Re: A Re-Introduction and aQuestion About Snacks on P1 -- from a lurker -- very long

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

I'm new and have no answers but I appreciate your long post and admire your

perserverance through so many obstacles.

india910@...> wrote:

Hi all,

I've been a lurking member of this group for a number of months now.

I did write an intro post and did start Phase 1 of the SBD but

unfortunately was not able to progress forward due to my needing to

return to the hospital unexpectedly. I was in a serious car accident

in May 2005 -- I fractured three vertebrae in my neck, fractured my

T12 and had a spinal fusion surgery at T12 as well, followed by two

weeks of inpatient rehab, three cycles of outpatient rehab, and four

months on disability from work. I had some problems not long after

joining this group that necessitated a return to the hospital to

undergo a slew of tests. Everything ultimately turned out all right

(I was suffering what I still suspect were TIAs, but nothing was found

to be amiss; I'm convinced that it was simply the result of so much

trauma and injury to areas so close to my spinal cord that affected me

more profoundly than I anticipated it would), but I was in the

hospital for nearly a week and naturally didn't have the best choices

in terms of diet in front of me.

To re-introduce myself a bit, I'm a Type 1 (insulin-dependent)

diabetic, and I use an insulin pump. My car accident was actually the

result of my falling unconscious from unexpected hypoglycemia on my

way to work. I crashed and totaled my car and (obviously) did a lot

of damage to my own self, but -- and for this I am more thankful than

I could ever truly express -- I didn't involve anyone else in the

accident, something I seriously doubt I could have accepted (the whole

" responsibility " aspect of living with such a intensely, highly

self-managed condition) without a lot of work on my part. But anyway ==

I am not overweight; I'm fairly healthy, and even slightly

underweight, although I have gained some weight since my time in the

hospital and rehab. My reason for deciding to use the SBD was an

effort to find a way of eating that would be beneficial to someone

attempting to control diabetes. I would like to be able to decrease

my bolus insulin (i.e., my meal doses) since using less insulin

results in less fluctuation in blood sugars and less swings from low

to high to low again. I manage my diabetes intensively, but after my

time in rehab, when I was very limited in my food choices, I adopted

eating habits that I haven't been able to completely turn around even

after four months back at work and four months attempting to

reintroduce my former way of eating back into my life. I

feel...unhealthy...and out of control. Although it didn't hurt for me

to gain a bit of weight, I don't feel comfortable having gained that

weight because it wasn't a healthy weight gain. I am still in

considerable pain nearly all day every day (my back muscle strength is

virtually non-existent at this point), and although I know that I need

to get into the gym and start exercising, which can only benefit me

(I've tried doing some of the exercises I learned in PT at home, but

it's difficult to adapt most of them without certain equipment that is

no longer available to me). I just feel...out of shape...and very

sluggish and unhealthy. It's time for me to do what I had intended to

do when I initially joined this group, more importantly in conjunction

with re-establishing a workout routine that is so critical to my

well-being right now. I used to work out intensely but cancelled my

membership to my former gym (where they offered spinning, my favorite

cardiac workout) and now belong to a small all-female gym in my town.

It's no more than a five-minute drive from my apartment, yet I can't

seem to get myself there. I am tired, I am hurting, and I am

frustrated and disgusted with myself. I know that ultimately, working

out is the ONLY thing that will help me to start regaining my muscle

strength, but it can be so hard sometimes. I'm also just starting

school again (Spring semester) after having been out of school since

just before my accident (I missed both the summer and fall semesters),

and I'm trying to slowly readapt to both working and attending school.

I know that I need to add exercise back into that picture. But again

-- the pain is sometimes so intense and makes me so physically weak

and exhausted. Enough of my whining, however.

Here's my current 'dilemma': I AM going to be starting P1 of SBD

again, because I really do want to be able to follow this way of

eating, which I feel is the best WOE for a diabetic -- Type 1 or Type

2. I do occasionally eat fish, but I don't eat meat or poultry and

haven't for seven years. I even feel a profound discomfort when I eat

fish, but I reintroduced fish into my diet because I didn't like

" bulking up " my meals with starchy carbohydrate. More carbs, more

insulin. I really love the fact that beans are allowed on even P1 of

SBD, because they're another source of protein that I can turn to. If

I don't eat fish (and again, it's not that often that I do), my source

of protein is usually 1/2 to 1 ounce of cheese mixed in with a salad,

a veggie meat (TVP), nuts, tofu, peanut butter (right now I have 1T PB

on live grain bread for breakfast nearly every day) and eggs. It's

one thing to attempt SBD as a vegetarian, it's another to attempt it

as a T1 diabetic vegetarian. I can't do pasta, no matter how many

times I've attempted to " fake it out " with using combination/extended

boluses on my pump, so most pasta dishes are out for me when I reach

P2. I can do it; it will simply take a lot of planning and thinking

out of the box on my part. My question is regarding the necessity of

" snacks " on P1. I understand that the basic concept behind the snacks

is to insure that blood sugar levels and insulin levels remain steady

throughout the day. Is it absolutely essential and critical for

someone like me, whose body doesn't *make* any insulin on its own, to

eat two snacks per day, which will only result in my needing *more*

insulin to cover the snacks (unless they're pure protein, provided

that they're not so much protein that they too raise my blood sugar)?

If this mechanism is already " broken " and unlike a Type 2 diabetic,

there is nothing that I can do diet-wise that will repair it, in that

changing the way that I eat will not level out the insulin in my blood

because there IS NO NATURAL INSULIN in my body -- do I need to

force-feed myself twice more a day simply because the diet dictates

that I should? Eating three meals is plenty for me most days, and one

of the things that I am most frustrated with is that throughout my

time at home, I started eating more frequently throughout the day,

which only resulted in my using increasingly more insulin to cover

that extra food I was taking in. I don't want to take five bolus

doses of insulin per day if I don't need to.

Can I do this without the snacks, since I really have no need to

retrain a part of my body that is already permanently damaged and will

never work properly? I'm just trying to make sense of this and I

can't seem to come up with the answer on my own. I'm looking to all

of you for advice. I read all of the messages here and I have learned

so much and have saved so many of the tips, ideas, advice and recipes

in my own personal files. I'd be grateful for any guidance you can

offer -- if you've even managed to read this far.

I do apologize for the length of this post. I'm not known for my

ability to keep things brief. Thanks for your help.

Please send your recipes for inclusion in the Files to the Moderator at:

South-Beach-Diet-Getting-It-Right-owner

Reminder: The South Beach Diet is not low-carb. Nor is it low-fat. The South

Beach Diet teaches you to rely on the right carbs and the right fats-the good

ones - and enables you to live quite happily without the bad carbs and bad fats.

For more on this Way Of Eating please read " The South Beach Diet " by Arthur

Agatston, MD. ISBN 1-57954-814-8