OCDiabetic

Low carb living with type 1 diabetes

Beginner’s guide to insulin injections

If you have a needle phobia, you don’t want to get type 1 diabetes. A lifetime of insulin injections is daunting to anyone. Now imagine you’re so scared of needles that a simple blood test makes you pass out. When there’s a gory injection scene in a movie you have to look away not to…
Read more

When the cat tried to kill me

My first encounter with the hypoglycemic rage monster happened a few weeks after I got diabetes. I was in line at a bookstore waiting to pay when the cashier asked the woman in front of me if she had a club card. She didn’t so they started filling in an application together, full of all…
Read more

Low carb blueberry muffins

The problem with recipe blogs is you’re very likely to slip into a diabetic coma and die while trying to find the recipe. Nevermind the twenty-five page George R R Martin style epic hero’s journey. How many eggs do I need?? With that said, here is the recipe.  Ingredients (6 muffins): 4 medium-sized eggs 110g…
Read more

The importance of program compliance

Here’s what happened. The other day I was lounging around the house in my jogging bottoms when the door buzzer rang. It was a friend of the bear’s popping in for a surprise visit. I pre-bolus for meals by 30 minutes, so I’d just injected insulin and stuck my lunch in the oven. A quick…
Read more

Book review: Edible stories

There are oysters, and then there are oysters. Dave develops a taste for belons and fine wine, which turns him into a nocturnal predator. With time the combination stops working, and the magic of late Paris nights wears off. Emma is left with food phobia after being confronted with a vegan turkey on Thanksgiving. She…
Read more

Why you need a glucagon kit

Many years ago when I lived in the UK something tragic happened at work. I was a waitress at a small neighborhood restaurant and my colleague had only been there for a few weeks, when she ordered the lunch special. The problem was this: the special was buttermilk chicken, and she was severely allergic…

Read more

23:1, or One Meal A Day Diet

A couple of months back the bear was suffering from food fatigue. In an ironic twist the diabetes that had made me unable to eat anything, had made our whole life evolve around food. Whereas before we had eaten whenever we were hungry, I was now eating three regular meals a day…

Read more

Most Googled Diets

Every year Google releases statistics of what people have searched the most for. As I looked through the lists I realized that I had no idea who most of the people on there were, but on the diet front I was up to date. A sign of getting old perhaps? Google processes 40,000 search queries…
Read more

Staying in touch with the pig

When you’re a diabetic on a low carb diet high in meat you have some ethical concerns. I’ve read Peter Singer and I didn’t eat meat for several years when I was younger. I’ll always pay a bit more for the ethical option. In addition to knowing that the animal had a decent life, there…
Read more

The book every diabetic should read

Dr Bernstein is my hero. I was lucky enough to come across his book The Diabetes Solution when I was newly diagnosed. It advocates normal blood sugars for diabetics by following a very low carbohydrate diet. At the time I was carb counting, or trying to match the grams of carbohydrates in my meals with larger insulin doses…

Read more