Diabulimia

I've just been reading a piece in the Times about "diabulimia", where a Type 1 diabetic (usually a young, female one) deliberately skips insulin injections to lose weight quickly, ignoring the long-term consequences (or being ignorant of them) of blindness, kidney failure and various other nasties. The girl who was interviewed for the piece is amazing. She's been there, done that, and amazingly she's not done much long term damage other than giving her body a battering.

But it's what she said about diabetes that I really understood. It's annoying having to tell people that you're diabetic - that's usually the only way that they'll remember not to put sugar in your tea, or get you a diet coke instead of regular. It's annoying because once you tell people they assume you won't want a biscuit or a slice of cake, and offer you sugar free rubbish which is probably worse for you anyway due to all the sweeteners in it. I'm lucky because I've lived with a diabetic dad so it's not a stigma for me as such, but I do wish people would treat me normally - but with a sugar-free (and alcohol free) drinks option as the norm. (And not just water.)

I'm still fed up about the whole cholesterol thing. Steve likes his butter and his full cream milk. We went out for fish and chips last night even though I didn't fancy it (nothing at all to do with the cholesterol of course) and I didn't enjoy them, I just felt guilty. I feel guilty at having milk in my tea instead of the soya stuff (which isn't that bad). I feel guilty enough if I forget to take my tablet in the morning, or if I forget to eat, but now it's getting ridiculous. I've conditioned myself to not feel guilty about eating a jaffa cake but I feel bad after eating a peperami stick.

I wish that I could just carry on eating what I think is a pretty balanced diet - I don't have takeaways every night, I don't drink much alcohol at all, I make our meals from scratch, I bake my own bread quite a lot, I make sure that all our meals have vegetables in them. I get myself to the gym every so often, I enjoy going for walks and I wish I could just not feel guilty about enjoying food and life. I'm sure guilt increases your cholesterol levels.