No I don’t want to try a damn cookie leave me alone !!! Don’t ask me if I am “sure” I am sure I don’t want the F sugar cookie I don’t need to rethink it.
Its getting to where I want to be rude to people, YOU KNOW I AM DIABETIC, leave me the F alone about food.
Is it family & friends that are doing this, or is it employees at stores & restaurants that are doing it? If it is family & friends (and they really do know, I have friends and even some family that don’t know), I would just tell them thanks but you prefer not to be offered foods. If it is stores & restaurants, just ignore them & walk away, if they follow you around & nag you, tell (or threaten to tell) their manager. Most people are willing to leave you alone if you just let them know.
Are you a T1 or T2?
If you are a T1, it’s pretty easy. You just say, “Let me think about it for a few hours or a few days…” And then the next time you have low blood sugar, you say yes and enjoy it.
I don’t know of a snappy response for a T2, maybe someone else can offer one.
I did tell family and friends I don’t want to go to restaurants anymore. I am new at this and I just don’t want to deal with it being stuck ordering something I don’t care for or trying to manipulate the menu so I don’t get the stuff I don’t want / cant have.
On top of that I don’t know what that meter is going to say hours from now when we get to one. I a doing all those sticks and pricks for some stupid sit down meal and the wait for the check part I never liked even before T1
I have been doing this type 1 with Lantus only I just don’t eat much carbs at a time.
I have the Humalog but that bowl of rice or what ever pasta ect never appealing enough to do the math and a needle thing. I never learned ro use it.
Just me angry today. I have to chill out.
I think you just have to keep politely declining. Unfortunately. I think people just offer to be nice, even if they logically know that you will turn it down.
I have severe food allergies in addition to diabetes. I don’t eat anything unless it has ingredients I can read, and unless it has nothing I’m allergic to and no ingredients that could hide allergens, like “natural flavours”, and no great risk of cross-contamination. I’ve been working at my current job for the past 4.5 years and have never accepted any food brought into the office. Yet people still offer me things when they’re bringing something around.j
I had an interesting experience where I was offering someone else something and they declined (I can’t remember the reason). Automatically, I said, “Oh, are you sure?” It came out of my mouth so quickly that I wasn’t even really aware of what I was saying. As soon as I said it, I realized that it was the very sentence that often got on my nerves so much when I turned down food. Ever since then, it’s annoyed me a lot less, because I realize people may be saying out of pure habit without even thinking.
So true! I’ve been in situations where everyone but me is offered some food treat. In those situations, the person was trying to be kind knowing I had diabetes. For me, I’d rather get the offer and politely say, “no thank-you.”
Food in a social situation is about more than the food. It’s people acting to include you and thereby recognize your presence and make you feel welcome. Food can often serve as a social proxy for many unsaid things.
It’s hard for us who are restricted in what we eat. In this situation, as much as I appreciate the irritation it can cause, I think we’re responsible for showing tolerance. Within reasonable limits, of course.
Offering and sharing food is a very human, social, inclusive, and caring thing to do, pre-dating our cave-dwelling days. Anthropologists recognize that eating a meal with others (what they call commensality) is one of the most important manifestations of sociality across all cultures. Eating together confirms the sense of belonging to a community. Which is to say, please don’t be angry at people for wanting to share food you may prefer not to eat. They’re just being human.
Of course you can refuse what’s offered — so long as you recognize that on some deep-down level, you risk signalling you don’t want to be part of that person’s community. Instead of risking offending someone, you could accept the cookie but pass it on to someone else, or save it for when you’re running low, or even dump it in the garbage when no one’s looking. (I “lost” a bag of brownies on the subway once. They weren’t very good anyway.) Or you can decline with polite excuses about having just eaten, or saving your appetite for later, or feeling under the weather. A restaurant setting is even easier, since you can usually choose for yourself what and how much to eat.
A non-diabetic friend once pointed out to me that it can be confusing for non-diabetics. For every diabetic who answers, “You know I’m diabetic and can’t eat that,” there’s another (like me!) who answers, “Thank you! Let me just do a quick injection.” She said, “I can’t keep up!”
By the way, your blood sugar will usually rise after you eat even if you don’t eat carbs (or think you’re not eating carbs). A piece of cheese, an egg, a simple green salad can all make blood sugar rise. In both the short run and the long run, your health will be much, much better if you read up on carb counting, and start using your quick-acting insulin. That “needle thing” is your best friend for life.
A nurse offered me a chocolate tootsie roll as I was leaving the office. I said, “No thanks. I am diabetic.” She was embarrassed and said, “Well then, you ought to avoid thootsie rolls.” I shrugged and left her office without telling the nurse that I don’t like sweets, myself, and would not be attracted to a bowl of tootsie rolls.
Why not just be gracious and say, No Thank You. Geez 
My best bud invited me to lunch at Rice and Noodles. Almost fell out of my chair. Oh, CARBS AND CARBS. Do I say NO? All the time. It isolated me a bit.
It’s just hard. I watched four ladies eat five bowls of bread and butter today. That’s 30 pieces of baguette. I was starved.
I snagged the last two pieces to give me a few carbs. I got some dirty looks. “Oh, I like bread to soak up the sauce.”
It not only bugs me, but changes my life. I’m terrified of eating out.
Because it’s never the right answer.
I used to accept food and throw it out later sometimes, especially when it was just given to me without asking if I wanted it. But I think this is something that needs to change in modern society. There are tons of people (myself included) with conditions that perclude even touching a food without risking our health. I think it’s really important that people with such conditions don’t feel guilty or feel like they have to lie to be accepted. And that people who may not have such conditions recognize that there are people out there living with them.
99% of the time it is just people being nice. There are things worth the energy getting upset about and then there are things that are not. Personally I like people who are nice.
??? How not feeling emotional about not being able to eat something? For example, I can’t eat spinach or fish so if someone offers it to me I just say…No, thank you. That is the RIGHT answer! The need to explain is on you, not the person offering. I hope my littles don’t feel like they have to explain to their school/play mates if they don’t want a stupid Skittle cuz they just don’t like them. They prefer Gummies. LOL Grow up, and just say NO. You don’t owe an explanation.
I actually do frequently use the excuse “I can’t eat that, I’m diabetic” and while I know this would drive some type 1’s up the wall it is the most effective way to get people to stop offering me food that I should not eat. That being said there is no reason why denying food that is offered to you should interfere with socializing. For instance last night a lady brought homemade cookies to a meeting and when I was offered one I pointed at her and said “shame on you for bringing cookies” and we all started laughing like crazy people. Btw, they all already knew I’m diabetic but people are in fact just people and forget that you can’t eat whatever, whenever, you want. If I were to have eaten that cookie I would have needed approximately an hours notice so I could take some insulin that would have had me headed for a low right at the time that cookie was offered. It is just too much trouble IMO.
Also eating out isn’t much trouble for me because I have no problem with tearing apart a menu item and asking for vegetables instead of potatoes, etc. and diner style restaurants are your friend (bring on the eggs and bacon!).
I just order anything but pasta or dishes where rice is mixed in or pastry. And I ask the wait person if I can have extra vegetables instead of the carby bit. Most places now are serving meals without the carbs, you have to order them as an extra - perfect.
Wow. A bit harsh.
Sorry, I guess I still don’t know the “Right” answer. This is my answer to your OP where you asked “How Do I Say No To Food Offers?” I have and will always say, NO THANK YOU. What will you say from now on?
Generally, if it is not my wife, I say that I can’t eat “that” because I am a diabetic. Normally something like, after a brief visual examination, “I couldn’t possibly eat that, I’m a Type 1 Diabetic and it would send my blood sugar through the roof.”
There is a cultural issue; in the US where I live it is normal to continue to offer food until someone stops eating and leaves their plate with uneaten stuff, in the UK where I grew up it is offensive not to eat food you are given. Consequently in the US it is appropriate to just take the food and ignore or discard it, whereas in the UK it is essential to refuse to take it in the first place. This is not a diabetic thing…
In restaurants I just ask to swap out the starches for veggies. On the west coast (Oregon in my case) this works great; I’m not saying that a restaurant meal isn’t a big carb hit, it is even without the starches, but I find it is manageable. My wife does the same thing these days; it works for everyone and the food is much better (on aggregate.) BTW ALWAYS ask for the dressing on the side, and ignore it.
When it is family whatever anyone else might say it really is a downer. The phrase “everyone help themselves” just works; you don’t have to force it down people’s throats and in this age of gross over eating it is so much better for everyone not to do so.
Incidentally, my wife doesn’t do it any more; we have lived together long enough for her to know that I am not a nice person to be around on a blood sugar high.
John Bowler
I find explaining I am a diabetic so I can’t eat carby foods to be a real pain. Everyone knows diabetics can’t eat sugar, but they don’t count carbs as sugar so a lot of explanation is needed. I’m a bit like Karen, I just say no thank you and mean it.
The other way is to just say I am coeliac, everyone knows they can’t eat carbs LOL