Food Bits

Breakfast: meat omelette
Lunch: sandwich. ham, 1 piece of bread, mayo, cucumber, onion. 14g carbs
Dinner: ham & cheddar quesadilla w/ sour cream - 21 carbs

There are 7 grams of carbs in a single tomato.

S E V E N. 7. in ONE. 1. o n e. One.

WTF?

Breakfast: Scramble. Ham, onion, egg.

Lunch: Chicken Salad (cubed cooked canned chicken, mayo, mustard, onion, salt, pepper, mozz cheese), on cucumbers. YUM. also took some chicken salad and stuffed it in a tortilla (low carb, 10g). tortilla's pretty good.

Dinner: couple spicy hungarian sausages & 1 ear of corn (17 carbs)

om nom nom.

Breakfast: bowl of cereal.

Note: this is part of an experiment. I had a metformin last night and this morning. Cereal plus metformin = jittery, like on caffine, but no passing out.

Later in the day, lunch was running late and while i didn't pass out, i did get very...odd. distant, hard to concentrate. dizzy. Had a piece of string cheese. and a bottle of grape propel.

Did you know a bottle of propel has 8 carbs? Just weird. check your bottled water. Propel adds sugar.

Lunch: can of soup. 38 carbs.

Yes, i'm running high on carbs. this is because the metformin is in my system and we know metform + no carbs = floor.

Dinner: salad. Lettuce, pepperoni, ham, ranch, mozzerella. as the metformin is wearing off, i'm cutting down on carbs again.

Experimentation is done until next weekend. I won't experiment while I have to work. So far, the experiments show that I'm fine if i eat no carb/very low carb or if i eat normal-high carb w/ metformin. However, metformin has a few side effects I don't like and if I run late (hello, long calls!) I'm going to have trouble.

Personally, I prefer to adjust diet rather than take a pill.

...though i may take a pill a half hour before dinner some nights, and have some ice cream a half hour after dinner...

there are a few areas i get carbs from regularly that I need to look at.

1) Bread - I can replace bread with a leaf of lettuce for sandwiches. Something I've been doing a lot of recently is taking whatever i'd put on bread and scrambling it with eggs. Also...I can have ONE slice of bread - it's 11 grams of carbs - if what i'm putting on it is very very low carb. Somethings I can eat with a fork or a spoon instead of making a sandwich. Meatloaf, for example, is fine on it's own. Ditto on sloppy joes. I may want to add a side veggie to make up for lost bulk, but thats not a big deal. I sometimes eat stuff on crackers instead of bread. for the size difference, i'll just use cucumber chips. I can't think of anything that WOULDN'T be good with.

2) Potatoes - I can eat these! A standard red potato is 18-20 carbs, depending on age. that fits perfectly in my diet. gone is the potato as the meal, but it'll make a great side dish. I'm seeing pairing this with a pork chop or a chicken breast. mmmm. I have to watch the sour cream, cause it adds some, but I should be OK. Mashed potatoes, just have a small amount. same on potato salad. french fries are pretty much gone, sadly.

3) Rice - I have no idea HOW to sub for rice. I usually have it when i'm out and getting chinese, so I guess steamed veggies. I sometimes make it at home as a side dish, so also veggies. This one's hard...but I don't eat rice very often, so not too concerned.

4) Pasta - this is the hardest one. I love pasta. I've discovered i can sub in spagetti squash for spagetti. It's not ideal, but 1 cup of spagetti noodles is 42 grams! the Squash lowers that to 10. I'll take it. Contemplating what would happen if i roasted it, seperated it, and froze it. Can you freeze cooked spagetti squash? Also...how would that taste in a cheese sauce? Macaroni and cheese is SUCH a comfort food for me. I need to experiment. Also...1 C of eggplant is on par with the spagetti squash. I might be able to do something with that. Lasagna noodle replacement? The hard one is really the mac & cheese. *sad panda*

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I have not found a low carb version of ice cream. Or rather, the low carb version was laughable. I haven't had ice cream since Tuesday. This saddens me. I'm not sure how I'll kill that craving when it comes up. Ditto on cookies and cupcakes. I adore frosting. And when I want a reeses peanut butter cup...there will be doom. Jello does not kill my sweet tooth.

Will have to look at sugar free / diabetic alternatives. There might be something there that works.

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Did some tests with Jason over the week. We've determined both carbs and sugar make me dizzy. in the same amount of time. and faster than a standard blood sugar test will show. Like when I did the glucose test - they test after an hour. an hour in, i was FINE. at 30 minutes in, i was about to pass out. Our theory is that this is still insulin related - that maybe something about eating carbs/sugars is triggering the insulin too soon or too strong and thereby dropping my blood sugar before the system can assimiliate the new sugars.

That may also explain why when we do a fasting test, my sugars are normal but my insulin seems high. And it may also explain the metformin thingy.

Chart:

Taking metformin standard carbs everything fine
taking metformin low / no carbs dizzy BOOM
no metformin standard carbs sleepy girl
no metformin low / no carbs everything fine

It looks like what's happening is i either need to regulate my carbs OR take metformin. when i do both i pass out. when i do neither, i get sleepy and lethargic all the time. This also explains why i was able to go off the metformin earlier this year - i'd lost weight and was watching what i ate. when you calorie -watch, you have to carb watch. i didn't realize it, but that's where i was cutting things - the carbs. i replaced starches with veggies to cut calories. And it explains why i went back on the metformin - i'd quit watching what i ate, so i was having problems again.

We're going to test this theory tommorrow morning. I'm taking metformin tonight (they're slow release tablets). Tommorrow morning, I'm going to have cereal.

Here's hoping I don't end up passed out at some point! *laugh*

Also definitely making the appointment with the endocronoligist. Here's hoping they can figure out what my system's doing!

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Also, Jason just totally made my night. he put pizza sauce on bread, topped with pepperoni and cheese and had me take a bite. it will TOTALLY take care of the pizza craving. Next step: locate some super low carb bread (alternative: use a low-carb tortilla)

*glee* I can have PIZZA.

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also of note:

http://www.examiner.com/x-355-Low-Carb-Examiner~y2008m6d4-Cauliflower-Pizza-Crust-Worth-its-Wow-in-Gold

first off, it's not that i didn't log dinner yesterday...i just didn't EAT.

I didn't get hungry, and didn't realize i'd skipped a meal until this morning. Oops?

Breakfast: scramble. 2 eggs, 1 1/2 slices of ham, some cheese. 0 carbs. :D

Drinkage: 1/2 a venti mocha. lost consciousness for a few moments.

Lunch: Was out with brandee. Stopped at blue moon diner. had chef salad, sans carbs. lettuce, hard boiled egg, cheese, meat, ranch, tomato. drank hot tea. used splenda.

Snack: 2 1/2 grilled chicken strips courtesy JitB. no dipping sauce.

Dinner: Salad. Lettuce, cheese, ranch. 1 piece of bread & butter.

breakfast:
potato salad. about 40carb.
lunch: chicken marinara

this is so good...jason helped me think of it. i grilled up chicken breast, then sliced it in half the long way, like a book. put cheddar in the middle, and closed it up. sprinkle cheddar on top, then spagetti sauce. I made my spagetti sauce by browning hamburger, adding a can of mushrooms, some chopped onion, garlic, italian seasoning, and a can of spagetti sauce. Total carbs: 10.

woot.

Thursday night:
2 sausage thingys. No idea what cal/carb content is. but it's chicken apple sausage...shouldn't be bad.
potato salad.
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salad: took 3 large potatos (approx 63 carbs each). peeled, cubed, boiled. mixed w/ lite mayo (1 carb / tbsp, about 6 tbsp), mustard (no carb), salt, and pepper. total carb (rounding up) about 200. tried to eat about 1/10th of dish. eyeballed it. know i'm a little low, but safer that way.

total known carb for day: 36. There was some in the sausage i'd bet though.

Tuesday:
already posted breakfast
Lunch: salad. pulled pork, lettuce, salsa, onion, cheese. then another salad cause i was still hungry. lettuce, pulled pork, salsa, cheese, sour cream, a little parmesan.
I felt kinda dizzy after lunch...like sugars were low. it didn't make much sense, but i followed my body's instructions and had a cookie. One cookie. vanilla sandwich variety.

5 minutes later I was at work, feeling woozy and dazed but taking calls. 10 minutes after that I was leaning over a trash can trying not to puke. I sat up, saw sparklys. 10 minutes more...I was on the floor with a manager next to me asking if I was OK. After that it's fuzzy for a while. I know someone was making me drink water, and I know Jason suggested I take an extra metformin. I don't know if I did or not.

We got me to a doctor and discovered my blood sugar level was at 77. There is NO WAY in hell it should have been that low. For it to be that low after I'd eaten that much I should have been DEAD before I ate. 50 is unconscious. Standard fasting for a healthy person is around 100. you eat, it goes up. There's no real question - that's why I passed out. I was probably floating around 55-60 when I got back from work.

We also weighed me - 262.

Doctors instructions were simple. Stay away from carbs. Quit taking the metformin. Come in the next day for testing.

For dinner, I had grilled chicken breast. 3 small ones. and a bit of mozzerella.
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Wednesday.
Got up and went to the doctor. did fasting blood sugar. did some other tests. drank this orange glucose stuff. very nasty. waited an hour. at 30 minutes I felt awful. Sick, dizzy, woozy. at an hour, I felt great. wanted to bounce around and do things. At the hour she pulled blood and sent me home.

Breakfast: 2 sausage patties. 2 eggs.

Lunch: 3 pieces of ham grilled with mozzerella.

Mid-afternoon: dizzy. sick. had 3 more pieces of ham. this time with cheddar.

Dinner: 1 piece of Steak.

10pm: hungry. had some nuts.
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Thursday
made a scramble. 2 eggs, 1/2 piece of ham, 1/4 piece of steak.
went to the dr for results. fasting blood sugar was 93 - perfectly fine. an hour later it was 147. also perfectly fine. did an ekg and some blood pressure tests - all fine.
pulled blood for insulin test. Have to make appt w/ diabetic specialist. something called an endocrologist? appt should be in about a month.
In the meantime, directions are: avoid metformin. go low carb. approx 60carbs/day. rough estimate.

Lunch: 1 piece of Papa Murphy's deLite meat pizza (1/8th of pizza) = 16carbs, 95cal

was talking with a friend this morning and discovered the insulin issue isn't as unheard of as i thought. apparently, this is what's referred to as pre-diabetic.

meaning i'm heading there but can still control it with diet. Huh.

Breakfast: 1 egg, 1 tbsp cheese, 1 sausage link, 1 piece bacon

Breakfast: 1 egg, about 1tbsp shredded cheese, 2 pieces bacon
Lunch: 1 egg, slice of ham (thick), some onion, some cherry tomato. about 2 tbsp shredded cheese. (scramble ftw)
Dinner: Lettuce (about 2 C), pulled pork (about 3/4 C), onion, 2 tbsp shredded cheese, about 3tbsp salsa.

1 ben & jerry's cookie dough single

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so....aside from ice cream, good! and it was the last ice cream in the house.

I'm not diabetic.

I seem like I am. But I'm not. See, Diabetics have problems with sugar. And sometimes I describe things as 'my sugars are off'...but they're not.

See, there's this thing called insulin. Diabetics either have trouble processing it or don't produce enough of it. Insulin lets the body use sugar. When you can't process sugar, your blood sugar goes high - a sugar spike. When you over-compensate your body gets excess insulin, uses it to process the sugars, and then you go too low. It's a balancing act.

My sugars are fine. My INSULIN is off. I overproduce it. My body uses exactly what it needs and then stores the rest. A diabetic has high sugar. I have high insulin. So while they're fighting with too much sugar in the system, I've got too much insulin - which ACTS like my sugars are too low.

Too much insulin has the exact same effects as too little sugar - i get dizzy. I get nauseous. I pass out.

So I take metformin, a Diabetic-type drug. And, in theory, regulate my diet. When I screw up, if I eat too much sugar (IE: have NOODLES for lunch) the insulin gets used quickly and I run out. I have too LITTLE insulin.

Too little insulin has the exact same effects as too much sugar - I get verrrrry sleepy. I can't think clearly. I may pass out.

The big difference between me and a diabetic? If a diabetic has severe issues and goes to the hospital, the problem shows up on a glucose monitor. mine doesn't. Mine looks perfectly normal on a glucose monitor. I can't TEST my sugars to see where I'm at.

However, the medications and tricks that work for a diabetic work for me, I'm finding. So I spend some time talking with one of my best friends, Alan, about it when it bugs me. And he explains how these things affect a diabetic (cause he knows about that WAY too much, poor guy). And I translate it.

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Apparently, this means that carbs and sugars are pretty bad/limited for me. With that in mind, breakfast was:

1 egg, with cheese
2 slices of bacon.

protein good. carbs bad. sugars worse. mental note made.