My boyfriend's aunt and uncle are having the two of us over on Friday for supper. They're serving lasagna, garlic bread, salad, and tiramisu--carby! I'd like to eat and enjoy myself, even though I know I'll be getting well beyond my normal 30-45 carbs if I have a serving of everything. (My estimate based on some light internet research is 90 carbs.) Any advice on how to keep my BG from spiking too much?
Yikes! Well, first off, do they know about your D? Are you comfortable enough to explain why you may not be able to fully partake? Probably not, because if they were, they would have revised the menu!
I would say pick and choose among the offerings and eat very small servings of each. I would skip the garlic bread altogether because you can do that without being too noticed or "insulting" to their cooking. I personally would skip the tiramisu, but I don't eat sugar, so don't go by me! Is it homemade or store bought? Homemade puts you under more obligation to be polite. So again, small tastes and nobody will really notice. I would think about doing a combo bolus since there's a lot of fat that may delay the spike.
Just don't do what I have done when faced with a carby meal: Bolus for a lot of carbs, then eat around them and end up going really low..lol.
Wow - that's a tough meal. When I eat one of Amy's low sodium vegetable lasagnas - around 37 carbs and 300 calories - the dosing is pretty straightforward. When aunt and uncle are being hospitable the portions might be twice as big. The lasagna might also have more fat and protein (meat) making dosing trickier. Garlic bread is both high carb and high fat and dosing for tiramisu with cake, chocolate, marscapone and sugar in some combination is just a guess.
You're newly diagnosed. Couldn't you beg off or ask them to make a Zuppa di Pesce or something a little easier to deal with. I know you don't want to insult your boyfriends family but you're going to resent them when you deal with the highs and/or lows all night. If you do eat everything, I wish you the luck of the innocent.
Maurie
They do know about it, actually, so if I skip something they'd understand. I'd rather not, but my desire not to feel stinky all evening is greater than my desire to eat like normal!
Yeah, I know what you mean. When I eat higher carb than usual I not only deal with inaccurate blood sugar targets but feeling uncomfortably full. Part of me wants to say, if they know about it, then why is that the menu! But I really understand that outsiders just don't understand. At best they'd think "oh well, she can't eat the dessert". I'm a vegetarian and recently my nephew told me the gourmet Italian restaurant the family was meeting at and he helpfully said, "Zoe, they have really good pizza for you". Pizza, yeah right! (I actually ate the pasta which I find easier to bolus for. It came late because the pizza oven was broken and that's what most of the rest of my table ordered. My nephew's wife kept urging me to eat some bread so I didn't go low. Nope! Saving it for the pasta! She's a nurse and I think she was afraid she'd have to take care of me..lol.
Good luck. I think it's good you're thinking about it ahead of time because that way you can plan out what to do.
Nibble on everything except the salad, and eat a lot of that, maybe?
I think it's mainly ignorance. Like you've said, people think I can't eat dessert and totally forget about things like bread and pasta--fruit for that matter!
Don't give up on fruit without making a good faith effort to dose for it. I eat apples every day and have some fruit with almost every meal. It's not only healthy but satisfies the sweet tooth.
Don't worry--I haven't! I've just found that non-diabetics have a vague idea that good-for-you things like fruit don't affect blood sugar.
Trickier since you are not on a pump, but when I was on MDI, for splurges (my daughters weddingg, etc)..I was on split doses of levemir 5 units in am and 4 at night..I did a unti more long acting that morning, and then split my meal coverage to one shot 20 min before (novalog), one right before sitting down to eat, one after dinner and one 2 hours later. I then cheked 2 hours after that and corrected as needed. Also let me adjust to the actual food I ate (I only had one bite of wedding cake--it was delicious!)
As a rule I do not avoid any food--except that which has soy in it--I just adjust protions and insulin. And I too love apples, and normally do not have to bolus for those. I eat grapefruit almost everyday (twice a day actually--breakfast and dinner)
just waht worked for me
This is going to be a rough one. One thing to bear in mind as that this is a meal is high in fat and protein. They digest slower and will cause a rise in glucose levels later than anticipated. If you are on a pump, you can wave bolus or square bolus for that. If not, you should probably split your insulin dose and delay the second part until an hour or two after the first. If this is the first high fat/protein meal you've had since diagnosis, it may take a little experimentation. I'm on the OmniPod and I will split my dose and extend the second part over a period of time. I can also turn up my basal rate temporarily if I had too much pizza and the climb continues. It can continue for a lot longer than you think it should.
In these situations, I try to pick the foods I want the most. So, I might have the lasagna and salad, but skip the garlic bread and dessert. I would try my best to estimate the carbs I'm eating and do a square-wave bolus (assuming that the meal would be consumed over a period of time). If you're really concerned, bring a dish or two to add to the meal that you know you can eat. For me, Italian dishes that are fish or vegetable based (grilled fish, eggplant parmigiana, etc) are much safer than anything containing pasta.
For those of you who are interested, I was able to keep my meal roughly around my normal 45 carbs by skipping the bread and limiting the tiramisu (I'm a sucker for sweets, so I had to have just a wee piece. ;) ) I took 2/3 of the dose for the lasagna up front and the rest two hours later. My BG did spike, but not terribly all things considered.
Congratulations! Good job! Personally I'm a bit offended that anyone knowing of your Diabetes would serve such a blatantly unhealthy meal, but I think I expect too much from people at times. Most people are oblivious to what our D management entails.
I checked two hours after and then before bed (which was about 5 hours after). My bedtime BG was higher than normal.
I haven't yet, but I had a CDE recommend it to me. She thinks it tastes better than whole wheat pasta. I'd really like to try it!
"Most people are oblivious to what our D management entails." - BINGO!
My in-laws still don't "get it", so to speak. They think, if there's no sugar in something, it's fine. They don't understand the carb thing, even though I've explained it numerous times! But, so it goes....