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carb counting/weighing food/recovering from chronic eating disorder

hollyslot

Well-Known Member
Messages
167
Location
London, United Kingdom
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
hi,

i have had t1 since i was 4 (17 years) and i have also had anorexia since the age of 11 (10 years).

I am really really trying to recover from my eating disorder, and breaking all my behaviours that relate to it that i don't need to do for my diabetes (eg weigh myself).

my issue is with measuring food. i have always been completely obsessed with calories, measuring every tiny little thing i eat inculding foods with negligible carbs in (eg cheese/avocado/unsweetened soya milk/nuts).

i know that i will always need to measure carbs though (unfortunately).
i just wanted to ask- do others measure out foods without carbs in too?
do these foods affect your bg as i feel they do with mine.

basically im trying to work out what i can 'give up' measuring.
 
DAFNE advocates a minimal approach to carb counting - so just look for the obvious carbs, breads, pasta, rice, potatoes, cereals, fruits, cakes biscuits. Don't bother with stuff you know isn't really a carb or will have negligible carbs in. Don't bother with veggies because the fibre content makes the carbs negligible. So that's the DAFNE advice and that's the biggest structured education course for diabetics in England & Wales.

DAFNE also uses a CP system, so 1 CP (carbohydrate portion) = 10g of carbs. You round everything up/down to a CP or half a CP, that might be quite a good approach for you because it puts some distance between the measure you are focusing on - how many carbs - and the nitty gritty of the exact grams of carbs. Just an idea.

You could also try to work out was so you don't have to weigh everything - you could work out by weighing once that one spoonful of pasta (using your fab serving spoon) contains X carbs and then you will know that every time you serve a spoonful of pasta without having to go through the process of weighing it.

You might want to get in touch with DWED to see if they can suggest ways to manage the need to carb count that will minimise the impact on your ED recovery - http://dwed.org.uk

Really impressed by your determination to recover be proud of yourself.
 

As someone not dealing with T1, I don't feel I can say too much that would be helpful in your particular query. I am, however, someone who has recovered from significantly advanced anorexia, in my late 20s, so I can appreciate the many mental conflicts you must be juggling every day.

I wish you every good fortune in finding a way forward to achieve what you need to.
 
thank you <3
 
I weigh every ounce of my food whether its low in carbs or not.

First off, protein/ fat can still affect your bloods, I have to count an egg as 4 carbs to inject.
I even weigh my 15g of feta cheese, 100g skinned cucumber and 50g of avocado.

I have not had an eating disorder but have a colon that dislikes a lot of food and doesn't work. I have to skin cucumber.

I weigh everything so that I can get 100% accuracy with my insulin. Ie 15g of feta has 0.61 carbs, 100g cucumber 2.16 cRbs. When I could eat lettuce, rocke, olives etc I used to wegh n calculate all of it. However, mine is to ensure I yry to get enough nutritiin for vitamins and minerals.

I wrote down everytjing I can eat and worked out the nutrition I needed for every vitamin, calcium, iron etc.

I watch everything because I know from the foods I can eat that I'm not getting enough and need to talk to my gadtroenterologist as I want to stay healthy and I am pretty obsessed with it all.

A friend of mine (non diabetic) has been in a eating disorder climic in Kent and I do appreciate the effort it takes for you to overcome weighing, eating etc....
 
I even also measure out 500 ml of milk to have each day etc..

Cheese, eggs also have an affect on my bloods but I put alot of mine down to the slow digestion I have and the fact food can come out whole, just as I swallowed it!! So nutitionally I don't know how much glucose can be released etc if food is not digesting ...
 

Are you recording what you are measuring and the subsequent effect on you blood glucose? Keeping a food diary (at least for a while) might help you spot trends and will highlight what you can forget about, and what you need to pay attention to.
 
I weigh my carbs - pasta, potatoes, cereal, I don't weigh 'free' carbs like carrots or broccoli, etc I also don't weigh protein or fat. I eat normal amounts of protein and so just have a serving eg a salmon fillet or a pork chop.

If it was me, I'd weigh the crucial carbs like cereal, potatoes, pasta and leave it at that. For things like fruit you can just use the average to carb count eg one apple is 15g carbs, rather than weigh the apple. The only fruit I weigh is a banana as I've found the average banana listed in carb lists is actually pretty small.

I would think sticking to weighing crucial carbs would cut down on your weighing. I guess it'll seem strange to start with, but hopefully it'll be a good balance for you - some weighing but only when necessary.

I hope that helps a little and I wish you all the best. You sound like you're being really sensible in your approach
 
Okay so this is a really tricky thing to approach as you are essentially trying to seperate Diabetes practice from AN behaviours, which can get pretty emeshed. If you find that weighing everything is triggering your inner calorie counter perhaps taking a step back and using an older system like carb exchangings would work. Although protien does raise BGs in some T1s it doesn't in all and maybe trying to shift your thinking in terms of units of insulin rather cals might helo. Of course the issue there is that if you are not combating the obsessiveness it can just move accross. . I know how hard it is I've been in recovery from AN/BN/DBN for nearly 10 years but I still have an encyclopedic knowledge of Calories, carbs etc. For me utilising a low carb diet has been a god send as I just react to my blood sugars rather than try and micromanage my food. That definitely helped me but it's not for everyone by any means, and in some restricting a food group may lead to a binge. Also my control isn't as good as it could be. Are you working with anyone to look at this? It's really important that you speak to someone who understands the intricacies of T1D while also understanding how that affects anorexic thinking
 
I eat a very low carb diet so I don't weigh my carbs anymore but I used to. I eat the same BF, lunch and dinner but I mix up my proteins. I do still weigh protein as it has a profound effect on my bs and I am also extremely carb sensative. After testing different meals for each meal I found my bolus for them and I eat them everyday. Many people would find this too boring and restrictive but I find it FAR less stressful than weighing, measuring and calculating everything for each meal. It was way too stressful for me to be thinking about and planning meals all day long. I cooked loads of different proteins in bulk and portion out into baggies and freeze. While I'm making my BF I decide what protein I want for lunch and take it out to defrost. I always have cooked salmon, lamb, beef steak, shrimp, chicken, turkey, boiled eggs and tuna on hand. I eat lots of chopped salads just with finely chopped scallion celery onion radish, avocado chunks ( i usually weigh my avocado) a protein of choice and drizzled with Evoo. Herbs when I feel like it. BF is a piece of lettuce with mayo and mustard and a small piece of deli turkey and one ounce avacado. This may sound very boring but I look forward to every meal and not much thinking, cooking ,planning. Pre cooking and setting certain meals has helped me be far less obsessive about food.
There is no free food for me, I need to watch all macronutrients and balance them correctly at each meal as well keep them the same size. I have very tight control this way and that is what I focus on. I eat to live now, not live to eat. It does take some time to weigh and measure in the beginning but now I'm on autopilot. LC and eating the same size meals is not for everyone but it works for me.
As a bonus my digestion works best this way too.
 
I have no advice to add to all the above but just wanted to say well done on getting this far with your anorexia, and loads of luck keeping yourself well x
 
Yes, once weighed.. Write it down on a sheet and it does help a lot like Kristin251 says if you can keep to a few regular days of the same food then that helps too.

We do that. Ie cook enough salmon for two days with my avocado and skinned cucumber. Or have butternut squash and weigh out two portions of 100g and have that with my broccoli and homemade fishcakes for two days.
 
thanks so much for all your suggestions, i am so sick of being so concerned with my weight and calories and just want to only think of food for my diabetes!
the dafne method sounds really good, i've never done a course but it sounds like good advice and method of managing diabetes.
i do worry though that maybe if i eat a protein/fat rich meal, the carb ratio to insulin may be different to if i was eating more carbs if that makes sense?
 
@hollyslot Obviously we're all different but I find I don't have to think about protein as long as I have some carbs with it. Tonight I had a huge steak and a moderate amount of potatoes plus veg. I just counted the carbs in the potatoes and my BS has been fine.
 

Unless you are doing a very low carb diet or eating a meal very heavy in very easily absorbed protein, bolusing for protein is usually not an issue. Heavy fat meals won't impact on your ratios, but they might impact on bolus timing - fat slows down the carb absorption.

Ps. I hope you get to a place where you can think of food for enjoying it too. Baby steps
 
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