What have you eaten today? (Low carb forum)

maglil55 said:

Have to agree. As you know I go away with a crowd every year and, as you say, it involves some homework, but studying the menus online saves loads of time. Italian restaurants are pretty straightforward. There's 2 whole sections you can ignore straight away - pasta & pizza - but Italian is a lot more than that. Antipasto - meats/cheese or the fishy variety or the veggie version. Squid doesn't have to be in batter - tell them in advance you have an issue with flour. It's just as delicious pan fried in garlic butter. Aubergine parmigiana - another great standby as a main or a starter. Italian Carne - chicken, veal - some delicious sauces and again tell them you can't eat potato and I always get an offer to increase the veg or sub a salad. Desserts I don't think about now - a special coffee with brandy, no sugar and cream is a great substitute. Like you, I sometimes find there are more starters that appeal to me than mains. Then I just double up on the starters.
I used to think eating out would be a problem but it's not. Trick is letting the place know your dietary requirements in advance. There are so many allergies nowadays they are happy to oblige.

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Aside from gluten ( although I think I am refining that a bit - more on that another time, because of its impact for about a week, i never, EVER, explain my dietary needs.

If I want a double starter, I usually just say something like, "that looks so delicious, could I have it as a main?" That usually results in puffed chests and enthusiasm. For spud, or bread, etc., I just ignore them on the plate.

In my world, my T2 and other dietary are my issue, not for anyone else to be party to.

That's just me, and it keeps my life simple.

Winnie-the-Pooh said:

I like pasta

, a lot

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If you are strongly wedded to pasta, then try it and see what it does on your Libre.

For me, there was no dramatic rise (probably due to the fattier Carbonnara (or such like) sauce, however ybloods rose a bit, but stayed elevated for many hours. As pasta was never a great thing for me anyway, I just gave it up.

In my world, there arroyo many other great foods to eat, without pasta, but as I say; try it and see.

If you are no longer using the Libre or suchlike, then I suggest you test for several hours afterwards. Pasta is well know for deferred and/or multiple packs in blood numbers.

Winnie-the-Pooh said:

I have a Dexcom G6. Even boring edamame pasta caused a spike , sadly .

It’s not about pasta , or pizza , or croissant or cream puffs. It is about having the physical ability to eat what you like , when you like . I have always eaten very little , and very healthy and very well . But I had the freedom to eat what I liked without health consequences. Now I don’t . It’s lost .

For some ppl , food is just about getting nutritions they need a healthy and enjoyable way . For me , food is a very important and essential part of my happiness and I allow myself to be very hard to please when it comes to food and I plan to keep it that way.

So going to a restaurant and “just finding what I can eat “ won’t work for me . I need to go to a restaurant and “choose anything I want to eat, at that given time , without health consequences”. It’s as simple as that .

An analogy is about perfume . For many ppl , as long as they smell good , they are happy . For me , I need to have tens of perfumes to choose the one that matches best for my mood in that particular time . If I fancy a perfume with hints of plume , having a perfume with hints of citrus won’t do !

As diabetic patient , we are conditioned to feel apologetic for wanting what is not healthy for us . I don’t feel apologetic or pretend that I enjoy all the boring food I eat to stay healthy .

Of course , my priority is my health and I won’t jeopardize it with a bad diet . But I don’t fool myself that an important aspect of my life is lost , forever .

A chocolate truffle tastes better than a zucchini. It is what it is. Healthy ppl get the truffle , and we get the zucchini. That is a sad fact . But I like to focus on its factuality than sadness .

We have to allow ourselves to wish for things even if we cannot have them, right now . I believe it is very important to be vocal about it because medicine has to find a better to manage diabetes than diet. We have a right to live normally , eat normally and don’t count our carbs . And we have to advocate for better treatments. The least we have to expect from medicine is to put its act together and give us a normal life, rather than putting us on diet !

I love and wish what I cannot eat and hate what I can eat !! And I’m not ashamed of it and the least I can do is to say it loud . I love cream puffs. Simple

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I'm not denying you feel as you do. How could I?

My other half is a retired very successful restauranteur, an excellent cook (although he was not involved in that side of his businesses) and we are both foodies. I love my food. He loves his food. There is zero doubt both our lives have been impacted by my diagnosis, but right at the outset I was, and remain committed to not having it rule me, and not having it interfere with my life any more than it absolutely has to.

I felt so strongly about this that I told my immediate family, my OH, and hardly anyone else. I didn't want anyone's curiosity, labelling, judging or pitiful looks.

I decided, at the outset, that I had zero wish to be tethered to a pharmacy for meds. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking meds to help treat diabetes, or anything else, but as someone who, at diagnosis took nothing, I didn't want that to change. I was also leaving the country within 3 weeks of my diagnosis, to go sailing for 9 months, taking myself 4500 miles away from my doctor and our health care system, so I accepted I best grasp the thing by the throat.

My diet had never been poor. In fact, in terms of standard dietary advice, I was a poster child, but it seemed, it hadn't worked to prevent me developing T2. My family is strewn with people living, or having lived with diabetes of all sorts, so maybe I was bound for it in any case, but one thing was sure, I wasn't wasting any time worrying out the past.

When friends noticed I had modified my diet, I explained I'd had some blood tests that showed some foods weren't doing me any favours, so I was avoiding them for the time being. Were they bothered? Not particularly. Did they try to dissuade me? Yes, sometimes they would try to encourage a dessert, perhaps, but they accepted I didn't want it. I'm sure it helped that I didn't sometimes have x or y, then sometimes pass it by. That just, in my view, encourages further attempts to persuade.

Of course there have been hard days, but there's more to life than profiteroles and those days, I accept that to live well, it makes sense to avoid certain foods. My A1cs have been high 20s or low 30s since 2014. I can pass an OGTT, but I am at one with myself, as I am. It can take time, and effort to weather the tougher days.

I would urge to to find some form of acceptance in all this. Railing against your diagnosis may not, in itself, be helping your blood glucose numbers. One of my greatest factors in my variability is stress. I can see stress on a Libre sensor trace. It's clear.