Look at the following image: What do you see? Breakfast, or a plateful of carbohydrates?
Trick question, it’s both.
I seldom enjoy large breakfasts like this, but when I’m treated to them, it’s more than just a savory, delicious meal. It’s also a math problem. So besides looking at a plate full of yum, I’m also looking at this:
I can’t help it, I HAVE to look at my food this way because it helps me determine how much insulin I have to take. Once I add it up, I take the total amount (60) and divide it by 8, because that’s my morning insulin-to-carb ratio. From there, I take about 7.5 units of insulin to cover my breakfast. Of course, I’m not doing the division by myself – my pump is programmed to know all my mealtime ratios, so the only steps I’m responsible for is adding up my carbs and entering that information into my PDM.
You might think it’s a lot of work, but it’s what I’m used to, along with my fellow T1Ds. It all comes with practice, and before long, calculating carbs becomes part of the normal daily routine.
So this example is both breakfast and a plateful of carbohydrates, but that doesn’t make it any less enjoyable. After all, I’m used to crunching numbers along with my food.
Hugging the Cactus 
lol Oh to have the luxury of something to do the math for me. Like you I see piles of carbs instead of food when I eat. My normal breakfast, well supper since I work nights is a glass of 2% milk (24g), 3 scrambled eggs (1.2g), and turkey bacon (0) for about 25g total. My morning ratio is much higher (lower?) than yours at 3 gram per unit so 8 units barring a high correction. I rarely take the time to cook anymore so quick microwave dinners or reheats are my norm. Pizza, hamburger helper, mini raviolis, chili, and fish sticks and tator tots. I use tator tots as they are uniform in size. Ever read the serving size on a French fry bag? x amount of fries each between 2 to 3 inches long. Really? How many fries in a bag are actually that size? Good post. It helps people without diabetes realize just how hard it is to have this disease and survive it. Every day and every meal and snack.
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One other thing about breakfast dosing that I deal with is ‘dawn phenomenon’. I could choose to not even eat breakfast and still need to take a bolus just to deal with the crazy amount of glucose that my body naturally releases in the morning. Whatever the math comes out to for my breakfast dose, I add ‘2’. Otherwise, at 11am, my blood sugar is 280. (Note: My comment isn’t meant as advice! Always talk to your doc before messing with your dosing! Cheers! 🙂
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