What did I used to know?

Before the world began to teeter on the edge of nuclear annihilation and every media outlet imaginable turned into Politics 24/7, I was thinking... "what did I used to know?"

I used to know a lot of stuff.  I've studied, been to places, met people, cooked food, heard music, and many other things besides.

Credit: Anchorman and Google and whoever made this pic

But I'm fairly sure there's stuff I did know that's kind of... seeped away.  Not important stuff obviously - I still know the words to every Arctic Monkeys song, most of the dialogue to Terminator 2 and my daughter's name.



Well I couldn't, but....

But I genuinely think my brain has given up on some stuff.  I found my Master's dissertation the other day and whilst the general topic was vaguely familiar, I don't remember a word of it.  I agonised over that, read papers, had meetings... I even went to the library!  (This was before the internet was really a thing...)

So what has all this fantastic(!) knowledge been replaced with?  Carb values - that's what.

Slice of medium bread?  15g - 18g of carbs.

Decent biscuit (like a chocolate digestive)?  10g of carbs

Rice Krispies?  85% carbs mate.

It's like living in the Matrix for all intents and purposes - you see the numbers floating in front of you everywhere:


Banana? 25g - 30g 
I mean of course this is slightly dramatised for effect, but I think we're so accustomed to seeing food as numbers (and recalling those numbers on a daily basis) that it certainly feels like the stuff we used to know has simply disappeared.
I'd ask you what you've all forgotten since you started being able to recall carb values on command, but I bet you can't remember...
Until next time, hasta la vista baby.

Food Glorious Food?

I don’t have a good relationship with food.   I have to work harder at eating more than I do almost anything else.  I know that’s true for many  people with type 1 diabetes, and why wouldn’t it be? 

It’s a mental calculation every time we even think about putting something containing carbs in our mouths.  What’s my blood glucose now?  When did I last take insulin?  Do I need to correct?  How many carbs does this have?  Is it going to spike my levels or take a while to absorb?  And after all that, you either have to stick a needle in you or fish out your pump and dose appropriately.   That’s not a normal relationship by any standards.

My experience with food feels more complicated than that (if it’s possible!)  Four years ago, I weighed 215lbs (almost 98kg or nearly 15.5 stone).  I’d let my weight creep up and ignored what I was eating as long as I could get decent blood glucose readings.  This was less than 6 months after I’d somehow run the London marathon (weighing a lot less).  My reflection in the mirror finally persuaded me to do something about it and in three months I was down to 182lbs (83kg or 13 stone).

I’d always thought that losing weight was the hardest thing to do when you’re dieting, but actually maintaining any kind of progress really took it out of me and eight months later I was almost back where I started, feeling totally demoralised.  And so I did nothing about it for about 12 months.  Along with all the complexities that diabetes adds to eating, I started to view food as an enemy.  But of course the thing many of us reach for when we feel a bit low is food (because it’s delicious) and if you’re in a position where food is your best friend and nemesis at the same time, your relationship with it becomes more complicated.

Finally, something changed – I can’t remember what it was.  Another unflattering glimpse of my reflection most likely, coupled with a desire to change.  I’d entered another marathon and was determined I could run faster than my exploits over two years before.  I decided that actually losing a lot of weight would help me more than anything else.  Not lugging extra kilos of body fat around makes a big difference.  I embarked on a diet with a really strict calorie intake and a lot of exercise, and it worked!  I lost 45lbs (20kg or over 3 stone) by the end of the year.  It was hard work, but I actually felt good about myself for the first time in a long time.  I was at my lowest weight since I’d been diagnosed over 12 years previously, my blood glucose control was good (and I was running faster than ever too).

Now came the hard part – sustaining weight loss.  I’d tried once before and hadn’t managed it and I was determined to do better this time around.  I decided that I was probably at too low a weight to make sustaining it sensible in the long term.  I was eating around 1400 calories a day, running 20-30 miles a week plus other ad-hoc exercise.  I allowed myself a bit of a rise to keep some semblance of quality of life, but focused on what I was eating (and portion size too).

And it kind of worked for quite a long time.  Putting aside blips for holidays and Christmas, I managed a fairly steady weight for almost 18 months, eating pretty well, exercising regularly, and actually feeling pretty pleased (and dare I say, happy with my own body image).

Recently it fell apart again.  I had a running injury that stopped me exercising as much as I used to, which in turn pushed me back towards my comforter-in-chief… food.  A lot less exercise and a lot more food pushed my weight up at the start of this year to a point where I avoided the bathroom scales because I knew I’d hate the reading it gave me.  That reminded me of how I was with my diabetes about six years after diagnosis… I stopped testing because I didn’t feel in control of the results and I put it all out of my mind.

I know from experience that nothing good comes from that denial.  I felt (feel?) guilty about what I eat if it’s full of calories, but eating something like that gives me such a rush it’s hard to stay on track.  It’s almost like an addiction in some senses, and sticking to a plan of eating healthily requires an incredible amount of willpower.  Trying to convince yourself you don’t need one more hit of fat, sugar or salt takes a lot of effort.

My weight is currently back on the way down, and that feeling of control has returned (with my weight, and diabetes in general).  I feel like I can only operate at extremes though – full on culinary hedonism, or the strictest diet I can imagine.  Having a metabolism that seems to not need much fuel to keep the lights on doesn’t help either.   But even having lost 11lbs in the last month, I still look at my reflection and think I could probably lose a couple more…

I don’t think it’s easy to interact with food when you have diabetes.  I don’t know how typical my experiences are when it comes to the frustrations of balancing my intake with how I see myself.  I think as a community we talk a lot about managing the highs and lows of blood glucose (and the everyday aspects of diabetes), but we talk less about how food makes us feel… Maybe it’s because most of us don’t need to.  Or we don’t know how to.  I might be an outlier when it comes to managing food, but I suspect I’m not.

I’ve delayed writing this blog for a long time – mostly because I wasn’t sure I had the right words to express how it affects me.  That said, ‘guilt’, ‘denial’ and ‘frustration’ are words that are all too familiar when it comes to diabetes so perhaps they were there all along.

This blog also appears on the Diabetes UK blog site - you can read my most recent posts there by viewing my bio on their site

Weight watching

Mondays pretty much start the same way for me every week… The alarm goes off around 5:45am, and, silently cursing, I take stock of how I’m feeling… light-headed (hypo), a bit stiff (hyper) or just tired (‘in range’)?  I drag myself to the bathroom and stand on the bathroom scales.  And I sigh.

 

Diabetes is an enormous daily battle that I won’t rehash for the millionth time here and now.  I’ve lived with diabetes for long enough now to be able make most days ‘better’ days, though I’m not impervious to the bad days by any means.

 

I’ve started writing this blog post a few times and I’ve held back – I’m scared of straying into unchartered waters and accidentally throwing opinions around on things I (and many other people) don’t really understand.  But here we go.

 

I can tolerate Type 1 diabetes most of the time, but where I struggle every day is with my weight.

 

About 18 months ago I devoted a huge amount of energy and effort to tackling my weight and lost 3 (and a bit) stone to get to a position I was vaguely happy with.  I cut my diet back to about 1200 (net) calories a day, ran 20-30 miles a week as well as doing four or five mornings a week on my exercise bike.  It was exhausting and took over my life, but I did it.  But that’s when it started to get difficult…

 

I’ve always found it (kind of) manageable to lose weight, but I’ve equally found it far too easy to put it back on again within a few months.  This time I feel like something is a little different.  I’ve had fluctuations obviously, but I’ve pretty much avoided piling the pounds back on.  But it’s much harder work than it was to get to this position in the first place.

 

What I’ve discovered is that actually, my body only really needs around 120-1300 (net) calories a day anyway and regularly eating above that means I’ll put weight on.  My diabetes consultant refers to it as being a ‘thrifty phenotype’ – basically if there’s an apocalypse, you’ll probably starve before me (sorry), but basically I don’t need a lot of food to keep ticking over.

 

This creates a number of problems for me.  The first, and most obvious one is that I LOVE food so I feel like I’m constantly faced with the choice of skipping one meal in favour of another.  Or I have the chance to go out and run 6 miles to be able have something.  Whilst I both love and loathe running (it feels like life support to some degree), my life doesn’t allow the same number of opportunities a week to pound the pavement, so more and more I feel like I’m choosing breakfast plus one other meal.

 

The second problem is food guilt.  I’m sadly not immune to the temptations of an occasional takeaway.   Having skimped on calories for the rest of the day (and/or been for a run), I’ve been known to dabble in a chicken chow mein from time to time.  The thing is that pretty much as soon as I’ve eaten it, I have an overwhelming feeling of guilt about what it’ll do for my weight and I’ll compensate for days afterwards too.  I have genuine regret about something I’ve treated myself to, and I’m pretty sure it’s not healthy (the guilt that is, the takeaway definitely isn’t…).  If I’m eating out at restaurants, I’ll pick a salad more often than not because it’s not a guilt-inducing.  Having a hypo is a nightmare when I feel like this – I’m eating calories that I don’t want to correct it and I resent them for it. 

 

The last problem is how it makes me feel.  I’m writing this after stepping on the scales to find out I’ve put an improbable 4lbs on this week, and it’s pretty much all I’ve thought about all day.  I knew last week I would have put a few on (about 3lbs) as I’d been away for Easter and it’s a lot harder to stick to a calorie goal while you’re away.  But being back home hasn’t improved things.  I know I used to be a lot heavier, but I look in the mirror and I’m fundamentally unhappy with how I feel.  I hate the nagging from my inner voice before I eat anything…

 

I’m used to seeing food as numbers – it’s impossible not to when you’re doing mental arithmetic before you eat anything.  But I see calories everywhere too, and calories scare me a lot.   Having diabetes puts me at a greater risk of stroke, heart disease and cardio vascular disease, than people who aren’t ‘in the club’.  I’m about twice as likely to suffer from one or more of those as a result of my diabetes, and being overweight doesn’t help my chances much either.

 

I’ve noticed that gradually, I’ve stopped cooking new things almost entirely because I know I can rely on the knowledge that what I eat most days, falls into safe zone and I don’t want to stray from that safety.  I know when I do stray, I’ll have put weight on. And when I put weight on I’ll be miserable until I’ve lost it all.  I feel like I’m resigned to logging everything I eat for the rest of my life to be able to stay at a healthy(ish) weight, and the though of that exhausts me.

 

I wrote recently about how a day off from having diabetes would be nice.  Having a day off from this food guilt and unassailable obsession with my weight would be nice too.