Village - For me as a Type 1, unfortunately Novolog isn't quick enough to deal with the conversion of potatoes, pasta, rice etc to sugar in the blood, even with pre-bolusing. When I used to eat toast, eggs and juice for breakfast (a normal breakfast), my blood sugar spiked, even with pre-bolused Novolog, and it took about 4-5 hours for my blood sugar to return back to range. I felt exhausted and foggy after every meal. Then I did a three-week experiment, eating mostly vegetables, beans and protein with a little 91% dark chocolate for dessert, and I was amazed how much better I felt. By sheer coincidence I did this experiment shortly after getting my first cgm, which clearly showed a better bg pattern from eating low carb. I continued with this, and my next HgA1c was 6.0% (sorry I don't know how to convert this), and I wasn't even trying to lower it - it just happened. Then I gradually lowered the Dexcom high alert from 200mg/dl (11.1 mol/l) down to 120 (6.7) over a few months - my next HgA1c was 5.3%, but more importantly, I felt really great. Then I discovered Dr. Bernstein's book, and with his further suggestions, I'm able to get even lower A1cs with no hypo episodes, but again the main thing is that I feel great.
I don't miss high-carb foods (ChisSamsDad is good to point out that many of them taste bland anyway), especially when I've had to live out feeling terrible for so many hours after every meal: for decades. There's so many creative ways to prepare really delicious low-carb meals, which can also include low-carb desserts (e.g. try replacing wheat flour with almond flour, and replace sugar with Swerve and liquid Stevia). Restaurants add hidden sugar to everything including salad dressing, so I'm absolutely fine to order say a chicken salad with dressing on the side. I can have a bigger plate of food when I eat low carb vegetables and protein. As for hunger, having a lot of insulin in the blood makes us hungry: so with lower insulin from lower carb, I find I'm not hungry in between meals.
I row on a rowing machine about 5 times per week with my heart rate at about 85-90% of maximum, and I do some situps and weights. Exercising this way around the time of a low-carb meal means I'll inject less insulin. If I do gardening for say 1.5-2 hours after a low carb meal, I may not need to inject any insulin at all for that meal. If I end up low, I'll use only glucose tabs cut in half to correct.
So yes Village, it's discipline I guess (especially when I go to a pretty good grocery store and avoid most of what's in it), but I don't perceive it that way at all. It's just an issue of what's less trouble for me.
