I thought I'd detail how I go about fuelling for my day due to my diabetes.
4:30am: Alarm goes off. Trudge out of bed and have yogurt. Followed by both long acting and a tiny amount of short acting insulin. I'd love to have more and really get going in the morning sessions (which I can never achieve to the levels I do in the afternoon), but it's too big a blast for my body, even if I do get it right in terms of balancing with insulin and all the other elements outside of this chemical reaction is too much to handle.
5:00am: Starting morning training session. If this session is a swim, I usually don't need to have any gatorade during. If it is cycling though I usually have a gel or banana for every 90mins of activity. Any more than that and I'm pushing the blood glucose levels (BSL) too high.
6:30 - 7am: Breakfast. Either bacon and eggs (yay!) or cereal. I try to avoid cereal because it has a much higher GI content and also sits unhappily in my body occasionally. I prefer to have my insulin before I start this meal to give it a headstart on the sugar ambush it's about to cop. This seems to be a mainly recovery meal.
7 - 8am: Wait around for a phone call to see if I have a school to work at that day.
Black = No school.
Blue = School.
8am: Sleep or cycle. If I'm not falling asleep on the couch and too tired from training, I will jump on the bike for an hour's ride on swim training days. Usually this will involve a banana or gel in the back end of the session to fend off a low BSL. If it's a sleep, I will not set an alarm. I'm a big believer of either sleeping for 20mins or waiting until your body wakes up naturally.
Maybe 1 out of 3 days worked I will drink a caffeine drink on the way to work. I don't like coffee. I carry a gel in my bag in case my BSL runs low.
11 - 12am: After waking up I almost always eat or drink something. Often it will be a sweet drink or chocolate milk or toast etc. After the morning nap I often wake up to a rapidly declining BSL. It's tied into how my body burns much more fuel when I'm tired. If I'm tired enough to sleep, then I'm bound to be burning carbs.
First break at school I usually have some fruit and/or veges as something primarily to keep my belly full without adding too much sugar.
1ish: Main lunch at home and main lunch at school. I always try to get some bulk complex carbs into this meal for the afternoon training session followed by insulin. I normally don't need a head start for this meal. This is usually a "fuel up" meal focussed on what is needed to train in the afternoon.
3 - 3:30pm: Throw some more yogurt and toast down before an afternoon session of either running, swimming, gym or some combination of those three. I have another shot of a small bit of insulin here to make sure there isn't a spike of sugar at the start of the training session.
Afternoon Session: Accompanying me to these sessions are gels and gatorade. Whenever I swim in the afternoon I finish off a 500ml bottle of Gatorade. For some reason I rarely need carbs during run sessions in the afternoon if it hasn't been preceded by a swim.
6-7:30pm: Home from training. As often as possible I have a glass of choccy milk and then tuck into dinner. A stock standard set of meals on our rotation, full of protein, carbs and nutrients from a variety of veges. I normally have insulin straight before this meal, but sometimes need a 15min "run up" as my BSL can be stubborn with the lactic acid or something else from the intensity of an evening session. This meal is really important as a recovery meal.
8:30 - 9pm: Just for my tummy's sake I like to have something quick before bed like toast or a very small "seconds", which depending on how the BSL went after dinner needs some quick acting insulin. Last thing before bed is the long acting insulin again.
I should probably add one little admission…Sometimes training is so hard that I need to eat a little bit more. This will often present itself in the form of pieces of chocolate here and there. Not dark, that stuff is gross. ;)
It's funny that my meal schedule is focused around training, but the consistency and necessity for accuracy helps me manage my diabetes so much better!
