto your bootstraps and scream. Sometimes it’s a bumpy ride. You follow the map as best you can and things go well most of the time. But every so often changes occurs without warning as though you are catapulted out of the driver’s seat. It takes patience, understanding and rolling up your sleeves to get back on track.

I have lived a more or less wonderful life with diabetes since 1961. But a few months ago I noticed blood sugar numbers creeping up for no apparent reason and I began to feel very stressed about it, trying to figure what I was doing wrong even though I understood that our bodies change, insulin needs require adjustment, stress alters glucose levels, hormonal changes kick in   and that diabetes can be fickle.

What are we to do when we detect unwelcome changes? How do we get back on track? For me, it was a simple matter of returning to the craft of record-keeping via a diabetes diary, an elementary thing I had abandoned quite a while ago, being of the mind that I didn’t need to do this anymore. I know my body. I know my diabetes. Ha! Who did I think I was?

By carefully recording insulin doses, food intake, exercise, work, and stress, I noticed that I had added some new carbs to my diet, changed exercise patterns and had been under a great deal of stress preparing for my son’s wedding.   Cautiously, I made a few appropriate bolus and basal adjustments that got me back in the game of even keel care.

The circumstances made me aware of the importance of never letting diabetes too far out of sight or letting the leash extend too long. The consequences of feeling lousy and allowing the potential for complications are not worth it. It feels so good to feel good again with vibrant energy and steady numbers. I hope you don’t find yourself going off the way I did. In case you do, you might want to get the diary going and renew your attention to the details of what you are doing. In no time you’ll detect any aberrations and detours you hadn’t picked up on. You will steer clear of that uncomfortable bumpy ride.

To celebrate good diabetes care, let’s jog over to CYBER KITCHEN and cook something on the warm winter stove.

Cyber Kitchen Recipes

Wintertime is time to turn on the oven to warm up the kitchen and cook hearty food. I remember my next-door neighbor up in Schenectady, Mrs. Ferrara, who made chicken parmigiana, eggplant rollatini and greens and beans on Saturday nights during winter. As a kid, I always managed to stop by her kitchen door with a question or some other wispy transparent excuse to get a taste of her hearty and homey meal. The following are recipes I created from memories of Mrs. Ferrara’s wonderful meals…