My neighborhood is a ghost town. Who could have imagined three weeks ago New York City is shutting down?
I imagine like me you’ve read a ton of articles about the coronavirus. Some say having diabetes puts you at greater risk, others say if your blood sugar is well managed and you don’t have comorbidities like heart disease and high blood pressure you’re at no more risk than anyone else. Who knows? But I thought I’d pass on an article from diaTribe for general diabetes coronavirus info.
Below is an email I received from Nurse Specialist/CDE Carolyn Robertson:
- Bolus for all carbs and bolus before eating. If you take rapid insulin ( humalog, novolog, aphidra), give it time to work before you start eating.
- Rapid acting insulin takes 15 min to start to work. So by delaying a meal or snack by 15min, it means that when you start the meal, the insulin will be also starting
- Use an app like Calorie King to look up the carb value of the items you eat.
- Weigh and measure your carbohydrate portions for a few days. .
- Walking, while it doesn’t burn as many calories, has a profound effect in mobilizing glucose. Some people have found that walking drops the blood sugar levels more than a workout.
In my reading, this article covers a topic few have: how to maintain a low carb diet if vegetables become scarce. While others are loading up on pasta and rice following low carb these aren’t very desirable options. But, if we will need to eat more of these foods, here’s are two tips: 1) basmati rice has the lowest carb count of any rice. 2) If you cook any rice in twice as much water, for instance eight cups of water rather than four for one cup of rice, more starch will exit the rice and go into the water, therefore there’ll be less carbs in your rice. Worth a try.
As to life going on, it’s a most bizarre time. I take a walk in my neighborhood every day just to move, do my qigong every morning, am baking a lot of low carb goodies like Keto rolls and chia seed almond scones – you can find a ton of recipes online – and googling how to freeze fish and chicken now that I have supplies for two weeks.
I have a number of books on my kindle, many about North Korea, a personal fascination, and I’ve just started watching The Valhalla Murders on Netflix. Not great, but anything that takes me to another country right now is welcome. A few Netflix and Amazon Prime programs that I do recommend:
Netflix:
The Crown, Shtisel, Bordertown, Trapped, Breaking Bad, Fauda, The Cakemaker
Amazon Prime:
Scott & Bailey, Silent Witness, Fleabag, Criminal, The Baker and the Beauty
Stay safe, wash your hands and keep breathing. Or as the Brits probably are already making a new T-shirt, “Keep calm and carry hand sanitizer.”
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