Travel Snacks

Today I am starting my journey back to Kansas to see my family and friends for the holidays. Unfortunately, I waited too long to get a flight home so I am taking the Amtrak. I have taken the Amtrak before to Milwaukee from Chicago and it was a fabulous experience (that trip was an hour and a half). My trip from Chicago to Kansas City will take about 12 hours because I have a long stop in St. Louis.

My only opportunities to eat from 9am-9pm will be from food on the train cart (soda, crackers, candy, etc.) or at the Amtrak station in St. Louis. I am really looking forward to getting home with a good attitude...so that means good blood sugars all day. This triggered a day of finding healthy snacks that will keep my blood sugar balanced, keep me full, but also not take up a lot of room--I am taking A LOT back home.

Here is what I decided to pack:

-WATER: obviously water is key for all of us. The water offered on the train is in small bottles and is extremely overpriced so I made sure to bring a lot of my own.

-Tomatoes: I bought a small box of cherry tomatoes, simply washed them and put them in a Ziplock bag.

-Celery: and I brought a lot of celery. We all know that consuming celery actually helps you burn calories because the amount of effort it takes for your mouth to crunch up celery burns more calories than the calories you are digesting from the celery itself. This snack is always a winner in my book. I bought a bag of celery that I washed, cut, and put in Ziplock bags.

-Carrots: a small bag of pre-washed baby carrots were perfect for this trip. Plus we could always use some help with our eyesight, right?

-Craisins: these are easily packaged and are a good alternative to raisins because they have less sugar.

-Nuts: these are my salty snack. If I don't bring any, I know I would definitely be hitting up the chips on the snack cart. Plus they are a good source of protein.

-Apples: a healthy snack that fills me up and is easy to dispose of. I brought 3 Honeycrisp Apples. To me, these are the equivalent of eating a spoonful of sugar. I am hoping that these sweet treats with help away me from my chocolate cravings on the train.

-Oranges: I just brought one, but oranges are great for traveling because the thick peel keeps the actual inside of the fruit clean and sanitary so you can throw one in any bag and not have to worry too much about it. Cuties are a must if you are traveling with T1 kids.

-Cliff Bars: of course I brought my favorite kind, Blueberry. This is my snack with the most dense amount of carbs/sugar so it will be my lifeline during a plunging low blood sugar. Of course I have a small tube of frosting as well!

-Sandwich: as a main meal to make SURE I stay full, I went to the grocery store Deli and had a sandwich made and packaged for me to bring with me. I will probably eat 1/2 for lunch and 1/2 for dinner..unless I get too excited at lunch.


My trip is a little extreme because I will be traveling for 12 hours, however, all of the snack options are good for any kind of traveling or even going out for the day. Nobody wants to be the person to hold up a travel day because you are unprepared. bringing snacks that are prepackaged, easy to Carb-Count and also easy to carry around are key when it comes to traveling.


Have a safe holiday and keep that 70-140!!

By the Way, here were my menu choices. Thanks for aiding obesity and inconsistent blood sugars Amtrak. We appreciate it, truly. 👎👎👎

Timing is Everything

Because I do not use a pump, I face several injections everyday....one of them being my long lasting insulin (I use Lantus). When I was first diagnosed, I was instructed to choose a time of the day that I could take my Lantus everyday. I am not a morning person and tend to be quite the night owl so I decided that I would take my shot every night around bed time--10:30ish. For the most part, this worked great during high school. However, in college it was difficult for me to keep to this 10:30 became 11 and then 11 became 11:30 and also vice versa. I was up late most nights of the week so when I had the opportunity to go to sleep early one night but the night before I had taken my shot at 11:30 then I was forced to wait until at least 11 to take my shot that evening.

I decided that I needed to switch my shot time to around dinner time. It has been working great...but here is my problem: changing my bolus amount. I am reaching a point in my health where I need to up my Lantus dose. This wasn't a problem when I took my shot at 11:30 because my low blood sugar would creep up at about 11:30/lunchtime the next day because it usually hits me 12 hours later. When I recently tried to up my Lantus dose by 1 unit  at 5:30/dinnertime, my low blood sugar hit me 12 hours later at 5:30am..NOT GOOD. I woke up and thought I was already dead--don't you wish you could describe how a low blood sugar feels to someone who isn't Diabetic?

I guess the real problem here is that I need to speak to Doctor/Diabetes Educator that I currently do not have. Unfortunately, because I just moved, I won't be seeing my new Endocrinologist until February. 

How do you guys adapt your schedule when you are changing your long lasting insulin dosage? Does it ever backfire on you like it did to me?

Drinking with the D.

As of yesterday, I am a new member to the Glu community and I am so excited. I cant believe I have never heard of this online community for T1 Diabetics. If you are not on it, I highly recommend joining. In just this past day, I already feel so welcomed and so understood--something I never feel when it comes to my health.

I will definitely post more about this site in the future. What I really wanted to share was this fantastic article that Glu shared a few weeks ago about teenagers/college students with T1 and how to deal with drinking. Even though this article does not provide a definite answer, it does supply some great guidelines that many diabetes educators, dietitians, and doctors refuse to speak about it. I love the way that drinking is addressed in this article and I think it is an important read for any young adult whether you have made the decision to drink or not as a T1.

Enjoy the read!!

Medical ID's

For the most part, my parents stay out of my Diabetes. Because I was diagnosed at 16, the disease became something that I was fully responsible for. Most of the time when they ask me a question about my health I have to laugh a little inside because I can tell that they have no idea what they are talking about. So clearly I rely on my doctor's advice for anything health-related and not my parents. However, last year, when I was moving to Chicago, my parents did demand that I get a medical ID bracelet before I moved away.

I know, I should have gotten some sort of medical ID as soon as I was diagnosed. However, I feel like I was so opposed to getting a medical ID for the same reason I am strongly resisting getting a pump. I hate thinking that knowing that somebody can look and see my pump/medical ID and automatically know my diagnosis. I feel like my diagnosis should be something that I choose to share with someone when I want to.

But my parents were not letting this one go. Plus my doctors were heavily supporting it. So, I started to look at my options...and there were A LOT. I never realized how many options were out there. Due to my insecurities, I wasn't into a charm bracelet that displayed the large red medical cross, so I ended up getting a charm bracelet that I wear frequently engraved with the medical symbol and "Diabetic" engraved underneath it.

 

There are many different websites where you can find various medical ID's such as: Medical ID Marketplace, American Medical ID, or Lauren's Hope. After doing much research I decided that getting a bracelet of my own engraved was the best option.  When it comes to makinga choice as serious as this make sure that you get something that you will actually wear. If you will not wear it, then DON'T get it. The whole point of a Medical ID is to save your life, so putting it on is the first step.