Went out to eat, had Mexican with yummy refried beans and rice...guestimated around 70 carbs, tried out my dual wave bolus...and damnit if Im NOT down to 46...grrrrr well at least Im not chasing a high all night from a carb heavy meal. But STILL.
Today, I had a yummy rice dish (shrimp biryani).
A few hours later, I was up to 350.
Now, I'm at 91 and fast going down. (Yay rage bolusing!) I'll be joining you at 46 soon, I think!
So, I suck double!
That said, what did you use to calculate carbs? Experience? Eyeballing portions? Book? Scale? Psychic powers? I almost always go high when I eat out. You're right - better a low than chasing a high (which, gosh darn it, takes so long to bring down!)
Well usually at home I will weigh things out and do MUCH better with the info on the food label...When eating out I have an app on my phone from the people who make lantus that has foods with carb counts...but I dont know I still always seem off when I eat out. Haha.
Ah! I recently got a good food and nutrition scale. It works well!
Food labels rock!
Yes I did too for Christmas. Its awesome, esp for fruit or other weird things where my def of a small apple and yours migh vary considerably.
LOL! I totally hear you! The nutrition scale made me realize that what I thought was 45 grams of carbs in rice was not 45 grams of carbs in rice! I love how it's so accurate and exact! I'm tempted to find one to take with me to restaurants...problem is that put everything in one place, so it would make weighing out stuff kind of inconvenient.
BTW, dual wave NEVER works for me. I always have higher blood glucose overall. Has it worked for you in the past? Maybe I'm doing it wrong?
I’m terrible at counting carbs too, so bad at it that I gave up on it about to years ago. I don’t eat any carbs these days, just protein and salads and cooked or raw veggies.
I suck too.
Im trying to go lower carb...just cause I think that does make sense, smaller numbers, smaller mistakes. But we'll see lol.
This is only the second time I've tried the dual wave bolus. So far Im not sure if it works all that well.
Hard, near impossible really, to guesstimate carb heavy restaurant meals. Only times I've gotten close was sheer luck that I haven't been able to repeat. Hate playing the high/low game & waiting & testing more, so do my best to stick to things whose effect I know. I'd rather have a low, too. Easier & faster to correct.
Im just about ready to totally give up on rice no matter how much I love it, even though I dont eat it much anymore. I can never bolus right for it, and always end up with a really bad low. But yes lows are much easier to fix than those stubborn highs.
I do ok w/ restaurants looking the stuff up. A lot of them have nutrition info on line. If we go to local/independant places, there's still "equivalents", the burger is "Steak and Shake-esque" or "Chili's-esque". W/ Chicago treat Portillo's, I underestimated the amount of food in their Italian Beef and fries a few times, looked it up and was alarmed by the error but tried it out and it worked ok.
It's usually more like Mexican or Chinese food that gives me the most problems when I eat out. Has to be the high fat/carb/protein...and rice and cornstarches. Grrrr. Def probably not the most D friendly food their is.
Buffet type places always trip me up too. Trying to guesstimate what an appropriate serving size is.
I usually use 90 or 95 for my "guess" number if I'm not sure. Sometimes I'll hedge my bets by cranking the basal up to 200% too, just in case. If I have an emergency, a margarita will cure a hypo or three...
hahahahah oh I LOVE it....yes nothing like a good margarita to cure a hypo or 3.
I still think that it's more that it's hard to estimate exactly how many 1/2 C of beans are in the pile glopped onto your platter. One of my weight loss strategies was to get the "taco platter" and just eat the tacos, dump a ton of salsa onto the rice and beans and stir it up and take it home. Still sort of a mathematical conundrum but I found it would turn a "side order" into a couple days of breakfast/ lunch/ dinner. Salsa may be another hidden culprit as I am always dumping salsa on everything, as if it were free. It's probably relatively free but, if you are going crazy, there's probably 10ish carbs in there? I don't even know about guacamole...
Oh I don't do Salsa, lol Im weird I dont really like tomatoes. Especially raw like tomatoes. If they are cooked into something like chili or sphaghetti sauce I can eat them, but not raw.
But we have this wonderful "white" sauce they serve that I just love. The sauce probably isnt too horribly high in carbs, but those corn chips will get me. I won't have any self control to just eat a couple. Haha.
I agree especially where you have to estimate how many "servings" of something is slopped on your plate. I'm sure that is where I mess up at all the time, and either seriously end up underestimating or over estimating what I am eating. Boy that carb heavy meal sure did come back later though, hahaha about an hour ago got up for breaky and was 161, lol really ...I was trucking along nicely at 102 finally when I went to bed. Either that or um hehehe I'm trying to push the insulin in my reservoir a little past day 3....probably needs to be changed. I have the small reservoir and still manage to have insulin left over in it when its time to change it out. Still over 40 units left.
The only restaurants I do well at are the chain ones that have nutritional info online. Still not perfect, but it generally goes fairly well, especially if I stick to lower-carb items. Panera, Corner Bakery, and iHOP are a few of my favorites. When I'm some place that doesn't have nutritional info, I stick to just really low carb things like salads. Always stay away from rice, bread, and pasta.
I count calories ALWAYS b/f carbs! LOL! Still converting here I was raised on counting calories and it still is in my mind then the carbs! LOL!
So how do you convert that into a ratio for a shot? I had always ignored calories and just counted carbs and "tossed in" 5-15 extra if there was a big slab of meat involved. I got this app (MrsAcidRock discovered it for me actually...) called Lose It! that tracks calories in/ out with an idea of losing weight, not a huge goal but fun to play around with and the app is *extremely* fun and also very informative "I'll toss this leftover steak into my omlette" *blam* 150 calories! eek!