tpacific

Today is Cinco de Mayo. Being of Mexican heritage I can say that I have never celebrated the 5th of May except maybe once in my 20’s I may have had a Corona with dinner. Who knows.

All of my friends and co-workers want to go out for Mexican food tonight. Tacos, Nachos, Burritos, tortillas, and salsa not to mention the Margarita’s. All good stuff, but for me not a very big deal since we tend to eat Mexican food a lot.

AND I LOVE IT!

My wife has unfortunately mastered the art of making taco shells so whenever she makes tacos I eat about a bakers dozen. Okay, that may be exaggerating but I know I can eat at least half of that and it always makes my blood glucose skyrocket hours after eating.

Here is the thing that always pops into my head. Why do I continue to eat things I like when my body pays the price? I basically satisfy my taste buds and in return the rest of my body is punished. Why would I jeopardize my whole self to make one little part of it happy?

But one of the pleasures of life is enjoying a good meal right? And I always read how you can live a normal life with diabetes. But my normal meal is carb filled and fat filled.

My blood glucose machine does not show a person who is “living a normal life” 3 hours after a yummy Mexican dinner. So what gives?

Is it false to say that we are just like everyone else? Is it wrong to say we can eat whatever we want? I know it is empowering and makes us feel less like we have a disease but the fact remains, we do have a disease.

Maybe if I had some better tools to really see how this stuff affects me then I could retaliate with the proper dosage of insulin at the proper time. I just hate knowing that when I enjoy something so much, diabetes enjoys it too because it gets to do more damage to my body.

So now we have something in common.

Both diabetes and I love Mexican food.