Thursday, December 21, 2006

Winter Solstice, and the Aviva meter

Calories eaten yesterday: 1695
Fat: 96g (53%)
Carbs: 29g (7%)
Protein: 119g (29%)
Calories burned in exercise: 106

Today is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. It actually happens at 7:22 pm eastern standard time (December 22, 00:22 UTC). Thank God because it is getting dark way too early. I am so happy the days will get longer from here. And I really can't wait until daylight saving begins (starts in March in 2007!).

The early darkness only effects me on weekends. I work second shift so it is always light when I get up, and always dark when I head home from work. There are no windows in my office. On the weekends I notice the early darkness much more acutely, and it always tweaks my head.

my new Accu-Chek Aviva meterMy Accu-Chek Aviva came today! Yay! It only has 10 test strips, but hopefully the box of 100 strips I ordered isn't too far behind. The 10 should give me some preliminary information as to how accurate it is. (Click the picture to enlarge.)

I ran the control test twice (should have read the instructions first maybe!) and that came up fine. I then pricked myself and used the same drop of blood to run a test on both my TrueTrack and the Aviva. I got a 100 on both! They weren't even off by a point. So very early preliminary results say that this might just be the right meter for me. It has 7, 14, and 30 day averages, and allows you to flag results. It doesn't seem to have a morning average, though, which is what the TrueTrack tests, just an overall average.

I know the 100 reading on both meters is a bit high; I was 105 this morning! I'm hoping it's just because my toe is healing and that it will go back to normal once that's done. Of course, I have oral surgery in mid-January so that will mess up the results again. :-p

The meter same with an Accu-Chek Multiclix lancet device. Since I already have one I'll sell the one that came with this in the box the one I bought came in, along with the two lancet drums that came with the meter (12 lancets).

I like the log that came with this meter. It has breakfast, lunch, and dinner readings like the OneTouch log I've been using, but also a bedtime reading, something I've had to write into my current one. I like to test right before bed and right after I get up, to see how Dawn Phenomenon effect my blood sugar. For example, last night I was 88, but had jumped up to 105 by this morning.

The drawback is the Aviva log is too large to fit in the pouch the meter came with. I may have to pull out the organizer I bought at WalMart if I want to use this log.

No exercise today at all. I got tired of waiting for the bus to the grocery store, so I called Brad at work just to tell him I would probably be late. Because he is training someone who can hold down the fort, he actually left work, came and got me, and took me shopping, then drove me home, I unpacked the groceries, and he drove me to work. Two hours early, but better than having to come in by bus and fight the weather. With the weather the way it is I may not have been able to walk the last 1.5 miles anyway.

Tonight I have to cook the dishes for Christmas dinner, and then I need to cook up the ground chicken so I'll have enough meals for next week. Next Sunday I'll bring in one or two of the dishes to work, and then the remaining dish(es) on Monday. It'll be a great low-carb Christmas dinner!

In the "how stupid can I be" column we have this anecdote from last night:
I thought I could get away with one load of laundry last night, but when I got downstairs to the laundry room I could tell it wouldn't all fit in one washer. No problem. I filled two washers about 3/4 of the way. I figured I could dry them in one dryer, just add an extra 25 cents for an 10 extra minutes. I went down when the dry cycle was finished (with the extra time for the extra clothes) only to discover one washing machine of clothes still sitting there. I had only put one load in and not both! I took the dry clothes up to the apartment and came down with more quarters for the second load. It cost me $1.25 and 45 minutes of time; I didn't get to bed until nearly 3 a.m. :-p

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