Breaking Habits and Healthy Living

Why is it that once a habit has developed it’s so hard to break? That is unless it’s a good (as in healthy) habit then it seems to be really easy to break. So I guess I should be aksing, why are bad habits so hard to break? Brad and I were talking last night about how we have both gained weight and we really need to make some changes. Yes, I know that it’s normal to put on weight after getting married, but really? I’m the heaviest that I’ve ever been, and I know that there are uncontrollable factors that I can’t do anything about when it comes to my weight, things like my hypo thyroid, and BG lows due to trying to keep tighter control of my BGs that force me to consume unwanted calories. However there are things that I’ve realized that I have gotten in the habit of that can make a difference. So even though it’s a new year and I don’t like new years resolutions, and I’m not going to say that any of this is a new years resolution, but a way of life, and I’m making some changes. Even if I don’t shed the pounds like I would have in the past due to the things above and getting older and slowing down metabolism, these change will do my body good regardless, and I’m hoping that I’ll be feeling healthier and better overall.

What changes am I making???

When I saw a nutritionist 5 years ago when I was first diagnosed we figured out that at the time since I needed to gain weight, (I only weighed 105lbs),in order to reach that weight and not exceed the desired number I should be eating 45 carbs per meal for my height and to reach a healthy weight. I’ve strayed away from that over the last year. I did really good for the first few years but even a little while before getting my insulin pump almost a year ago, wow it’s been almost a year?!, I started eating more carbs and I know that now that I’ve been on the pump I’ve really strayed away from that rule. Now that I could stand to lose a few, back to the 45 carbs per meal rule for me. I think that this will also help with getting better control on BG levels, even though they aren’t horrible, they are pretty darn good I think that this will help.

Clean eating… We do pretty well with that I’d like to think.  It’s just too easy to go for a quick meal and grab something frozen or canned and there’s dinner, but lately I’ve been trying to stay away from that. I’ve been on this whole “make from scratch” kick lately. Weekends are wonderful for making a big batch of something yummy and freezing it for a quick week night meal or left overs for lunch at work.  I even made my own pizza crust the other night. I mean that was so easy I don’t know why I ever even buy crust or kits at the store. I always have the ingredients on hand. But since I really want to make some changes and lower my carb intake I think I’m going to have to try the cauliflower crust recipe that I’ve seen on pinterest.

Get moving! I have fallen off the work out wagon. 2013 despite the weight gain, was probably the best year for me working out. I always go through the pattern of working out for a month or two and then stop and then maybe pick it up again a few months later. This past year I think I did pretty well sticking to walking after work and if it was raining or too hot/cold outside then I would work out inside. That routine got a little rocky in maybe October and then the holidays just really threw a wrench in things. For the last month my body seems to be confused if it wanted to catch a cold or not so I held off from getting back into a workout routine. I’m hoping to start back on a schedule of some sort this week. I’ve struggled of course with the fact that it feels so counter-productive if I’m lowish enough to have to have a snack before/after a workout, so if I’m  “too” low before the time I want to work out I’ve tended over the end of 2013 to just  pass on the work out because I didn’t want to consume those calories. I’ve decided to instead of passing on a workout that if I have to have a snack then maybe an orange or an apple, some kind of healthy choice will be better. At least I can feel good about eating a piece of fruit opposed to the fruit snacks or other candy  that have no nutritional value except to get my BG in line. That will have to be an experiment I guess since I’m not sure how my body will react to a fruit choice instead of candy before a work out. I would think that it would still keep me from plummeting? Guess I’ll find out.

Snacking and the small things……. I’ve got to cut unhealthy snacking out. I didn't really understand it before I had an insulin pump when I would hear that it’s so much easier to eat food and this and that with a pump. I figured there couldn't be that much difference than reaching for my insulin pen and shooting up. Oh but there is! It is easier because I can put in my carb count or guestamate and then bolus and boom, that’s that and I’m done. Therefore I do find that I “cheat” more often that I did before. I’ve also developed the habit of keeping dark chocolate in my desk at work and having one piece in the afternoon after lunch. My reasoning has been that it’s okay because it’s one little piece and it cuts the craving and I’m not going for a candy bar or something really bad from the vending machine. But I just looked and guess how many calories are in one piece? There may only be 10 grams of carbs, and I haven’t felt bad about bolusing for that, but there are 190 calories in one small piece of this dark chocolate. Maybe if I really have to give into temptation I should be cutting that little chocolate bar in half. Resist temptation!!!! Coffee cream, that’s another bad one. I’ve been really good about going caffeine free for the most part, but I still drink decaff and I love my coffee creamer. I mean, I really like creamer in my coffee even way more that sweetener. I think I need to look at Trader Joe’s and see what they have as far as organic and “light” creamer. Maybe there is a substitute that I am unaware of? 

Here is to a happy and healthy 2014!

Lentil & Chicken Curry Soup

In honor and preparation of the snowpocalypse I made this last night.

I've been trying to find a recipe for lentil soup but any that I've found have not appealed to me until I found this one. I added a few things and made this recipe my own. It turned out way too yummy for me not to share!



Lentil & Chicken Curry Soup

This recipe fills up a large soup pot or dutch oven. If you don't want lots of leftovers you may want to reduce ingredience by at least half.

2 palm fulls of dried chopped chives
2 Jalapeno peppers seeded and chopped
2 tsp dried ground ginger
1 cup cilantro
4 apples peeled and roughly chopped
1 large yellow onion
4 tsp curry powder
2  13.5oz cans of light coconut milk
8 cups of low sodium chicken broth (or veggie if you want to go vegetarian)
2 cups of uncooked red lentils
6 boneless/skinless chicken breasts uncooked
Black pepper and salt to taste


Pulse chives, jalapeno, ginger, cilantro, and garlic in a food processor until well mixed. While pulsing add the onion and then the apples a few at a time until well chopped.
Cook curry powder in a Dutch oven or large pot over medium-high heat, stirring until lightly toasted, about 1 minute. Whisk in both cans of coconut milk until smooth, cook until reduced about half, about 5 minutes. Add the apple onion mixture and 1 tsp of salt. Cook about 5 more minutes to thicken.
Stir in chicken broth and lentils. Bring to a boil, then reduce to medium-low heat and simmer until lentils are tender and broken down, about 30 minutes. Add chicken and simmer until chicken is cooked through, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serving size: 1 cup
Per serving: Calories 399; Fat 9g; Saturated fat 6g; Cholesteral 58mg; Sodium 446mg; Carbohydrates 50  ; Fiber 16g ; Protein 18g

                       Husband out in the snow, and it's still snowing with no signs of stopping!

It's A Wrap

Everyone is doing a year end review/new year resolutions. I might as well join the train.

2013

What a year, and oh how it flew by! It was a year with lots of curve balls and lots of learning. I can’t believe it’s almost been a year already, but February 8^th I will have had my insulin pump for a year. February 22^nd will be a year since my first consultation with my parenatalogist who has now been acting as my endocrinologist since then. March 13^th I met with my T1D BFF for the first time, aka my CDE (certified diabetes educator) who is out of my parenatalologist’s office. Meeting Deb and Dr. Morris has been life changing. I have learned so much from Deb and she has been an essential figure in my self management and getting my body baby ready. Always encouraging and understanding, so very thankful to have had her in my life this year. She is also the reason I decided to dump my original endo and have Dr. Morris act as my endo for now. This was in hopes that I would be pregnant by now and he would be treating me anyway but that has not happened.

 January I was diagnosed with a hypo thyroid which of course diabetics are more likely to develop, but thanks to momma and the genes in her family every woman in her family has it. Why should I feel left out? Although that was incredibly frustrating to have another diagnosis to add to the list of things I have to deal with, it was also a relief. I had all the symptoms but had ignored them. I was only diagnosed because my endo did yearly blood work and always checked for that. I had the awful fatigue, brittle nails, weight gain/bloating, dry skin and possibly other things that I’m forgetting about.

 Back to a good thing from this year. I just started using a Dexcom continuous glucose monitor at the beginning of December! That’s pretty exciting. Lots to learn there, including patience as I watch the graphs. It’s neat to be able to see on a small screen what my blood sugar levels are, it updates every 5 minutes. It’s a tremendous help on getting tight control, getting ahead of the curve and correcting ASAP.

 First time going through airport security with my insulin pump. You can read about both experiences here. They were not the greatest.

 March 26^th we celebrated 2 years of marriage. It’s been an adventure, and never ever boring. He is my constant rock and support system. I couldn’t do diabetes, at least not successfully without him.

 I was sucked into the DOC in March after reading an article on Kim @ textingmypancreas.

 I started blogging myself on March 27^th.

 July I had the best A1C ever! 5.7 How did that even happen?! I don’t know.

 Non diabetic related, we had a wonderful family vacation on the beach of Florida and did a day road trip, with my sister and brother in law, from Ft. Lauderdale to the Florida Keys which I had never been to before. We were in a beautiful wedding in June, I’d say it was in the top three of beautiful weddings I’ve been in with of course my own being #1! J My sister also got married in November to a great guy who is totally perfect for her weird quirky self. They are great together and always amusing. We had lots of trips to and visits from hubbby’s brother and his family. Love him, his wife and my niece and nephew. I know everyone thinks theirs are the cutest, but I really do think I have the cutes niece and nephew.

2014

New endocrinologist appointment scheduled for March 5^th, excited and apprehensive for a new doctor.

Baby? Maybe, we can hope and pray to God that He will bless us with a little rolly polly Panke bug that will make its entrance into our home and arms.

Of course as always aiming for a good A1C and self management.

 A new little niece will be making her appearance sometime in February, so excited for that!

Other than that, we will have to see what 2014 will bring. There were lots of tears and frustrations, laughs and hugs, learning curves and experiences, trips and adventures throughout 2013. Hopefully 2014 will be full of more happy tears, laughter and adventures. Happy new year everyone!

Cinnamon Rolls & Hash Browns

Talk about diabetes having a mind of its own and making no sense whatsoever! That would be this last Christmas weekend.

We went out of town to visit family over the weekend and came back on Monday. Saturday and Sunday mornings there were homemade cinnamon rolls that I just couldn’t resist. I had one each morning. I had no way of knowing how many carbs were in each or how many units of insulin to give so I just guessed. You know what happened? NOTHING!!! I was fine! I had no crazy highs or lows at all from the cinnamon rolls or anything else I ate. I think I had one low and a short time of being high after going out to eat one night, but overall that’s not bad.  Yippee, yay for me!

 Then we come home…………

 Christmas eve morning I had a breakfast of scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, an orange and coffee. No crazy sweets whatsoever. I counted my carbs correctly, I’ve eaten this countless time with no problems. But not this day. BAM!!! Shortly after eating I climbed, and climbed some more, and kept climbing until I got to about 290’s, and I couldn’t get down until late afternoon. I rage bolused, and bolused some more, and more, and just kept at it and would slowly drop and then go up a few points and then maybe drop a bit more to where I thought I was finally coming down from my high and then I’d plato and not drop anymore so I’d have to bolus again!!! By the time I was finally feeling better and getting to a happy BG place it was time to eat a big Italian Christmas meal and it all went to crap again. I stayed close to 300 all night until after I fell asleep. I evened out in the middle of the night and coasted along in the 150’s between 2am and waking up around 10am. Did I mention that I was feeling like I was coming down with a cold? Then again I’m really not sure if it’s that or if it’s my jacked up blood sugars are making me feel like I’m getting sick or if I’m really fighting something off. So Christmas morning we got up late because neither of us were feeling that great. I had an orange and not even a half a cup of coffee on our way to my uncle’s for family Christmas lunch and my BG went through the roof again. I started checking my bg like crazy and watching it climb and then bolusing to try and get things back down. We got to my uncle’s around noon, and it was closer to 1:00 maybe before everyone was ready to eat and guess what! I didn’t eat! Well, if you call eating salad eating then sure I ate. I sat there checking Dexie (my Dexcom CGM as I like to call her, brilliant I know.), munching on salad as my stomach was grumbling for mashed potatoes, chicken and dumplings and green bean casserole. This is the first time I’ve ever passed on eating a meal like this because my blood sugar was being a jerk. It seems like I’m getting more insulin resistant lately. Again, maybe all of this is because my body has been trying to fight something off on and off over the past month, I don’t know. But yesterday, Christmas day, it took close to two hours for my blood sugar to come down enough for me to feel comfortable enough to eat real food. I had even bolused for a high carb meal, therefore I had a little over 15 units of insulin in my system and it still took me close to two hours to come down. Thats a lot of insulin! Even when I did finally eat, I only ate a small portion because I was so frustrated that I would spike again.  If it hadn’t have been for the day before I probably would have ignored Dexie and expected things to even out faster. Today I think I’ve been prepared for being high because I’ve been going possibly over board with the amount of insulin.

 I have to say, as much as I may resent having the pump attached to me at all times, I’m loving the temp basal setting and I’ve been making good use of it a lot lately with the nasty highs.

Robotic Me

Robotic Me In A Nutshell……………

Ok, so to sum up the last week and a half since I’ve been pretty incognito with this whole blogging thing……….Well, maybe not sum up because this will probably be longer than I plan......

This is pretty much an educational post for those of you that read this that don't have diabetes or know anything bout these battery operated/robot parts that keep me living and my quality of life just that, quality.
Be warned, I got some pics below you may not like.

I started using the Dexcom CGM 14 days ago. I’m becoming more and more robot like. I put it on right when I got home from work the first night and it was all good up until about 10pm when a “Faulty Sensor” warning popped up on the receiver screen. I called Dexom’s 24hr tech support right away and talked to a very nice and helpful lady right off the bat. After going over things with her we came to the conclusion that it was just a faulty sensor and nothing that I had done. They sent me a replacement overnight at no charge. Sweetness!!!

 Since it was time for me to be getting to bed I didn’t bother with the CGM system again until the next morning because I didn’t want to have to mess with it. After inserting the sensor into yourself there is a 2 hour warm up period and then you have to do a finger stick twice and put into the receiver what the bg reading is both times.

  This is the receiver and my meter. They are right on in this picture. Oh, I'm kinda a dummy and can't figure why this picture is sideways when it's not like this on my computer and I can't get it to flip.



 That’s why I waiting until the next day so that I could go bedyby. Next morning, I ran into an issue with two more that I tried to insert.

This is the applicator that is attached to the sensor, it seemed to be stuck to the sensor itself. You should be able to pinch the release tabs on the sides and rock the applicator out, but that wouldn't work. It seemed like the entire things was melded together. It happened twice before I tired the last one that I had and the 4^th time was the charm. (I know, you're thinking operator error, but I promise, hubby tried too and couldn't get it to budge!). Now that I've really been living with this new attachment for a full 14 days here is my opinion and how it works…..

 It’s great in the fact that it has woke me up a couple of nights to let me know that I’m crashing. It sucks/fantastic in the fact that I now see how much I actually spike. Altho I don’t feel sick, I have to wonder if I have been trying to fight something off for the last week because there are HOURS, I’m talking usually 3-4 hours AT LEAST that I’m spiking after lunch or dinner and I cannot get my numbers to come down. I know that before the CGM I would check 10+ times a day and I wouldn't always have this issue. It’s nice that I can see when I’m high and for how long so that I can get things in a better range. It’s just been really frustrating how craptastick my numbers have been for the last week. I've been using LOTS of temporary basal settings and yesterday afternoon I gave myself a correction bolus and then went and rode the exercise bike for a half hour. That did help a lot, even though after dinner I crept up higher and a little longer than I would have liked. What is weird is that I seem to be creeping up and staying up between 8pm and 9pm and staying steadily in the same high numbers until maybe 1am or so. Then I drop into the 120s or 130s and hang there steadily into 7am when it’s time to get up. My afternoons are not much better. Things are great in the mornings, no highs but after lunch around 1pm I creep up and can’t seem to get down to even out the 150s till after 4:30 or even closer to dinner time. I just keep giving myself the pep talk that I’m diabetic and this is how it goes, but something is up. These stubborn highs are really ticking me off. 

 Other than these goofed up unreasonable highs, I think I really do like the Dexcom. It’s encouraging when I see a good day, and it really is a good thing to see the highs and lows coming on. What I am struggling with a little, but not so much over the past 5-7 days because of the highs, is that when I see the lows I’m over treating. I need to forget about the Dexcom for 15 minutes and not worry about what the screen is saying. It freaks me out when I don’t see an upward arrow on the screen after 5 minutes. 60 seconds can feel like 6 hours during a low at times so waiting 15 minutes and not keep looking at the receiver screen to see what’s going on is like an eternity!!!

 I was able to get the first sensor to work for a total of 11 days and then I just felt like it wasn’t as accurate so I am now on #2 sensor. They have been FDA approved for 7 days, buuuuutttt.... as with most "D" items trying to get the most for the money and do what you can is kinda what I'm pushing for. It's possible to cheat the sensors. 

                                 Here is the sensor that goes under my skin............................

                                  Here is the top of the sensor that the transmitter attaches to

 Adhesive, I had to tape the first sensor within the first 24hrs I think. This one I haven’t yet, it’s still looking pretty stuck to me, so hopefully it will stay that way for a couple more days. I found after using I think 3 other tapes some clear stuff from Walgreens that seems to work for me pretty well and is water proof. My skin didn't like the adhesive so much, but it’s not as bad as I was afraid of.

                                              This is after wearing it for almost 11 days.

                                 My skin today after changing it out on Sunday, today is Thursday.


So I guess nothing was in a nutshell. Of course I'm going on and on and on.....................

There have been other "D" life things that maybe I'll get around to sharing one of these days.

It's A Meter Or An Ornament?

I decided that this Christmas I would carry on Brad's mom's tradition and get him an ornament. He then decided to do the same. This is what he gave me. It's really a meter he bought for a few dollars off of Ebay and then painted on the number.

Christmas For Diabetes!

It's here! It's like Christmas for diabetes. I'm totally starting my online training tonight.