As most of you know, our son Connor is a type one diabetic. He's insulin dependent. He was diagnosed at the age of 3 and has lived with this disease for almost 7 years. November will be his 7th anniversary of diagnosis. In those seven years we've never really had a good control on his blood sugars. He might have one good day every few days but he's always had extreme highs and lows with no rhyme or reason. It's frustrating and it's worrisome because if his sugar is too high it's doing serious damage to his body and when he's too low he tends to have seizures.
A couple of weekends ago we went and hung out with a couple of friends who have been eating low carb and they looked fantastic. They both feel great and are dealing with their health problems better. In the past I've often pondered the whole carb issue and diabetes. If Connor eats carbs we have to cover it with insulin. The more carbs he eats, the more insulin he needs. Then you have the confusion of fast acting carbs and slow acting carbs. I had started doing some research about low carb diets for diabetics and found two things. The ADA is starting to realize that low carb diets might be a good way to deal with diabetes, but they won't endorse it. I'm guessing they are probably run by people who are funded by lobbyists. The second thing I found was Dr. Richard K Bernstein. He himself is a type one diabetic. He was diagnosed at the age of 12 and he's now in his 7o's. Through lots of experimentation on himself he figured out that by limiting his carb intake he was able to normalize his blood sugars. He doesn't have extreme highs or extreme lows. His blood sugar are usually around 80 to 90 which is what a normal, non-diabetic person has. He has no side effects that come to diabetics.
So, that brings us to what we did last week. We got rid of the carbs. It has been easier than I thought. We had our ups and downs. One thing we've noticed is that we aren't hungry at all. The kids haven't been bugging me for snacks. Connor used to be hungry all the time and in the last week he's pretty much done away with all snacking. He's just not hungry. No one is. The biggest and most rewarding thing we've seen is the insulin usage of Connor being cut in half. His blood sugars have been all within normal range. I don't think in the nearly 7 years of dealing with this disease have we ever had one full week of normal numbers. Friday night was tough and there was some moaning because, of course, that is our pizza night. It was tough, but we got through it and I really do think that in another week or two we won't miss it. Everyone feels great.
So, let's get to the meals:
Sunday was not an official "no carb" day for us but the meal was pretty good. I made tequila lime chicken and some homemade black bean refried beans. This meal was delicious and I can make the chicken again because there are little carbs in it.
Monday, we enjoyed Rosemary roasted chicken and vegetables. This was tasty. It was also the start to a long week of eating cauliflower. We're not big fans of cauliflower. It got comical towards the end of the week.
Tuesday was a delicious pork chop covered with salsa and a cream cheese/shredded cheddar cheese mixture melted over it. Oh look, more cauliflower. This one was made like a potato salad except instead of potato it was cauliflower. Not a big fan.
Wednesday was a hit with the kids. Meatballs. I made a double batch of these meatballs and we had them for meals/snacks for the next two days. Yes, that's cauliflower you see again. This time it was in a salad with roasted red peppers and kalamata olives. We picked out all of the olives and red peppers and left most of the cauliflower.
Thursday was supposed to be a fish dish, but I didn't get to the store to get fresh fish. I pulled one of my packages of organic chicken breasts out of the freezer and made Parmesan crusted chicken and thank God, broccoli. I whipped up a cheese sauce to put over the broccoli to try and get Aidan to eat it, but it didn't work. He did love the chicken though and wants it put into weekly rotation.
This brings us to Friday. We did not have pizza. We had to listen to the kids (Aidan mostly) whine about no pizza but it ended up being tasty. I made garlic chicken meatball and Tim was a genius and made zucchini fritters. Oh man, those were so good and we were fighting over them. Everyone, except Aidan. I think he was holding his own protest because there was no pizza. He's going to have to get over it.
Saturday, Aidan was happier. We just had hot dogs on top of a bed of sauerkraut. A drizzle of mustard and it was good to go. I put a little bit of my sweet pickle relish on mine because I love that stuff.
That wraps up our week. It was new and interesting. It was hugely successful with regards to Connor and his diabetes. I can't wait until he goes back to his endocrinologist and will blow her away with his much improved numbers. I'm sure there will still be struggles as we adjust to this, but we'll do it to make sure Connor has a long healthy life.
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