My Type 1 Diabetic Journey (part one)

I'm motivated and obligated to share my experiences and mostly tribulations with rest of the world. When I say "tribulations," I mean that in the most positive way, despite this word's negative overtone.

Diagnosis

I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes two short years after the birth of my youngest daughter (2005). What??? Are you kidding me? Me? This sums up my initial reaction. I got angry, then sad, then angry again—and then I said "oh well, this isn't going to get me down." I had dignified myself on being the healthiest member of my family, I exercised regularly, I ate the right foods (or so I thought) and then "bammm!" A routine physical alarmingly hailed my endocrine malfunction, my doctor calmly told me I must have type 1 diabetes, since I wasn't obese (commonly associated with Type 2). I had to quickly resolve taking insulin injections a few times a day immediately. I was initially quite stellar in my adoption of this life changing upheaval. That didn't last too long.

Adjusting

I had always loved, enjoyed and reveled in my freedom. Being able train when I wanted and how I wanted, and more importantly, eat when I wanted—re-enforced my sense of carefree independence! All of this changed. I quickly realized that I was going to have to bring myself up to speed about my "deficiency" rather fast. 

I enjoy thoroughly researching anything that interests me, and so I began...First, despite all of the efforts of well-intended doctors promoting and pushing insulin and it's life-saving qualities, I discovered that an abundance of insulin circulating through our bodies is NOT a good thing! Insulin is a fat storing hormone. Since my diagnosis I have gained somewhere between 10-12 lbs of unwanted weight. No, I'm not chalking this up to getting older, or what I eat, or my lack of exercise (I'll talk more about that later), I'm directly blaming it on the synthetic insulin coursing through my veins. When I was originally diagnosed, my doctors and diabetic team told me quite frankly that I could eat just about whatever I wanted, and that as long as I injected insulin to cover the carbs in my food I would be fine.

1. Carbs are converted to glucose
2. Glucose is used by our cells for energy
3. In order for glucose to enter our cells, insulin must be present to unlock the door

So we went through a series of trial and error equations to figure out exactly what ratio of insulin I would need to inject in order to cover my carb intake (aka, insulin to carb ratio). My ratio worked out to be 1:10 (so for every 10 grams of carbs I consume, I have to take 1 unit of insulin). Ok, that sounds easy. I start counting my carbs for every meal. It turns out I was averaging about 50-60 grams of carbs per meal, so that is 150-180 grams of carbs per day (maybe more depending on how much I ate)—ouch!

For anyone trying to reduce their weight, carbohydrate consumption cannot be ignored. Since I'm not an Ultra-marathoner  I needed to tweak the amount of carbs I was consuming (this is very important for diabetics and I will discuss that later).