Thursday, December 17, 2015

A momentary diversion

I had planned to write about weaving.  Truth be told, I have always wanted to write a food blog.  I know, there are thousands of online food blogs.  And some win awards and big prizes.  One food blog I have followed for over a year is Orangette.  I was curious about the name and I enjoy her writing.  Turns out, the author, Mollie Wizenberg, won the James Beard Award in 2015 for Best Individual Food Blog.  Who knew?

Okay, back to the food blog.  My life, as a person with Type 1 ( juvenile, insulin dependent) diabetes for the past 55 years, is focused on food.  That's not the full picture.  The 3 essential pillars of diabetes care are food, exercise and insulin.  So, my life is centered on all three.  It is a balancing of all three elements and food is the most complex.  People with Type 1 diabetes are dependent on insulin.  The amount of insulin you take in a day is based on your food intake and your level of physical activity.  If you overeat, you need to exercise or take more insulin.  Somehow food always seems to be at the center of things and calculating the amount of insulin needed is not as straight forward as you might think.

For instance, if you eat a slice of toast for breakfast, you figure out how many carbohydrate grams are in that slice of toast and take enough insulin to help your body digest the toast.  But, if you put peanut butter on the toast it can slow your digestion of the toast and the insulin is working while your stomach is still working on the toast.  The insulin, most of which is fast acting, is available to digest the toast but the toast is napping because the high fat content in the peanut butter has slowed things down.  In a worst case scenario, the insulin causes your blood sugar to drop too low too fast and you experience low blood sugar which requires you take fast acting sugar to restore your blood sugar to normal.  Then, a couple of hours later, the toast and the fast acting sugar arrive on the scene and the insulin is long gone so your blood sugar goes too high.  Very complex and all because you wanted a dab of peanut butter on your toast!

I could spend weeks explaining all the exceptions and issues that arise in my efforts to balance my food, insulin and exercise as I try to maintain my blood sugar in a "normal" range.  I could spend several more weeks talking about the history of insulin delivery, home blood sugar monitoring and balancing the 3 basic pillars of Type 1 diabetes.  Then, I could spend several more weeks talking about the goal of all this careful control and the devastation of diabetes complications.  I guess it wouldn't really be a food blog but a diabetes blog which would turn into a diary of my daily struggles.

That's when I stop myself from discussing food and especially food and its effect on my life.  I spend a lot of time balancing my blood sugars and writing about it doesn't seem at all interesting or fun.  Now, reading Orangette and learning about food and its preparation from someone else's perspective which I enjoy.

I'll return to posting pictures and writing about weaving tomorrow.  It's much more fun and easier to explain.  And, I'll have this blog post to remind me why I don't write a food blog. Plus, I enjoy reading Orangette and looking at recipes on several other food sites.

I'll leave you with a photo of the band I took off my backstrap loom a few days ago and I'll talk about the 2nd band I worked on using my backstrap.

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