But … you have diabetes. Your system does not function like someone who does not have diabetes. The current system we have – the best we have – is to inject some calculated does of insulin and hope it all works out.
I would be in denial to think that anything I do as a PWD is just like someone who doesn’t have diabetes.
@Eric runs marathons and has had T1 diabetes for around 50 years(?) without complications. His last A1c was 4.9% I think. I wouldn’t place restrictions on him…
I think everyone is different, and some things may work for one person that don’t work for another. That being said, I think we can also place limitations on ourselves that aren’t necessary.
For some people, adjusting diet is easier than figuring out the dosing strategies necessary to “eat whatever they what” and coping with the times when things don’t turn out as planned. In addition, if you have other conditions you’re dealing with at the same time, low carb may be a less arduous and more effective path.
For people who are willing to experiment and log the way their body reacts to things and try different methods of dealing with the disease, then I think they can get to the point where they’re as well-controlled as someone who is using a low carb diet to treat the disease.
IMHO, it’s more about what works best with your body and the amount/kind of effort that works best with your lifestyle.
I know I am following up on this almost a year later. I could not prevent hyperglycemia eating the way I was and I gained too much weight. I did indeed switch to a lower carb diet.
I tried a ketogenic diet for a while but felt it was impossible to maintain while eating whole foods. I know someone who damaged his liver on an 8g/daily carbohydrate intake ketogenic diet. There is a market for processed high protein whey powders and high-fat lipid shakes. Tried most of them they tasted like s**t!
I eventually settled on just under 90g carb daily. About 12g for breakfast (yoghurt/skyr), 30g for lunch, and 20-30g for dinner. I eat a lot more protein. I track everything in the FatSecret app so I have data to correlate with my BG. A1C went from 7.2 (where it was when I followed the “eat whatever you want” program) to 6.5-6.7 with the goal to be around 6.
There are a lot of things you can do outside of what is commonly practiced.
Tonight I had about 300 grams of carbs for dinner at a Mexican restaurant (rice, beans, fajitas, chips, etc.) including a 32 ounce margarita which uses the sweetened mix and is a very fast carb, and probably has about 100+ grams all by itself.
Started with exercise, then a few pre-boluses a few hours before dinner to get a good downward trend. And then I bolused big for the dinner even though I was 55 at the time. Crazy, right? Being 55 and taking a big bolus? But I had the big sweet margarita on the table, so no worries. Followed with another bolus and dessert (a beer and potato soup!) a bit later to finish it all off and level out (plus some fat when I got home to slow it all down). Never topped 140.
There is a lot that is possible, if you are willing to bend the norm a bit.
It’s not the same for everyone. But each of us has to find what works.
The thing is not to hope but to know how it will work out. It is not difficult and all that require is just practice and experiment. Once you eat the same high carb meal a few times you learn how the body reacts and what and when to do for a desired outcome. The only reason I go low carb is because the management of high carb meals takes a lot of my time on top of a regular bg monitoring 24/7 which goes against my aim to be free from diabetes as much as possible. Besides, low carb diet turned out to be a very healthy one and I am quite happy to have such a wonderful byproduct from living with diabetes.
Well done!
I have got pretty close to having flat lines with insane amounts of pizza, etc.
Thing is, if I miss my mark on my numbers with this approach it can go wrong pretty quick as well!
Doesn’t stop me from doing it though. I just have to be prepared for it to go WRONG. If I am not prepared, I take a safer route, go a little higher and still call it good.
My thing is simple, I can do this once and a while and pull it off. If I try this too many times in a row (long weekend, vacation, etc.) it seems to catch up to me. I guess I get resistant easily?
I haven’t tried this longer routine with fiasp yet though.
@Eric2
Did you bolus everything from the pump?
Also did you bolus for all expected carbs including desert or did you bolus for expected carbs dinner and use desert to catch any extra insulin from the main course?
Very impressive !!!
All the bolusing was done with the pump this time. No cheating. 
I did a bolus with a little bit extended and then another bolus 45 minutes later.