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Type 1 skipping breakfast?

M

MollyBolt

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I am a fairly recently diagnosed type 1. I had a fasting blood test today and so didn’t end up having breakfast. I have found that lots of the problems I usually have of going low during the morning disappeared and I have basically had a delightful day, reminiscent of pre-type 1 diabetes. I am musing on whether I should always skip breakfast…google seems to think this is a bad idea so I would appreciate thoughts. It’s less the stress of injecting, waiting and eating and more that on a normal day I’ll find myself fluctuating as a result of walking (even if only upstairs) etc. But today nothing. I didn’t love not eating but the joy of less stress is hard to resist.
 
If it works for you then go for it! I’m sure there are lots of reasons that I shouldn’t be encouraging you to miss meals, but if you are eating enough overall and not having any problems otherwise then it’s entirely up to you. My daughter has rather a complicated medical history besides type 1, she never eats breakfast and sometimes doesn’t eat lunch either; I’ve given up arguing with her about it and as long as I make sure that she has a decent dinner and she isn’t getting thin, I’m not going to worry about it.
* Edit * - her diabetes is pretty well controlled too, I’d be more concerned about her eating habits if it wasn’t!
 
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I hardly ever eat breakfast. Only on days I am going out for lunch because I normally take a pill with lunch and don't want to take the pill with me. Then I just have a small piece of toast and I'm almost guaranteed to spike too high despite bolussing ahead.
 
I’m going against the grain here as I’d say breakfast is an important meal and another chance to get some nutrients in. If you think about it @MollyBolt , if we didn’t eat lunch and evening meal either, it might be ‘easier’, but to my mind Type 1 is about fitting the diabetes into your life, not amending your life to suit it.
 
Like my breakfast as it sets you up for day ahead, completely opposite to yourself @MollyBolt but find meal keeps my bg steady so less likely to rise due to liver dump, which can be unpredictable.

If on basal bolus then you can skip meals if it vest suits, so try it for a while to see how you get on.
 
I am going to sit on the fence with caveats.
There is no “one size fits all for Type 1 diabetes” and, if you find it easier without breakfast, there is no more reason to have breakfast than if you didn’t have diabetes.
However,

Here come the caveats
  • Don’t judge your body on one day and don’t draw conclusions. The lack of breakfast may be the reason for better BG today or, with so many things that can affect our BG, it maybe something else like less or more exercise yesterday or a better night’s sleep or the wrong insulin to carb ratio for breakfast.
  • Despite following the paradigm of “diabetes does not control me”, I find my BG continues to rise until I have eaten and I am not alone. I do not have a scientific proof but it is as if my liver keeps dumping glucose for foot on the floor until I show it that I am not starving myself. This may not be the case for you but something to keep an eye on if you decide to miss breakfast every day.
 
Inka said:
I’m going against the grain here as I’d say breakfast is an important meal and another chance to get some nutrients in. If you think about it @MollyBolt , if we didn’t eat lunch and evening meal either, it might be ‘easier’, but to my mind Type 1 is about fitting the diabetes into your life, not amending your life to suit it.
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As we often say, we are all individual. I eat 2 good meals prepared from scratch, containing lots of vegetables and protein, plus fruit. So from that point of view I don't feel I am missing anything nutritionally and I'm generally not hungry in the morning. Except when I'm on holiday!
 
PattiEvans said:
As we often say, we are all individual. I eat 2 good meals prepared from scratch, containing lots of vegetables and protein, plus fruit. So from that point of view I don't feel I am missing anything nutritionally and I'm generally not hungry in the morning. Except when I'm on holiday!
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If you have time to prepare two good meals, then that’s great. My meals are as good as I can make them, but, being busy, I wouldn’t say any of them were perfect and sometimes I’m in a rush, so three meals gives me a chance to fit the nutrition in. I also find my body needs carbs in the morning else it just pumps out glucose. I have a high metabolism so three meals gives me a better chance to fit the calories in.
 
Well, of course I am retired and do have more time. However there are only two of us and most meals can be prepared for 4 or 6 and I freeze a lot of stuff so on days I am busy I can take something out of the freezer. I've always done it and I enjoy cooking, so that's another advantage. I do know what it's like though to hold down a job and have to ensure there's something on the table for the family. However, as I said earlier, we're all different and if eating breakfast suits you then go for it.

I was only saying to the OP much the same thing, if it suits you then don't worry about it.
 
Yes, freezing portions of larger meals is a massive help. I do that too. I think what I’m trying to say is that missing breakfast because of the diabetes is a bit different than someone, diabetic or not, choosing to skip it. I also think that a diabetes diagnosis messes with people’s relationship to food and suddenly it becomes the enemy. In general, it’s not a good place to go to mentally.

I also like breakfast foods like cereal, croissants, etc etc, so that’s part of it. Yes, I could eat breakfast foods at lunch, but then I’d have to miss my favourite lunch things :D
 
Ah, I hate cereals and can take or leave croissants. But love a cooked brekkie. I see what you're saying, that diabetes can mess up your relationship with food.
 
I do apologise to @MollyBolt we seem to have got off-track. Effectively what you have done by fasting is an inadvertant basal test (see attached) and you have discovered that your basal insulin is holding you steady during the morning period. Therefore the fluctuations you experience are likely to be from the bolus insulin you inject for your breakfast. Are you using a standard 1u to 10g carb ratio? In which case if you are going low after breakfast you may need a different ratio which would allow you a more stable post-prandial journey, e.g. you could change it conservatively to 1u insulin for 12g carb and see what happens. Tweak again as necessary.
 

Attachments

I found the chat above super interesting - thanks so much all.

So what happens when I eat breakfast is that if it's a weekday I end up going a bit high and then plummeting mid morning. If it's a weekend, I often go to yoga shortly afterwards, and then I go a bit high and immediately plummet and have to eat something during class. Do you think that this means that I've got the ratio wrong (yes I use 1u to 10g)? I can be a bit patchy around waiting sufficient time after injecting (at lunchtime I only need to wait 15 mins but it's longer in the mornings). I would love to find a way to fix the yoga plummeting experience particularly (since I am sure that I'm not going to skip breakfast at weekends since it's my favourite meal then - weekdays are more workaday options).

The joy (second day of doing it) of not eating till lunchtime is that I've just flat-lined the whole day, notwithstanding walking for about 40 mins and doing mildly stressful things. The sorrow is that I'm quite peckish.

I think what I am mainly taking from this conversation is (1) that I can experiment with skipping breakfast and if it works for me then so be it but (2) it's worth thinking about how my mental health is affecting the choices I'm making and (3) maybe I should do more experimenting with my carb to u ratio.
 
It sounds like your basal is good as you’ve stayed flat. As you’re recently diagnosed you may be in the honeymoon phase where things can be a bit unpredictable if your body decides to produce some insulin as well as what you’re injecting so be prepared for things to change. The breakfast problem sounds to be a timing issue as much as anything. Depending on what you’re eating and how well the profile of the insulin matches the absorption of carbs you can end up with highs and lows. If you can tell us what you eat, when you bolus and which insulin you’re on then we may be able to help with timings. For yoga have a snack before you go in without insulin.
 
MollyBolt said:
I think what I am mainly taking from this conversation is (1) that I can experiment with skipping breakfast and if it works for me then so be it but (2) it's worth thinking about how my mental health is affecting the choices I'm making and (3) maybe I should do more experimenting with my carb to u ratio.
Click to expand...
Glad you've got something out of the discussion, it's interesting to know different people's views. Quite a lot of people have a different ratio at breakfast time. I'm more insulin resistant in the mornings and have a ratio of 1:8 for breakfast.
 
My thoughts on it are that breakfast is often the trickiest meal of the day, but that doesn't mean you have to skip it to get good results, you just have to do more experimentation, to figure out a better strategy.
As others have said, it sounds like your basal is pretty well spot on, so it is your breakfast bolus, when you inject it and perhaps the type of breakfast you eat which needs a bit of focus. There is no reason for you to go hungry and that is something I feel you should not compromise for your diabetes.

Do you reduce your bolus on the days when you will be doing exercise after breakfast ie. yoga or whatever. Doing exercise with active bolus insulin in your system will cause it to be more effective and many people find they need to reduce their bolus for the meal before exercise, particularly if they will be doing that exercise within the next 2 hours when the insulin is most active. It also depends on the type of exercise you do. If it is relaxing or steady exercise then it will usually lower levels and make your insulin dose more effective and if it is exercise which stresses your body then it will often make your levels rise. For exercise that drops your levels you can try a 10 or 20% reduction in the bolus, see how that goes a few times and then adjust again if necessary. Try to only change one thing at once and repeat a few times to assess the response before you change it again or try something different.

Add to that, some breakfast foods hit the blood stream faster than others and it isn't always the ones you expect. Porridge for instance, which has a slow release reputation, hits my blood stream like rocket fuel about 20 mins after eating and my Fiasp can't keep pace, but creamy Greek yoghurt with berries and seeds and a sprinkle of nutty granola works great. Obviously low carb foods will release less glucose and more slowly so maybe have eggs for breakfast like an omelette instead of cereal/toast or scrambled eggs with mushrooms and ham and tomatoes. It only takes a couple of minutes in the microwave.

It all just needs a bit more thought and experimentation, but please don't feel that you have to go without to keep your diabetes in check.
 
So during the week I used to have museli and skimmed milk and would have 6u of NovoRapid. At weekends when I am going to yoga I have porridge, yoghurt and plums (with no added sugar) with 6u of NovoRapid - this is less than it would be usually but I'd already reduced the amount of insulin to accomodate the mild exercise. What do you reckon I should do?
 
I really can't make any judgement or suggestion from that info. You are not saying what your carb ratio is or how big the portions are ie.number of carbs and how long you prebiolus and how fast your levels rise with those breakfast options or by how much % wise, you reduce the bolus for exercise. You have to try different things, see what works or improves things a little and then adjust again until it works enough.

Maybe try having a very low carb breakfast as I suggested above with no insulin before exercise and see how that works. Not eating is not the answer unless you simply don't feel hungry or don't want to eat, but it doesn't sound like that, so you have to figure out a menu that you enjoy that doesn't spike your levels and doesn't need much/any insulin so that it doesn't cause you to plummet during or after exercise.

I used to just grab a Nature Valley Protein Bar for breakfast some days if I was going to be busy, which is near enough 10g carbs but quite filling and easy to "grab and go". 10g carbs is likely only going to raise your levels by about 3mmols without any insulin. If you start/wake on 7mmols or below, it should not take you much above 10mmols if at all and you can then see if your Yoga brings it down again without any insulin or the risk of dropping you too low and you are not going hungry. Personally I don't buy them any more as I am trying to eat less processed foods, but they were a useful option for me whilst I was experimenting with what I needed for different circumstances and being just 10g carbs I found that quite handy to assess how much insulin I might or might not need.
 
MollyBolt said:
I found the chat above super interesting - thanks so much all.

So what happens when I eat breakfast is that if it's a weekday I end up going a bit high and then plummeting mid morning. If it's a weekend, I often go to yoga shortly afterwards, and then I go a bit high and immediately plummet and have to eat something during class. Do you think that this means that I've got the ratio wrong (yes I use 1u to 10g)? I can be a bit patchy around waiting sufficient time after injecting (at lunchtime I only need to wait 15 mins but it's longer in the mornings). I would love to find a way to fix the yoga plummeting experience particularly (since I am sure that I'm not going to skip breakfast at weekends since it's my favourite meal then - weekdays are more workaday options).

The joy (second day of doing it) of not eating till lunchtime is that I've just flat-lined the whole day, notwithstanding walking for about 40 mins and doing mildly stressful things. The sorrow is that I'm quite peckish.

I think what I am mainly taking from this conversation is (1) that I can experiment with skipping breakfast and if it works for me then so be it but (2) it's worth thinking about how my mental health is affecting the choices I'm making and (3) maybe I should do more experimenting with my carb to u ratio.
Click to expand...

There might be more than one thing going on @MollyBolt Firstly, if you’re not injecting sufficiently in advance, you might be spiking higher than you would with better injection timing. If you get the timing right, you might also be able to reduce your insulin slightly and avoid the later lows.

However, it’s not unlikely that’s big part of this is the honeymoon period, where your own insulin is kicking in too late and sometimes too much. That could help explain your lows. If so, the best thing I found to do was to have a small snack mid-morning or whenever needed to ameliorate the drop.
 
Super helpful - and sorry to be unclear in my message. So the museli comes in at just over 60g of carbs. I try and inject 30 mins beforehand, but it's very haphazard I am afraid because my work start time varies quite considerably. The porridge plus yoghurt plus plums is actually 50g of carbs but there's something weird about porridge and it always sends me higher. (I keep musing I should switch away, but also it is a weekend treat.) I usually manage it to be more like 30 mins ahead of time given I'm not working.

The trouble is that the moment I eat anything at all I seem to activate something which then means my BG starts moving around when I am active. One of my problems is that I work in three different buildings (in the same day) and moving from one to the other when I've eaten food means my BG fluctuates, but it didn't yesterday when I skipped (which as I say felt magical). But interested in the idea of going almost no carb for breakfast as @rebrascora suggested with the eggs etc. One to experiment with.
 
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