Is the carb counting or the rise in blood sugar 2 hours after 1st bite more important?

[pinknitwit]

Hi everyone, I'm quite proud of myself today, I've stayed at 1300 calories and kept under 150g carbs. However I'm hungry right now! I'm about to have some ham and pickled onions as a snack so I won't eat half the kitchen while cooking tea, (the carbs seem low in that so I'm hoping it isn't too bad a snack.

But if my evening meal pushes my blood sugar up over the 3 point increase I have seen mentioned here, dioes that matter more than my daily totals being fairly OK?

Thanks in advance

P

 

[Inka]

It’s the blood sugar that’s most important @pinknitwit Try to keep that in range as much as possible.

 

[pinknitwit]

It’s the blood sugar that’s most important @pinknitwit Try to keep that in range as much as possible.

Thanks. It's helpful to know what to keep top of my list. Breakfast gave a 0.9 rise, lunch a rise of 2 so I've done OK so far I hope. It's nice in one way having the conformation of a finger risk test to let you know it's an OK meal xxx

 

[PerSpinasAdAstra]

The blood glucose readings are definitely the better measure. The point of carb counting is to bring overall blood glucose numbers down, and to get to a point where you know off the top of your head what a given quantity of food will do to your blood glucose levels. Daily carbs are a general goal, while lower blood glucose levels after eating are what you're trying to achieve with that goal.

You might find for example that your body can handle carbs better late in the day than at breakfast, or that your body handles some foods better than others despite having the same amount of carbs. In my case for example I've found that I ideally need to go for a walk after breakfast if I eat much fruit, to bring my blood glucose levels back down quickly. The same amount of fruit in the evening has a much smaller effect for me. Something about eating on an empty stomach, or the hormones in my body early in the morning, means I have to be more careful of fruit at breakfast. However, the same amount of carbs in the form of pistachio nuts does hardly anything to my blood glucose, at any time of day, perhaps because they are digested more slowly.

Testing your blood before and 2 hours after eating will help you learn what foods are best for you and when.

 

[pinknitwit]

The blood glucose readings are definitely the better measure. The point of carb counting is to bring overall blood glucose numbers down, and to get to a point where you know off the top of your head what a given quantity of food will do to your blood glucose levels. Daily carbs are a general goal, while lower blood glucose levels after eating are what you're trying to achieve with that goal.

You might find for example that your body can handle carbs better late in the day than at breakfast, or that your body handles some foods better than others despite having the same amount of carbs. In my case for example I've found that I ideally need to go for a walk after breakfast if I eat much fruit, to bring my blood glucose levels back down quickly. The same amount of fruit in the evening has a much smaller effect for me. Something about eating on an empty stomach, or the hormones in my body early in the morning, means I have to be more careful of fruit at breakfast. However, the same amount of carbs in the form of pistachio nuts does hardly anything to my blood glucose, at any time of day, perhaps because they are digested more slowly.

Testing your blood before and 2 hours after eating will help you learn what foods are best for you and when.

Thanks. Yes this makes sense a co worker told me her dad was told not to est bananas but I had a cheese sandwich and a banana fir my lunch and my BG only went up by 1.9 which I thought was pretty good for an easy to take to work , filling lunch. I'm guessing because im walking a lot in my job and ive ditched the crisps and coke that i'd previously have with it my pancreas could handle it x

 

[Lucyr]

Knowing how many carbs you’ve eaten and comparing that figure to an arbitrary limit you’ve set doesn’t in any way improve your blood sugars. Your blood sugars will do whatever they’re going to do in response to your day as a whole as well as the food you eat, and you knowing the carbs or not won’t change that.

The more important thing is that most of the time your blood sugar is coming down to the target range. Even then, that’s like 80% of the time you’re aiming for not 100% of the time

 

[Drummer]

@pinknitwit I thought it was the same thing - if I eat more carbs then my blood glucose goes higher.
I sorted my intake of carbs, removing high carb foods made it easier, then I worked out how much of what foods to eat, saw my levels go below 8mmol/l after meals, kept to those meals and saw blood glucose levels continue to fall. Very quickly I was back into normal numbers all the time and had lost quite a bit of weight as well.