Time and distance have also served to blunt not just periods of psychological distress, but also some of the everyday things I used to savor before.

As in, before I was diagnosed with diabetes.

Before I had diabetes, I didn't have to worry about eating a hamburger, pizza, Fettuccini Alfredo, or my favorite restaurant "cajun pasta" dishes. Now, any version I make at home is significantly modified to eliminate refined flours, reduce fats, and raise the vegetable count. You can hardly find the pasta in any of my "pasta" dishes.

Before I had diabetes, breakfast was a pint of orange juice and a bagel with cream cheese. Now, bagels are eaten in parts, and orange juice is a special-occasion item: a quarter bagel is one carbohydrate exchange, and a cup of orange juice is a huge portion of the daily calorie count.

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I wish he didn’t love food so much. I wonder if it would be different if he wasn’t raised with so many food restrictions and limitations. I wonder if we created this monster. This monster that if given the green light would eat a whole penguin in one sitting if it was fried and could be dipped in some sort of sauce. (READ MORE)

On Tuesday, I noted that Scott's trouble with canned soup was just the tip of the carb-counting iceberg (or should that be "the lowest climbs on Everest" for the math-challenged?), looking at discrepancies in a product's own label as well as between what is stated on the label and what can be measured in the kitchen. Yesterday I looked at errors introduced by the processes of cooking and serving food, the canard of "free foods", and upscaling issues. Today I hope to conclude the series with issues of variation between individuals with diabetes (or an individual with diabetes). In short, Your Carb-Counting May Vary.

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In my last post, I addressed some of the issues involved in achieving an accurate picture of one's dietary intake based on the nutrition labels on packaged foods. I touched on the discrepancies between measurement by weight and by volume, between the approximated number of servings on the label and the number of servings based on posted content weight, and discrepancies between posted net weight and both real and usable content weight.

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Food is frustrating to me. Ever since I can remember, food has been a completely different aspect in my life than what my family, peers, and humanity deals with. Yes, food is a source of energy and existence. Yes, it's amazing. Yes, it packs on the pounds. But it's also a total love-hate relationship with me. For one reason: diabetes.

When I was first diagnosed, my life was thrown into "sugar-free" mode. My sugar intake was limited. I never tasted a real coke unless I was low. I didn't get to eat normal candy or normal desserts. Everything was tainted by fake sugar, a chemical taste that couldn't replace my childhood need for some old-fashioned sugar.

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My friend Scott, who has spent enough time on insulin to make my head spin, just vented his frustrations regarding the carb count for a meal of soup and crackers. While I've not had to become quite as precise on carb-counting as those of you on insulin, having to completely rewrite my doctor's office's 1000 mg sodium/day diet (following the flyer they gave me would have had me consuming closer to 2000 mg sodium/day) made me much more sensitive to calculating serving size than the average person with diabetes -- or the average person with hypertension, for that matter.

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