Any of my three exes can verify that I am a shape-shifter.
Coffee (no sugar!) with my pals – © LYON 202
That I am a secret character in Marvel Comics called Ice Foot. That the second any part of my feet touched them as we laid together in bed, they’d feel the chill of ten thousand years run up their bodies until their brains froze.
Well, that’s what they said anyway.
There is a weird hack that can help, if that’s you, too.
If you are a diabetic, pre-diabetic, or insulin resistant, you know what I’m talking about.
Or, if you don’t think you are any of those, but your feet still turn into ice at night.
(Hate to tellya – if you don’t think you’re any of those but your feet get cold, you are wrong. You are at least borderline insulin resistant, if not full-blown diabetic and in total denial.*)
(And, if you don’t know what insulin resistance is, google it, and be prepared to be shocked at how your body turns the simplest system of elimination into an agonizing torture that lasts into the wee hours of dawn. I’ll write another post about that.)
Here’s why.
See, when you eat too many carbs or too much sweet stuff, your body produces too much insulin, and for some odd reason, your cells can’t absorb it. So at night when you are finally at rest, your body says, OK, gang, let’s get that extra stuff outta here.
So now you find that you have to get up to pee at least forty damn times. At least once an hour, like clock work. Or even more often. Until at last as dawn nears and the excess is gone, you suddenly have to peel off the extra 50 blankets (that really didn’t help at all) because your feet have now become BBQ coals.
And you get leg cramps that make your feet and legs into screaming pretzels of pain. You can’t walk, you can’t massage it away. All you can do is wait for it to stop. And practice not grinding your teeth to nubs, and not-screaming because neighbors.
Well, until you do the things I do.
First, get some magnesium foam on amazon. It works. Or at least drink a bunch of water, and if you have any, take some magnesium. That helps the cramps.
Now for the feet – here’s how I lost my Marvel Comics status:
In the 1950s, my amazing aunt used to go down to Guatemala and hang out with the indigenous people there. She’d spend a lot of time painting the local flora. She brought back loads of watercolors, which she eventually made into a book.
Something she said about her visits there stopped me in my tracks. ”They slept completely in the nude, except for a thin cord of yarn tied around their waist. When I asked about it, they said it was to keep them warm.”
I remember thinking how crazy that sounded – a thin piece of string keeping them warm? Had they never thought of blankets? Hmm. Maybe not, being as it was a tropical setting . . .
So out of the blue one night not too long ago, as I was sliding into bed in my birthday suit, I remembered that story.
I didn’t have any string, but I did have the tee shirt I’d just removed.
Out of curiosity, I casually draped it over my mid-section, front to back, got horizontal, and went to sleep.
I swear to you, my feet didn’t get cold that night. Nor any other night since, because I still do the draping-of-the-tee. I suppose any cloth would do, but I like the feel of a tee shirt.
I do still get up to pee if I have had sweet anything past 3pm the previous day, but not as often as I did. And I sleep better.
That’s it. That’s the weird hack that keeps my feet nice and warm. Try it and see if it works for you. It has nothing to do with insulin resistance, other than that’s why my feet got cold.
In the kind-time …
Stop the sugars and sweets and sodas and soft drinks and carby foods – they are killing you.
You don’t have to feel deprived! I drink mostly water, but also have coffee, herbal teas, and broth. I adore broth. It’s filling and thirst-quenching, and a whole lot better for me than sodas – which I never liked anyway!
I’ll write another post soon, about insulin resistance and all the things I have discovered that help me feel better in this meat-bag I walk around in.
All the things I do to avoid:
blurry vision
increased hunger
feet and hands tingling
skin tags (I got rid of mine!)
skin darkening on neck, legs and feet
major thirst
excess peeing
feeling wiped out
brain fog
Until then – try the drapey-tee thing!
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COFFEE WITH MY PALS
© Angela Treat Lyon 2026