Wednesday, 17 December 2014

Christmas and Type 1 Diabetes.

Christmas is almost upon us and people with diabetes tend to approach holidays like this one with dread. We do tend to go a little bit insane with all the chocolate, boxes sweets, tins of biscuits, and mince pies.

Anyway, people have asked for a number of years at my support group about tips for dealing with Christmas and we've shared some valuable tips. Lots of them can be found on other blogs (sorry).

For me, Christmas is about one day. I don't have any office parties to go too, being a stay-at-home mum. I have a couple of coffee mornings with other Mums and I do have a birthday 9 days before christmas but I don't go nuts. It's more about the company than the food. I have dinner and cake and deal;-)

Christmas day is a "limited" day off from diabetes. I do my blood glucose tests, I guestimate the carbs as much as possible, I bolus and bolus conservatively and probably bolus some more. If I fancy the food I eat it. I stop when I'm full. We have potatoes A LOT in Ireland for dinner and on Christmas day I usually skip them altogether in favour of stuffing. It usually works out - call it a christmas miracle :-)

When we visit my husband's family in the US for Christmas there is usually so many activities going on that the food is an after-thought. Plus, there are so many of us that the goodies "disappear" extremely quickly.

I don't tend to sit around a lot on Christmas day either; we travel to my mothers down the country for dinner and once the dishes are done, we move ourselves to my brothers house for the present giving.

For others, Christmas Day usually isn't the problem though, it's the numerous parties, and giving into the grocery department's tempting treats in the 6-8 weeks that run up to Christmas. (When did we all start making this holiday about food?)

My approach is; for Christmas day, I let my hair down and don't worry about that one day. But for the rest of December all the rules apply and as soon as the children go back to school it's back to the old routine.

I hope you all find ways to cope with your Christmas and enjoy it.

I will be taking a break from blogging until the New Year, so....

Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays!!!
















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