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Slim and Save


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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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).
 
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.
 
Is the cardboard box in your picture part of the meal plan Spiker?
 
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
 
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.
 
Whoa!

That really isn't right.

Did this start with the shakes? Or was it happening before?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
I'm going to take a break during my mad weekend and then do a fasting basal test on Monday.
 
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.
 
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