Author: Emma

Emma Baird is a type 1 diabetic and a writer, specialising in romcoms and fiction that focuses on relationships. She is also the co-author of The Diabetes Diet and she runs her own blogging/PR business. Most importantly, she is the guardian of two very spoiled cats…

My people all together – #type1diabetes

Emma6 Comments

blood testing equipment type 1 diabetesEver sat in a room and thought, “I am with my people”? That was my experience this week as I attended an education session the NHS had put on; my attendance a condition for prescription of the Abbot FreeStyle Libre.

I doubt I’ve ever been in a room with so many other type 1 diabetics. Sure, type 1 is a hidden condition. Perhaps others travel on trains with me or flit about the offices of the University of Glasgow dropping their test strips wherever they go?* Still, my original statement holds. I reckoned on about 200 people there, with perhaps a third of them partners or parents.

All shapes and sizes

I arrived at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital early and watched in fascination as folks trooped in to the lecture theatre. We come in all shapes and sizes—all ages, all colours and all creeds. Who were the ones with diabetes? I put it down to those of us who carried our precious bag—the FreeStyle Libre and the doctor’s letter handed out when we registered—tightly. I’d expected lots of young people, but that wasn’t the case. The average age, I reckon, was mid to late 30s. Every time I saw someone who looked a lot older come in, I cheered silently.

Take that, reduced life span, and shove it where the sun don’t shine.

Our session took the form of a PowerPoint presentation by one of the diabetologists at the hospital, followed by some Q and As. I didn’t bother asking anything. As an introvert, I’m not going to raise my hand in a room that full of folks—even if they are my people. But there were plenty who didn’t suffer from shyness who dived in.

Can you scan your sensor through clothes? Yup. (So handy!)

Can you swim with it? Yes, but only half an hour is recommended. (Seriously, do people swim for longer than that? It’s the world’s most boring form of exercise unless you’re in open water.)

How long does it take for the prescription to come through once you hand the letter to your doctor? About 48 hours.

Can you connect it to your phone? Yes—there’s an app for it.

What happens if it keeps falling off? Some people have slippier skin than others. Thankfully, the two times I tried the sensor it stayed in place for its allotted fourteen days.

Talking to my people

I longed to talk to my people, but didn’t. See above-mentioned introvert tendencies. Who would I have chosen? The Indian girl who talked about running, exercising and wearing a sensor? The man behind me who asked if the Libre 2—the one with alarms that sound if your blood sugar levels go up or down too rapidly—would be available for us in the future? The glamorous young couple where I couldn’t work out which one would hold out the fingers covered in black dots from too much finger-pricking?

No. The one I’d have picked out was the woman I guessed to be in her late 30s who came in with an older man and woman I took to be her mum and dad. I watched her sit down near me and wiped away a wee tear. That might have been me once upon a time, attending with my lovely, supportive ma and pa. My father died nine years ago and how I’d love to have shared this new, wonderful development in diabetes care with him.

Session over, my precious bag and I got onto the bus to go home. “A new chapter, Emma B,” I said to myself. “How terribly exciting.”

*About to become a non-problem. Yay!

Type 1s in the US dreading their 26th birthday

Emma5 Comments

insuline supplies on the Diabetes Diet websiteSometimes a story pops up which serves as a timely reminder of how lucky we in the UK are (catastrophic, undemocratic political shenanigans which might lead to insulin shortages anyway notwithstanding)…

This week’s news feature that popped out to me was a BuzzFeed article about Millennial type 1s in the US, forced to come off their parents’ health insurance at the age of twenty-six. Insulin prices in the US tripled from 2002 to 2013 and a recent study found its average annual cost increased from $3,200 to $5,900 a year from 2012 to 2016. Unregulated capitalism—always a good thing, hmm?

Most Millennials, the article pointed out, have to contend with the long-felt after-effects of the 2008 financial crisis, debts left over from college or university and the gig economy where it is hard to get health insurance in the first place. Or there are jobs that don’t have insurance, the insurance doesn’t cover diabetes or the deductibles are so high, the insurance isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Rationing insulin

The reporter spoke with a number of twenty-six-year-olds forced into rationing insulin and using syringes and lancets repeatedly to try to keep costs down. One mentioned skipping meals so he didn’t need to take at least one dose a day, and another said her insurance didn’t cover the insulin she’d previously used. The one it sanctioned made her feel ill.

Why the age of twenty six? As the article states, outgrowing your parents’ health insurance has always been an issue for young adults with chronic health conditions. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 allowed them to stay on that insurance until they got to twenty-six—a universal deadline.

Even government-sponsored insurance is so “stupid expensive” one person quoted in the article said, it’s not worth it.

Different career path

And what about job choices? Again, those featured in the article spoke about sacrificing what they really wanted to do for a job or career path that offered sufficient financial reward or great insurance in order to get the life-saving medication they need.

Twenty-five-year old Allie Marotta told BuzzFeed she fears the approaching deadline.

“Being postgrad, figuring out your career,” she said, “all of that is crazy to begin with, and then adding the layer of worry about medical stuff and having it be a life-or-death situation, literally a life-or-death situation all the time.

“It shouldn’t be this hard. You see other countries doing it and it’s not this hard. There’s no reason for this to be the way that it is.”

Healthy Low-Carb Recipes for Chilling and Grilling — Nourishing World Blog

Emma3 Comments

Some party and outdoor recipe ideas for low-carb courtesy of the Nourishing World Blog.

With the Summer Party season about to get underway, I wanted to share some great keto-Friendly Summer recipes. My Daughter and I recently did another round of the 21-Day Detox and found a few new healthy recipe favorites. This Buffalo Wing Sauce is keto friendly, Paleo and Whole30 friendly. My daughter ate this almost every […]

via Healthy Low-Carb Recipes for Chilling and Grilling — Nourishing World Blog

Approved for Flash Glucose Monitoring!

Emma8 Comments
Cheerio oh meter – you are about to become a thing of the past. Ditto that test result too.

Joyous news, friends… I’ve received approval for funding for the FreeStyle Libre flash glucose monitoring system.

Oh, what changes this will bring! Firstly, there’s the ease thing. I often sit down for dinner, realise I’ve still to do a blood test and groan. Now, it will be a matter of seconds. Take out the reader, scan and voila. I’ll also be able to do TONNES of tests, and catch those pesky sugar levels when they misbehave firing to the top or plunging to the bottom.

As a wild optimist at heart, I tell myself my day to day energy levels will also shoot through the roof – diabetes being much easier when you’re not tired all the time because of glucose level misbehaviour.

Before I receive my very own precious reader and prescription for the thingies you stick on your arm, I’ll need to attend an education session. Once that’s done, a letter wings its way to my GP and she starts prescribing the arm thingies. (Note my fine grasp of the technicalities.)

So, there we go. Happy days! I’ll report back.

Exercise & Diabetes – short spurts or endurance stuff?

Emma9 Comments
Emma Baird at the start of Ben Lomond
At the start and cheery…

Exercise, as we folks with diabetes are often told, is essential for good management of diabetes. ‘Good’ doesn’t mean easy. The usual disclaimer applies; my experiences are unique to me, but this week’s blog post is inspired by last week’s climb of Ben Lomond.

Ben Lomond is a munro—i.e. a mountain this is higher than 3,000 feet or 914.4 metres. Munro-bagging is the activity where you climb them, stand on the top for a while taking pictures (if it’s not on social media, it never happened, right?) and then telling everyone you know for weeks afterwards.

As Ben Lomond is the munro nearest to where I live, it’s been on my bucket list for ages. My sister in law is a keen walker/hill climber so the two of us set off to tackle the mountain last Monday.

I am fitter than average. My FitBit tells me I’m in the top percentage of people my age and gender when it comes to the VO2 measurement. (If you can explain exactly what this is to me, I’d be grateful.) But climbing a munro? Boy, a different kettle of fish entirely. I didn’t prepare properly and I suffered.

So, here are the lessons I learned…

Prepare, prepare, prepare

Endurance exercise needs far more before-hand and after preparation than short spurts of exercise. I can do half an hour to an hour’s exercise without needing to take extra carbs or adjust my insulin. A mountain is something else entirely.

Stretch, stretch, stretch

Stretch out your calves, quads and glutes thoroughly afterwards. No, do. Mine ached for five days afterwards, particularly my calves which I put down to going up on the balls of my feet as I clambered over the rocks. When I got out of bed on Sunday morning and limped downstairs to the toilet, I went so slowly my FitBit didn’t register the steps.

Eat, you diddy

Eat beforehand. I know, duh. I had food with me but my sister-in-law and I did it first thing so I hadn’t bothered with breakfast.

Test, test, test

Blood sugar at the start – 9.8. One hour in, 13.4. I took half a unit of rapid acting insulin—3.2 half an hour later. In a panic, I shoved in too many jelly babies. At the top I ate a banana and took no insulin. By the time I got to the bottom, my blood sugar had hit the heady heights (appropriate analogy, huh?) of 19. I took too much insulin and by the time I got home, I’d crashed once more.

Oh for the Abbot Free Style Libre, which would have made testing blood sugar levels so much easier and adjustments more likely to be accurate. Some day my star will come and the good people of Greater Glasgow and Clyde NHS health board will see fit to prescribe it.

Enjoy the views

Except, this being Scotland, count on getting to the top and seeing nothing thanks to the thick layer of grey cloud that hovers there. Still, twenty metres down and the views were glorious.

Afterwards, we realised we’d climbed Ben Lomond on World Naked Hiking Day… sadly, everyone else who climbed it on that day hadn’t got the memo either.

All of which brings me neatly to—can you do endurance exercise when you have type 1 diabetes to deal with? People do. There’s the Novo Nordisk team of cyclists for a start. On the other hand, they’ve got a team of dedicated professionals behind them to help with diet and working out what they take insulin-wise. I’m willing to bet too, that they have access to all the latest gear—the continuous glucose monitoring, the pumps and sophisticated feedback they can interpret to work out how to cope with long bike rides.

Our ascent of Ben Lomond took just over two hours and ten minutes (844 calories on the FitBit), and the descent about an hour and forty minutes. It counts as the hardest fitness challenge I’ve ever undertaken, far more difficult than running a half-marathon.

[Talking of running, we were overtaken by two trail runners at one point. Lordy. In awe.]

I don’t know if I would do it again. I’d rather do short bursts of exercise interspersed throughout the day as I know what I’m doing and how it will affect me. I’m a mesomorph body type too. My body favours that kind of exercise as opposed to the endurance stuff. I can walk long distances and often do, but most of the time that’s on flat ground or its hills do not last more than 45 minutes. Hauling yourself up mountains is hard as heck.

With exercise it is easy to forget that there is a level above which there is no point in doing extra unless you are training for a big event or you’re a professional sports man or woman or athlete. I do Pilates for the flexibility benefits, I walk or run for cardio and otherwise I try to move a little throughout the day. That, I think, is enough for me.

What do you prefer—endurance exercise or doing short, intense bursts of it?

 

*Photos courtesy of Jacqui Birnie.

Low-carb veggie curry

Emma11 Comments

vegetable curry in a bowlAs a one-time vegetarian, I love vegetable or pulse-based curries. I’d choose them over meat-based ones any day. I’m also a fan of tamarind paste—it adds amazing tangy flavour to any curry.

Last week, I made a veggie curry using the left-overs in the fridge and combining them in a rich sauce. Had I been the only one eating it, I would have added cauliflower but my husband hates the stuff and veggie dishes are a hard sell to him so I left it out.

Recipes often specify coconut milk, which is fine if you need a whole tin of it. I keep packets of creamed coconut in my store cupboards (fridge in the summer) as it’s much more versatile. You can use however much you need without waste, and it can be a thickener or made into a cream.

Vegetable Curry

  • Servings: 3-4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

  • 300g mushrooms, sliced
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 1 large carrot, cut into batons
  • Half a red pepper, sliced
  • 1 large courgette cut into chunks
  • 400g tinned tomatoes
  • 1 tbsp curry powder
  • 1tbsp tamarind paste
  • 50g creamed coconut, finely chopped
  • 1tbsp rapeseed oil
  • 2 chillies, chopped
  • Salt to taste.
  1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan. Strictly speaking, you should put the onions in first, fry till translucent, then add the peppers, courgette and carrot, cook for five minutes and add the mushrooms last. I’m too lazy to add the veggies one by one so I threw them all in at once and cooked for about six minutes.
  2. Add the curry powder, tamarind paste and chillies and cook for another minute. Add the chopped tomatoes and bring to the boil. Mix in the creamed coconut and turn down to a simmer. Cook for about five minutes. The creamed coconut will thicken the sauce. Add seasoning to taste.
  3. To make it more of a main meal, You could add some fresh chicken stock to this and turn it into a sauce for chicken thighs or throw in a good handful of cooked prawns and cook for a minute to warm through. Another worthy addition is two or three balls of frozen spinach. Defrost and warm through beforehand, obvs.

Allow about 15-18g of carbs per portion. Serve with naan breads (low-carb version here) or rice for the carb-lovers in your life.

Low-Carb Curried Cauliflower Cheese

Emma12 Comments
roasted cauliflower
low-carb cauliflower cheese
Creamy, squidgy, spicy goodness.

Who was the first person to look at a cauliflower and a bowl of leftover cheese sauce and think—“My goodness, this will be a match made in heaven?”

Whoever he or she was, I’d like to shake them by the hand. If someone said to me, “Okay it’s your last meal on earth, what do you want?”, I’d say, “Cauliflower cheese, please, and don’t stint the cheese.” As it is my last meal, I’d ask them to top it with crispy breadcrumbs and some grilled bacon rashers for crunch.

[Conversation to the side. HUSBAND: Seriously, that’s your last meal? Not steak, or lobster or even a good burger with all the trimmings? Jeez. Who/what did I marry?]

On Friday night, I was at the Tron Theatre (get me) with friends and noticed the bar menu included curried cauliflower cheese. That set the neurons firing. The world’s best dish made even better?

The Tron’s version would have been made the conventional way—a white sauce with milk and flour to thicken it. Low-carb versions use variations of cream and cream cheese to thicken the sauce. Where would the curry bit come in?

One of the ways to cook cauliflower often recommended to those who hate the stuff* is to roast it in the oven with cumin and coriander seeds and chilli. That takes care of the curry bit. Then, if you combine it with a creamy sauce and grated cheese and pop it back in the oven you have the perfect low-carb cauliflower cheese.

You can serve this as an accompaniment to cold meat such as sliced ham or cooked sausages. Or do as I did—serve yourself a super-big portion with a lightly-dressed green salad. Yum.

Low Carb Cauliflower Cheese

  • Servings: See note
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

The best veggie dish in the world made even better

  • One large whole cauliflower, broken into even-sized florets
  • One tbsp turmeric
  • One tbsp rapeseed oil
  • One tbsp cumin seeds
  • One tbsp coriander seeds
  • One tsp black pepper corns
  • ½ tsp chilli flakes (or more…)
  • 250mls double cream
  • 100g grated cheese (extra mature to vintage cheddar is best)**
  • 1tbsp wholegrain mustard

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C.

Bring a large saucepan of well salted water to the boil, add the turmeric and cook the cauliflower florets for two minutes. Drain well so they are very dry.

Toast the cumin, coriander and pepper in a dry frying pan until the smell of them hits your nose like a sledgehammer and grind to to a powder in a pestle and mortar.

Take a large roasting pan and tip your florets in there. Add the oil and the spices and mix well so the florets are well coated. Cook in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the sauce. Heat the cream gently in a pan and add the mustard and most of the grated cheese. Blend well.

Remove the cauliflower florets from the oven. Place in an oven-proof serving dish and pour over the cheese sauce. Top with the rest of the grated cheese and put back in the oven for 20 minutes.

Serve immediately.

Allow about 5-8g carbs per serving

Note—the number of servings depends on the size of cauliflower you started with. Mine was teeny, so my dish made two. If I’d served it as a side dish, three-to four. But we are in glutton territory here. Maybe I pretended the dish above served two and ate the whole lot in one go… no-one else in my household wanted to eat it, after all. Another idea is to prepare the roasted cauliflower as a side dish for any roast meat.

*Didn’t work on my husband. Cauliflower is up there on his list of the Devil’s Foods, along with broccoli, sprouts and blue cheese.

**This is a rough guide. If you choose to double it up, who am I to judge?

American Diabetes Association Endorses Low-Carb for Type 2s

Emma2 Comments
eggs and asparagus

eggs and asparagusA landmark decision this week—the American Diabetes Association (ADA) has decided to back low-carb diets for type 2 diabetics.

Diabetes.co.uk reported the announcement this week. The charity has produced a report, ‘Nutrition Therapy for Adults with Diabetes or Prediabetes: A Consensus Report (Consensus Report)‘, published in the journal Diabetes Care.

Last year, the ADA acknowledged the low-carb approached as beneficial for treating type 2 diabetes. The new report goes further, stating that diabetes-focused nutrition therapy is a crucial part of overall diabetes management.

Previous high-carb recommendations

Previous dietary guidelines have focused on high-carb diets for people with or without diabetes.

The report says: “Reducing overall carbohydrate intake for individuals with diabetes has demonstrated the most evidence for improving glycemia and may be applied In a variety of eating patterns that meet individual needs and requirements.

“For select adults with type 2 diabetes not meeting glycemic targets or where reducing antiglycemic mediations is a priority, reducing overall carbohydrate intake with low- or very low-carbohydrate eating plans is a viable approach.”

Non-starchy vegetables

The report also says it is important to eat non-starchy vegetables, minimise the intake of added sugars and refined grains, and choosing whole foods instead of highly-processed foods.

As one of the authors of the paper, Dr Laura Saslow from the University of Michigan was also the author of a research paper published last year which revealed that 26 percent of users of Diabetes Digital Media’s Low Carb Programme put their type 2 diabetes into remission after a year. Remission was defined as reducing HbA1c to normal levels while taking no glucose-lowering medications or just metformin.

If you’re a low-carb enthusiast (type 2 diabetes or not), you’ll find lots of recipe ideas on this website and you can also buy our book, The Diabetes Diet as a paperback or e-book on Amazon. The book has recipes, meal plans and suggestions for how to adjust insulin when starting on a low-carb eating plan.

Chicken Caesar Salad – crouton-free

Emma7 Comments

picture of chicken caesar saladEaster greetings to you all… here’s an idea for lunch or dinner for you. Now, Caesar salad without the croutons?! C’est sacrilege, surely? But if you follow a low-carb diet, the concept of tearing up the rule book on food is one you embrace.

I’m back from a terrific few days in the Scottish Borders (abbey-visiting a-plenty), and my favourite meals while there was a Chicken Caesar salad I had in the Townhouse in Melrose. Now that one did feature croutons, albeit small ones, but the dressing and the juicy chicken made it stick out.

I decided to re-create it at home. Issue one—chicken breast, a dry and often flavour-free meat. Issue two—my husband hates anchovies and they’re are often added to the salad or at least the traditional dressing.

Poached, not fried or roasted chicken

To avoid dry chicken, I poached mine in chicken stock (I used two cubes) with a handful of sage and thyme added to the cooking liquor. And to make an anchovy-free dressing*, I found an American recipe online and adapted it.

Here it is—crouton-free Chicken Caesar Salad suitable for low-carb and gluten-free diets.

Chicken Caesar Salad

  • Servings: 2
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

<em>A fresh, light recipe that is still filling and perfect for a late spring or summer dinner</em>.


Ingredients

  • 2 chicken breasts (the best quality you can afford)
  • 500ml chicken stock
  • Handful fresh sage leaves and several thyme twigs)
  • 3 rashers smoked back or streaky bacon
  • 2 Little Gem lettuces
  • 10 baby plum or cherry tomatoes
  • 30g Parmesan shavings

Dressing

  • 4tbsp mayonnaise
  • 1tbsp fresh lemon juice
  • 1tsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1tsp Dijon mustard

Steamed green beans to serve (and boiled new potatoes for your carb-lovers).

  1. Bring the chicken stock to a simmer and add the breasts. Depending on their thickness, they will take 10-15 minutes to cook, but you shouldn’t have any pink meat remaining.
  2. Meanwhile, wash the Little Gem lettuces and pull off the outer leaves. Use them to line a wide bowl so you have a ‘tray’ for your salad. Shred the rest of the leaves finely, slice the tomatoes and put in a bowl with the lettuce. Add the Parmesan shavings. Whisk together the dressing ingredients and toss the salad to coat it evenly with the dressing.
  3. Grill the bacon until crispy. Once the chicken is cooked, chop or slice it and add to the plate. Top with the grilled bacon (one and half slices each).

About 5-7g carbs per serving.

Please note—the dish is high in protein and protein can affect your blood sugar levels after a few hours. Test your blood glucose accordingly. Our book The Diabetes Diet outlines how to deal with the protein content in meals.

 

*Ssh, don’t tell my husband one of the main ingredients in Worcestershire sauce is… you guessed it, anchovies.