Record Keeping

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I despise logging. The idea of having to carry around a notebook and pen everywhere I go to log my blood sugars, food, insulin intake, exercise, stress levels, menstrual cycle or any of the other gazillon things that could affect my blood sugar for the day is horrific. I have never been particularly good at it. I typically get all whipped up about it, do it religiously for 2-3 weeks and then forget my notebook on the kitchen counter for the next month. It’s hard. And I become an obsessive freak about recording my intake, 12 oz of black tea, 1 tsp of half and half or was that 2Tbsp?, two bites of a biscotti, half of a large banana, etc. Salads are the worst, there are multiple ingredients and none of them amount to more than an ounce: 12 cranberries, 5 croutons, 6 black olives, 2 shreds of cheddar cheese, 3 bacon bits and 23 leaves of spinach. Ugh! I cringe thinking about it.

With the advent of the insulin pump in conjunction with CGMS, logging has become much easier. I take my blood sugar and the result is wirelessly transmitted to my pump, I then enter carbs and bolus. If you have a minimed paradigm like me., all this data is stored and can be downloaded later for scrutiny. I love that! But, still where does the food and exercise logging come in? Sure you ate 45g carb for breakfast last Tuesday at 6am, but what was it? We all know that 45g carb triple berry scone is completely different from 45g carb oatmeal. Well people, I have found the answer and it is brilliant! Livestrong.com! All food and exercise can be logged on this website where the database is linked to the Calorie King and then exported into an excel spreadsheet. Also! Also, you can download the app onto your blackberry, or if you are cooler than me, your iPhone, and record food and exercise on the go or look up carbs at the last minute. It then syncs up with the online version. I find it particulary useful when I am looking at my cgms graphs to be able to reference what I ate for the day or what my activity level was.

While I am newly in love with livestrong.com and I highly recommend that you try it, I’ll offer a small list below of other apps that do similar things and may be of interest to you. This is not a comprehensive list.

Blackberry

1. Livestrong
2. Diet Organizer
3. Spark People
4. Ascendo Fitness

iPhone Apps (for the cool kids)

1. Glucose Buddy
2. Diabetes Log
3. Islet 2.0
4. Glucose-Charter
5. Diamedic

Happy Logging!