Buffets, Potlucks and the Movies

[telizas]

How do you handle things like buffets or events like baby showers or birthday parties where there are just appetizers and no main course? Or when the bucket of popcorn gets passed your way during a movie? If you're on MDI or a pump?

I've been to a baby shower (appetizer/buffet), a girls night out and a movie in the past week. I just took an average amount of insulin and tried my best to eat OK. What did me in was forgetting to make the hubbin get diet soda at the movies tonight. Oy!

I know this is especially hard for someone like me, just trying to catch the wagon, much less get on it!

Potlucks are huge here in Minn ah sotah, with the hotdish and whatnot... Do you think Calorie King would pay for me to find out and report back to them the calorie counts of popular Minnesota hotdishes for the next printing of their book? :p

Any help for those situations?

[Abra]

For a potluck, bring something you can eat, then eat it!

[Granny Shanny]

What Abra said! That way if you find there IS something else you can tolerate, it's icing on the (low-carb) cake, but at least you won't go hungry!

[DeusXM]

The other thing you could do is simply go through trial and error and accept that not every day is going to be a perfect one.

I'm always very concerned when people start rigidly counting carbs and sticking firmly to their carb:insulin ratios - in many ways it defeats the point of insulin injections, which are supposed to give you the freedom to eat what you like.

The best thing you can do is learn how a few of the basic staples affect you and then when confronted with something that doesn't come in a packet or is listed in a diet book, simply apply those rules and make a rough guess.

If the popcorn gets passed your way, have a little bit. Raising a couple of points on your BG ain't gonna kill you and if you eat enough to have a significant impact, take a bit of insulin as a best guess. If there's only appetisers around, take a best guess at the amount of carbs in them and inject accordingly - maybe slightly less if you're not going to have that much.

Life is short and hard enough as it is without worrying about every morsel that passes your lips and its effect on your blood sugar. Obviously bear it in mind, but don't start missing out on stuff just because you're not 100% sure how much insulin to take.

[telizas]

DeusXM - this is good to hear. I just guessed and kind of "ate up to" the amount of insulin I took and then stopped. Those were actually two of my best days! I'm not 100% confident in guessing carbs yet, but I'm not bad!

I don't think I'll ever be a slave to the Nutrition Label... I love my chocolate cake a lil too much. :D

[ShottleBop]

Or adjust your attitude, so that you don't feel like you're missing out. We had a birthday celebration for folks at work yesterday. (We do that once a month.) There were chocolate cake, a mud pie, and a strawberry-covered white cake. I always come and sing "Happy Birthday," and visit for a little, but pass on the cake. If I want to eat, to be convivial, I bring along a packet of almonds or walnuts, or maybe a block of my unsweetened baking chocolate (which I've come to prefer to sweetened stuff).

Of course, I'm not on meds.

[inkvisitor]

In situations like that, where I don't say "no," I just estimate to the best of my ability and make corrections. It's okay once in a while...