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Recipes for type one?

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honoroak25

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Relationship to Diabetes
Hi everyone,

My boyfriend has just been diagnosed with type one diabetes. He's mid 20s and otherwise healthy and active. He has lost weight recently (a sympton of his type 1 diabetes) and I would really like some advice to what we should cook. Everyone says just something healthy - but is it ok to stick with what we would normally eat - say, mac and cheese with salad? or chicken and rice? I don't want to hugely reduce calories because he's lost so much weight recently. Any advice/info greatly appreciated. If anyone is in a similar position then I'd love to hear from you

Thanks.
 
Just eat what you normally eat - the only thing he has to fiddle with, is counting the carbohydrates in everything that passes his lips, to work out how much insulin he needs for each meal and snack - but this will come once he has learned to carb-count. If it's you that does the cooking, you ought to ask him to include you in what he learns - so you understand properly what he's trying to achieve.

You don't need to eat more or different or anything because the weight he's lost will just come back, all on its own so to speak. Cos it just does. (I really hoped I would stay size 10 after I was diagnosed - we all wanted to be Twiggy back then! - but I was soon back up to a 12 and my usual weight within weeks. Dash it all. But there again, I had no money to buy new clothes - so it was a good job really!)

A good book to get is 'Type 1 Diabetes in Children, Teenagers and Young Adults' by Ragnar Hanas. It isn't necessary to be a child or even young for this book to be relevant - it explains stuff properly in readable language.
 
Thanks very much for your reply and for the recommendation - I'll check it out. He was diagnosed yesterday afternoon so he's not been told about carb counting yet. He's still in hospital but we're hoping he'll be discharged today - thanks for the tips and I'm relieved that he'll put the weight on!
 
Good luck with looking after your boyfriend. You have joined a good site. Well done for being so quick getting involved. Lots to learn in the next few weeks 😉
 
You'll probably find he'll be starving hungry all the time for a couple of weeks,it's his body trying to rebuild itself. And all the weight will go back on and then his appetite will slow down again.

Hopefully your medical team will talk about carb counting within the next few weeks - they probably haven't mentioned it yet because they don't want to overload you with too much information at once. Then you can eat whatever you like as long as he takes the appropriate dose of insulin with it.

Good luck, it's all a bit of a shock at first isn't it, but it does get easier 🙂
 
thanks everyone for being so nice! It's all a lot to take in and I don't think it's really sunk in yet but I just wanted to make sure he's getting the right food for when he comes home.
 
It does get easier - it may be a bit daunting at the moment ( huge understatement) but you will get through it there are some great facebook groups to join too xxx
 
We'll done you for joining a wonderful site, I've been type 1 for 20 years and this is the first time i have joined the forum and the support is outstanding. Your boyfriend will start feeling much better in time and will need lots of good advice
 
Hi Hobie!

Sorry for my slow reply - my email inbox sent this to my spam folder.
He's doing ok - I'm really impressed with how quickly he's got used to injecting insulin and taking his blood sugar. He's back at work today and was a bit nervous about going back and seeing his colleagues so I'm hoping that went ok.
As I said, he's ok with the insulin but got a bit upset on Friday because we went to see the nurse who explained about the possible complications with foot injuries/sores. I/ the nurse said that if he manages his diabetes then he reduces the risk of any complications but he's still a bit scared by it all - understandably.
 
Hi Honoroak25

Welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear about your boyfriend's diagnosis, and also that he's had the long list of 'horror stories' presented to him.

In a way it is completely understandable, because there are genuine risks of living with diabetes, but I sometimes wish Drs and nurses had a different way of putting things. All those D-nasties are NOT an inevitable fact of life. Some people are a bit more prone than others, but in general terms diabetes responds to a bit of effort and application. If your boyfriend does his best to keep his levels as in-range as he can for as much of the time as he is able the future should be long, bright and complication-free.

There are quite a few on these boards who have lived for decades with T1 diabetes and have absolutely no complications to show for it. I'm a relative lightweight at only 23 years under my belt, others have over 75 years of successful pancreas impersonation to their names!
 
Mikes only a baby diabetic LOL - 42 years here so far and nothing has dropped off or stopped working yet. Always think I'll wake up one day with every complication in the book or something. So make the most of the whole of your life LOL - and try and ward off that day by keeping your BG under control at all times. If it gets out of hand seek help. If you can't seem to find help - play your face until you do!

But all of this is in HIS hands. It does seem like a terrible responsibility - but there again people are always risking their lives by crossing roads and driving vehicles, playing sport or doing whatever - and don't think anything of it. I rationalised it by thinking to myself that I don't risk my life by jumping out of aeroplanes or white water rafting or pot-holing, so kind of, making me responsible for my diabetes is probably actually not all that risky really in the overall scheme of things whereas handing me a licence to drive a 3.5 tonne van or tow a trailer (or small caravan) when I have never ever tried to tow or drive anything physically bigger than a Peugeot 405, is riskier !
 
Thanks for both your replies - I'm going to show them to my partner this evening. It's so valuable to hear your stories - it's hard not to focus on the 'worst case scenarios' the doctors seem to be dwelling on all the time.
 
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