She’s Laughing

DD(age 11)’s blood sugar numbers have been running a little higher than normal lately. About a week ago, I watched DD pour a bowl of cereal and asked her how much she’d poured. She said, “One serving.. one cup.” When we measured it, it was 1 1/2 cups. She’d have only given herself insulin to cover one cup of it if I’d not noticed and asked about it. Hours later, her blood sugar would have still been over her target range and she’d have had to give herself extra insulin at the next meal to compensate only to have it happen again at the next meal and so on. It’s a vicious cycle.

That was an a-ha! moment.

For the past week, I’ve had DD measure each food or drink she has. She’s been surprised to see the actual portion size versus how she had come to think a portion looked. Her blood sugar levels are back in range and I’m glad.

We’ve learned a valuable lesson. Once in a while, it’s good to go back and measure portion sizes again. As we are creatures of habit, I tend to have the same foods, drinks and snacks around most of the time. It’s easy to think that we know how much one portion is because it was measured once, several months ago, and we see it all the time right?

Without realizing it, we may be eating quite a bit more than one serving. Isn’t that what’s happened around the world with bigger portion sizes with packaged foods and foods in establishments?

Adding a little extra doesn’t look like it makes any difference, but it does. It matters with calories, carbohydrates, blood sugar, and our overall health.