Monday, 23 April 2012

Low Carb Blueberry Banana Pancakes

I don't know about you, but I love Pinterest (pinterest.com for those who haven't found this gem yet). I do find a lot of fashion ideas on there that I love and try and replicate in my own wardrobe, but I also love the recipes that I find! There are so many great low-carb recipes out there, and Pinterest is an easy way to find them quickly and keep hold of them without having to copy them out into your recipe book or save them in some hidden folder on your desktop.

Since I was having trouble with high blood sugars yesterday, I haven't had any real substantial food since lunch yesterday! I woke up absolutely ravenous and decided to try this delicious pancake recipe which contains no flour, so has very little carb content to deal with - bonus!
The recipe originally came from http://www.greenkitchenstories.com/ , a vegetarian recipe blog. I included my modified version of the recipe below, and an estimated carb count for the finished product (my recipe made 4 reasonably sized pancakes).


Blueberry Banana Pancakes: 


1.5 bananas
3 eggs
1/2 c. unsweetened coconut flakes
1/3 c. frozen unsweetened blueberries
1 tsp. cinnamon


Mash the bananas with a fork, or blender (I'm lacking this kind of technology in my student home..) Beat eggs together and mix in with bananas. Add coconut, blueberries, and cinnamon and stir. Heat frying pan (medium heat, or 5-6 if you have a numerical stovetop) and fry pancakes on both sides. Serve with your favourite pancake topping (I like E.D. Smith No Sugar Added Syrup) 

So easy and so yummy!


PS. If you're on Pinterest, find me and have a look at my "Recipes" board for more ideas!
http://pinterest.com/southchinasea/

Follow up to "So high right now bro"

As you may have gathered from my earlier post today, I was battling some of those unexplained high numbers today. After changing out all my pump apparatuses (apparati?), I corrected a 19.0 at 6:30 only to find myself still stuck up around 20 mmol/L 2 hours later. Watch closely to what happened with my numbers over a period of a few hours: 

9:20 pm      20.8 mmol/L      At this point I "peed on a stick" and had a trace of ketones (0.5mmol/L), so I            corrected with 3.0 units 

10:20 pm       26.5 mmol/L   

11:50 pm      15.4 mmol/L

1:00 am      13.2 mmol/L


This is exactly the pattern you will see when treating ketones! I was excited to see this (not because it meant I had ketones, clearly) but because it is interesting and it was nice to see a predictable pattern after a day of unpredictable numbers. 

The spike (26.5) occurs because the insulin has to first metabolize the ketones in the blood (this is why it takes more insulin to get back down to normal range) before it can begin acting on the sugar in the blood. I'm exhausted after an afternoon of struggling to get my numbers at least close to normal, so I'm leaving the 13.2 now and going to bed!  

Sunday, 22 April 2012

So high right now bro

Don't you love those days where your body says something along the lines of...

"Hey hope you didn't have anything productive to do today, I'm just going to take you on a little skyrocket ride for, oh, let's see, the whole afternoon. What's that? You're really hungry? Yeah, but look you're actually 22 right now, so maybe hold up for like 6 hours until I decide I'm done touring the atmosphere. What's this stuff you're giving me, insulin? What's that? Yeeeaah, don't think I really mind it, I'm going to hang out up around 20 anyways. You changed out your site, insulin, tubing, reservoir, AND you don't have ketones? Pah, don't care! I'll just keep you up here for just a little longer! In fact, I think I'll probably stay up here til maybe around midnight, right when you want to fall asleep..then I'll most likely want to come back down to earth. Like immediately."


Saturday, 21 April 2012

Project Abnormal

Hey, I'm Louise, and I was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes in 1993 when I was 3 years old. I've been on an insulin pump since 2001 (I think?), and just got a new Animas Ping in February!

I'm a Calgary (Alberta, Canada) baby but I'm going to school at the University of Victoria in BC. Currently I'm training for a half marathon, playing soccer with several different teams (intramurals and womens leagues), trying to raise my GPA, working as a research assistant in a stroke rehab laboratory, and trying to live a "normal" life.

That's where the name, Project Abnormal, came from.

What in the world does "normal" mean?

Especially for a diabetic. I've caught myself complaining about my blood sugars and talking about how "weird" they are...but when aren't they? I can't remember a period of time longer than maybe 3 or 4 months, EVER, where I had consistent, good numbers, without feeling absolutely overwhelmed every day by my type 1.

It's always a battle. I've had diabetes for as long as I can remember, and I've never really known another way of life, but it doesn't mean that it EVER gets easier, or less frustrating to deal with.

Right now I'm battling a new exercise routine (lots of running - and different lengths/intensities of it - while I'm training for the half), and a lot of high blood sugars, so I've been looking online for support groups and people to connect with who are going through the same things. I decided to start this blog to express my frustrations, tips and tricks, insights into what's working for me (food/insulin/pumping-wise) while I'm training, and to hopefully connect with others who can share their own stories.