The Integrated Diabetes Services team (IDS) recently decided that we are going to challenge ourselves once a month with foods that can be tough for people with type 1 diabetes to consume and manage their blood sugars after.
The idea came about thanks to a new high protein kellogs cereal-Gary ate it and had beautiful blood sugars following. I on the other hand shot up to 270. If you don’t already know, we all live with type 1 too. Additionally, we are all utilizing hybrid closed loop systems (5 loopers and 1 Control IQ).
Following the challenges, we’re posting the strategy we used and our dexcom graph to show how it worked. You’ll also notice the impact of stress and life events that we’ll note in the background story. The first challenge was honey nut cheerios and the second was pizza(see results below).
Follow along here on our thinking like a pancreas blog page or on social media platforms:
Instagram: @Integrated_diabetes_services
Facebook: @integrateddiabetesservices
twitter: @Integ_Diabetes
Feel free to join in our challenges or make suggestions on what meals you would like to see us do. The point is to have fun and hopefully learn too!
CHALLENGE #1: honey nut cheerios
Cereal is tough and leaves many with a skyrocketing bg (we’ve all been there too). The team did pretty well overall and we all had a good time doing it.
Strategy order is as follows: Kristen (Control of study does not have T1D), Gary (loop), Jenny (loop/autobolus branch), Alicia (Control IQ), Annette (Loop/autobolus), Dana (Loop/autobolus), and me (Kathryn, loop/autobolus).
The Results!
CHALLENGE #2: pizza
We planned for 2 slices but some of us went for a third. I have to say- I don’t think pizza counts as a challenge for Gary because he eats it quite often. Jenny’s kids on the other hand didn’t even know what Pizza Hut was! If you choose to manage your diabetes with MDI we provided tips in here for you too by popular demand.
Strategy order is as follows: Gary (loop), Jenny (loop/autobolus branch), Alicia (Control IQ), Annette (Loop/autobolus), Dana (Loop/autobolus), me (Kathryn, loop/autobolus), MDI.
The Results!
And next up, ICE CREAM!!!! Stay tuned…
Hi Alicia – how long did you stay on the high control IQ setting and did you turn it on before eating ? Thx
Hi Jennifer, for high fat meals like eating out I turn on my “HI IQ” set and I run it for 8 hours, or over night in the case of dinner. There is no timer available on this or exercise mode so I make a lot of use of the phrase “Hey Siri remind me to reset my profile in__ hours”
but individual timings and other metabolic shifts like activity may vary how long an individual may need a higher or lower basal need to tailor strategies to your personal needs.