Author: Todd

Toddhttps://17stones.wordpress.comI believe in service and citizenship. Recycling is our mandatory imperative and I am not above a little pomposity ;)
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Bananas

I was going to grab a banana on my way to work and thought let me check the nutritional values. In the past I have always been good with eating any and all fruit, by T2D is making me check my thinking.

So, I tool a little look at what’s in a banana.

And decided to do some research before eating it. Mostly due to the sugar. My understanding is that fruit sugar is better than refined sugar, but that seems like a lot.

Most of the sources indicate it’s ok 🙂 The warnings are about fruit juice and dried fruit. But moderation is the key. At some point today I’m eating that banana.

Status

Late Night

I tested my blood sugar this morning and it was lower than it has been for the last few days. What did I do differently:

  • Stayed up later
  • No fruit after dinner
  • 1 sugar-free popsicle (vs 2/3)

Tracking my intake will hopefully help me with awareness!

Dawn Phenomenon

I’ve only been testing my blood level for a week now, but have been a bit surprised when testing in the morning. The results have been higher than the tests before dinner. Since I have not been eating or drinking into the evening it was one of those things I needed to dig into.

What gives? Apparently hormones. Your body kicks things up a notch in the morning to make sure you have enough energy to get going. This comes from the liver, which acts like a glucose warehouse that works to release what you are using overnight. The challenge is if your body does not create enough insulin to let the liver know to stop or it can’t effectively communicate with the liver with the same result.

What can be done – track closely the food you eat and when as well as when you are taking medicine. Skill up and make the required adjustments. I am getting into this habit now. As you might expect this can be a variable process and takes time to get to the right levels.

Note: This is just the beginning of my research into this topic. It is very high-level and will likely need some corrections, but it gets me started.

Status

Omada

I was reading up on diabetes and came across the term Certified Diabetes Educator and that talking to one is a good idea. I checked at work and found that this is covered by my insurance. I registered, verified that I was a fit for the program and was enrolled. And it is a full program.

  • Professional health coach for 1-1 guidance
  • Connected devices (scale, blood pressure or glucose meter)
  • Weekly interactive lessons
  • Online community of peers

After getting accepted, I did a questionnaire to help them understand me, my goals and more importantly my commitment. I answered the questions honestly and without any editing. I should have saved the answers – would have been good to put here.

There is a lot to like about this program. Another level of accountability with the potential to learn a ton. And have professional resources to answer the questions that the academic information may not cover. Looking forward to seeing how this works. I’m debating to try to use the app now rather than waiting for them to send me all the info…we’ll see if I can wait.

International Women’s Day

Today, my wife earned a special Apple Activity Award for exercising outdoors for at least 20 minutes. It was in honor of International Women’s Day. She chose to do an outdoor walk. I went with her. We walked and jogged about 3 miles.

The image below shows the path we took. It was a little path by one of the lakes in the area. Each lap was 0.25 miles. Not ideal, but we alternated walking and jogging around each lap. Until the end when we did a few walking for cool down. The image below is from the Apple Health app. The app does a nice job of showing your stats and the fun items like this make you want to do more.

Just a note, I did not get the special award. Likely because I’m not a woman. I was happy to be outside with my wife … moving.

Update: The 2020 award showed up in my list.

Tech

I purchased a Withings scale and was having some issues getting it setup. I spent a little time last weekend on it and then moved on to something else. I picked it back up this weekend and it worked 🙂

Up Next: Summarize my apps and devices.

Also, I seemed to have a fair amount of bread today. 

Portions

I’ve been focusing on portions. The size of the meal as well as the quantity of the different elements. I’ve cut way back on the bread. If I get a chicken sandwich, I’ll ditch the buns and chop up the chicken and put it in a salad or bowl of spinach. No breadsticks etc. This won’t always happen, but balance!

Was looking for a good graphic of a well-balanced plate and I like this one.

Stabbing My Fingers

I am getting used to testing my blood sugar. It’s a little tricky to get the right place on the finger that will generate a decent amount of blood. The depth of the poker (need to learn the real names of the equipment) matters as well. Too deep on small fingers is not ideal and too shallow on the bigger fingers won’t yield enough blood for the test.

Then there is the damn e-4 error on the Accu-Chek. This happens when you don’t get the blood in the end of the sample strip quite right. It really needs to wick the blood into it. I’ve used several of those getting the process down. Another week and I should be able to do it on auto-pilot.

The MySugr app makes it easy to capture and track. Next is really understanding what contributes to higher levels. Especially overnight. To help with this I started loosely tracking my food. I’m using the FitBit app to do this. Back in 2010 when FitBit was first becoming a thing, I used the food tracker extensively, It has a good database and is easy to use. This will help jog my memory when piecing together food/drink and blood sugar levels.