Are you hungry?

I worked in child watch at a YMCA for a little while before I became a lifeguard. I basically babysat kids while their parents were working out. It was always a challenge when we had babies in there because when they would cry, I had no idea what they wanted. Was the child hungry? Tired? In need of a clean diaper? Upset?

Hunger is a really basic instinct, you feel hungry so you eat food and that hungry feeling goes away. Living with diabetes means that hungry is no longer the deciding factor in when I eat.

I frequently have to eat when I’m not hungry and at times when I am hungry I should postpone eating. It’s very counter intuitive. Numbers more or less are deciding when I eat and I’m not a fan of math.

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I feel like I got an A!

How long ago did I eat? How many carbs can I handle without taking more insulin? What’s my blood sugar now? Do I have enough insulin with me to leave the house?

Diabetes is like a crying child sometimes.

Among the many oddities of my health, I am more insulin resistant in the mornings. By late morning my resistance has decreased. So of course I have fewer grams of carbohydrates per unit of insulin in the morning. I had started to notice that if I ate breakfast at 8:30 instead of 8:00, I needed less insulin.

Daylight savings time screwed me up.

Since my blood sugar was much lower after breakfast it pushed my need for lunch to be sooner creating a larger gap between lunch and dinner. Now I need an afternoon snack, whether I’m hungry or not.

Brad asked me the other night if living with diabetes seemed more normal now. There is a sort of routine that I’ve fallen into. The schedule isn’t a bad as I thought it would be and even calculating carbs to insulin isn’t that bad. The mechanics of this illness are (dare I say it?) pretty easy. The feelings are the hard part.

I feel like I’m ignoring my body when it tells me I’m full but my meter tells me I’m 45mg/dL and that I have to eat.

Oh, and that’s just one of the many feelings my little D-monster comes with.

Are you hungry?

Related Posts:

Type 1 Day and Diabetes Awareness Month

The Quest

Blog Action Day: Planning Meals

15 thoughts on “Are you hungry?

  1. 100 does feel like an A doesn’t it? 🙂
    That is another benefit of using an insulin pump – you can set different basal rates throughout the day without the need to eat! I have 9 different rates ranging from 0.425 to 1.650! Granted it doesn’t take away all the determining when or what you can eat by your BG readings but it does help!

  2. I like the way you put that, “Diabetes is like a crying child sometimes.”I’m glad I am not the only one that feels that way. My biggest issue is that I can be having an awesome day and then I will check my blood sugar and the high number makes me feel like crap. My glucose monitor is a mental terrorist…..

  3. my diabetes has many faces. the crying baby, the angry teenager, the cranky old man, and the sneaky, crafty shrew! i hate them all, but love them at the same time.

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