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"What have you eaten" Parallel Chat

Why do jobs always lead to more jobs? Getting rid of our rotten decking has revealed damage to our shed as well - so think our garden project is going to take a few more days! Also the forecast looks mainly dry for the next few days so may add some fence painting to our growing jobs list.
Food plans include a slow cooked tomato sauce with meatballs later and may also roast a few tomatoes for breakfast to serve on LC toast with a poached egg and smoked trout salad for lunch. I'll need to stock up on low carb baking in a few days but keen to be outdoors while the weather is pleasant especially after this challenging summer.
 
Antje77 said:
Don't let the dietician let you down, you know way more than her, especially when it comes to diabetes.
You went down the rabbit hole last year I think following advice, and it didn't do you any good.
Where you did well over the 10 or so years I've known you, it was when you followed your own sound mind.


being referred to the hospital on a typical T1 insulin regime makes perfect sense to me.
I forgot, have you ever had a C-peptide test to see how much insulin you produce and if you may actually be a T1?

After @Annb 's ideas I wish I had cauliflower cheese leftovers!

I'll add turning it into a soup or use it as the base of a creamy, cheesy soup, just at leeks, maybe small meatballs, onions, whatever veggies need to be used and a stock cube or the real thing.
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I didn't expect much of the dietician, and I wasn't disappointed. I'm just trying to keep in with the health professionals and carrying on doing my own thing. I'm not surprised that the hospital take on the care for T1 but the left hand (hospital) doesn't seem to know what the right hand (GP care) is doing. I did have a c-peptide test about 3 or more years ago - had to explain to the GP what it was, and why, before he did it - I do seem to be producing insulin.

I am finding my way around this Semaglutimide taking - down from 49 units of my basal insulin to 47 - taking down further in a day or so. Not taking bolus doses at all so far in the last few days. Haven't needed it. The only issue is dehydration, which is fairly easy to fix. This is not given as a side effect in the instructions (other than as a result of diarrhhoea) but DIL confirms that it definitely has that effect on her. This, of course, is only the smallest dose and will be increased as time goes on.

2 cups of tea and 2 glasses of water so far today. 250 ml cups and glasses.

Breakfast: Cottage cheese and strawberries - ready to have shortly.

2nd meal: will be salmon and spinach.

In between I have to go and get my legs bandaged this morning and this afternoon I have an inexplicable appointment with the surgical clinic at the hospital. I am waiting for an appointment for my eyes, which are failing rapidly, but I don't think that can be what the appointment is for. So who referred me and why, I will find out this afternoon.

Still can't walk, so Neil will have to get me to and from the car with the wheelchair.
 
Porridge for breakfast, garden vegetable soup for lunch and chicken with garden vegetables for tea.

A bit more tidying up is needed in the garden and I've ordered a couple of cheap large garden storage boxes for all the random plant covers and general bits and bobs that are cluttering up my shed and polytunnel.
 
Thank you all for your suggestions as to what to do with the leftover cauliflower cheese. I think I shall blitz it up with some cottage cheese or something and serve it over roast veggies, and maybe some kind of carbs - there is still a bit of potato in there, so we'll see. Maybe roast a few baby potatoes in the mix.

Meanwhile, we were out of bananas, so breakfast was a scrambled egg on toast with black pepper Boursin, plus orange juice and coffee. I've just eaten 2 mini pork pies (one would have been enough!) with coleslaw, cherry tomatoes, etc, and a tiramisu ice cream from Lidl. The cauliflower cheese will live to fight another day, as Lidl had my absolute favourite chicken with lemon sauce and also salt and pepper chips, so that's supper sorted! Probably followed by yoghurt with either figs (35p each in Lidl this week!) or raspberries and/or nectarines.
 
Apparently the medical consultant referred me to the surgical clinic. He wants me to have a endoscopy to check the state of my liver - not entirely sure how that is done, but the surgeon seemed happy enough to do it. He did say, though, that because they are trying to protect my liver, it will have to be done with no sedation. Am I happy with that, he wanted to know. Not entirely happy, but I'll go along with it.

BG is dropping too low, but atm still just 4.0 and I've just taken the semagliclazide tablet so have to wait half an hour before having anything else. If BG drops further, I'll just have to take something, though. Actually, just checked again - it's 3.8. Hmmm.
 
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Hope your BG stabilised @Annb.

It's raining now and I didn't really get much done today, but I have made a huge slow cooker garden vegetable soup. It was supposed to be lunch but I didn't get it going soon enough so I had cheese and one of my gourmansun tomatoes with a staffordshire oatcake instead.

For the soup I wanted to use up the gnarly runner/french beans and courgettes, I also used a Uchiki Kuri squash that had some damage to the skin so may not keep well, a small swede (actually the biggest, I wanted to see what kind of damage the cabbage root fly had done below the soil line - not too much thankfully!), some really big carrots, onion and garlic, two chillies, a couple of celeriac stems and leaves, and a few red lentils. Only the lentils and garlic were not from my garden.
 
Am envious of your soup, sounds heaven! I've just had a couple of squares of dark hazelnut chocolate, and am trying to resist the lure of mixed nuts and raisins so as not to spoil my supper, but my husband is out and I'm hungry! Haven't really had enough exercise today, but felt the need for a bit of a rest day - and I have been shopping and had a pedicure - the bliss!

ETA the lemon chicken was bliss; not 100% convinced by the salt and pepper chips, and we both agree they were very filling! Then we had yoghurt and raspberries - and I must take my metformin while I remember! Done!
 
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Hello peeps! I've been MIA since end of July... and I thought I'd only missed a few weeks!!. Been away on holiday then just busy. Nice to see a couple of new faces and to see @Antje77 posting. I do miss her tales of animals, neighbours and a very different life
We went to the Lake District then to the Hebrides (is that your territory @Annb ?) Had a wonderful time. Cooler and greener than our hot and crispy South East, though we've returned to rain yay!
Stuck to low carb, with the very occasional ice cream or taste of cake. Wine every night
Back to routine now. Trying lifting weights with a pt as hba1c still hovering 43 and my weight continues to slowly creep up.
Even more worrying is ldl cholesterol which continues to rise. Still refusing the statins I've been prescribed on the basis the damage has probably already occurred in the 14 years before they finally bothered to diagnose me t2 and statins don't undo plaque.

Garden wise, raspberries coming into their own now giving me some to freeze. Foraged blackberries and windfall apples which I've frozen in large ice cubes. Happy to have the fruit drawer in the freezer full again.

Going to try to cut down on the cheese and cream and increase fish. Wish me luck!
 
MrsA2 said:
Nice to see a couple of new faces and to see @Antje77 posting. I do miss her tales of animals, neighbours and a very different life
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Thank you!
Maybe the tales will come back, maybe they won't.

I went back to being a mod again about a year ago after two mandatory years of not being a moderator, and I found out it didn't fit into my new, non depressed life anymore at all.
So I've recently returned to being a retired mod and finding my way again enjoying the forum without obligations.

I've read somewhere that happy people are more selfish, and I think this is true for me: Not being depressed is wonderful but I find I choose to spend my time on what makes me happy more often than I choose to spend my time on what may help others now.

What makes me happy at the moment (and very frustrated) is finally trying to learn maths after completely failing in school decades ago, I'm definitely not a natural.
As for the tales, what makes me very happy at the moment is my new car!
It was only 300 euros and it has a bed in the back, so I went on a two night holiday with the dogs on the day I bought it, camping illegally two weeks ago.

Perfect car, no matter that the second gear doesn't work and that the exhaust dropped on the road today (5 minute fix with no knowledge about cars whatsoever).

Next adventure is planned next week when I finally have a couple of days off!
Pictures of the outside and interesting dashboard of my new car to compensate for my absence.

I've also eaten today.
A lc cracker with copious butter, marmite, cheese and an egg around noon, tomatoes with mozzarella, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper just before my break at 4.
I had a planned meal in the fridge to have after my break but suddenly had to fill in for my colleague on the next bridge, which meant going back and forth between two bridges.
I dindn't want to do that with insulin on board for my meal if I didn't know I'd have time to eat it so I had another egg and salami instead, all good.
Added some peanuts to my beer at home, very happy I could fix the exhaust myself in minutes because I'd already dosed for the beer at home before leaving the bridge.

Here's my new car, and new adventures!
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Welcome back @MrsA2 good to "see" you again!

@Antje77 what great adventures you're having - I agree completely about being a little more selfish too. Learning to say no (politely of course!) and choosing what's right for me rather than what I think other people think I should do has been very good for me.

I also never "got" maths and failed it before later wanting to do teacher training, for which we must have passed maths here. So I got all the past exam papers I could get my hands on, and all the workbooks I could find, plugged in for a few weeks then passed with a B. That was before the internet and you tube, which now make it really accessible as you can choose from many different ways to learn. I discovered a love of algebra, but I still struggle with some topics.

Today I will be pottering about with no real plan in mind, I might get some more indoor work done - I still have a corner of the indoor storage area to purge!

Porridge for breakfast, vegetable soup for lunch and chicken with garden vegetables for tea.
 
Lovely to hear about your travels @Antje77 and @MrsA2 .
Looks like a lovely day here today so it's back in the the garden. Yesterday turned into a major shed sort out day and time to disturb the spiders that had been living undisturbed for such a long time! I like spiders more now I see them as good garden pest killers - thank you @jpscloud for encouraging me to see them in a different light - but they still make me jump when they are big hairy ones and several of them in an enclosed space!
Low carb granola planned for breakfast probably with poached egg afterwards, salad lunch, and salmon for fish Friday dinner.
Hope everyone has an enjoyable Friday
 
jpscloud said:
Welcome back @MrsA2 good to "see" you again!

@Antje77 what great adventures you're having - I agree completely about being a little more selfish too. Learning to say no (politely of course!) and choosing what's right for me rather than what I think other people think I should do has been very good for me.

I also never "got" maths and failed it before later wanting to do teacher training, for which we must have passed maths here. So I got all the past exam papers I could get my hands on, and all the workbooks I could find, plugged in for a few weeks then passed with a B. That was before the internet and you tube, which now make it really accessible as you can choose from many different ways to learn. I discovered a love of algebra, but I still struggle with some topics.

Today I will be pottering about with no real plan in mind, I might get some more indoor work done - I still have a corner of the indoor storage area to purge!

Porridge for breakfast, vegetable soup for lunch and chicken with garden vegetables for tea.
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My maths teacher advised me to leave the class in 3rd year at my grammar school. I had other talents that got me through the 11+ but anything to do with numbers just produced a panic in my childish breast. Oddly, I can follow maths concepts in OU maths programmes, but introduce numbers and I'm lost. At college, I managed to get a merit in my accountancy class without getting the major calculations right (again theory/concept fine, practical application rubbish). There's a word for it - dyscalculia - in my case, I think, more 'maths anxiety', caused by early stress related to maths (rubbish teachers).

I do remember, about 8, being sat in a classroom right through lunchtime trying to learn my times tables. We had to learn them by rote but I never could learn anything by rote (example - what they called the shorter catechism but which doesn't actually appear to be the proper one. Just a statement of faith - similar to the Apostles' Creed, but from my memory, not the same. I needed to understand it before I could learn it. Teachers were unwilling to explain the bits I didn't understand. Maybe they didn't either.)

Eventually my mother told me how she dealt with the numbers thing - there would be a multiplication that she could remember and she could work forward or back from that. For me it worked after a fashion, but it was slow. 6 x 7 is 42, so 6 x 8 is 48 (quick 42 plus 6, plus 6 is 54 and so on). I could add but multiplication/division was definitely an issue. Algebra was fine - fewer numbers. Even now, I find it easier to envisage a number of dots in my head and add them to whatever my starting figure is.

So, to breakfast: blueberry baked cream and tea.
2nd meal: veggie croquettes and some salady bits and pieces.

​

 
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I too managed to pass the 11+ with no maths skills @Annb - and your mum's method works for me even now :hilarious:

Both my brother and I had trendy 60s and early 70s progressive (i.e. great in theory, but untested and badly implemented) maths teaching in our primary years and it was also the time of switching to decimal currency, so it was pot luck whether you had maths books featuring old or new currency - no one seemed overly bothered about that!

I think I had anxiety issues with maths too - if I didn't get it straight away, and I mostly didn't, no amount of patient explaining would help and then I felt stupid and just wanted to escape. It was only when I sat down with multiple text and workbooks that I found out if one way of putting it didn't work, another might. Teachers these days know this, and learners also have the huge advantage of online tutorials and you tube.
 
jpscloud said:
I too managed to pass the 11+ with no maths skills @Annb - and your mum's method works for me even now :hilarious:

Both my brother and I had trendy 60s and early 70s progressive (i.e. great in theory, but untested and badly implemented) maths teaching in our primary years and it was also the time of switching to decimal currency, so it was pot luck whether you had maths books featuring old or new currency - no one seemed overly bothered about that!

I think I had anxiety issues with maths too - if I didn't get it straight away, and I mostly didn't, no amount of patient explaining would help and then I felt stupid and just wanted to escape. It was only when I sat down with multiple text and workbooks that I found out if one way of putting it didn't work, another might. Teachers these days know this, and learners also have the huge advantage of online tutorials and you tube.
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The years I learned to be terrified of arithmetic was about 1952-54, exacerbated by an absolutely, and deliberately, terrifying maths teacher in 1956-57. No thoughts of progressive methods of teaching then. No thoughts of not frightening children into learning either. My brother, because he had polio and missed a lot of schooling, lost those formative years in school and was hopeless at maths. He was lucky. He wasn't allowed to sit the 11+, so went straight to a 'secondary modern' school where he had the good luck to be taught by an ex RAF pilot who saw something in him worth working with. He actually devised an electronic game especially for M to get him to play with maths. When he was 17 Michael was gaining top marks in maths and physics exams at the local technical college. He eventually became a very successful engineer. All down to teaching methods.
 
I got a decent O level while being innumerate! We were very badly taught in primary school (as one friend reminded me, we were told to say if we didn't understand, but if we said, we were told we hadn't been listening!), and my lack of fundamental understanding of what was going on meant my arithmetic skills were, and remain, sub-par. And I am married to a man with two degrees in maths; my daughter has a maths A level, and my elder grandson is studying it at A level.... there are times I feel hopelessly ignorant. I'm sure that if I'd been three years younger and taught the "new maths" (although I'm not sure my junior school would ever have embraced it - the maths teacher there was an alcoholic, I learnt many years later, who only held the post because she was the headmistress' sister), I might have understood it more.

Meanwhile, to turn to a more cheerful subject, breakfast was overnight oats with banana, etc, (although i didn't put any nuts in today), and lunch has been a small tortilla wrap filled with lettuce, coleslaw and frankfurter sausages (and sriracha mayo), followed by raspberry sorbet and cream. I still feel hungry, though, and think I might see if there are any hot cross buns left. Probably ought not, as my weight was up a bit this morning, but I think that may have been bloating caused by the very salty salt-and-pepper chips (the clue, after all, is in the name!).
 
All your stories about maths resonate with me.
When I was about 15, maths got serious, and not being a natural I hit my head hard.
The teacher was one of those who tended to lean over you, a hand on both sides on your table, face almost against yours, and he had a horrible mouth odour.
So right when I started to struggle I couldn't ask questions anymore because avoiding the teacher come to your table had absolute priority.
Annb said:
(again theory/concept fine, practical application rubbish). There's a word for it - dyscalculia - in my case, I think, more 'maths anxiety', caused by early stress related to maths (rubbish teachers).
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I suspect I have a bit of both going on - still having to work through and fight 'maths anxiety', but also the difference between how easy I pick up written concepts or language, and how hard I have to work to even correctly copy all the numbers and letters in maths makes me think I might have a bit of dyscalculia going on as well.
Doesn't matter, there is no time limit, grades, or even a goal now, I'm just learning for the fun of it. It's just so cool when you finally get a concept and it 'clicks'! (Even if I may have to work again the next day to find the same click before moving on. :hilarious:)
 
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