I was reading a FaceBook page about diabetes and they posed the question: what food do you miss most since you were diagnosed with diabetes?
Hmm.
This question confuses me.
First of all, this particular site shall remain nameless since I’m about to be critical. Most of their questions seem to focus on what I would say are the more negative side of living with diabetes: what do you miss, what is the hardest, how often do you want to curl up in a ball and cry kinds of questions. These are all good questions that facilitate camaraderie and discussion, but it doesn’t often work for me and they have a LOT of these questions; I’m not sure many positive things result from this type of camaraderie.
Secondly, to me this may be a question for people with type two diabetes and not type one. I expect type two diabetics need to mold their eating choices to fit the disease more so than type ones need to in an effort to keep their bodies working at maximum insulin efficiency. Type ones have zero insulin efficiency on our own, so we need only try to keep our blood sugar levels even and in range. (Also incredibly difficult, just in different ways and for different reasons.) Limiting or managing how many quickly-absorbed carbohydrates is one of the best ways to do this, and since candy is a “quick carb” it usually is better managed than, say, a carrot. (Although both have carbs and both need management.)
Reading the answers, though, it seems like a lot of type ones answer with what a person not well versed in living with diabetes would expect: “my daughter misses eating candy” and “I miss those sugar straws” and so on. One particular answer was “I miss almost everything.”
Alright. Here’s where I need to climb on my box yet again:
IS THIS A PITY PARTY, OR IS THIS YOUR LIFE? YOU DECIDE.
Yes, there is absolutely a time to feel sorry for your loss. Of course you miss the now-rose-tinted carefree days where the word “carbohydrate” didn’t mean anything to you and certainly didn’t strike fear in your heart. Of course you need to eat differently after you have been diagnosed with diabetes—either type. Of course your food life was simpler then.
But to say that you have nothing now, no options, you miss everything, your world is over… that smacks of a temper tantrum to me: high drama, little reality.
There are ways to eat anything you want to eat when you live with diabetes—yes, the ways you used to eat without thought are gone forever, but that doesn’t mean you need to not eat something in particular ever again. If I have an undeniable craving for a Coke Slurpee, I can figure out a way to make it work. I don’t have to miss a thing.
I know I’d rather figure out how to make something work than throw myself on the floor and cry.
I hope you agree.
