Hello everyone and Happy New Year to you all. We’re brand new to this condition - my 7-year old was diagnosed on Tuesday 12/29/15 and we just got home from hospital on Friday (living in San Diego). Managing through the first few days has been a challenge to be sure. My kids’ mom and I are split but remain friendly/close/have our priorities (our kids) in the right place.
Anyway, you’ve all been through the first parts of this - happy to hear any advice. Mostly interested in recipes at this point. I’m a decent cook and my kids are kind of ‘foodies’ so going back to super simple recipes is fine for now but is going to get VERY boring fast. So how do I count carbs in Chili or sloppy joes (which has lots of ketchup) for example is some advice I’m really looking for. Having a hard time figuring it out and I sure would prefer to be cooking at home than buying pre-packaged foods. Any cookbook recommendations would be appreciated as well. Most I’ve seen online so far seem to be geared toward adults who have type 2 and want to keep having deserts.
First let me say, all of this will get easier to manage! Our 11 year old was diagnosed 2/15. Different doctors say different things but our doctor told us to live and eat normally but to count the carbs and give the amount of insulin necessary to cover those carbs (we were on a pump 6weeks into the diagnosis and this helps a lot). So basically we still live and eat like we did before except for sodas. I am a chef so we eat at home a lot but i too found the cookbooks geared towards type 2. I chose some trusted and award winning food blogs that focused on low carb. Cauliflower, spiraled zucchini, and spaghetti squash will be your best friend (good for potato and noodle and rice substitutes). Again our Doctor told us that as a growing child she would need some carbs for healthy growth. Here is a blog I use frequently ibreatheimhungry.com.
Depending on what your doctor has told you, eat normally and bolus for the carbs. At the beginning I was no-carb crazy but once our Doctor said to eat normally, that’s what we do. As you will find along this journey, every t1d is totally different. So make sure you talk with your doctor about how “normally” your child may eat.
yes, the first year or so it can be a crazy learning experience, good luck to you. IN the next few weeks you have a “honeymoon” to look forward to, where your child can/will make a majority of the required insulin. I hope you have access to a great CDE (certified diabetes educator) they will be most helpful in the near future.
as you guessed, you are the primary care physician for blood sugar control, because doctors will not be able to get back to you as fast as necessary for hour-to-hour decisions. this will all become more routine in the coming months.
please reach out to your local JDRF chapter for more help. there are resources available to you click the “Resources” tab at the top.
I have had t1 for over 35 years and I always have a copy of “Calorie King” in my kitchen. IMO it’s a well organized carb book for all foods including prepared and packaged.
reach out with questions/issues there are a lot of us here!
I’m sorry to hear that you and your family are going through this but glad you found the group so quickly. This forum has been my best resource with posting and reading through threads.
My T1 is also 7. I think starting out being as meticulous as possible is a good idea. You’ll be amazed at how quickly you are able to eyeball and come up the carb amounts in your head if you have a strong foundation for portions/carbs.
So the food scale, wet and dry measuring cups/spoons, calculator and notebook are all good tools. Begin by recording everything that is eaten along with the carb amount. This will help keep track and you are building a catalog in you mind for each item. For example, starting out I would measure out cereal and milk and double check carb amounts then record it. Now I can just look at a bowl of cereal and know about how much is in it and about how many carbs. Same goes for say a serving of pasta, a cupcake, fruits etc.
I would also make note of which food you notice spike up the bg quickly. so our daughter could eat a piece of cake no problem. But Graham crackers or pancakes (even without syrup) would throw off our whole day. Everyone is different.
Sites like cooking light have recipes with nutrition facts and serving sizes listed so that helps while you are Building up your mental catalog.
Also, we focus less on carb quantity and more on a protein carb balance to keep things steady. Even with this method we typically barely make the MINIMUM daily carb intake. Including healthy fats has been super helpful too (ie switching from skim to 2% milk and drinking a little less.)
Oh, one more tip. We found that after several months of correcting lows, our child was consuming more calories than were necessary in a day. So now, we do not use candy and juice to correct lows. We use nutritionally dense foods and add them into a daily calorie total. For example…
A moderate low occurs in the afternoon. We correct with a 15gram mini Luna bar. All natural and has a good protien, carb, fat mix. Then At dinner, we consider that she has already had a mini Luna bar and adjust dinner quantity to reflect that.
Or, she has a low that requires a fast acting carb. We would treat with an organic apple sauce pouch with 15 carbs. Even with super fast acting carbs. Over processed, full of dyes and chemicals icing gels can be substituted with the all natural honey gels that are marketed towards athletes.
We didn’t care so much in the beginning but once that honeymoon was over and things were swinging up and down so often, we had to consider the overall consumption of junky sugar.
For counting carbs in multi ingredient foods I use the recipe tool on MyFittnessPal. You can import recipes from the web or enter them manually. You put in the amount of each ingredient in the recipe, and the number of servings it makes, and then the app will calculate the nutrition info - including carbs - per serving. Be careful to enter the servings as YOU will divide it, not necessarily what the recipe says it yields. If you get 4 sloppy joes out of one pound of beef, but the recipe says it yields 6, be sure to change the serving to 4 so you get accurate calculations. My pancake recipe says it makes 14 - but we only get 12 out it - so I have the app divide by 12 servings, not 14. I know there are at least a couple other apps that analyze recipes but I cannot remember which ones. Maybe Sparkpeople?