Leadership Retreat

A little over a week ago I went on a winter leadership retreat that was organized by an organization called I Challange Diabetes (ICD). ICD's vision is to support, empower, and connect people living with Diabetes by providing challenging programs to test the limits of living with the disease, and high-quality services to help them grow and take accountability for their own health.

Personally, I love adventures and outdoor activities so I was more than excited to go to the retreat. However, and more importantly prior to going to the retreat I was facing some hard times in regards to dealing with my diabetes. So I decided to set a few goals to accomplish: first and most importantly, was gaining back my motivation and independence to care for myself and secondly, learn new skills to help empower and support other individuals living with type 1 diabetes.   

Building our tall tower from marshmallows and sticks

After such an experience, I really encourage any diabetics to find an organization or an event to meet up with others who live with diabetes that understand the challenges, struggles, and successes that come from dealing with diabetes. If you're in Canada check out ICD. It was such a great feeling to be surrounded by 25 other people who just like me deal with diabetes day in and day out. It was inspiring to hear their successes, anywhere from competing in the Olympics to finally giving insulin in a new area of their body. It was eye opening to hear about their struggles and how they persevered and pushed through it. It is such a unique feeling to speak to someone who tells you "I've been through it and I understand you". When we went hiking there were close to 8 people that went low at the same time ... it is such a great feeling to feel like "I'm not the only one". Having to test blood sugars before eating was another unique experience that doesn't occur often at home. Everyone testing at the same time and calling out their blood sugar readings. Often people feel judged about their diabetes and at the retreat, there was no judgment at all. There was support and motivation to help others. 

Snow Tubing

While the few days spent was full of adventures like snow tubing, surfing the freezing Canadian winter, experiencing my first-meter error because the weather was too cold. I learnt from others around me how to keep my meter warm to avoid a reoccurrence of that problem and managed to test using a friends meter. In general making new friendships and bonding with people my age, I learned several valuable lessons to better improve my leadership skills. I learned different methods of leadership skills and when each skill is needed depending on the situation.For example, sometimes stepping in to give support where I am strong might disrupt someone's healthy learning process and other times guiding someone through a challenge that would otherwise overwhelm them could give them the critical help they need to succeed. 

Overall if there is one thing I want you to get out of this blog post is find your people ... your tribe! It will be an experience remembered for many years to come!! 

A New Me ... A Better Me

4 units of insulin for breakfast

A bit over a week ago I decided to change my lifestyle and start eating a plant based high-carb low-fat diet (HCLF) The reason you may ask? Well about a month ago things really went downhill with my diabetes care. I sort of gave up and just let my blood sugars run super high several hours at a time. A month of highs completely ruined my fitness level and had me feeling awful pretty much all day with very little energy. However, just like all strong people do after falling down is get back on their feet and push through and that is when I decided to change things around.

First times trying lentil soup
with beans inside

It was really important for me to start taking control of my diabetes so I can have control over my future and more importantly start building up my fitness level again. I have seen a friend and several people on Instagram following a HCLF diet with great success. It always had me inspired but as a picky eater I was scared to try it out...but after a rough month of blood sugars that is exactly what I needed to get me back on track.

320 grams of carbs for the day!

Before committing I started out by tasting quite a lot of foods...really pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I tried a variety of foods for the first time like pineapple, corn, lentils, blueberries, kiwis...and the list goes on. After building a colourful pallet I was really ready to give things a try. Cutting out dairy, eggs, cheese and meats were not a problem at all. I was committed and motivated to get back on track and start seeing numbers in a better target range. 


A week later and I am so excited to keep going after seeing results. My blood sugars are in target range 85% of the time. My blood sugar has rarely gone above 15 mmol/l (282 mg/dl). My insulin requirements have been cut in half ... after taking about 80u a day I now require anywhere between 40-50u a day! Instead of needing 1u of insulin for every 5 grams I now need 1u for every 12 grams. The last time I remember having a ratio like that was in the honeymoon stage (a period of time after diagnosis where the pancreas still produces small amounts of insulin). Most importantly I am eating a ton of carbohydrates (250-350 grams a day, ones that I know are healing my body and making me stronger. I no longer feel guilty for exceeding 100 grams of carbs a day. 

Eating the rainbow for breakfast!