Hello folks, do you have diabetes and travel plans? Have you struggled with travel and diabetes in the past? I've had type 1 diabetes for 42 years and recently took a trip to New York City. And just when I thought I had diabetes figured out, I was wrong. Stick around as I share the mishaps, struggles, and lessons learned. And what this trip did to my bloodshedters. Watch until the end where I share if the insulin was worth it. Alright, let's jump in. Before any trip, preparation is key to success. Not just bringing extra diabetes supplies here, as you can see by my list. But pre-planning, based on the activities you plan to do during your trip. For most of us, travel is usually a complete change in daily routine. I restarted my insulin pump about a month before the trip, knowing that the pump will serve me well with the changes in daily routine and the spontaneous choices that goes along with travel. So, I had a lazy day programmed into my pump and an active day programmed into my pump. I did this prep with my insulin pump on my own. But it's wise to work with your medical team. To ensure you make the right adjustments and have a plan for your diabetes ahead of time. Please remember, this is my experience and not medical advice. I am not a doctor. Alright, let's get to New York and managing the activity changes during travel. This was a challenge for me. As anyone with diabetes can attest, sitting for long hours is brutal on the blood sugar levels. To get to New York City, from where I live, it took most of the day. My sugars were incredibly difficult to manage right from the beginning. But I also made a conscious decision to basically enjoy my time and eat pretty much whatever I felt like. And foods. I would not normally eat. So you can see here about my CGM. Throughout this trip, there were a lot of sugar spikes. And on day one, I started with a breakfast sandwich from Starbucks. Probably not a good idea. So, it brings me to my first tip. During long periods of sitting like long road trips, I typically choose foods that are lower curve options. Like almonds, nuts, cheese, meat sticks. And I also drink plenty of water. I also typically increase my insulin boluses or my basal insulin by about 20%. Once we made it to New York City, we hit the ground running. Well, walking really fast. So after taking a train from the airport to Manhattan, we opted out of hailing a cab and decided to walk the hotel. As you can see here by my excitement, this was awesome. First time in New York City, I'm super happy. Taken video, walking down New York, on our way to the hotel, what a great experience. So as mentioned, I used my insulin pump during this trip and tried to have my settings correct for plenty of activity knowing most days would be spent walking hours on and exploring New York City. Sites, architecture, you name it. So once we decided to travel on foot, I switched my pump from lazy to active, which means I'd be getting less insulin on an hourly basis to account for the increased in activity. When I'm not on my insulin pump and taking basal insulin like Driseba, I'd have to eat carbs to cover the insulin and increase in activity. Both work, but the pump was excellent for this trip due to the varying levels of activity and the variety of foods I was eating. So as you can see here, we had a blast exploring New York City and walked from our hotel to most sites. From time square, my god, what an awesome time, central park, also amazing to stroll through the famous central park. Check out the skyline, pretty cool, museum of natural history. And during our exploring, we'd stumble into places on plant, like the New York Library, St. Peter's Cathedral, the courthouse, remember law and order. The ghost buster's building was on our list, Chinatown, a little Italy, and of course the Empire State Building, and its amazing views. I'm just going to pause here for just a second. Walking was also very good for the diabetes. As you can see here, my daytime ratings were pretty level and it allowed us to find some great places to drink and eat, which is a good segue into how I manage my diabetes with all the food. But before that, a couple of tips for the activity stuff. Reducing meal doses based on experiments and testing, testing, testing, especially pre-walking, carry, fast-acting sugar at all times, in my case I always carried extra tablets. And remember, have fun. It's a trip. If you're enjoying this video, please hit the like button and leave a comment on how you manage your diabetes during travel. I would really appreciate it. Now for the food. I had some pre-planed foods I wanted to eat during my time in New York, like street dogs, hot dogs, bagels, the strongy sandwiches. And my ultimate favorite, New York-style pizza. Well, I should let me back track. It is now my new favorite. My goodness, the pizza's amazing. I could eat, could have eaten it every day, so it's a good thing we found it on day four. Because that's all I would have eaten. We had some delicious meals during our time in New York. Way too much to cover in this video, but must share my experience eating it and hope you. The Japanese restaurant was some amazing cuisine and apparently quite popular and famous, which is deserving of its own video, but here we go. So we had to start the edamame. Gotta have that at Japanese food restaurant. Need I say more? This edamame was delicious. It was done perfectly and really enjoyed it. The next one, I had to ask my partner, because I couldn't remember the name. It was tritida. I'm probably saying it wrong, but it was an amazing dish, white fish. I don't know, soaked in and sort of a sauce. It was a cold dish, but it had a head of heat and very diabetes friendly and very, very delicious. I could eat that over and over again. Next, we had the rock shrimp tempura, which was also very sweet, tasty, but delicious. Not something I'd probably get again, but it was good that time. And of course, ceviche. I must have at Japanese restaurants, and that was very, very delicious. And my ultimate favorite food, well, other than the New York pizza now, was the wagyu, dumplings, and yes, my god, they melted in your mouth. And all of this was enjoyed with a house-made sake. So wicked experience, as you can see by the surroundings and my expressions, this was phenomenal. Very, very mediocre on the diabetes scale, but overall, awesome restaurant to eat. So the food was amazing, but some lessons learned here. Not just from this one meal, but the timing of the meals. I didn't anticipate, honestly, the later evening meals, which were rich in fat protein and carbs, causing such persistent high blood sugars overnight. I'm talking stubborn. I typically don't eat past 7 pm. At this time, we were eating 8.30, 9.30, quite late. So in retrospect, I should have played around with this and experimented pre-trip to figure out how to manage this with my extended bowl's feature on my palm. But I didn't. Which resulted in some overnight pretty stubborn high blood sugars, as you can see by my continuous glucose monitor readings here. And a lot of overnights. Up, of course, ping, because your sugar's high, you got to pee a lot, and corrections. And at one point, I did have to change my set. Crapin would have saved a bit of this crappy experience and the crappy feelings, but it was still way worth it. Another thing to comment on this trip is the high blood sugars. Highs are annoying. Best times, and even more scary, when in a different country. Had a couple of nights with her a little sleep, like I mentioned. And one night, as you can see by my CGM graphs, I needed that as an acid, like, coms or role leads, which I typically don't need. So that tells me my sugars were really, really out of control. And the problem with high blood sugars in general, and especially at night, it's going to impact your sleep and your mood and your overall quality of life. So I tend to treat quickly and aggressively. And this is my experience. And remember, this is not medical advice. I am not a doctor. Just sharing low blood sugars. Honestly, not too bad. I had a few on this trip, but I think the pump really mitigated and prevented a lot of them, which was great. There is a story I want to share. We were sitting in Carnegie Hall. Yes, I know Carnegie Hall, the famous Carnegie Hall, and waiting for the show to commence. And I started to have a low, and I was treating it with dextabs to no effect. And my partner, Godlover, went and got me a coke. And they wouldn't let her back into the hall. And she came in anyways. Pretty forceful and said, I'm going in. I don't care. My partner's type one diabetic. And I just loved that she did that for me. And it was quite rebellious too. Kind of cool. Anyways, drink the coke, tuck the cup back, and I came up eventually. But that was probably the worst low I had. And honestly, overall, considering the amount of walking we did, I expected more. All right, so talked about that. But we also had some drinks. And I'm not talking juice and water and pop. I'm talking alcohol. So as a diabetic, this is always a bit tricky. As it can drop blood sugar, and some cases cause the laderizing blood sugar. Many hours later, depending on what you're drinking. Which was part of my issue. Was it worth it? Absolutely. We ended up on a rooftop patio on Broadway with a front row seat of the Empire State Building being lit up at night. Who does that? Pretty awesome. We also ended up in a cigar bar. I'm not going to show these videos, but having cocktails and listening to a group of local New York detectives talk shop. Pretty cool experience. Wouldn't do that much though. And of course, the lovely wine bar we stumbled across during our last few days being wet and soaking wet actually. And sitting there having some wonderful glasses of wine on Broadway. So I think alcohol is good. I remember test, test, test. As I always say with all my videos, it's my mantra. And I was blessed to have a pump, which monitored my share. And also my Dexcom, which is attached to my pump. So pretty safe. And that was with somebody as well. So now let's take the time to rate if the insult was worth it. So let's first look at the blood sugar scale. And if you've brought my previous videos on, what was the insulin worth it? You'll know what I'm talking about. So please check them out if you haven't. So this trip, overall, not just restaurants and food, the blood sugar scale was about a two and a half out of five. Not too bad, but eating the cheese dogs and the street food and all that food, it was definitely worth it. Now for the fun scale, five out of five. Five out of five. One of the best, most fun experiences in my life. I'd go back and Harpy. It was an amazing place to go. The vibe in New York is just New York. There's really no other way to put it. Anyways, this is a diabetes video. So I tried up with the diabetes, spend on it. But thanks for watching. If you enjoyed the video, please hit the like button and subscribe. Check out my latest videos here and wishing you all home in the range blood sugars and see you next time.