Food help for performer

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Ruby1994

Ruby1994

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hello, I was diagnosed with type 1 less than two weeks ago in Gran Canaria. I am a dancer/circus performer and was on my first professional contract for three months in Gran Canaria performing every night and I loved it!

My contract was meant to finish 2nd November but due to being blue lighted in an ambulance and spending six days in hospital, I couldn’t complete my contract and am now back in the UK and staying at my family home until I’m stable.

I’m absolutely gutted about having to leave my job before it finished and combined with the stress of a Spanish hospital, flying home and getting to grips with my new life I’m really struggling with feeling restricted with my food.

As a performer, I eat a lot of food and have snacks throughout the day but now that I’ve suddenly stopped being so active, it’s really hard for me to control what I eat as my body is in recovery mode and still just wants to eat every 2-3hours. Unfortunately my insulin doses at the moment only allow for three meals and one snack and so I become so hungry before each meal as I’m trying to spread them throughout the day, that once I begin to eat I eat like a starving child, quick and as much as I can possibly eat, especially in the evening as I know I won’t be able to eat anything until the morning. So probably overeating.

I’m also struggling with the need to eat my feelings, as I normally would have to deal with a stressful situation, and just want to have a bar of proper chocolate without feeling guilty about eating it!

Sorry for such a long message, I appreciate anyone who makes it to the end! I’m just feeling overwhelmed and rather angry and frustrated with everything at the moment.

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly received

Thanks, Ruby
 
Hello and welcome to the forum Ruby. 🙂
 
Welcome to the forum Ruby, sorry to hear about the DX......

You could try snacking on zero/very low carb foods..... especially ones with higher fat content as the fat tends to sate the appetite way better than foods high in carbs.
 
Hi Ruby and welcome to the forum. 🙂 It's understandable you're angry and overwhelmed. However, it's early days and it sounds like you are on fixed doses at the moment. Once your diabetes team explain and you are able to adjust your doses you can within reason eat what you want, when you want. It will get easier and there is no reason at all why you can't be back performing again.
 
Welcome Ruby. It is hard work at times but not impossible. I used to leave the NE at 4am & have my tool box open at 9.30 in Oxford st London (elecy) . I did that for 2yrs every 3-9 days. Really good luck & I can tell you will sort it. Keep at it & it will work out from someone who has been T1 since England won the world cup. 😉
 
Hiya Ruby and welcome.🙂 Sorry to hear your about your dx and that your world was suddenly turned upside down. I think we can all appreciate how you're feeling. I found it a massive shock at first, tbh - while keeping a calm exterior, of course.🙄 It does get better...honest!

As for the hunger, I got myself into a regular meal-time routine which my body gradually got used to. And as Martin suggests, experiment with low-carb foods to find out which ones you can snack on without messing up your BGs.

Good luck!😛
 
Welcome to the forum Ruby. So you have to join us. Although I don't think we have any other professional dancers / performers among our members, many of us do active jobs at odd times of day and night, plus take part in sports. So, there's plenty of knowledge available for you to adapt. We all have to adapt our management of type 1 diabetes to our own situations.
Type 1 diabetes tends to be hardest to deal with at the start, for a few reasons - honeymoon period means your body produces irregular amounts of insulin, so things are actually easier once pancreas gives up totally; health professionals often start people on bimodal (twice a day) insulin or fixed doses of 1 long acting and 3 short acting jabs with meals, so once you learn to adjust insulin to what and when you eat and exercise (MDI or basal bolus regime); plus there's all the psychological aspects. Like you, I was also diagnosed overseas, while guiding on seal and dolphin swimming tours in New Zealand. End of career involving minibus driving and SCUBA diving meant end of work permit, so I had to return to UK. 20 years later, I've re-established career in different field.
 
Hi and welcome Ruby 🙂
I'm sorry about you're diagnosis, it's all very overwhelming at first, feeling confused and dazed, but you will get to grips with it. I assume you are seeing you're dsn regularly (you should be!) so next time you see them ask to be put on a carb counting course asap! It is by far the best way to deal with this beast, and especially for you as a performer.
It isn't unusual to feel very hungry after diagnosis, much of the hunger is associated with high bgs and the ketoacidosis your body has been through, this is your body making up for the lost vitamins, minerals, etc. In between meals eat low carb foods such as egg in any form, bacon, sausage, cheese, fish, nuts, non of these require insulin (unless you eat loads) have enough to curb the hunger.
I saw a young poster on here, some months ago, who is a professional dancer and has been t1 for a while. Having this doesn't mean you have to give up performing, the devil will be in the detail of management.
Lots of people on this forum are into sports at a high level, and manage. Give yourself time to adjust, then ease yourself back into it. I would recommend you look at a Flash Glucose Monitor like the libre, as a performer I should think that it would be very helpful.
Please come back and ask any questions, lots of people on here are very knowledgeable and supportive 🙂
 
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