Carbohydrate Counting

robinph

The nurse and especially the dietitian at the new hospital I'm going to have been showing me this book the last couple of times I've seen them as a good aid to carbohydrate counting:

Carbs and Cals

It is basically just a book full of pictures of plates of food, but it has the grams of carbs in each plate full listed next to the picture so that you can learn then quantities. Useful if your meals don't always have the numbers written on the side of the packet.

They also have an iPhone app according to their website, which I guess would be easier to carry around than a book:
http://www.carbsandcals.com/

I've asked them about an Android one but they haven't yet decided to start working on that yet I think.

Not quite decided if I want a book full of pictures yet or to wait and see if they come out with the Android version, although it would definitely be a useful book.

CathyMoran

It looks interesting but would be more interesting if it had the glycemic index as well. Will end up getting it.

robinph

Discovered that I had some Amazon vouchers which I'd not used, so just ordered the book anyway seeing as it's free.

CramCycle

Talking to the dietician this morning, recommended this website as a start spot for carb counting:

http://www.bdec-e-learning.com/

haven't used it myself but hope it's useful for someone.

graflynn

Just wondering how others learned how to Carb Count?

Do you do it in exchanges or by weight?

Was it a Dietician or Diabetes Nurse or other that taught you?

The reason I'm asking is that a few people have asked me where to go to learn and they felt that the dietician they saw didn't give them what they needed.

CathyMoran

graflynn wrote: »

Just wondering how others learned how to Carb Count?

Do you do it in exchanges or by weight?

Was it a Dietician or Diabetes Nurse or other that taught you?

The reason I'm asking is that a few people have asked me where to go to learn and they felt that the dietician they saw didn't give them what they needed.

I find that it is not that straight forward - something may be high carbohydrate and low glyemic index so if I gave myself a big bolus of insulin it would not work. I am a diabetic so long that I can judge, that and reading the label when I can! Have never found dieticians any use whatsoever - am self taught!

CramCycle

CathyMoran wrote: »

I find that it is not that straight forward - something may be high carbohydrate and low glyemic index so if I gave myself a big bolus of insulin it would not work. I am a diabetic so long that I can judge, that and reading the label when I can! Have never found dieticians any use whatsoever - am self taught!

Always felt sorry for the dietician when I was a kid as no one wanted to go near her. It's the one person on a diabetic care team who is actively avoided/ignored by type 1 diabetics after they have met them once or twice.

robinph

For some reason I never saw a dietician for the first 10 years or so, I don't count the half hour that one spoke to me for in hospital at diagnosis. So maybe becasue I never saw them before, but I've found them very useful and in the two hospitals that I've been seeing diabetic teams in over the last year or so it's the dietician that I've been dealing with most and seems to have been coming up with the most useful changes to what I do.

They do admitedly have to get everything signed off first, but it could also be becasue they are not quite as officially part of the medical team I may have also been giving them more useful info about what's what with me. Not that I'm aware of doing that.

5live

I kind of ignored my dieticans advice once i had heard what she had to say. I have a VERY active lifestyle between sports and work and found hypos after every injection and high weight loss. It turns out that she was giving me advice for a VERY sedentary life style(ie death:rolleyes:) so i just learned to guage carbohydrate counts myself. I was also on the wrong insulin type at that time which didnt make her job any easier(or mine) so that didnt help either:o

CathyMoran

I nearly think that they expect us to do the same thing, eat the same thing and have no emotions every day - life is busy and variable. Learning yourself by trial and error seems to be the only way (though you always have to watch your sugars though).

graflynn

I found this booklet online and I thought it was actually good. It's targeted at Children & Teens but in a very grown up way.

http://www.salisburydiabetes.com/content/carbcounting/carbcounting.pdf

robinph

Since I've been seeing them I've found them very open to working out ways to deal with my needs as far as running training etc goes. Certainly haven't been expecting me to be doing the same type of activity each day.

CathyMoran

robinph wrote: »

Since I've been seeing them I've found them very open to working out ways to deal with my needs as far as running training etc goes. Certainly haven't been expecting me to be doing the same type of activity each day.

Am going to someone really nice at the moment but for the most part they expect pregnant women to eat the same amount of carbs every day

zero_nine

Why not cut carbs completely/largely, and avoid all this counting?

robinph

If you've counted 1 carb or 100 carbs it makes no difference, you still need the insulin.