Slim and Save

[Spiker]

Watch out Spiker, you address is visible on the box.

Or did you do that on purpose?

Thanks Pipp - I thought I'd checked for that. Fixed the pic.

 

[AndBreathe]

The ever-entertaining Rhubarb and Custard Shake

169 kcal
15 gch
14 gpr
3gf

With all of these shakes I find you need to rinse the shaker within a minute of mixing. Pour into a glass and give the shaker a good hard rinse. Otherwise the gloopy residue starts turning to concrete. Three minutes is literally too late, you need to put the shaker in the dishwasher or proper washing up. I do have 3 shakers but who wants the hassle of that?

Also, if you are hungry or carb cravey you will find yourself swilling out the shaker and drinking the diluted gloop. Hungry for every last half gram of carbs. But all of this is in the past now, before we had the Big Fat Solution. Fat is our friend.

So I am having the shake with a butter coffee. That's my new plan. Butter coffee with every 'meal', and butter coffees between meals as required if I feel peckish at all. I'm treating the butter coffee as a free food, but I suppose I should quantify the amount of butter I'm putting in. I'm just cutting a slab of butter by eye, but it works out to be about 25g - 1oz of butter. So that's about 20gf. I probably need to think about the effect the fat is going to have on my carb ratio, at some point. Also about the caffeine. I don't normally have loads of caffeine. Maybe it would be better if I got some decaf.

I am dosing for protein as well carbs, at my usual protein ratio which is 1/3, ie. 3gpr = dose for 1gch. We'll see how that goes.

On top of everything, it looks like I've been fighting a throat infection the past few days and it's been pushing my BG up. Just what I need! I've changed all the pump gubbins so it's not a pump problem. It does seem to be infection and not the 'meals' because I see it happening 24 hours a day, regardless of whether I have eaten recently or not. Diabetic life is never simple eh?

It's probably worth stating that my main goal in doing this Slim n Save version of LCHF is to get my BG down and stable. Yes I could lose a few pounds but that's not the main objective. The really critical objective is to get BG down and stable. My random BGs have been high for months, and my Hba1C continues to be poor. I know that LCHF works, I know it works for me, I just need to find a way of maintaining my own compliance. This is my latest attempt. It's trying to eliminate one of my main modes of falling off the wagon, which is to get stressed (inevitable), engage my stress-> food response, have nothing low carb in the house or office, and step outside to get some carby ****. Game over. I want to permanently surrounded by 'safe' LCHF options so that my stress-> food response isn't catastrophic. I also need to get into the virtuous cycle of high fat intake eliminating carb cravings. That makes it 100x easier to resist my carb-seeking response to stress.

A few years ago, I wasn involved with an insane project that involved 9 months of 5 nights a week in an hotel and 12 hour days for those working days. Mr B was also commuting between UK, India and home, so chaos was order of the day. This is well before diabetes called, but after a couple of 10pm, Friday evening incidents of each of us arriving home, to enquire, "What's in for dinner?", it became clear there had to be changes. An empty fridge at that point was singularly unhelpful, and led to a couple of those "special moments" when frustration goes off the Richter scale.

What I did was to set up a basic, "core" shopping lost I could just order in minutes, or add to, as necessary, with a couple of supermarkets. I chose a couple, so that I could usually find one to deliver in my chosen time slot, which always had to be during the time the cleaner was in doing her thing at home. She'd take delivery, and deal with the fridge and freezer stuff. That way, we could always be sure we had at least survival rations when it all got a bit overly bonkers. Have you considered something like that? If you set up a core list, plus favourites, you can shop quickly. Click and collect is free, I think, but if you have evenings at home, then a delivery at 8 or 9pm isn't the end of the world?

 

[tim2000s]

@Spiker, given your stress response, try buying the snacks box from here:
http://www.natural-low-carb-store.co.uk/collections/snacks

@Heathenlass put me on to it and we have the box of snacks. The pork scratching crisps work really well in the reach for food scenario and the coconut bars are okay too. I had a face stuffing on them a couple of nights back.

 

[Spiker]

Beef Curry Noodle Soup
141 kcal, 13 gch, 13 gpr, 4 gf

Basically a Pot Noodle, using original 1970s Pot Noodle technology.

Everything goes down nicely with a butter coffee. Hmm, feeling a slight craving for a Slim n Save bar. I'd better have another butter coffee.

My BG is all over the shop. I suppose I am ill. Is it possible all the butter coffees are driving my carb:insulin ratio through the roof? Maybe I should start tracking my total fat intake. Sigh.

 

[Spiker]

I'm liking both those suggestions, @AndBreathe and @tim2000s. Thank you.

 

[AndBreathe]

I'm liking both those suggestions, @AndBreathe and @tim2000s. Thank you.

Well, all you need on your list are:

High meat sausages
Full deliciousness coleslaw
Butter
Pork scratchings

Or would that be missing any vital nutrients for optimal performance on Planet Spiker?

We could make suggestions.

 

[Spiker]

Well, all you need on your list are:

High meat sausages
Full deliciousness coleslaw
Butter
Pork scratchings

Or would that be missing any vital nutrients for optimal performance on Planet Spiker?

We could make suggestions.

That pretty much describes my twice weekly shop. Except I need to add in cream, cream cheese, and the odd bit of steak.
Probably should be some non starchy veg in there somewhere apart from the coleslaw (ahem).

 

[Spiker]

Drat. I succumbed to a cheeky extra bar. 17gch, 12gpr, Honey Nougat and Cardboard. I've obviously got a bad case of Cardboard Cravings.

The cardboardy taste might be due to the fact these are overstocked bars that they are discontinuing and literally giving away, 15 per order.

Ah well if I do 3 Slim n Save packs a day instead of 2, on top of a proper low carb meal, I'm still doing pretty well. Still under 60gch/day probably.

 

[Flowerpot]

Is the cardboard box in your picture part of the meal plan Spiker?

 

[Spiker]

Is the cardboard box in your picture part of the meal plan Spiker?

It's the basic foundation of the diet, Flowerpot.

 

[Heathenlass]

It's the basic foundation of the diet, Flowerpot.

Actually, the bubble wrap and cardboard sound more appetising than the contents

Well done you for attempting to tackle it though, and manfully chomping through foodie hell The only thing in the ingredients list that sounds to me like it would affect you the way it does is the milk content ?
How many tortures, err, meals are left now ?

Signy

 

[Spiker]

I am constantly cycling from 14-15 mmol/L to hypo, at least daily. Something is wrong with this picture. I need to think it through.

 

[Brunneria]

Whoa!

That really isn't right.

Did this start with the shakes? Or was it happening before?

 

[Spiker]

Whoa!

That really isn't right.

Did this start with the shakes? Or was it happening before?

Actually that's a fair point. It may have been happening before I started the Slim n Save based VLCD. BG stuck in the teens and then crashing hypos. But it's not an error in my correction ratio, if anything I've been correction-resistant (as if I had an infection). And same with my carb ratio, if anything I'm using too little insulin, not too much.

It could be my basal is out of whack. As I said earlier in this thread, I really should have done a fasting basal test before starting this diet, to verify my basal and verify my ratios. I think I'd better stop and do that. Unfortunately I've got a hectic weekend ahead, not really the best time for it.

 

[Spiker]

Going through my pump history in detail today, it looks like I was stacking correction doses (two corrections 3.25 hours apart) and stacking correction doses with bolus doses (corrections 90 min and 2.5 hrs after bolus).

This comes back to the IOB function not working. Normally this kind of stacking has worked fine for me, because the IOB function on the pump compensates. So something has happened (to me probably, e.g. my diet) which means the IOB function has become unreliable.

 

[noblehead]

I am constantly cycling from 14-15 mmol/L to hypo, at least daily. Something is wrong with this picture. I need to think it through.

You really do need to start with some basal testing, once you get that right you can then look at your I:C ratio's and your diet in general.

 

[Avocado Sevenfold]

I am constantly cycling from 14-15 mmol/L to hypo, at least daily. Something is wrong with this picture. I need to think it through.

Is no part of you wanting to pop the box on gumtree then head to the sausages and coleslaw shop?

 

[Spiker]

Is no part of you wanting to pop the box on gumtree then head to the sausages and coleslaw shop?

No more than 99% of me.

Sausages and coleslaw, yummmmm.

 

[Spiker]

I'm going to take a break during my mad weekend and then do a fasting basal test on Monday.

 

[Spiker]

Well a day of fasting has had an amazing effect. My BG has come down and I stopped feeling terminally ill, which is frankly how I felt the last week. It looks like, so far, my basal is pretty much on target. It's been out by at most about .1-.2 u per hour, which is just a tweak, not a problem. So once the basal is validated I will check my carb ratios and then my correction ratios. I'm thinking I will used glucotabs for that, or weigh some sugar.

I am feeling a bit hungry now, though I cheated and had a biscuit at 8am (actually forgot I was supposed to be fasting and I was running out the door with the kids). Apart from the 13gch biscuit I have had nothing since last night. I haven't been hungry until the last few hours when my blood sugar has crept down under 5. I felt mild hypo warning symptoms at 5.6, which I think is just because I've been running high so much lately.

I have bitten the bullet and ordered CGM sensors. I may even wait to resume Slim n Save until the sensors arrive, so I can profile exactly what the shakes bars and packet meals are doing to my BG.