Oh, goody! My A1C has crept back up. Just what I needed.
I’d like to say that it’s not my fault, that diabetes is a strange illness and is difficult to control. That last part may be true, but it’s still my fault. I didn’t just fall off the keto/ultra-low-carb wagon. I unhitched it from the horse, knocked off all the wheels, and sent it careening downhill and over the side of a cliff.
I can’t just blame the soft serve ice cream machine on the cruise ship, although that would be convenient. Things had gone bad long before that. It was the ice cream, the potatoes, the doughnuts, the potatoes, the pasta, the potatoes, and did I mention the potatoes?
Carbohydrates are a harsh mistress.
I don’t even know what that phrase means, but it really speaks to my soul today anyway. Plus, it sounds deep.
So, now that I’m done traveling for a while and am done with most of my outside freelance projects, I can focus once again on dietary issues and exercise issues. It’ll be back to one baby step at a time, but that’s how I got in this predicament, so that’s how I’ll have to get back out.
Let’s just hope that the A1C creeps right back down… and that I don’t send that wagon off another cliff. Once was enough.
I’m still learning how to adapt some of my favorite dishes into a low-carb or keto version. But I don’t think the words “cooking” and “creative” should be allowed in the same sentence. I hate cooking. I hate learning new things about cooking. I’ve been an adult for 37 years, and I’m still not used to the fact that I’m expected to concoct meals for the people in my family every single day. So, adding the criteria that my meals need to be low carb has been vexing, to say the least.
Tonight, for instance, I tried to adapt a favorite easy meal from when my kids were younger. We called it cheeseburger pie. The Bisquick box always called it something like Impossible Cheeseburger Pie, though I immediately changed a few aspects of the recipe. (Otherwise, the word “impossible” would describe my efforts to get them to eat it.) So, the sliced tomatoes on top were replaced with a thin coating of spaghetti sauce.
But that regular Bisquick baking mix had to go. Way too many carbs in that stuff for a diabetic. Last month I purchased a box of Carbquik through Amazon and successfully made pancakes with it. It uses a strange version of a wheat-based flour, so it’s not strictly keto, but it’s lower carb because it’s so high fiber.
Anyway, the Carbquik has an odd aroma to it. You wouldn’t think a baking mix would smell like anything, but this stuff does. The closest I can think of is that it smells like a box of Bisquick that you forgot about for a year in the back of the pantry. Old. Expired. Stale. It smells more like the box it comes in. (It’s not expired, by the way. I checked.)
For some reason, I forged ahead and made those pancakes when the box first arrived. And perhaps I was so desperate for pancakes that I enjoyed them anyway. Perhaps it was the sugar-free syrup I slathered all over those pancakes. And the butter. And the blueberries I tossed into the batter at the last minute. Whatever. I enjoyed the pancakes. A lot.
Tonight’s cheeseburger pie, though? Not so much. Of course, the recipe also calls for milk, and I had to substitute coconut milk for regular milk. So maybe that was the culprit, though I sniffed the coconut milk and found it had no odor at all. But, did it affect the flavor of the pie? Unsure. And I’m not in a hurry to find out by making this dish again soon.
But when I do, I’ll be sure to throw in some crumbled bacon. After all, a bacon cheeseburger is a real thing, so a bacon cheeseburger pie should also be a thing.
This, by the way, is why I shop at the Archie McPhee website every year for holiday gift giving. They have an entire page full of bacon-related gifts. Who doesn’t want bacon-flavored dental floss?
Because everything is better with bacon. And, the more bacon, the better. I just wish I’d thought of adding bacon to that cheeseburger pie a few hours ago. Lesson learned: always add bacon.
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a fad diet! It’s … KETOGENICS ‘R US!
Okay, seriously, folks. I started this crazy ketogenic diet right after the holidays last year, not knowing it was going to become a politically charged craze about three nanoseconds after I peed on my first ketone strip. Honestly, I hate following crazes, as anyone who knew me in junior high can confirm (yes, me, with my K-Mart wardrobe and bright yellow Sears five-speed bike). I didn’t own a pair of Chuck Taylors till I found a pair in a thrift store in the 1980s. I still don’t own a Mac. So what do I know or care about a fad diet craze, of all things?
Not much, but enough to lower my A1C nearly a full point in five months.
It started last autumn when a good friend was in town. I hadn’t seen her in a while, and she looked fabulous. Focused, fit, and, well, healthy. Huh. I had to have me some of that, so I asked her what she’d been doing. Turns out she herself had been on this diet for the past six months or so and had lost 40 pounds. And her mind was sharp and clear, and she was clearly ON somethin’. Yeah, I had to have me some of dat.
She wisely cautioned me to read-read-read first and to NOT try to jump in right before the two biggest eating holidays of the year (Thanksgiving and Christmas, followed by New Year’s). And so I read. And read some more. And felt overwhelmed.
Macros. Wait, don’t you use those in Microsoft Word?
Ketones. Wait wait, I was pregnant four times. Aren’t those bad?
High fat. Wait wait wait … I’m already high fat. That’s precisely my problem. Isn’t it?
Intermittent fasting. Wait … HOLD ON. Not eating at ALL? For hours? On purpose? What is wrong with you people? Plus, diabetics can’t get away with that!
Aforementioned friend also added that it might be better to ease into it. I’d already been on a low-carb bandwagon for years since being diagnosed diabetic in 2010 (with more than my share of slip-ups), so getting back on THAT way of eating was second nature to me. I kept reading as I moved lower and lower carb. Then, in January, I bought the little test strips and dove in.
Within a month I’d lost 22 pounds and felt amazing. I’m 57 years old and often groaned and creaked as I climbed out of our massive waterbed every morning. (I’m also 5’2″ and just barely reach the floor when I try to climb up over the side of that thing.) But now I found myself zipping out of bed easily, no cranky noises. My joints felt great. I never even thought about them anymore. I could get up and down the two flights of stairs to do laundry without getting nearly as winded as I once did. I was sleeping like a log.
And my IBS-D symptoms (which I’d battled for more than two years) were gone.
I admit it took some head games to get used to adding bacon to my usual scrambled eggs for breakfast. I admit it took more head games to delay breakfast (although I never ate breakfast before my T2 diagnosis because I’m a night owl and mornings are evil). So many things about this diet seemed counterproductive for a diabetic (pretty much everything but the lower carb bit).
But the numbers didn’t lie. The weight loss. The lower fasting blood sugar numbers (which went from a consistent 150+ range down to as low as 87!). Then the A1C after five months of fairly consistent ketogenic eating and fasting.
I’m currently climbing back onto this fad/craze/bandwagon from a summer of too many road trips, meetings, and times away from the house. Too much carbage! But as I slowly crawl my way back, I find once again that everything about my body feels better when I lower those low-nutrient carbs and substitute them with higher fat.
And now, I’m outta here, to go treat myself to some coffee with heavy whipping cream and stevia. Gotta keep that heart pumping!
Your Type 2 partner in crime,
Linda
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NOTE: I’m not offering medical advice, but you can’t ramp up the fat without drastically lowering those carbs. If you don’t do both, you’re a walking heart attack. Do your homework, stay away from the fad/craze part of this whole thing, and make sure you’re getting regular check-ups.
Type Too 