Hi Y’all!

Happy New Year and I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

If you’re anything like me you would have spent the whole Christmas break completely off your usual way of eating, and bolusing every 5 minutes to stay in range!

What I realised over the break, is that, for me, it is much easier to handle larger amounts of carbs on a pump, especially if you’re using a CGM, than it is on MDI.

2017 was a year of diabetes management change for me. In April, I moved from the Libre to the Dexcom, and in November I moved from MDI to a pump. The 2 link together, and I will write a separate blog on both of these. So, I changed my equipment, but I never considered changing my methods!

After the Christmas break, I tried to go back to LCHF, and failed, spectacularly! But even though my calories went out of control, my BG did not. So, now that I’m on a pump, why not try a different way of eating? The decision has also been heavily influenced by my desire to eat more fruit. Although on LCHF I ate berries pretty much every day, recently I have just been getting cold after cold after cold, each lingering far longer than they should. So I want to up my fruit intake.

I chose Weight Watchers as many years ago, before I was T1D, I lost a lot of weight on WW online. Although the fundamentals of the plan have changed, I know that the online tools work for me. If you look at the foods you can eat, the new Flexipoints system is essentially arranged around a High Carb Low Fat way of eating, with most fruits and veg being “free” to eat, ie they don’t have points and you don’t not have to count them. So nutritionally, and technically, this is a way of eating that should meet 2 of my needs, weight loss and higher fruit intake.

However, it requires a complete shift in mind set and diabetes management. I am embarking on a way of eating which is far higher in carbs than I am used to, and my brain has been set to low carb as the basis for managing my blood sugar on MDI for the last 3 years! Today is day 1 and I definitely feel weird about eating so much fruit, but having the Dex and a pump are helping big time!

I’m going to need to do a fair amount of basal testing, and it’s going to be a bit of a learning curve over the next few weeks, so please check back in and follow me on my journey!

Thanks for reading, and leave any tips below

 

Em