Monday, August 4, 2008

Body Talk

For some reason, I couldn’t stop eating yesterday. I ate cereal right out of the box. I ate cheese sticks. I ate potato chips. I ate caramel Hershey Kisses. I ate skinny breadsticks. I ate things I don’t even remember eating—all before 1 o’clock in the afternoon.

I wasn’t particularly hungry, but I just kept gravitating toward the refrigerator and the pantry. I never ate a whole bunch of what I ate (a handful of the chips, four or five Kisses), but I just kept consistently eating.

When my husband suggested lunch at around 1, I told him I didn’t think my sugar would be anywhere near low enough to eat, given what I had already consumed. I was almost afraid to test, but I did it anyway. The result: 105.

Say what? I thought for sure I was somewhere in the 145-150 range.

I ate a few salsa chips with guacamole for lunch, about a carb’s worth. I then did a project in which I sat on the floor and sorted paper from boxes into neat little piles—not exactly hardcore aerobics, or even requiring me to lift my butt off the floor more than an inch. Two hours later: 73.

Evidently, I was running low yesterday.

Somehow, without my actually having a low reaction, or even hitting low numbers, my body knew it needed constant fueling. Only when I ignored that instinct did I actually hit bottom.

I ate dinner that night, ate a few more carbs than I might normally. Before bed: 90. Normally I like when I get to eat an extra snack before bed—it’s like a treat for me. Unfortunately, though, because I had already feasted on everything in my house that day, nothing looked appealing. I force-fed myself a granola bar and vowed to go grocery shopping.

Another lesson learned, taught by the amazing, miraculous, mysterious, sometimes-annoying human body.

As always, more to come…

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The thing is, the 105 was just a snapshot. And a snapshot taken after all those carbs (even a little of all of the things you listed is a whole bunch in total), chances are you were low while you were eating, and just tested in a "good window."

Lora said...

Hello, anonymous. It would be nice if you left your name so I know who I'm talking to, but I understand...

True, I may have been in a "good window," but the fact that I went down to 73 just about two hours after that means to me that I was running low all along, and the 105 was most likely accurate--a culimination of all the carbs I had eaten. Had I stayed at 105, or gone higher, I would have taken that to mean I got a "good window," and my sugar was on the upswing from all the carbs, not the downswing.

I test pretty often, so even though a test is only a snapshot, if you take a lot of snapshots, they can add up to a really good picture.

Thanks for reading, anonymous!