Where Am I?

In Part 1 of this series, Sure Lady, I'll Hold Your Dog, I discuss why it is so difficult to deal with weight loss on top of good diabetes management. In Part 2 and Part 3, I lay out the reasoning behind my plan to skip breakfast and the results.

If I am going to start making some changes to what I eat, I had better get a handle on what exactly I am eating. So the first step this month was to record everything I ate. I haven’t really done this since the first few months after my diagnosis TWENTY YEARS AGO!!!

Back then I carried around a notebook to record by hand what I ate and how much. Then I would come home and try to figure out how many carbs and calories that was. I hated how much time it took to do all of that. I had better things to do with my time, like surf and hang out with my friends. I had enough homework already, without adding diabetes homework.

Now a days, it’s a whole new ball game. When I sat down to eat, or while I was waiting to cook something, I pulled out my One Drop app, scanned a few bar codes or looked up a few items from a huge database, clicked a few buttons and I was done. All the carbs and calories were calculated for me and recorded in one easy step.

And once I had a meal put together I could save that meal. So the next time I ate that, it only took four clicks and I was done.

The ease with which I could record stuff and the data I now had at hand, made me want to record my next meal. It was no longer homework, but a valuable tool.

I’M DOING BETTER THAN EXPECTED

When I went over the week’s data, I noticed a few things. The first of which is that I am consuming a lot fewer calories than I expected, around 1500 a day. But on some days, those days that I have multiple lows, that number goes as high as 2280.

And that’s one of the reasons it is so hard to lose weight with diabetes. Before type 1, you just make a simple change to your diet and exercise and your body makes all of the necessary changes to your insulin levels.

Now, if you make a change to your diet or exercise, you often get more lows, which means more calories and ends up defeating the whole purpose of working out.

Now this doesn’t make losing weight with diabetes impossible, but it does make it more complicated. It takes consistency in A new diet and exercise habits so that you can make the right changes to your insulin regime to match your body’s new requirements.

I had weight loss goals set out for these next six months. And I think they might have been based on what I see going on around me, instead of what I see going on inside of me. We see commercials on TV about how people lose 2-4 pounds a week. I watch my non-type 1 husband lose 2-3 pounds a week like it’s nothing.

But we aren’t like everyone else. And I think our weight loss goals need to reflect that. They need to take into account that the first few weeks of change are going to cause some more lows than usual, and some more calories than usual. Which means the weight will come off slower.

A DOCTOR’S RECOMMENDATION

The last time I saw my doctor, we discussed my weight. Now this is a doctor whom I absolutely love. I have been seeing him for over fifteen years now and we have built a great relationship. He always treats me like I know what I’m doing and trusts my opinions of what I need and what I think is going on.

He brought up my weight for the first time in fifteen years. He has seen me through my ups and downs of pregnancy and thyroid and never once mentioned it. Over the last year, I put on around 15 pounds because of some asthma related issues from a toxic house. And now that I am healthy (relatively speaking), he finally mentioned it.

I love the way he put it too. “Erin,” he said, “I’d like to see you lose ten pounds this year.” Three things are great about that statement.

One, I had been thinking the same thing for a while so it was no big shock.

Two, he didn’t say I should, or I need to lose weight. But simply that he would be happy if I did. And since we have a good relationship, I would like to do that for him.

And three, he said ten pounds in one year. That’s a reasonable goal. It wouldn’t require anything drastic. It would give me time to get used to a new routine of diet and exercise changes. And if you lose weight slower, you are more likely making the long-term changes needed to maintain that new lifestyle, instead of drastic attempts to lose weight that can’t be sustained in the long run.

So this month, I have readjusted my goals. Instead of five pounds a month (which wasn’t happening anyways) I am shooting for two pounds a month. The smaller goals mean that I am more likely to meet them, which means I am more likely to stick to the new changes instead of getting frustrated with failing to meet the mark and giving up after a few months.

PLANS FOR FEBRUARY

After analyzing my food logs, I noticed something else: I eat a lot of junk carbs. I am not against carbs. Humans need carbs to live. I love my fruits and veggies and rice and oats. but I was consuming a lot of non-foods: Cheeze-its, rolls, and bagels. Things that don’t provide a lot of nutritional value and really are just processed nonsense that I could do without.

So for February I am going to try to reduce the amount of junk carbs and fill up instead with more fruits and veggies. And try to hit that two-pound goal.

STATS FOR JANUARY

Weight -3 pounds

Measurements -? inches (I think it's time to measure)

When Levemir Gives You Lemons...

I have been using Levemir for 75% of my basal for almost three years now and I absolutely love what it has done for my diabetes. I can now detach from my pump for my long workouts and not have any missing basal insulin. Gone are the seven-hour highs after a long workout.

If my pump site gets clogged, that now means a few hours in the 200’s instead of a few hours in the 500’s. And if my pump runs out of insulin while I am away from home, I know I am at least partially covered by the Levemir.

While Levemir has done amazing things for my diabetes, it has one drawback. The marks it leaves on my stomach from injections (see pic). I wasn’t about to stop using Levemir just because of some purple marks. After all, my diabetes is great, and they are only cosmetic marks.

But I wasn’t really thrilled at the sight of them. So I decided to do something about them. Instead of just putting up with the marks, I thought I would use them to my advantage. So here is my new site rotation plan.

I think it will add some nice contouring just where I want it. After all, if dancers can paint on some abs, why can’t I?

How Do You Swim with a Backpack??

As we prepare for the One Drop Caicos Adventure in June 2017, we are doing a ton of training. These training diaries are stories from the field and things I have learned from my time in training.

June is fast approaching and training is really starting to amp up. My long rides and paddles have been ambushed by a stretch of bad weather, but a little shifting of my schedule has kept me on course. That, and a good indoor bike trainer.

I have added land paddling, where you ride a skateboard and use a paddle with a blunt end to propel yourself along the ground, to my schedule to get in some paddle training after school since there is not enough time in the day right now to get in a good workout after work without paddling alone in the dark. It has infused my workouts with a fun new challenge.

I am totally encouraged, also, by seeing the posts from my teammates about their long swims and rides. It is nice to have their success motivate me. And because I don’t want to let them down, I am way more motivated to stick to my workout schedule.

I love looking at my One Drop App and seeing a full week with huge orange spots nearly every day. Orange is the color used in the app for activity. The bigger the spot, the longer you were active. It is a great way to reward myself at the end of a long week.

SWIMMING PLANS

I have been looking into how to design the rig we will use during our swims. We will be traversing several cays on foot and then swimming the distance between the cays. Which means we will have to tow our backpacks behind us in the water.

We will have Blood Red Clothing dry backpacks, which are phenomenal. They are completely watertight. But I will have to design a rig to ensure they float and find a way to attach them to a waist band so that we can pull them behind us with minimal drag. That process will be a lot of trial and error. And once I have the system in place, each of the girls will need to assemble their own rig and try it out in the water to get used to it. It will for sure change their swimming dynamics. I think I am most excited about this aspect of the trip, because I love to design and build things and I have never taken on something like this rig before.

I have also been doing a good deal of research in January about the tides and currents in the area. The channels we will be swimming will be the most dangerous parts of Day 3.

The Caicos chain is situated on an underwater plateau, so the water is pretty shallow for a good distance out from land. But when the tides drop, a good chunk of water will drop off the plateau in all directions.

Towards the south where it is open to the ocean this is not as big of an issue. But to the North and West where we will be swimming that same amount of water will have to pass between the islands in small channels. The current here can be swift and pull us off the plateau into the deep ocean.

We will be timing our swims accordingly to avoid the fastest of the currents and swimming where we have plenty of room to drift without getting into trouble.

The last of the channels is the busiest with boaters since it leads to the biggest marina and also is a place for water skiing. I will be working on our swim rig to increase visibility in this area so we don’t get run over by a speed boat.