Diabetes Resolutions

I’m a person who loves resolutions. I love the celebration of shedding old parts of ourselves and adopting new habits built on all of the tremendous self-growth of the past year. That’s what the New Year symbolizes for me. Whereas other times of the year we resist change, both in the external world and the internal world, right around 12/31 we start to act like we think it’s the greatest thing ever.

So I was asking myself, in addition to my all of the resolutions I’d like to make in every other realm of my life, should I have a diabetes resolution? And then I decided, no. Basic diabetes management is a big enough resolution. It’s like asking your friend without diabetes what their health goal for the coming year would be and them saying, “Well, I’d like to start pricking my finger 8 times a day and counting all the carbs I eat and explaining very intimate details about my body to both my closest friends and to complete strangers multiple times a day. I’d also like to introduce a lot of self-shaming and restraint into my eating, exercise, and general lifestyle habits.”

I mean that’s big enough right?

But I was writing in my journal this morning and as I always do I made a note of my morning bg (this is not a ‘health journal’, just my journal journal), and I was moved to also note that the elevated number was likely due to late-night snacking. Now here, I want to make a critical explanation, because I hate overly simplified diabetes rhetoric. It makes it seem like, “Well, if those people with diabetes could just do what they were supposed to do, it’d all be fine!” No! my blood glucose could just as easily sneak high in the night without me having a late-night snack, if I didn’t have enough insulin in my system to cover the sugars my liver is naturally pumping out all the time (just like everybody’s is). And sometimes, not eating after dinner makes this more likely to happen – especially if I finished dinner early and had less insulin in my system overall, perhaps because it was a dinner particularly low in carbs.

The complexity of diabetes is what originally inspired me to write a blog. It’s like being part of a secret world – the ins and outs of blood sugar. I imagine myself like Mrs. Frizzle. taking her class to the pancreas for a day. So I thought, why not make a diabetes resolution and a.) use my blog for accountability, and b.) take you all along on the complicated journey that is every blood sugar reading.

I realize this plan has some flaws. People with T1D are gonna be like – “why would I want to read about her blood sugar when I have to manage my own?” And people without T1D are gonna be like – “why would I want to read about her blood sugar when I don’t have to manage my own?” But whatever, this is my resolution.

So here it is, stated clearly, my small diabetes resolution-experiment:

4 out of seven days of the week, I will cease eating by 8 pm unless I have a low blood sugar and have to treat it (treating it means eating something, FYI).

What this really means for me is that I’ll be prompted to eat dinner earlier and eliminate post-dinner snacking on those days.

I’ll post my BG every morning along with a brief explanation of my theories behind the number. I could be right, I could be wrong, and we’ll literally never know!

Cauliflower is the new steak

Because steak will never be the new cauliflower, I’ve been making this recipe for cauliflower steaks out of Bon Appetit magazine, as often as possible lately.

Often I tell people that, while I can eat anything with diabetes that I want as long as I cover it with insulin and exercise, etc., I generally avoid white foods, as these tend to be laden with quick-burning, simple carbs.

Of course the cauliflower stands in stark defiance of this rule. For example, if you eat a whole head of cauliflower* you have consumed only 146 calories. That is crazy. Also only 29 grams of carbs and a whopping 12 grams of fiber. For reference, one Clif bar has roughly 250 calories, 42 grams of carbs, and 5 grams of fiber.* As you can see, raw cauliflower is clearly the better cross-country road trip snack.

That’s a joke, but the cauli steak recipe really has changed the way I think about this Brassica. It’s buttery, rich, and delicious, and goes great underneath sauteed ground pork with sage, and I imagine underneath many other meat and vegetarian-based proteins. Plus, diabetically* speaking, the steaks and the accompanying puree both have an almost potato-like heartiness that I often miss, without delivering a big punch of carbs. And also it’s totally beautiful to look at before you eat it or serve it to your loved ones. Let me know your thoughts and variations if you try it out!

*https://www.nutritionix.com/i/clif-bar/cool-mint-chocolate/5b4f8589a9db904b1fcf24f1

*USDA, google sidebar

*As always, this is a made up word (but aren’t they all?) that you shouldn’t use in scientific papers or elsewhere.

Waffle Fries and Celery Root

February can be rough. The days are short, the weather is temperamental, winter closes us inside of its blue shutters…

But luckily, we have created several traditions to get us through, one of my favorite being, in atypical fashion, SUPERBOWL SUNDAY!

I, like many of you, went to a Superbowl party a couple weeks back and found myself so INSPIRED. Let me preface this by saying that in between the 2017 and 2018 Superbowls, I watched 0 minutes of football. So, it’s always a fresh experience for me. I couldn’t believe how physically strong the players were. I was also very captivated by how delicious the various party foods involving potatoes were. There were waffle fries (not from Chick-fil-A!), homemade potato chips (in three varieties!), and baked potatoes with gruyere. So, based on these two observations, I added two resolutions to my list for this year: 1) workout more; 2) eat more potatoes.

When I got home from the party, my blood sugar, despite a lot of extra insulin and monitoring, was above 200 mg/dl. I don’t like this – I don’t feel good when my bg is high and taking extra insulin before bed is a little frightening because of aforementioned nighttime lows. So I put the potatoes on the back burner, so to speak.

I did start moving more though. Yoga and walking have been good, along with a class or two at the student rec center. So with goal #1 underway, I got back to the potatoes.

Recently, I ordered a dish with shaved celery root when out at a restaurant. Between ordering and receiving my food, I forgot about this, and when it came I thought I was eating hashbrowns. Fancy hashbrowns, but still. So this weekend at the grocery store, remembering my positive celery root experience, I decided to branch out of my cooking rut.

If you’ve ever bought a celery root (also known as Celeriac), you know just how unappetizing it looks in its natural form. Celery root is, in fact, so ugly that I can’t believe we discovered it was edible. I can’t imagine being that first person to look at it and think, “I’m gonna eat that.”

But someone did and I’m glad.

It’s really a vegetable that you have to tackle – which goes well with the general metaphor of this post. I used this recipe from Bon Appetit for Celery Root Steaks with Tomatillo Salsa Verde as a basis.

Except I didn’t make the salsa because I planned to just pile my other food on top of the steaks.

Here’s a detailed play-by-play:

Scrub that thing! – I took my veggie brush and I scrubbed the root thoroughly, rinsing under cool water.
Peel it! – I took a carrot peeler and shaved off the rough skin (yes, even though I’d just scrubbed it), until it had a mostly smooth texture. Then I used the scooped end of the peeler to get out the fuzzy, radish like whiskers (ugh) near the end and smoothed once again over the top and bottom.
Preheat it! – I was already baking brussels sprouts, so my oven was on 450 degrees.
Slice it! – I sliced it into rounds, about a 1/2 inch in thickness, until I’d cut up about half of it. Then I cut it in half so I could lay it flat and cut half-moons of the same thickness.
Sauté it! – I added quite a bit of olive oil to a big cast iron skillet, set this to heating on the stove, and laid the slices down into it, turning it down to about 6. I let them sizzle on each side for about 5 minutes total, flipping impatiently. I think the recipe is correct – 4 minutes each side with only one flip would have given a better, golden brown to each.
Bake it! – About 10 minutes on high heat for a nice, tender texture (recipe says until it can be easily pierced with a fork or butter knife).

Pro tip: if the steaks are tender but you want more of a golden brown look, flip them over to serve; most likely they are browned on the pan side.

So, how do celery steaks stack up to potatoes, ounce for ounce?

1 cup celery root weighs in at 66 calories, 14 grams of carbs, and packs a powerful punch of 2.8 grams fiber, according to google.

Potato comes in at nearly double all of the above (except fiber): 116 calories, 26 grams carbs, 3.4 grams fiber, per cup.

So to me, diabetically speaking, Celeriac is the clear winner!

Oh and finally, Happy Valentine’s Day.

My New Favorite Diabetes “Free Food”

I want to start off by saying that I’ve never liked the term “free food,” whether that refers to an edible’s effect on diabetes management, weight, or anything else one might be concerned with. That disclaimer aside, I use the term to mean a food I can eat without immediately and involuntarily thinking about how it will eventually raise my blood glucose, even if only slightly. The list contains beverages such as water, tea, and coffee (although some people say caffeine has a noticeable effect on their bg, it does not seem to raise mine). I do not add anything to my coffee and put only a splash of unsweetened almond milk in my tea.

Which leads me to my newest craze, and revolution, inspired by a friend of mine who does not have diabetes, but who calls this his, “bedtime drink.”

Whole Foods Brand Unsweetened Almond Milk, heated.

It’s just that simple.

I heat it until it’s almost boiling, like as hot as I would drink tea. If it’s right before bed I have it plain. If it’s earlier in the day I’ll stir in a little bit of unsweetened cocoa (antioxidants!) and then sprinkle, carefully, a dash of cayenne on top.

It’s not a sweet drink, and the carbs are minimal: 2 – 3 grams max. My favorite thing to pair it with, depending on my blood sugar, is 2 blocks of any number of varieties of dark chocolate.

I don’t do the cocoa and cayenne at night because they keep me awake. Also, for people who are sensitive to spice, cayenne can be hard on the stomach. After working at an Indian restaurant for two years and learning to enjoy vindaloo sauce, I learned to love spicy.

Lest you be concerned that I’m promo’ing Whole Foods arbitrarily, this brand in particular is my jam because it does not contain carrageenan, which is an additive derived from seaweed that has been linked to cancer in some studies.

Please note (aka Disclaimer #2): I am not a dietician/nutritionist/or otherwise medical expert. My posts are not meant to advise, but rather to simply share my experiences.