A Week of Meals

I had a few vacations days left to use up before the end of our fiscal year so I booked the four days after Family Day off and found myself with a week vacation in February.  I'm not going anywhere and am looking forward to a quiet week of catching up on things I've been meaning to do, naps and runs in the early morning sunshine.  As the week takes shape however, it seems to be turning into a week all about food.

Now let's be honest here.  My entire life revolves around food.  I love food AND I have diabetes - so there really is no choice in the matter.  I'm either eating, thinking about eating, planning my next meal, preparing my next meal or feeding a low - food is never farther than a few steps away.  Ever.

But this week revolves around out of the ordinary food - and lots of it.  It started in Saturday in Toronto.  I had breakfast before the sun rose and then headed to T.O.  My sister and I ate brunch (read: eggs, fried meat products, fried potatoes and lots of coffee).  We ate lunch (a slab of cornbread stuffed with avocado, chicken, cilantro and other yummy things) and dinner (lots of sushi).

Sunday, Doug and I were supposed to prepare a lunch for his daughter and her boyfriend but our house is so full of cold germs we decided to go out instead.  So I happily order moules frites (translation: a huge bowl of mussels with a side of fries) and shared sticky toffee pudding.

Sunday night I went to my parents' house for dinner where we enjoyed boeuf bourguignon and, unbelievably, more sticky toffee pudding (yay!).

Today, I'm making lunch for a friend.  Wednesday and Thursday I'm going out for lunch with my mom and a prof at Brock University (respectively) and this Saturday I'm heading to Toronto to meet up with some university friends and we'll be pot lucking it.

So this week is all about food and I am not for one second complaining about any of it.  But I am wondering how to handle it all.  Insulin-wise, I will be SWAGing a lot (that's Scientific Wild Ass Guessing for those of you who are not up on your diabetes lingo).  Weight wise, I will be doing my best to keep control of the portion sizes and trying to avoid lows which just mean more unwanted calories.

I'm not one to obsess about food but I try to be aware of what I'm eating and find a balance that keeps my weight stable and my tummy happy.  A big Sunday night dinner means a light Sunday lunch.  Dessert at lunch means no dessert at dinner.  Give and take.

This week though, I feel like I need to be extra cautious or I could end up inhaling hundreds of extra calories without much trouble.  I'm already keeping a hawk eye on my blood sugars to make sure I don't go low.  I've got my workout schedule planned so that I get a run or a swim in every morning.  I'm looking at the day as a whole rather than going meal by meal and will be focusing more on protein than carbs in my meals.  Why? Because the less carbs I eat in a sitting, the less insulin I need to take.  Which means less of a chance of messing up the carb count which means less of a chance of going low later and needing more food.  So I eat cheese without the crackers and fish without the rice, lots of salads and not a lot of dessert.  I don't usually avoid carbs and I have never been a proponent of avoiding food groups.  In fact, I'm the poster child for the Canada Food Guide. But carbs = glucose = insulin so on days when I absolutely need to keep things in check, I cut down on carbs and things get much easier to manage.

Here's to a week of family and friendships...and food!