Shoutout to my talented twin for making the pies!

I love Thanksgiving. I always have, and I always will. Thanksgiving and I go way back, and our love blooms from the fact that my mother is a chef. She is an amazing chef that cooks the best (in my humble opinion) mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar and pecans, the best cranberry sauce, the best fudge pecan pie and pumpkin pie—well you get the picture. She’s fantastic. She’s like Martha Stuart minus the jail time and uptightness. Okay, maybe that was a little harsh on Martha. Martha, if by some odd twist of fate you’re reading this, you rock don’t ever change.

This Thanksgiving was my first as a Type 1 Diabetic (RIP pancreas, it was a great 20 years).

While I longed to fill my plate with large unwarranted portions of carbs and fat and everything delicious… diabetes got in the way.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: Poor Emily, not able to over eat on a holiday that exacerbates Americans’ issues with obesity and their climbing rise of obesity, also ironically, type 2 Diabetes. So yes America, you are literally eating yourselves into a disease where you cannot eat what you were eating before. Irony? Moderation people. I digress.

Anyways, back to my first Carb-controlled Thanksgiving.

While I got to eat almost everything that I normally do (except the ice cream AND pie, but I mean, that really is gratuitous isn’t it? Well that’s what I’m telling myself at least), I still wished I could eat without worrying about how much insulin I gave myself and if my pump could handle the carb-load that is Thanksgiving dinner.

That being said, I had a few high blood sugar numbers, while on the whole, it went well. I learned that diabetes, although sucky and just a bad disease in general, does not mean that I have to swear off of the foods that I love. Everything is about moderation. I have learned self-control, and maybe, just maybe, that is the silver lining of having a faulty pancreas—andType 1 Diabetes.

This Thanksgiving, I realized that I am thankful for my family, friends, food and most of all: Insulin. While I hope that one day I can be thankful for a cure, until now, insulin will have to do.

So as finals approach, and I find myself reaching towards chocolate instead of carrots, I’ll take what i’ve learned and realize I can have one square, and then eat the carrots and pretend that I am eating chocolate. They say seeing is believing… well if I see the chocolate and eat the carrots… that works too, right?

There actually might be such a thing as too much icing, but there is not such a thing as too much beach. I miss Florida sometimes.

Stay warm you beautiful people~

~XOXO