Today, I craved something sweet soooooo bad.
My hidden supply of sweets at my house had run dry, so I decided to drive over to the gluten-free bakery and buy a square of cake. I don't bake batches of sweets at home because, well, I'll eat all of it. It's safer for me to buy ONE square of cake at the bakery. Normally my go-to sweet is peanut M&Ms. I carefully measure out a 1/2 of serving, bolus ahead of time, and see just a small bump in my bg.
I even mastered eating a pancake on Sunday. I have been experimenting for a while, and finally NAILED it. One ginormous pancake with a (measured) side of pure maple syrup, and bg 2 hours post of under 120 = WINNER. Yesssssss!
That was not the case today after my piece of cake. I bolused ahead of time, I actually bolused so much that I was afraid I'd bottom out. Au contraire. I think you can determine from the picture approximately when I ate the cake. Despite the pre-meal bolus, my bg soared to close to 250. I raged bolused for a couple hours to get it back down to the normal range. It almost felt like a panic attack.
When I saw the bg spike, I took it personal. It was a reminder that you can't master diabetes. I felt as though I was being 'punished' for eating the cake.
My CDE has discouraged me from avoiding foods out of fear of how my bg will react to it. But I can't help but stay away from certain foods when I see what they do to my blood sugar (healthy food included). My bg is usually pretty stable because I eat the same foods almost every day of the week (with the exceptions of the occasional weekend pancake). My meals are very planned- a healthy fat, a healthy (measured or weighed) carb and a protein at every meal. So when I broke from the norm and had a piece of cake, I felt a sadness/anger/frustration at the situation and at myself for 'allowing' my bg to get that high. It takes the enjoyment out of eating "fun" foods when you convince yourself you are going to go blind from it.
Do you avoid foods that you know are landmines? Is the initial guilt and subsequent avoidance of food a normal reaction?
I don't necessarily avoid certain foods (anymore, but at first I totally did, it was awful), but depending on how much I like that landmine food, I will limit my consumption of it or find a way to beat it into submission. Some foods are worth it and some aren't. I've gotten a lot better at finding workarounds, so I'm not totally deprived. Case in point, I made fajitas but didn't feel like dealing with the bg mess that comes with a tortilla, so I made a fajita salad bowl instead and got the good stuff without the guilt.
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