Weight Watchers and Diabetes

Most of you who know me in real life know that I've had diabetes since I was a kid. This is something I rarely write about, but it has been a major source of frustration for me this week. I decided to share what I've been dealing with in hopes of helping others who are dealing with something similar & maybe get some advice.

On Monday, there was only one thing that I *had* to get done. I needed to take Eva to see her pediatrician, which meant toting Samuel along. Sounds simple enough, but I got up with my blood sugar low & battled it all day long. Getting the kids to and from that doctor's appointment was about all I got done. I felt awful all day. I had a super bad headache. I went back to bed after I got the kids down for their afternoon nap. I'm still following Weight Watchers, so I didn't want to just eat a bunch of carbs. Usually I can treat low blood sugar with a banana or two & it's fine. That just didn't work on Monday. I think I had a banana, cereal, chocolate, ice cream, yogurt, oranges, apples, grapes, and I don't know what else before I went to bed Monday night. I didn't enjoy having to eat it. After that carb feast I would have expected my blood sugar to be pretty high the next morning. But no, it wasn't even 90. Ugh. That tells me that it is time to reduce my insulin dose. (Normal fasting blood sugar range is 80-120)

I've had to make reductions in my dose as I've lost weight, and it always takes a few days to figure out how much insulin I need to take to keep my blood sugar within a normal range. And it is frustrating. It means checking my blood sugar more often than usual & making sure I have snacks stashed everywhere. I try to keep granola bars in the diaper bag, the console of my car, the saddle bag on my bike, both of my purses, my camera bag, and my nightstand. I don't like eating when I'm not hungry, but I simply don't have a choice when my blood sugar is low.  My doctor has asked me to come in for lab work every three months since I've been on Weight Watchers and making adjustments to my insulin, and I go faithfully. We've agreed on what my goal weight should be, and I'm almost there. I've been *almost there* since Christmas, which is another point of frustration. I'm running out of clothes that are not too big for me, but I don't want to buy anything else until I get these last 8 pounds off. I'm down to two pairs of jeans that fit OK, no dress pants, 4 bras, 3 skirts, and well, even my shoes are loose. I've bought some things for the springtime that fit, but since it looks like winter is never going to end here in St. Louis, I don't know when I'll be able to wear them. It was 10 F, when I got up this morning.

One thing that I love about Weight Watchers is that fresh fruit is zero points, so I don't have to count it when I have to eat a banana to treat low blood sugar. This is what has made the program sustainable for me. Getting past the hurdle of a dose reduction just makes for a few rough days. Hopefully, this is the last dose adjustment that I will have to make.