Writing, Workouts, and A Winning Idea

I passed in my final book chapter to my editor yesterday.

I still have revisions to do on all the chapters, but they're minor, and shouldn't take too long.

But as a way to celebrate, I decided to take an hour or so and go running at a track near my house. Plus, it is gorgeous here today.

What does this tell you? To celebrate that I've finished writing a chapter, something that kept my ass glued to a chair and my eyes locked on a computer screen for weeks, at late hours and early hours, I want to exercise? I think the truth is that I love to be really engaged in my computer and writing and researching online... but that I also like exercising when I can get the chance to really go hard. For me, running is going hard.

Oh, and also? My ass is pretty big these days from all that chair glue.

I specifically planned to run after lunch so that the meal would help me from going low, a nod to the diabetes. I ate my usual lunch--a mashed avocado with pepper, salt and lemon juice spread onto a whole wheat wrap--and topped it off with a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich--and took half of the insulin I'd normally take.

I also wanted to go to this track, rather than around a route in my neighborhood, so I could leave my meter/cell phone/keys/water bottle/dorky fanny pack at the edge of the track, rather than schlep it all with me. Again: the diabetes influence.

So the exercise was great. I haven't had a decent workout for a while now, mostly because when I thought about it, I'd think about the mountain of book stuff that hadn't gotten done yet. Even now, I'm blogging and I think I should be going over chapter 8 revisions. Or chapter 2. (But not chapter 7--that one's complete!)

I ran (=jogged very very slowly and initially felt calf pains, but I KEPT GOING and they actually went away) for four laps. A whole mile. For me, this was just what I wanted to do and I even felt like I could have kept going. Even though I haven't run in ages.

But my trusty CGM, which started out around 165 at the beginning of this workout (and about an hour post lunch), trended down. 137. 116. Double arrows pointing down at 110.

Oy.

I tested after lap four and my blood sugar was around 91. I drank a juice box I brought specifically for this occasion and started walking around the track. Four laps later, my CGM dipped down to 59, but was on an upward swing of 116 when I left the track.

Now at home, it's hit 200. I correction bolused, and here I am, holding steady five minutes later and waiting for the bolus to kick in (should I go exercise again?)

I've seen people say how they will eat whatever they want if there's ever a cure for type 1 diabetes. Lists of high carb foods that they'll devour without a second thought.

For me, a type 1 cure would really let me work out hard and not have to drink whatever calories I just burned off to keep my blood sugar stable. I might actually lose weight from exercise this way.

I saw my Kind Endocrinologist a few weeks ago and pointed out that since I started trying to have a baby back in 2006, I've put on about 30 pounds. (This includes some pregnancy weight gain, but not all of it. It also includes weight I've lost, and then put on again while trying to keep my blood sugars tight for a potential second pregnancy.) She told me that drinking a cup of juice a day will help you put on ten pounds a year, and that is clearly what's happened here.

I'm not sure what else to do. Does juice have more calories than glucose tabs? Life Savers? I think someone would make a killing if they could make some kind of glucose raiser that doesn't have calories.

And even though I jogged/walked for two miles earlier today, it feels like wasted effort. Because I had to eat something and ingest unwanted calories, and my CGM is buzzing and telling me that I'm stuck at 200.