# a 3 course meal ???? a piece of cake. please advise



## uselesspancreas (Mar 23, 2012)

ok as the title says im a type 1 on basel/bolus since September 2011.

i have a birthday next month and my family have suggested we go out for a meal but i dont know when to inject or how to go about it.
do i inject after ive eaten everything and hope ive guessed right ( not going to happen)?
inject for each course ?
or feel like a pleb ring ahead and decide what im going to eat and work it out before i get there and then inject when first course arrives. 
takes all the fun out of it 
and how do i guess a piece of birthday cake ??? (obviously incredibly important)
i carb count at the mo by reading packets or weighing but haven't eaten out or had a takeaway since being on this regime so dont know what i should do.

also a daft question but what do those of you on the same as me do if you go to the chippy ??
i know i sound incredibly unhealthy asking these questions but honestly im not. the only good thing so far is ive lost weight since september because im not eating 'bad stuff'.
thanks for any replies


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## trophywench (Mar 23, 2012)

Buy a book - or a phone app if you have such a phone - called 'Carbs & Cals' - 'a visual guide to carbohydrate and calorie counting'.

It is just that thing.  Some of the pub chains/restaurant chains you can actually get nutritional info from.  Although ISTR Frankie & Benny's don't?

And I would do one bolus per course.  If you bolus upfront without seeing how much is actually on the plate you could be drastically out (and why is it always too much insulin, too little carb when that's the case?) or they will take ages to actually serve you and you'll still be hypo.  On the plate in front of you, work it out, jab, eat.

Is it a random birthday cake or will someone have made it or bought it?  If it's a commercial brand that you can buy in eg Tesco's the info should be on the box.  If someone is making it, get them to supply a list of ingredients and the value of the whole can be calculated (I use Collins Gem CALORIE Counter (which actually does have cals, but also has carbs, fat, protein and fibre!) and it's muchh better to use for that purpose because it's quite precise (Don't get their Carbs counter, it's OK but a bit too vague for me)  ?3.99 from everywhere (Waterstones, WH Smith, Amazon .....)  Lots of branded goods too.

OTOH I usually reckon on there being two days of the year when carbs aren't quite such a serious issue - you can't ignore them but doesn't matter muuch if you underestimate a bit in the overall scheme of things.  Those 2 days are Xmas Day and your Birthday.  (You can always stick in a correction dose later, can't you) and if alcohol is involved at all, then you need to go to bed a bit higher than when you haven't drunk any as the alcohol does lower your BG and also keeps your liver busy too, so if you hypo, it will be slow to respond to that.


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## Phil65 (Mar 23, 2012)

uselesspancreas said:


> ok as the title says im a type 1 on basel/bolus since September 2011.
> 
> i have a birthday next month and my family have suggested we go out for a meal but i dont know when to inject or how to go about it.
> do i inject after ive eaten everything and hope ive guessed right ( not going to happen)?
> ...



I would buy 'carbs and cals' book, I have a pocket version as well, also there is an I phone app if you have one. I used to use Carbs and cals all the time...you will gradually get to the point where you will remember exactly what some meal carb counts are, I only tend to look at carbs and cals lately if I am eating out or eating something a little different to the norm. ......Well done on your weight loss!


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## everydayupsanddowns (Mar 23, 2012)

You'll get better at SWAGing as the years go by (a term I read on a US bloggers site where they described just such a meal as involving Seriously Wild-A**ed Guessing)

I agree with what others have said - very tricky to dose up front, unless you are familiar with the restaurant and know how busy the kitchen is.

I'd go for a meal dose up-front, and then a cake dose (if one applies) later. Depending on the speed of the meal and/or accuracy of the guesswork the only other thing I would watch is taking those two doses too close together. Big meals can take much longer to digest, but don't necessarily take that long to eat. On MDI I tended to leave at least 2 hours between split doses to spread the insulin activity without overlapping the peak activity too much - which had the habit of kicking me into a hypo however carefully I counted things.

Enjoy yourself and relax - it's only one day... Even if you get it hopelessly wrong it shouldn't do you any lasting damage. Enjoy your meal!


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## uselesspancreas (Mar 27, 2012)

everydayupsanddowns said:


> You'll get better at SWAGing as the years go by (a term I read on a US bloggers site where they described just such a meal as involving Seriously Wild-A**ed Guessing)
> 
> I agree with what others have said - very tricky to dose up front, unless you are familiar with the restaurant and know how busy the kitchen is.
> 
> ...



thanks for your replies people !!
i must be the only person who find the carbs and cals book  unhelpful as a vegetarian with a dairy intolerance i can never find what it is im looking for. although i think it may also be because i doubt myself with any guesswork.    i try to read packets etc to get by with most things (soups cereals ,canned food etc) 
Ill be hunting out the collins book -thank you !!

weighing stuff just annoys me (i know it has to be done with some things)
i was amazed at a packet of cereal (haven't eaten cereal since Sept 2011) i weighed a 30g serving and laughed a toddler would eat more !! i poured out what looked like the serving size i used to eat before carb counting came into my life then weighed it 125g ! the packet gave carbs per 100g so i divided it by 4 and than added it to the first amount. still feels like too much trouble when your rushing about in a morning to get to work etc. so ive weighed out each portion and bagged it ready to eat.

think im going to suggest a quiet birthday a home this year and weigh my slice of cake !


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## Marier (Mar 28, 2012)

Easiest wayi i find to carb count   is  for example  on a packet of carn chips/Doritos   25gms carb  divide by weight  gram i.e 30gms x the weight you want to eat 

Chilli Doritos   30grm serving =18.1  100grm serving =60.3

 i want to eat 20grms  so   30 grm divide by 18.1 x 20 gms =12 carbs basically  your woking out what 1 grm is then multiply  by weight you want to eat  hope i not coinfused you   Im not very good at explaining   just  i used to try and work it out this way  and mostly got it wrong  Find this way  far better and have better BG reading s 
Marie


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