Cooking

As someone who is a self-taught, at-home cook, what has amazed me over the years of learning new recipes is just how simple a lot of things actually are. Crème brûlée? Piece of cake. Schnitzel? No problem. Cheesecake? Easy peesy. I feel like everyone should know how to cook at least a few things, but I feel it’s especially important for diabetics to know how to cook and to think about what they’re putting in their body. I didn’t really start cooking for myself until my junior year of college. It was a steep learning curve for me in terms of both technical cooking skills and understanding how to make healthy food. As a teenager, I never paid attention to calories because I never had to! I used to play year-round sports so I was never worried about gaining weight, and, honestly, I used to not care so much about trying to achieve that perfect A1c. I would eat pretty much any and everything and not worry about the consequences.

Nowadays I’m much more aware of what I eat and what’s in the food I eat. Since I’m on a pump, I can be pretty flexible with what I eat. I generally try to avoid really carb-rich foods as much as possible and eat lots of vegetables, but for the most part I’ll eat anything. The caveat of this approach to food is to remember “all things in moderation.” I think it’s completely acceptable to have part of a candy bar, drink juices, eat pasta, etc., so long as it’s small portions and few and far between. Just remember to balance out your small treats with a relatively steady stream of fruits, vegetables, lean meats, etc. A good rule of thumb I learned in nutrition class a few years ago is to try to keep your intake of “empty calories” (AKA bad-for-you crap junk food) to a maximum of 300 calories per day.

I personally use Pinterest as my online form of a cookbook and collect all my recipes there. I like Pinterest because I can access my favorite recipes no matter where I am, whether I’m on my laptop or someone else’s. You can also add a “Pin It” button to your internet browser’s toolbar to save things from other websites to your Pinterest boards. Below are some of my favorite healthy recipes that I consistently make over and over again at home. I also love browsing Budget Bytes for ideas.

1. The Garden Grazer’s Southwestern Chopped Salad with Cilantro Dressing
2. Easy Lo Mein from Damn Delicious
3. Roasted Pumpkin (or butternut squash) Soup from Martha Stewart
4. The Minimalist Baker’s Buddha Bowls
5. And finally, One Pan Balsamic Chicken and Veggies from Cooking Classy

No matter where you are on your road to becoming an at-home gourmand, remember that cooking is something you just have to experiment with. Don’t let recipes intimidate you, start with relatively easy things and progress from there. And with anything in life, cooking will only get better with practice, so practice away!

 

 

Modern Day Diabetic

Hi everybody, I’m Sloane. I am revisiting this blog idea after briefly being forced to write a blog for a college class a few years back, and wondering if it’s not the best outlet for me in my current situation. I’m an M3 – for you non-medical school humans out there, that means I’m in my third year of medical school and on my way to becoming a doctor here in about a year and a half. Nothing’s set in stone yet, but I think I’d like to be a pediatric endocrinologist. Why, you may ask? Oh, well, because I’m a 20-something-year-old medical student who loves working with adolescents, teaching people about health and nutrition, and have been a type 1 diabetic for a good 18 years now.

Over the years I’ve become fascinated with the idea of designing experiments based on my everyday experiences with diabetes and have pretty much decided that’s what I want to do with my life. That’s why I’m sitting here, writing this introductory blog post whilst I should be studying for a very tedious surgery quiz tomorrow morning. I have a yearning to teach people, especially young people, how to live their lives in a realistically healthy manner. I’d love to share fun recipes and work out ideas, try to break down some complicated concepts encountered in diabetes management, and bounce ideas off of fellow type 1 diabetics.

Understand that while I am on my way to becoming a medical professional, you should NOT take what I write as medical advice. My goal for this blog is to force myself to delve a bit deeper into my endocrine learning and share some interesting perspectives/ideas/knowledge with my readers along the way. Always consult your own doctor before instigating life-changing therapies and whatnot because I’m not smart enough yet to tell you what to do. As far as content, I’ve got a list I’ve accumulated over the years of things I’ve noticed, found interesting, and thought to myself “hmm…I should look into that,” but if anyone reads this and has requests, let me know and I’ll look into it.

My hope is for this blog to become a forum for type 1 diabetes care where people can find answers to their questions and give input regarding their personal experiences with diabetes. I want to further educate myself and also help educate people who have the disease themselves, or still others who may have friends, family, or loved ones affected by it. So, without further ado, welcome to the Modern Day Diabetic!