Permanent Movement<\/a> to document some of her exploits. It\u2019s a must-read for me, with details on her glucose management decorated with her photos of untracked alpine beauty. She hopes to \u201ctell a story that mixes endurance mountain sports, very low-carb nutrition, and Type 1 diabetes.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Natalia](\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\")
It\u2019s a small percentage of people that have exactly those interests, perhaps, but I think her story can also be appreciated by those of us with more modest athletic goals. Suboptimal diet and insulin dosing decisions can turn a literal walk in the park into a blood sugar rollercoaster\u2014and I think we all have something to learn from a woman that can run a hundred miles with steady blood sugars.<\/p>\n
Natalia was diagnosed with T1D as an adult. Her diabetes story begins at high altitude, where the classic symptoms of severe hyperglycemia popped up during an intense skiing trip.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was crazy. I was so thirsty! I was so desperate, I was eating snow. I thought I had a mouth infection! And I was peeing as much as I was drinking, which I thought was a good thing, because I\u2019d be worried if I wasn\u2019t. And then my friends got worried, because I couldn\u2019t see the same things far off that they could.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was in Italy, and I was carb-loading every night for dinner. I have some clear memories of waking up at 3 am and opening my eyes not knowing which was more urgent, drinking or peeing.\u201d<\/p>\n
She made it through her skiing adventure without needing help (or medical evacuation), but when she got back to work her co-workers could immediately tell that something was seriously wrong.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody was like, \u2018what\u2019s wrong with you? You\u2019re so thin!\u2019 I checked my weight, and had lost 10 kilograms or more. I could see my spine in the mirror.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is I could never connect the symptoms because they were too random. I thought I might die by the end of the week!\u201d<\/p>\n
When she finally made it to her doctor\u2019s office, the diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes was easy\u2014a little bit too easy, maybe. Natalia\u2019s doctor gave her a shot of insulin, a prescription for more, and sent her on her way. \u201cThey told me to go back to normal life quite quickly. It\u2019s insane, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
And so Natalia went back to her normal life, which for her meant more cardiovascular adventures up in the mountains. Nobody had bothered to tell that she might want to make some adjustments, like, say, thinking carefully about her diet, or cutting her basal insulin on a day spent skiing up<\/em> a mountain.<\/p>\n\u201cI had really blind faith in my diabetes team\u2014why would you doubt them? You\u2019re flooded with new information, you want to do things right. I didn\u2019t doubt for a second.\u201d<\/p>\n
She spent her first summer with diabetes racing as hard as she ever had, but her usual high-carb diet didn\u2019t do her any favors.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would have about 100g of carbs, and I would cut my insulin massively. And maybe 30 minutes later I\u2019d get started, and within 15 minutes I\u2019d have a massive hypo, massive. I felt like shit. It was horrible. And I was getting more and more frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her frustration led Natalia to take her glucose management more and more seriously. \u201cI was going to the restaurant and asking them to weigh potatoes by the gram.\u201d Eventually, with some help from her friends, she hit on the central appeal of the low-carb diet for people with diabetes.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds so logical. My blood sugar goes up. What makes it go up? Carbs, basically. Well, why eat the carbs?<\/p>\n
\u201cI first reduced my carbs to 70 grams per day. I saw a huge improvement, clear success, mission accomplished. And I just thought \u2013 hey, why not cut down to like 20?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That\u2019s where she is today, eating a very low-carb ketogenic diet, and enjoying superb blood sugar control. The CGM graph you see here was taken during a typical exercise day, several hours trudging uphill at an extreme incline.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I\u2019m fucking proud. I take it very seriously. My only goal when it comes to this way of eating is blood glucose control. All the rest is secondary.<\/p>\n
Even so, there have been secondary benefits to fat metabolism, as Natalia discovered when she did her first race\u201460 kilometers, more than a marathon\u2014on keto:<\/p>\n
\u201cI started the race, and decided that I would eat when I got hungry. And I did the whole race, 8 hours, without eating. And during the second half of the race, I passed about 80 other people. It\u2019s a cool feeling. It\u2019s not just not crashing \u2013 the second half of the race was as strong or even stronger than the first half. I also noticed that either I recover much faster, or I get way less tired, or a combination of the two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Along the way, she\u2019s also made a believer of her initially skeptical endocrinologist.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy endo has gone on a positive journey. At first, she thought I would die of DKA or hypoglycemia. And if it wasn\u2019t for the CGM, they would still be claiming that I achieved what I achieved with massive lows. Then the next time she was concerned by my cholesterol. Three months later, she said \u201cIt\u2019s all good. Just tell me how you do things!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut what really breaks my heart is that I keep hearing that I\u2019m an exception. That \u201cthis works for you<\/em>.\u201d They don\u2019t have a single other patient that has such numbers, but anyone can eat the way I\u2019ve been eating.\u201d<\/p>\nWhile Natalia\u2019s story is exceptional in many ways, the lessons are applicable for anyone with diabetes. Check out her website<\/a> for a little inspiration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":437,"featured_media":53192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","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":[1453,1434,1457],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
T1D Inspiration: Running the Alps on Keto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Exercise can be tricky with Type 1 diabetes, and we never cease to be amazed and inspired by the T1D athletes pushing the limits of what we might have thought was possible.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=53190\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ross Wollen\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=53190\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=53190\",\"name\":\"T1D Inspiration: Running the Alps on Keto\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=53190#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=53190#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Natalia-Rom\u00e1n-L\u00f3pez-climbing-the-Alps-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-02-16T11:49:05+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-02-18T18:29:47+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/dad5417f3e14b1fd142730c7fa616283\"},\"description\":\"Exercise can be tricky with Type 1 diabetes, and we never cease to be amazed and inspired by the T1D athletes pushing the limits of what we might have thought was possible.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=53190#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=53190\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=53190#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Natalia-Rom\u00e1n-L\u00f3pez-climbing-the-Alps-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Natalia-Rom\u00e1n-L\u00f3pez-climbing-the-Alps-scaled.jpg\",\"width\":2560,\"height\":1441,\"caption\":\"Natalia Rom\u00e1n L\u00f3pez climbing the Alps\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?p=53190#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"T1D Inspiration: Running the Alps on Keto\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/\",\"name\":\"ASweetLife\",\"description\":\"The Diabetes Magazine\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/dad5417f3e14b1fd142730c7fa616283\",\"name\":\"Ross Wollen\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3baf28ef14013e66fec763fe108e4bff?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/3baf28ef14013e66fec763fe108e4bff?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Ross Wollen\"},\"description\":\"Ross Wollen is a chef and writer based in Maine's Midcoast region. Before moving East, Ross was a veteran of the Bay Area restaurant and artisanal food scenes; he has also worked as a food safety consultant. As executive chef of Belcampo Meat Co., Ross helped launch the bone broth craze. Since his diagnosis with Type 1 diabetes in 2017, he has focused on exploring the potential of naturally low-carb cooking. 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![\"Natalia](\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Natalia-Rom\u00e1n-L\u00f3pez-good-selfie-225x300.jpg\")
It\u2019s a small percentage of people that have exactly those interests, perhaps, but I think her story can also be appreciated by those of us with more modest athletic goals. Suboptimal diet and insulin dosing decisions can turn a literal walk in the park into a blood sugar rollercoaster\u2014and I think we all have something to learn from a woman that can run a hundred miles with steady blood sugars.<\/p>\n![\"natalia](\"https:\/\/asweetlife.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/natalia-cgm-graph-1024x473.png\")
<\/p>\n