The sugar diaries (1): Experiments with my pancreas

This is the story of the continuous glucose monitoring device that I had for 10 days, allowing me to do "experiments" with my own pancreas. 

The sensor sits just under the skin, checking the sugar level in my interstitial fluid every 3 minutes and sends it via Bluetooth to my phone. So neat!

Here's what the app looks like, you can see the rises and falls in real time and the trends over the course of the day. 

The Objectives:

I wanted to know:

A. Do I have diabetes or diabetic tendencies? 

B. How does my body respond to different carbohydrates?

C. How do the "healthy" foods stack up with the "unhealthy foods"?

Part A. Do I have diabetes?

Viva my pancreas! I am generally a healthy person and I eat a good variety of foods, but I don't exercise much. Like many people, I carry a bit of extra weight around the middle. My GP said last year that I was 2cm away from being overweight by waist circumference criteria, though my BMI is a normal 23.  

Throughout the 10 days, I was consistently gobsmacked by my pancreas. Thanks to my wonderful pancreas, I release insulin steadily in response to food and most foods make me sit in a relatively "normal" range. For reference, target healthy levels are 4 - 7mmol/L fasting (mine averaged 5.0 to 5.5) and 7 - 10mmol/L after meals (mine was usually between 7 and 9). 

The app also calculated my overall average glucose to be 5.6mmol/L with a standard deviation of 1.0mmol/L - pretty amazing statistic!  

Exercise predictably dropped the blood sugar by 0.5 - 1.0mmol/L  depending on how much I exercised. I even had a few hypos which the app defined as less than 4.0. The lowest I got was 3.4 after gardening. Interestingly my blood sugar level did not seem to correlate with any feeling of hunger. 

Part B. How does my body respond to different carbohydrates?

I expected different sources of carbohydrates to have different impacts on blood sugar level, since this is the whole premise of the glycaemic index. What I didn't know was that the shape of the curve would be different - some carbs made my blood sugar rise slowly with a gentler peak, others caused it to surge straight up.

Clockwise from top left: (1) Fettucine with ragu sauce; (2) Veggie pasta sauce, 1x sourdough with blue cheese; (3) Kara-age chicken bowl on brown rice; (4) Wonton noodle soup 

There were plenty of surprises! Pasta was nowhere near as bad as I thought it would be, giving me tiny peaks even though I ate hefty servings. I tried pasta quite a few times too, I love pasta and obviously, pasta loves me!

Clockwise from top left: (1) Cauliflower potato hotpot; (2) Mashed potato (with cream); (3) Instant noodles; (4) Chinese lunch of red braised pork, eggplant green beans, choko salad and rice

The "ordinary Chinese lunch" that I have with family came in surprisingly well though I ate a whole bowl of rice. However, the dinner I had at a dumpling restaurant was surprisingly high. The cauliflower potato hotpot sent me to such heights, perhaps because they put a lot of sugar in the sauce? 

There was definitely a clear effect between highly refined vs. harder to break down carbohydrates. My own sourdough consistently brought me to the 6 - 7 range, which made me very happy!

And... who would have known that breakfast would turn out to be the most controversial meal?

Clockwise from top left: (1) Weetbix granola fruit yoghurt; (2) Oatmeal; (3) Sourdough pancakes with yoghurt and maple syrup; (4) 2x weetbix, an egg, a tomato and a glass of milk

From these photos, is it surprising that 2 weetbix was the lowest? Probably not. Oats with no honey added still got to a decent 8. But the biggest surprise was that the breakfast that sent me close to 9 for the first time was one plain weetbix, a handful of muesli (to "break up" the taste of weetbix), fresh fruit and yoghurt. 

Everyone I asked said this looked like an amazing healthy breakfast. 

Who would have guessed that the reading after 3 decent sized pancakes with a generous splodge of maple syrup would be identical to the Weetbix with fruit and muesli??

That's all for now. Next time, I'll focus on the snacks, the "winners" - the foods that sent me through the roof, and my attempts to get my own BSL to 10!  

In my kitchen: March 2021

Where goes the time? How can it be March already? 

In my garden... 

I have concluded that plants like having people around. Maybe they can sense that they are being loved when they are being watered, weeded or attended to?

A huge harvest of bitter melons 

I went away for a few days and a baby zucchini turned into my giant Zucchino of 1.431kg. I had so much fun taking photos with him! About a third went into roast zucchini with a drizzle of olive oil and balsalmic vinegar, which I ate plain and in salads. The next third went into a chocolate zucchini cake. The final third I put into a couple of stirfries. Lasted me a whole week! 

 

 

On the cooking front...

I had so much fun making these adorable sourdough hippos. A plain sourdough milk dough that was easy to shape, I kept their mouths open with little balls of foil that I removed later. A bit of the Zucchino was left and provided the perfect prop for the hippos. 

I couldn't resist the selection of beautiful stone fruit on the side of the road when we went on our South coast getaway...

A couple of the peaches went into this diabetic-friendly sponge cake for my dad's birthday. Glorious!

 

I had to take a photo of this loaf I made for the nurses, a perfect square hat!

Inspired by my sourdough hippo project, I made a sourdough lobster too... I did have the idea to stuff the bread lobster with actual lobster, but where does one get lobster from in Newcastle??

We made these glutinous rice dumplings to celebrate the end of Chinese New Year. My grandma used to make these every year but we never learned how to make it from her. My dad and I watched Youtube videos to cobble it together, and it was very successful for our first attempt!

Onto the Food and Music series....

I've been rather obsessed with the plating of salads. Here we have a colourful concoction of spinach, beetroot, feta, walnut and orange. My string quartet ate this with a few movements from the Beethoven Op 18 string quartets. 

I made this Indian themed dinner for my piano duet friend. The light and fluffy sourdough naan was just the best! I made potato and zucchini curry with fresh curry leaves gifted to me by one of my colleagues, and a tomato based chickpea curry. After dinner we played Mozart's D major violin concerto and Vivaldi's 4 seasons - lots of fun!

Did I say I was obsessed with salads? Here's one I made on the Gold Coast, charred corn wih tomato cucumber and red onion - we ate this with chilli garlic prawns and coconut rice. After dinner, we played the Franck violin sonata. What a feat that was! The music is bloody challenging for both the pianist and the violinist, comprising hopeless mashing of the notes (there are a lot of notes), random improvisation and aimless slides around the fingerboard. The canon of the last movement was both lost and beautiful. As L's husband remarked afterwards - you guys just didn't give up. It was a momentous occasion in my life! 

My greatest appreciation to Sherry for introducing the concept of the curveball. Here is a tiny spider I found in the chilli plant. Love to the little guy for hanging on and enjoying his corner of the world. 

I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings, thanks Sherry for hosting the IMK series!

In my kitchen: February 2021

Before Covid, I had never managed to keep anything alive in the garden. I was infamous for my brown thumbs, I'd even killed succulents that required "no maintenance". 

For this very reason, it is so precious and exciting for me that I have taken up this new hobby of gardening! I just love digging in the soil and getting dirt under my fingernails. I love watering the garden in the early morning. Most of all, I love looking out into the garden and enjoying a little oasis of green. 

Here are a few things I managed to grow this month! 

Japanese eggplants and bitter melons 

 Wonky zucchinis 

Lots of beautiful, juicy and sweet cherry tomatoes 

Heaps of chillies

And finally, the star of the garden - one ginormous pumpkin (orange for size comparison) - S and I named him Alfonso. Isn't Alfonso sweet? 

On the cooking/baking front 

Might be the warm weather, but the dough seems to rise extra well. Here it is on a beautiful local hardwood chopping board I bought from my friend's friend. 

This pesto and cheese star was visually stunning and a cinch to make! I'd seen these on Reddit and wanted to make it for a while. I think a sweet version with cinnamon sugar would also be spectacular. 

Nothing screams summer like fresh tomato and fresh basil. I've been having these simple homegrown dinners (here with chickpeas for extra protein), where I put the spaghetti on to boil and then go to the garden to pick the basil! 

Onto the Food and Music series...

My string quartet had a break in January as the cellist was away for holidays. Just before she left, we had a feast and ate these spectacular humongous fresh prawns - we are super blessed in Australia

We ate these with the first movement Brahms Piano quintet in F minor, followed by the Schumann Piano quintet. Piano quintets are really the epitome of chamber music - so much richness that comes from 5 people, the sound is incredible. 

Here are some rose shaped peach tarts (simply sliced up peaches rolled in puff pastry) I made for my piano duet buddy. We have actually finished the Beethoven project! We played all of the 4 hand transcriptions of his string trios and quartets. 

Finally, the curveball, two cute little ladybugs snuggling on my chilli plant! Maybe there is hope in the world after all!

I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Kitchen, who hosts the monthly In my kitchen series. Thanks for hosting Sherry!

In my kitchen: January 2021

So here we are in 2021, and it feels like the months are just rolling by. As always I am extremely grateful for the monthly chance to look back over photos. 

In the garden...

My first season of growing zucchini has been interesting. In fact it has been my first season of growing anything! I had a few chances to do zucchini IVF before the plants were totally covered in powdery mildew. I chopped off all the leaves and now the plants are clinging to life... later I realised I could have treated the leaves and not chopped them off! You live, you learn.  

So far there were two successful candidates, and this is my firstborn zucchini. Isn't he a beautiful Italian heirloom? 

My chillies have been going mad! Finally I have enough to supply myself, family and more. It's hard to imagine that one single chilli I bought in January 2020 came to four mature chilli plants. Such is the cycle of life. 

On the baking front... 

I loved this loaf of sourdough I scored in a rose pattern 

I was inspired to make this Gnocchi alla Romana by S' Christmas dinner in Italy - his sister had made it and I was immediately drawn to the idea of semolina dumplings covered in cheese. They were soft and pillowy with an oozy cheesy topping. Definitely something I would like to eat again. 

I also made these vegan sourdough donuts called Sufganiyot for Hannukah celebrations with my friend B. We made them from Barney my sourdough and flax seed instead of egg. I must admit the flax "egg" made me a bit sceptical, ground up flax reconstituted with water really looks like gloop... but they were beautifully light and fried up a treat. We made our own strawberry & raspberry jam as well and filled them.  

It was actually the first time in my life I've deep fried anything. Since we had so much oil, we thought we could make traditional potato latkes after the doughnuts. Utterly delicious! 

I made these sourdough roti prata for a Christmas gathering. Slapping them on the counter till they were huge and extremely thin was really fun! 

Onto the Food & Music series....

This was a beautifully presented dinner with a salmon fillet atop a bed of sweet potato puree. We enjoyed this with Shostakovich 8th string quartet and the not much played Glazunov Quartet Slave. I absolutely adore the Shosta - such a monumental work! 

This was our quartet's Christmas turkey dinner which we enjoyed with Schumann's Piano quartet in Eb major. We were joined by a guest for the piano part and it was wonderful to play a string instead! 

Finally, the curveball...

Pengy (L) was stuck in Queensland for some of 2020, and my friend bought me a new penguin (R) which she named Penga (to avoid confusion). She decided at Christmas that they must have had a baby! Here is the adorable family portrait.

I'm sending this to Sherry of Sherry's Pickings who hosts the monthly In My Kitchen series. Thanks for hosting Sherry! 

Covid diaries - end of 2020

What a strange year it has been. Who would have guessed that the Covid pandemic could happen to the world in 2020?

I took so much for granted the freedom to go wherever I want to go. In the past, the only impediments to travel were time off work, money and visa constraints. I travelled often and all over the world - it's incredible to think that I have been to over 40 countries on every continent except Antarctica. I have been away from Australia on at least one overseas trip every year since 2001 when I started medical school. I am extremely grateful for all the travel I've done in the past - dreaming of my travel bucket list is literally a dream now. 

Like many other Australians, my family migrated to Australia and called it our new home. Like many immigrants, we console ourselves in the fact that we could always go back to our home country in an emergency. We'll be there by tomorrow at the latest, we promised our family - because that was indeed possible. When my grandma broke her hip last year, I was by her hospital bedside the next day. I never dreamt that being an immigrant in another country could mean that you are cut off from the rest of your family, bar "exceptional" circumstances such as the death of a close family member. 

I saw so many patients this year who have been affected by Covid. Many who were sick and dying could not have the final reunion with their family members due to quarantine reasons. Travel exemptions were hard to come by, flights were scarce and expensive. Some of my friends have been unable to attend the funeral of loved ones in person - a real tragedy robbing them of their final closure. 

We have been so fortunate in Australia that Covid has not taken a big toll in terms of case numbers and fatalities. It's so frightening to see what is happening in the rest of the world, and I feel incredibly sad for all the people who have died around the world from the pandemic. I also feel so much pain for those who have struggled with mental health this year. I, too, as a frontline health care worker have had my fair share of scares. For some time I was living alone, not seeing anyone in person, going to work and facing the fears of infection and mortality alone. It was a really difficult time. I was fortunate to have a lot of personal supports and a supportive collegiate work environment. Sadly I know three people who have died by suicide during this time -may they rest in peace. We will never know the answers and how much Covid may have contributed to their deaths. 

Despite all the negative effects of Covid, there have been a remarkable number of "silver linings". I worked relatively little this year, and with the cancellation of travel plans found myself with many weeks free. In the past, I've filled these weeks off with more "things" but this year I have found myself with so much more time and emotional space to explore.

So now, I'd like to take a moment to remember all the things that I have been doing in 2020, the strange year of Covid. I have been:

... Writing:  I kept up my usual journalling and finished three volumes during 2020. I did a lot more writing in general, various things here and there including blog posts. The highlight of the year was National Novel Writing Month - getting through 50,000 words in the month of November was a real achievement to savour. 

... Reading:  I've read dozens of books, a luxury that I don't always have. I re-read almost all of Murakami's works, some of my all time favourites like Wind-up Bird Chronicle, Kafka On the Shore, and Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki. I even had a chance to read the German translation of Colourless TT. I read all of Liane Moriarty's books in the bath. 

... Sketching: It's incredible that one can discover things like this, I never even knew that I liked drawing! I took up sketching after J and I followed a live drawing class on TV - I'm totally hooked now. I'm still experimenting with different mediums but so far I adore charcoal because it smudges and is so messy.

... Gardening: I moved in January just before Covid hit, and the backyard was bare when I moved in. My dad built me a veggie patch and I've been gently exploring growing vegetables. I always thought I had the brownest thumbs, but I realise now that I just never tried! I bought a lemon tree and watched it grow slowly. I fought slugs, bugs, critters and birds, trying to save my vegetables! The winter season saw an excellent crop of snow peas, and now I'm onto zucchinis, beans and tomatoes. One single chilli from Harris Farm Cooks Hill in January gave me 4 chilli seedlings, all of which are flourishing and giving me more chillies than I can dream of. Being immersed in green is so soul nourishing. 

... Baking: Barney my sourdough starter has been with me since 2017. I gave some of him away in exchange for flour at the height of flour frenzy. It's hard to imagine now how hard it was to get flour in Australia in March/April, it was a commodity like gold. Finally I bought a 12.5kg bag from Broadmeadow IGA (husband #1) and a second 12.5kg from Hamilton Aldi (husband #2) - how did I get through 25kg flour in one year? I also got into baking sweet treats this year, having always been a bread baker. Barney also made his new home in several places, including Italy!

... Playing music: I had a lot more time to play the violin this year, and I think I have made some progress. Since the lockdown was lifted in NSW in May, my quartet has been meeting regularly. Talking to music friends overseas, we are really privileged in Australia to still be able to play in music groups (with some restrictions). I feel like there has been a lot of development this year, I am much more aligned with my instrument and the music. 

... Psycho babbling: I've been interested in psychology since the car accident 2 years ago but I really got into it this year as a self development tool (rather than purely as a coping strategy). I did the Science of Well-Being course online run by Yale University, and it was super interesting. In the last few months I really got into Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and David Burns' approach to CBT - doing my CBT homework is really fun and has helped me to learn a lot about myself! 

... Maintaining human connections: I don't think there has ever been a time in my life where I have felt so overwhelmingly grateful for the social network I have. I have my family and an amazing inner circle of friends. Covid has kept me in touch with local and international friends, some of whom I reconnected with during Covid. The development of Zoom in 2020 has been incredible - video chat as a way to stay connected is a very real thing now. I think Covid has made me appreciate friendship much more than before - we take for granted the ability to see our friends any time! 

Finally, there have been some major changes in my personal life in terms of relationships lost and gained. I really thought I was too old to fall in love again, isn't that the realm of teenagers? But the universe has some other ideas! Love in the time of Covid also has its unique challenges. I feel like we are constantly walking through sliding doors in life, one opens and another one shuts. No one knows what is going to happen next. All we have is the present moment - there are all the bad things that are happening in the world, co-existing with all the good things that are happening in the world. Humans are far more resilient than we give ourselves credit for. Human connection knows no bounds, and this gives me hope going into 2021. 

NaNoWriMo 2020

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month -  gotta love Americans and their abbreviations! It started in 1999 with 21 participants, and this year there were over 7000 participants in Sydney. The idea is to write 50,000 words in the month of November, something that I would have thought was pretty crazy till October 31 this year. That day I was listening to a podcast while working in the garden, and I was immediately intrigued. By coincidence, my friend Grace mentioned it to me later the same evening. I had most of November free anyway, and my travel plans were cancelled. It was like a sign from the universe that I should do it.

Day 10, at the secret writing spot at my dad's

You are supposed to prepare for the month by constructing a "writing plan". So I scribbled out a basic sketch on the back of an old billing sheet, and then I promptly lost that piece of paper. A few days later, I tried to recreate the plan by drawing it on the back of an old envelope while I was at my friend's place, but I lost that too.  

Day 20, at Chambers cafe in Top Ryde 

Never mind the "plan", it seemed to write itself anyway. I knew I just had to start somewhere, and then it would be like flowing water gathering momentum. Each day, I would sit down with the laptop, and contemplate what was going to happen next. 

Day 25, at Bar beach 

The story is about a string quartet, because I am fascinated by the kind of interaction that a string quartet brings. On a superficial level, string quartets necessarily spend a lot of time together with each other playing music. The frequency and intensity of contact brings some kind of closeness more than the average social interaction. 

Day 13, with Cali at my dad's 

On a deeper level, there's something about the special nature of strings. Any chamber music groups involving the piano just do not have the same amount of intimacy, because the piano is like an intruder. The strings fight with the piano. But string quartets are a totally different species. Strings can truly become one in sound - it is not just four instruments, each with four strings. Rather, it is like a single sixteen-string being, and we all merge into one. This kind of intimacy naturally brings conflict into the group, conflict leads to resolution, followed by fresh conflict. 

Day 16, with Simba on Namiko's terrace in Darwin (that troppo roof!)

Who were the characters? Well, I started out basing them on real people, but they morphed into their own people. One of the characters (the cellist) was completely fictional, and I enjoyed shaping him very much. The others were based on musicians I knew in real life. I had decided the first violinist would be based on the real life S, but it was particularly tricky to grasp his "voice". I also could not decide the name he would take in the book, so he did not appear for the first 10,000 words! 

Day 18, flying back from Darwin to Sydney

Each chapter, I took a different person's voice and wrote from that perspective, with the storyline running throughout. I had started out wanting to plan something dramatic like a murder, but I could not decide who was going to murder who! I even had some nightmares about being murdered, but in the end none of the characters had the potential for murder. I found it hardest to write as "myself" in the book, which was strange to me as I thought writing as myself would be the easiest. 

Day 12, at the waterfront park in Putney, writing before my real life quartet

I had writer's block just once, at the 37,000 word mark. I had written the first violinist and the violist into a serious conflict, one that I could not resolve. I felt stuck in real life, because they were stuck in the novel. Whatever I wrote seemed to be an inaccurate representation of the reality within the book. Eventually it was the real life S who offered a resolution. It didn't really feel like the right direction for the story, but I wrote it in anyway and it seemed to work. I'm still undecided about whether I should re-write the ending...

Day 28, on the flight from Newcastle to Gold Coast

Overall I had a strong sense of being the medium for the story. It seemed to write itself, if I closed my eyes and let go.  Sometimes, I would start the day's writing with absolutely no idea of what was going to happen in the story. I realised that each of the people in the story had their own story to tell. All I had to do was be very quiet and very still. If I am open and receptive,  then it would just be there - I would see the story unfolding like I'm watching a movie, and all I had to do was write it down. I even felt shocked sometimes when I saw something emerge from a corner of my (own) imagination that I wasn't aware was there.

Day 26, in my backyard with my veggies

The goal was to write 50,000 words in the month of November, an average of 1,700 words per day. I wrote everyday except for a couple of days I skipped. One of them, we went out to Litchfield National Park and swam in Florence Falls, one of my favourite places in the universe. After we got home, I was too buggered to write. The other one, I'd been out all day at the beach on the Gold Coast and we made dumplings for dinner, so I was too tired by the end of the day. 

Day 30, last day in Gold Coast (reunited with Pengy!) 

I finished it on a beautiful day on the Gold Coast at Linda's place, and finally I was a "NaNoWriMo winner 2020"!

Yes... I tracked my word count, I'm an spreadsheet nerd

I felt this strange sense of accomplishment and I was proud of sticking it out through the month. I knew that whatever happens to the story, it was a kind of self affirmation that I can write 50,000 words. Ultimately I want to write a book about death, but for some years now I have been stuck on how to start that project. Now that I have exercised my "writing muscle", I feel confident that I will eventually make it there!

Day 22, writing at J's place with a cup of London Fog

The other little side project I started doing at the same time was a photo journal of where the writing took place. I thought of it one day when I went to the beach to write - it's quite hard to concentrate with the wind and waves, but it's also quite soothing to be in fresh air. 

Day 7, at Bar Beach with a banh mi from Mayfield Hot Bread 

I had inherited the Chromebook from my friend W who generously donated it to me instead of selling it on Facebook. 

Day 19, writing with W at Cooper Park 

The trusty Chromebook now lives with me in Newcastle, but for this project we went all over Australia - to Sydney, Darwin and Gold Coast, covering perhaps 10,000km in the month of November. There were a fair share of ups and downs in the writing process, and I couldn't have done this project without the encouragement and spiritual support of my friends.