Tag Archives: exercise

My Camino Way

camino2Chapter 1 – Brief History of Camino de Santiago

For some time I’ve been thinking about doing the Camino de Santiago  (long walking trek over 800 km)  – an ancient pathway to pilgrims, even Napoleon took this path to visit the large cathedral of Saint James in the ancient city of Santiago in Galicia, Spain. Ancient time they thought Finisterre (Atlantic coast of Galicia) was ‘end of the world’ (costa de morte) – where there was no landmass, leaving civilization at the edge of Atlantic Ocean until the new world was discovered in 1492.

“People tend to forget the word “history” contains the word “story” – Ken Burns

There are many routes to get there within Europe. I’ve always been fascinated by the sheer faith and spirituality people have in achieving this massive goal by walking approximately 25+ km each day – walking through tough terrains, mountains, foot hills and valleys and sleeping in albergues, monasteries and eating what is available along way.

Why the Camino for me?

Not being an athlete or a religious person I wanted to undertake the Camino to learn about myself and my body as I haven’t pushed myself to do anything challenging after being diagnosed with type1 diabetes (November 14, 2005 – ironically its World Diabetes Day). Having type1 diabetes (T1D) has its challenges, to maintain healthy blood glucose (blood sugar) throughout this trip, eating what is available and walking 25+ km a day (exercise and tons of it) is an enormous challenge without proper planning and training.

camino5March of this year I decided to take this challenge and to train for it. Walking is something I can do as I’ve tried running many times but it didn’t click for me, neither did biking. But walking 25+ km each and every day for 32+ (approximate days to walk 800 km) days? – Well it has a good ring to it. It’s like training for anything, all I had to do was to step out of my house (my comfort zone) and walk on the sidewalk and viola I could do 6 km for an hour, wow I can do this Camino!

Well not so fast – I will talk about my training on my next entry but just wanted to talk a bit more about the Camino.  My first day’s journey at the Camino would start at St. Jean Pied de Port (SJPP), France at the foothills of Pyrenees where you climb 1500 meters straight up the mountain for about 20 km and descend to 900 meters, 5 km to Roncesvalles, Spain. After 10 km from SJPP on the mountain there is no stopping as there are no hostels or huts to stay as its a rough terrain, only the mountain.  So this is the challenge that really pushed my training to figure out how to get ready for this challenging climb and descend and keeping up energy for 25+ km for each day.

Did I mention that I will be doing the 1st segment of the Camino with my husband John – he will be my coach to remind me to take my snacks, test my blood sugar every hour and cheering me on as he has done many challenging climbs in his earlier days including the Kilimanjaro.

We will start our journey from SJPP (France) to Logrono (Rioja, Spain) approximately 200 km to be completed in 8 days. I am also thinking of starting my 2nd journey from where I leave off at Logrono, Rioja to Finisterre, Galicia about 700 km across northern Spain over a month later this summer.

Talk about exciting, I am thrilled. Not only it will be a huge challenge but being a cook exposed to this amazing culinary journey across northern Spain, eating, walking, doing a fitness holiday, meeting travelers from all over the world along the way and breathtaking scenery and history to boot? Why not? This is sounding amazing already and I can’t wait to get there!

Check out the film The Way directed by Emilio Estevez starring Martin Sheen (plays on screen father too) – a powerful story that takes place in the Camino trail where life’s questions, quests are questioned or answered as you’ll meet interesting characters along the path of the movie. Very uplifting and moving film which I really enjoy myself at TIFF few years ago and had the opportunity to talk to both Estevez and Sheen about their journey in the Camino and how it was to play onscreen father and son about life’s existential crisis. They were so happy to share their stories.

I plan to blog about my trip while on the Camino – hopefully the internet connection will cooperate so that I can share my experiences and the culinary journey with you guys and I hope you’ll join me along the way to cheer me on send me positive vibes with your feedback.

Buen Camino!

Pretzel Story!

Pretzel1To Pretzel or not to Pretzel

I went to a type1 Diabetes (T1D) symposium two nights ago and there was a topic on type 1 diabetes: the creative, adventurous and active life. Diabetes and food go hand and hand and I should know this since being diagnosed with type-1 diabetes over two years ago. I pay attention to what I eat. Taking it further, I teach healthy diabetic cooking class at the hospital, at my cooking school and provide education and awareness about diabetes and advocacy for the South Asian Diabetes Chapter of the Canadian Diabetes Association. I put my brain and my thinking where my mouth is so to speak and conscious of what I eat all the time, it’s a 24/7 numbers game since it affects my blood sugar and my well being.

Most people with diabetes (type1 or type2) have to think about their carbohydrate intake to balance their blood sugar level. People with T1D diabetes have to count the carbohydrates to consume in order to take insulin. I won’t go into too much detail and save it for another post, but you really have to get good at counting the total carbohydrates of what you eat, most of the times eyeballing an estimate (you do get good at it) so you can take the proper insulin dosage.

It’s an art, it’s science and its critical and its survival. I have been counting carbs since I started my insulin regiment over two years ago. The hardest part is not knowing new food items, choices are millions. Especially when the item is freshly cooked or it doesn’t have the nutritional value label on it.

For example, take the simple warm soft pretzel with sprinkles of sea salt on them – they sell them at many events these days, New York streets (it brings back memories) –  how harmful can it be?

Well at the talk, one of the doctors talked about carb intake and asked us to guess carb amount for  few items. Every T1D person knows a slice of bread (white or brown) is approximately 15g of carb, its the fibre that makes the glycemic load (absorption different), that’s another post in the future. Next item was a soft pretzel and asked people to guess. People guessed 30g, 40g even 60g. The innocent looking soft pretzel that I loved eating with mustard in balls parks, New York streets and on my last visit to Germany for a snack… I couldn’t even guess. They are harmless looking – soft, light and I thought it could be as much as a half bagel which is about whopping 35g of carb (this is why I can’t eat a bagel). I can have two slices of bread and be still under half a bagel’s carb rate due to fibre.

Well the good doctor said the soft pretzel was 200g of carbohydrate. The audience jaws just dropped. I could easily eat two of them for a snack and it’s one of the national snacks in Germany. Everybody eats them and they are great.

I went home heavy hearted and sad. I go to Germany at least once a year and for me not to be tempted for a snack, how can this be? Sure I can take insulin for 200g of carbs, but it’s like blowing all your carb in one item for the whole day (more or less). I didn’t sleep well – I kept tossing and turning and pondering about “to pretzel or not to pretzel”, the question kept plaguing me all night.

Well the next morning I was tired but I did some research and was happy to find that the good doctor didn’t do his research well or he just wanted us to be aware of the high carb snack with slight exaggeration. I still can’t eat it everyday but it can be done.

One soft pretzel is approximately about (143g in weigh approx.) and 99g of carbohydrate, 483 calories and 2008mg of sodium (one full day’s worth of salt supply almost) *facts provided by Nutrition data

I haveT1D and have strong insulin resistance. Most people take 1 unit of Insulin for 15g of carb, but I will still need 11 units of rapid insulin to battle this soft tasty pretzel, so I guess Pizza, Bagel and now soft Pretzel are off my list and only allowed for special occasions when I feel like taking 12 units of insulin before consuming it.

Some interesting facts to think about before eating this tasty soft pretzel for people with diabetes or not:

Exercise required (Based on a 35 year old female that’s 5.74′ ft. tall and weighs 144 lbs.) * facts provided by Calorieking.com

To burn the calories of this soft tasty pretzel you could do any of the following:

94 minutes of walking OR 39 minutes of jogging OR 28 minutes of swimming OR 52 minutes of cycling

At the end of the day, I am relieved that the soft pretzel is not 200g of carb but 99g of carb – but I am still not convinced to take 12 units of rapid insulin but will reach for a cookie instead (mare 15g of carb) and save the soft pretzel for my next trip to Germany or New York instead.