Why is it that some days I barely think about diabetes at all, and others, it seems like the straw that threatens to break my back? I’m having a bit of the latter: I’m feeling down to begin with, and after a fun dip to 45 mg\/dl earlier this morning, my blood sugar rebounded to 200 mg\/dl and is staying put.<\/p>\n
It all started with a kale smoothie. Yes, you read that right. I had a free session with a nutritionist at my gym and she recommended that I deal with the wilting kale in my refrigerator by blending it into a smoothie. It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard this advice — I’ve read numerous health articles that suggest dropping a leaf or two into an otherwise smooth smoothie, all with the same promise: “You won’t even taste it.” It seemed like a bold statement, but the articles were so emphatic that I had to believe them. It would just blend in, they implied, leaving behind nothing but a slight green tinge and a guarantee of better health.<\/p>\n
Having tried this myself, I now recognize that to “not even taste” the kale would be nothing short of miraculous. And don’t get me wrong: I like <\/em>kale. A lot. I will voluntarily buy kale and cook it with dinner, usually with onions and olive oil, for a long time over low heat. But I have never had it raw and for breakfast, let alone blended with plain yogurt, maple syrup, and frozen blueberries. And I don’t know that I ever will again.<\/p>\n My first mistake was to not blend it long enough. This resulted in a substance that looked liquid, but quickly broke down in my mouth into actual smoothie and, perhaps unsurprisingly, bits of chopped up kale. I was willing to experiment with my breakfast drink, but I also didn’t want to have to chew it. So I bumped my blender up to the equivalent of “pulverize” and let it run until I could smell the motor.<\/p>\n The result was smoother, yes, but still grainy. And as I sat down at my table to sip it, there was no avoiding the taste of the kale. It was there, and it wanted to be acknowledged. Hello, it said, I am ground up kale. And if you don’t like me, I’m going to mess some shit up.<\/p>\n I didn’t really like the kale, partially because no sooner had I swallowed it than I started to feel sick. My stomach doesn’t always respond well to smoothies to begin with, let alone when they’re accompanied by Symlin, but dude, the kale is doing something weird. I ate breakfast about five hours ago and I still feel disgusting from it.<\/p>\n What’s more, it messed up my blood sugars. When I eat the ingredients that went into the smoothie whole, it usually takes me five or so units to cover them. I knew I was going to physical therapy, so I dropped it to four, and did an extended wave bolus. I went to PT. My blood sugar dropped to 45.<\/p>\n A half hour and several glucose tablets later, my blood sugar shot up to 200, where it is now, with no intentions of coming down despite correction boluses. I still feel a little pukey. And, especially combined with an overall feeling of malaise (I live in a city where I have no friends, I have a career that pays like shit, I have little to no interaction during my day), my crappy diabetes morning is just really bringing me down.<\/p>\n On the upside, I did just get to write a blog post that includes a play on one of my beloved grandmother’s favorite expressions, delivered any time she thought someone was getting a bit big for his britches. Simultaneously knitting and sucking on hard candy, she would look up and say, “If he thinks his shit is ice cream, he should taste it.”<\/p>\n Ditto the kale.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":53098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1501],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n