Triathletes know their bodies well. All the training, all the nutrition – you can feel the rhythm when things are working and when they are not. Sometimes the legs are heavy and the belly feels too full to train, while sometimes everything is fantastic and the body is ready to go. I think diabetes has refined this sense of perceived readiness even further. It becomes more important when your life is hanging in the balance. You think to yourself, “is that slight headache from too much glucose in my system or not enough? If I eat something now, how long before it kicks in? will I have to take extra insulin this morning because I am hungry and want a big breakfast, or will my workout in an hour and a half deplete the breakfast glucose enough for me to stay on track?” I walk the line.

Even without my CGM (I usually wait a few days to a week between applications) I have a good sense of where my body is. I can feel it in my head, usually, when things have gone too far, too many sugars, and I can dial it back with a bit of Apidra. This happens after a long training session, like 4+ hours on the bike, followed by frenzied eating/drinking, followed by “uh oh, I think that was a bit too much” and the need for some insulin.

If I can avoid the post-exercise feeding frenzy things usually go pretty well. When I’m desiring fruit above all else, and not chocolate or candies, I know my system is working well. There is a desire to drink more water, but no real need to gulp juices or other more-than-water liquids. And good, solid food choices are more appealing than highly processed junk. Except salt, there is usually a need for some salty stuff after an intense, sweaty session. Like some chips, or simply olive oil and salt on a plate to be wiped up with several pieces of bread – this is great!

I can usually tell when enough is enough, I can feel it in my head when I’m at the upper limits and then in the rest of my body when I’m really low. The high is a headache and a slight dizziness/cloudiness, almost like I’ve had a few drinks. When that feeling comes it is time for some Apidra to bring things down a bit. At the other end of the spectrum, when I’m low, I get a bit sweaty and shaky and jerky in my movements, like I am about to crash. This is when a protein bar or even a big glass of milk are great to bring back that sense of calm. It usually takes a few minutes, but I know that things will come back pretty quickly. The hard part is to not go overboard and take things too far, but rather to simply bring back an equilibrium.

 Drinking water is always good, but having sparkling water feels like a treat and seems to be much more calming, quite different from the automatic drinking of regular water from a sport bottle. Sparkling water in a glass, with some ice… just the tinkling of the ice as it slowly melts in the glass is soothing, a calming noise that helps me to re-center and lose the “feeding” focus. And then I can forget for a while that I have diabetes.