#1449 Small Sips: S.W.A.G
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Estimating carbs and insulin is sometimes necessary—experience helps refine these educated guesses over time.
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Scott Benner 00:00 Hello friends, welcome to the sips series. These foundational strategies were nominated by listeners. They told me, these are the ideas in the podcast that truly made a difference for them. So I distilled them down into short, actionable insights. There's not going to be any fluff or complex jargon, just practical, real world diabetes management that you can start applying today. And I know your time is valuable, so we're keeping these short. Another small sip will come out once a week for the foreseeable future. If you like what you hear, check out the Pro Tip series or the bold beginning series for more. Those series are available in the menu at Juicebox podcast.com and you can find complete lists of all of the series in the featured tab on the private Facebook group. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan or becoming bold with insulin. The questions you have, I guarantee you there's answers to them in the Juicebox Podcast, and it's all free. You
Jennifer Smith, CDE 01:29 there's more behind it too, which is a fun discussion then, yeah.
Scott Benner 01:32 Well, what she sent me? You want to just do it now? Sure we can do it now. All right, so she sent me a list of all of the different meanings that she's seen people attribute to swag. Oh, but I've been aware of the acronym forever, since Arden had diabetes. So I mean, it existed at least then in 2006 do you know about it prior to that?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 01:59 Gosh, I don't even know I because I think, I think the internet was not as there's a defining point to when the online sharing of terminology and the sharing of stuff within the diabetes realm just became much more there, right? And so swag being one of them, I don't even know that it was something people talked about despite having, I think before the acronym was there, people knew that they were totally just pulling it out of their butt, right? Like, Oh,
Unknown Speaker 02:37 this looks like 40 grand the car, right? So
Scott Benner 02:40 I heard it in an elevator, probably for the first time, at a diabetes event, people were going up, and somebody said it, and I might have made a quizzical face, and somebody looked at me and said, scientific, wild ass, guess.
Jennifer Smith, CDE 02:52 Yeah. Is that scientific? Wide ass? Guess? Same thing. Okay, yes. So
Scott Benner 02:57 I have here a list of a real list of ways people say it so. Okay, so we comb through the Facebook group we've seen it as wild ass. Guess, wise arse guess, scientific, wildly amazing, guess, oh, sophisticated, wild ass guess. Seriously wild ass guess. Super wild stuff. We all guess, see what end guess somewhat accurate. Guess that one's kind of good. Yeah, someone called it freestyling. It's like jazz. Someone said, Yeah, shot in the dark. And hope for the best. To me that should go along like listen to it this way, shot in the dark, and hope for the best, scientific wild ass gas. See, yeah, I think if you put them together, it's very lyrical. Now, there's more here, but I went to the internet. It says that in the diabetes community, swag stands for scientific wild ass gas, referring to an estimate of carbohydrate content when precise information isn't available. This term has been used in various fields, including the US military, where it denotes a rough estimate based on experience and intuition. So this is what's going on here. Ah, it's been adapted from something else
Jennifer Smith, CDE 04:15 interesting, yeah. And if, as you asked, kind of where and when I think that I went to diabetes training camp in 2008 and I'm quite sure that's probably the first place that I heard it used like all around people were definitely guessing at, it's a it's a Training Camp exercise wise. So we were totally guessing at well, how do we adjust? How do you adjust for this planned workout? And we are doing it for the meals and everything as well. So if I had to think back, I think that's about where I heard it, which is quite a long time ago. Now. The
Scott Benner 04:55 terms broader use dates back to the 1960s in the United States. Yeah, wow. So somebody used it back then, probably, it says, probably in the military. The origin makes sense, yeah, the origins trace back to the US military in the 1960s and it was employed to describe a rough estimate. So after I Googled it, I then went to chat GPT and asked, and it said that, based on just there's not enough documentation to try to figure out when it was used in the diabetes community, first community, yeah. I mean, I'm sure some of you could dig up some of those old blogs that people wrote and see how far back, but I don't think that's gonna give you a real answer, no. So when you think of someone saying, swag, do you think, please don't do that. Please count the carbs. Or do you do you do it? Oh,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 05:40 absolutely, I do it Okay, absolutely. And I think I think there is a bit of a back to that as well, because I think all estimates in this respect, especially if you are seasoned with diabetes, you're guessing based on historical information, right? Not until I would say that my truest swag is when I have traveled someplace and the food is absolutely foreign to me. I have nothing to go back to guessing from right when we went to Peru years ago, I would 100% I say that I swagged everything that we ate while we hiked the Inca Trail, because the
Speaker 1 06:34 food that was being prepared for us. I don't know what this is. I was like, This is great. I'll eat
Jennifer Smith, CDE 06:39 it. It seems to taste fine. I'm not gonna real, really ask. This looks kind of carby. This looks like protein. We're gonna go with it. Yeah, did that work for you? It did. But I also think the benefit was the active time, right? I mean, just walking and walking and walking and sleeping and walking some more. So I, I think that smoothed out whatever was not the best guess for me.
Scott Benner 07:04 Which way did you guess like, Did you guess light, or did you try to go for it?
Jennifer Smith, CDE 07:08 I did. I guess lighter only because, and I also judged it based on, were we done for the day, or did we have more moving to do, right first thing in the morning? I guess, lighter, more towards the end of the day, getting done, kind of camping in or whatever it was, sort of a I might not need quite as much now, I also didn't, I mean, this was just a baseline pump that I was using. There was no algorithm. Thankfully, I had a CGM. Thankfully it kept working for me. But I did the best that I could
Scott Benner 07:40 I realized while you were talking that I've always just attributed swag to carbs, the way you just described. But as you're sitting here talking, and I'm thinking about diabetes in a broader sense, I think the entirety of diabetes is a swag perhaps. Where should I put my pump? This might work. You know, how does this work? I don't know. Try this. I think that really is, oddly enough that's leveling up with diabetes. When you're willing to say, I think I have enough information here to make a decision that I don't have all of the information for correct you know what I mean? Yeah,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 08:22 absolutely. And some of the stuff you might have some information, you know, like when I talk to people, especially newer pump users, I go through the you should be rotating. You should have a schedule of rotation, or a direction of rotation, right? So that that doesn't become a complete guess. But then when you have a site that didn't work well, or was a bleeder or a gusher or whatever, and then you're like, well, that's supposed to rotate over here, but maybe it won't work now. And then it is completely let's just try this site. I have not used it for a while. Yeah, you know. So it's kind
Scott Benner 08:54 of awesome when you stop and think about it that way, that everything like to really level up again with diabetes, you have to be willing to take your intuition and mix it together with your knowledge and then continue to build and that's probably why so many people's opinions are varied around diabetes, because their experiences built up their knowledge and now their intuition draws on that. Okay, so the whole thing, the scientific Which one do you prefer? By the way,
Jennifer Smith, CDE 09:22 I've always said scientific, wide ass gas. That's what I have always used. But again, I use the word or the acronym, swag. So my brain says wide as gas. You know,
Scott Benner 09:35 on this list here, of like, 1-234-567-8910, 116, that that we called together just from like one post about swagging. Why it's not on it. So I wonder what else is out there that people use that isn't on this list. Other people said. I'm amused by people who did not stick with the acronym. I think of it as accurate guests based on experience with similar foods, nutritional content. Knowledge, guessing for a dose if you don't know the exact carbs, a massive guess to figure out how much insulin to give for food item, pretty much meaning educated guesstimate. So anyway, and
Jennifer Smith, CDE 10:11 I like to go back to the one that said guessing on an amount of insulin based on so I've also done that almost as a swag, because sometimes the amount of food on a plate correlates with something that you know inherently takes a certain amount of insulin, right? Yeah, there's not really a carb count to it. So you might put something into your pump, you might see what the suggested is according to how many carbs you're now estimating only to generate a Bolus, and then off of that, say, no, no, I know I need one unit more. Or no, no, I need a unit less, or whatever it is.
Scott Benner 10:51 Well, actually, I was thinking I swag juice. I mean, in the past, like I'm being like here, and then you feel the juice going down in the in the juice box, and stop, right? How do you know that stuff? It feels like it's enough. We don't use Skittles, but that would be the idea of, like, having a handful of Skittles and just pulling out seven of them. That's a swag. You're like, here, I think these so, all right, yeah, cool. Well, I appreciate you doing this with me. I can't believe we're still finding things to add to this one. This was a great one. Yeah, excellent. Cool. Oh. If you or a loved one was just diagnosed with type one diabetes, and you're looking for some fresh perspective, the bold beginning series from the Juicebox Podcast is a terrific place to start. That series is with myself and Jenny Smith. Jenny is a CD CES, a registered dietitian and a type one for over 35 years, and in the bowl beginnings series, Jenny and I are going to answer the questions that most people have after a type one diabetes diagnosis. The series begins at episode 698, in your podcast player, or you can go to Juicebox podcast.com and click on bold beginnings in the menu. Hey kids, listen up. You've made it to the end of the podcast. You must have enjoyed it. You know what else you might enjoy? The private Facebook group for the Juicebox Podcast. I know you're thinking, uh, Facebook, Scott, please. But no. Beautiful group, wonderful people, a fantastic community Juicebox Podcast. Type one diabetes on Facebook, of course, if you have type two, are you touched by diabetes in any way? You're absolutely welcome. It's a private group, so you'll have to answer a couple of questions before you come in, but make sure you're not a bot or an evildoer. Then you're on your way. You'll be part of the family. I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed or following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. You.
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