New Lifestyle, New Basal Rates

Before I got pregnant, my basal rates were dictated by my schedule.  When I got up, how busy my work was, when I tried to work out most days, when I went to bed, etc.  So I had several basal rates throughout the day.  When I got pregnant, I stuck with one basal rate for the whole day, mainly because my rates changed so often that it was useless to try and nail down a change for every hour of the day.  

I ended up being way too aggressive with my rates, giving me a lot of lows, but I justified it with the little monkey growing inside me.  But now that my daughter is on the outside and it's been 5 weeks since my surgery, I'm finally starting to nail down some basal rates that actually mirror my new life.  

And what a life it is!  My new life revolves around this sweet little girl napping next to me.  Instead of going to meetings and spending most of my day in front of a computer, usually programming something in MATLAB, I go back and forth between changing diapers, feeding my daughter, burping her, and trying to do some housework while she naps.  And that changes everyday as she gets bigger and sleeps less during the day (but she's currently starting to sleep 6 hours at night, which I can function with).  

One disadvantage to being at home all the time is that there is an abundant source of snack food at my disposal, whereas when I went to work I would only pack what I needed to eat for lunch and a few snacks.  So I'm noticing that I tend to go high around the afternoons when my snacking tends to get the best of me and I may miss a bolus or two.  Plus, with breastfeeding I tend to stay hungrier all throughout the day.  It's like I have to eat right after she eats.  

Immediately after her birth, my endocrinologist instructed me to go back to my pre-pregnancy basal rate, which I tried to remember to the best of my knowledge.  But it looks like I need about 80% of that rate right now, which is mostly due to breastfeeding because I'm still +15 lbs from before pregnancy.  This rate is perfect overnight because I usually wake up around the 80s, but I definitely need more during the daytime.  

So now that monkey and I are starting to get into a routine, I'm finally starting to make some changes to even out my numbers.  Of course, I'm sure this will all change in a few months, because diabetes likes to do that just because.  Next week is my 6-week follow up with my OB, and that means I'll be able to released to exercise.  And that's a whole 'nother post altogether!