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ARE MY MEALS SPREAD APART EAVENLY

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This thread is now closed. Please contact Anna DUK, Ieva DUK or everydayupsanddowns if you would like it re-opened.
mum2westiesGill

mum2westiesGill

Well-Known Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
I personally don’t worry about having my meals evenly spaced. I eat breakfast pretty soon after getting up because it helps stop my Foot On The Floor issue; I eat my lunch usually around 12.30pm but it can be as early as 12 or as late as 2pm on the odd occasion. I try to have my evening meal started by 6pm, but that doesn’t always happen.

The beauty of the basal/bolus regime rather than the two injections a day is that we have far more flexibility in when we eat 🙂
 
Inka said:
I personally don’t worry about having my meals evenly spaced. I eat breakfast pretty soon after getting up because it helps stop my Foot On The Floor issue; I eat my lunch usually around 12.30pm but it can be as early as 12 or as late as 2pm on the odd occasion. I try to have my evening meal started by 6pm, but that doesn’t always happen.

The beauty of the basal/bolus regime rather than the two injections a day is that we have far more flexibility in when we eat 🙂
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I personally prefer not to eat again until my levels have returned to normal which usually amounts to about 4-5 hours apart but I don't overly stress if I have two meals closer together than that. What I'm most interested in is ensuring I don't start snacking again because there's no way I want to gain more weight - hence the desire to eat at more regular hours. I'm absolutely done with the bad old days of having a bulging stomach, struggling to bend over to tie my shoelaces, being out of breath walking upstairs and having to change to progressively bigger trousers. I like eating in moderation now and I'm not really cutting back on anything other than constant c**p snacks and having to settle for reasonable portion sizes - can't believe I used to think it was OK to have nightly meals of things like 2 whole chicken kievs plus a pile of pasta which totally filled my plate.

Interestingly, I'm now finding that by using my Libre, my pre-breakfast insulin doesn't kick in for about an hour after bolussing. I ignore FOTF completely and bolus as normal as soon as I get out of bed, having used the Libre from my bed as soon as my eyes open. I can see FOTF as my levels start to gradually rise but it usually settles quite quickly. Then I can see the levels start to drop and I know it's time to start guzzling like a starving puppy on a pork chop.
It's fascinating to watch this happening in close to real-time.

So glad I don't have to take a morning commute into account now. I'd probably just have to bolus, eat and go and then accept a higher temporary spike than I'd like.
 
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Good point about blood sugar @pm133 I wouldn’t eat if I was above 7ish if it was possible not to. I’d wait until I was in range.

I do snack sometimes but try to limit snacks to around 20g carbs.
 
As you have T1 you can eat when you want to, so long as you match the carbs with insulin, and take account of active insulin.

Having said that I like to try and leave a gap of four hours where possible ( but then the plain chocolate biscuits ‘got out of the fridge’ as I made coffee!!) and try to eat before 7:00 pm in the evenings.
 
Inka said:
Good point about blood sugar @pm133 I wouldn’t eat if I was above 7ish if it was possible not to. I’d wait until I was in range.

I do snack sometimes but try to limit snacks to around 20g carbs.
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What snacks do you find for only 20g of carbs?
 
Cereal bars or flapjack bars usually - yummy! Or maybe an apple (15g) or a couple of digestive biscuits (sometimes chocolate digestives), or if I’m hungry I might have 4 oatcakes with a slice of cheese on each and half a cherry tomato on each. That kind of thing. Greek yoghurt and berries too. Half a mango with a big dollop of Greek yoghurt.

Its not a strict rule so the amount can vary between only 10g or maybe 25g or so for something particularly nice that I fancy.
 
Nature Valley protein bars 12g ish, nuts, ryvita with cheese 7g ish.
 
Inka said:
Cereal bars or flapjack bars usually - yummy! Or maybe an apple (15g) or a couple of digestive biscuits (sometimes chocolate digestives), or if I’m hungry I might have 4 oatcakes with a slice of cheese on each and half a cherry tomato on each. That kind of thing. Greek yoghurt and berries too. Half a mango with a big dollop of Greek yoghurt.

Its not a strict rule so the amount can vary between only 10g or maybe 25g or so for something particularly nice that I fancy.
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Of these I would like the cereal bars that's the Kellogg's rice krispie ones, digestive biscuits plain and chocolate, cheese especially mature cheddar, cherry tomatoes.
Thanks for the ideas though
 
Leadinglights said:
Nature Valley protein bars 12g ish, nuts, ryvita with cheese 7g ish.
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Of these I would just like the cheese - its got to be extra mature cheddar though
 
pm133 said:
I personally prefer not to eat again until my levels have returned to normal which usually amounts to about 4-5 hours apart but I don't overly stress if I have two meals closer together than that. What I'm most interested in is ensuring I don't start snacking again because there's no way I want to gain more weight - hence the desire to eat at more regular hours. I'm absolutely done with the bad old days of having a bulging stomach, struggling to bend over to tie my shoelaces, being out of breath walking upstairs and having to change to progressively bigger trousers. I like eating in moderation now and I'm not really cutting back on anything other than constant c**p snacks and having to settle for reasonable portion sizes - can't believe I used to think it was OK to have nightly meals of things like 2 whole chicken kievs plus a pile of pasta which totally filled my plate.

Interestingly, I'm now finding that by using my Libre, my pre-breakfast insulin doesn't kick in for about an hour after bolussing. I ignore FOTF completely and bolus as normal as soon as I get out of bed, having used the Libre from my bed as soon as my eyes open. I can see FOTF as my levels start to gradually rise but it usually settles quite quickly. Then I can see the levels start to drop and I know it's time to start guzzling like a starving puppy on a pork chop.
It's fascinating to watch this happening in close to real-time.

So glad I don't have to take a morning commute into account now. I'd probably just have to bolus, eat and go and then accept a higher temporary spike than I'd like.
Click to expand...
Now I have been doing this, not eating till levels below 7,wondered if this was a good idea @Inka
 
Ali11782 said:
Now I have been doing this, not eating till levels below 7,wondered if this was a good idea @Inka
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It depends @Ali11782 - partly on convenience as much as anything else eg if you were at work and only had a short lunch break. If I’m at home, test before lunch and I’m, say, 9, I would take a separate correction dose, then wait until that kicked in and my blood sugar was 7ish, then I would take my lunch time bolus.

On the other hand, sometimes I find delaying food just makes things worse, especially at breakfast time. I had a run of bad pump sites and was waking around 13. I’d correct, wait, and I’d only come down to 9 or 10. I’d then spend all morning testing and trying to nudge my blood sugar down and it would still be highest at lunch - which of course messed my lunch up too. One day I was irritated at it, I decided to eat anyway at about 10mmol. Miraculously that got my blood sugar shifting. So for me, the lack of food first thing was hugely contributing to the persistent highs.

Only experience and your own judgement will show you what’s best for you. Ideally you’d wait until you were around 7 to eat, but circumstances might dictate different.
 
Inka said:
On the other hand, sometimes I find delaying food just makes things worse, especially at breakfast time. I had a run of bad pump sites and was waking around 13. I’d correct, wait, and I’d only come down to 9 or 10. I’d then spend all morning testing and trying to nudge my blood sugar down and it would still be highest at lunch - which of course messed my lunch up too. One day I was irritated at it, I decided to eat anyway at about 10mmol. Miraculously that got my blood sugar shifting. So for me, the lack of food first thing was hugely contributing to the persistent highs.
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That's really interesting.
I've been waiting well over 2 hours since my bolus and my levels are stuck at 8.
I'm going to eat now regardless and see what happens.
 
And miraculously, the very threat of eating anyway has persuaded my glucose levels to start dropping.
That was ridiculous. Another hour and my breakfast would be running close to dinner time.

Think I might just eat within 30 minutes of bolussing regardless from now on.
 
For breakfast, I find that usually works best @pm133 . I do try to wait until it’s 10 or below usually but I find if I don’t bolus and eat my blood sugar will mess about for ages, sometimes tricking me by dropping a mmol or two only to go backup again like a bl**dy glucose yo-yo 🙄 Getting the bolus and food in can stop that.
 
Inka said:
On the other hand, sometimes I find delaying food just makes things worse, especially at breakfast time. I had a run of bad pump sites and was waking around 13. I’d correct, wait, and I’d only come down to 9 or 10. I’d then spend all morning testing and trying to nudge my blood sugar down and it would still be highest at lunch - which of course messed my lunch up too. One day I was irritated at it, I decided to eat anyway at about 10mmol. Miraculously that got my blood sugar shifting. So for me, the lack of food first thing was hugely contributing to the persistent highs.
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For me I would need to add the correction to my breakfast bolus and my 1.5 units for DP/FOTF and inject the whole lot together asap and then eat once I got to 6. If you only correct for the initial high reading, that correction is fighting against your FOTF and will be unlikely to make it down to 6 in the first place. The combined larger dose for all 3 aspects of insulin requirement mean that it comes down quicker. If I eat straight away even if I am on 5 I will go up to 15 and then plummet assuming I have given myself the correct amount of insulin to cover everything. MY FOTF happens whether I eat or don't eat, so I inject as soon as I wake up, before I get out of bed and incorporate my 1.5 for it with my bolus. Since you are on a pump, your basal rate is likely already set to account for DP/FOTF anyway I would have thought.
 
My pump is excellent at stopping DP but my FOTF can vary. It’s made worse, as many people’s are, by not eating as soon as I get up. So, if I get up, bolus and eat (after waiting the appropriate amount of time) all’s fine. If I delay breakfast, even with in-range glucose, my blood sugar will rise.

If I get up and eat straightaway, then my FOTF basically is invisible. So I don’t set the pump to cover that because it’s often not needed. The tail of my DP basal increase helps with the normal more mild FOTF, but the additional glucose burst from not eating isn’t something it would cover automatically.

TLDR - eating breakfast soon after getting up minimises my FOTF greatly so I don’t need to set my pump to cover it. When things go wrong/breakfast is late, I use my phone and instruct my pump in real time via the bolus app.
 
Inka said:
For breakfast, I find that usually works best @pm133 . I do try to wait until it’s 10 or below usually but I find if I don’t bolus and eat my blood sugar will mess about for ages, sometimes tricking me by dropping a mmol or two only to go backup again like a bl**dy glucose yo-yo 🙄 Getting the bolus and food in can stop that.
Click to expand...

Good advice there. Thanks.
All that's happened today is that the tail of my spike is elongated because my bolus appears to have run out so waiting 2 and a half hours was a bad idea.
The spike was exactly the same and the increase and initial spike width was the same as normal until my bolus ran out and then the rate of decrease petered out. I might need a unit of correction now.
At least I know something I didn't know before.
 
The dietician’s advice to us was to try to go through a full cycle of insulin between meals (so about 4 hours) partly so you don’t end up stacking insulin and partly so your body gets a ‘rest’ but other than that eat when you’re hungry and bolus accordingly.
 
Thebearcametoo said:
The dietician’s advice to us was to try to go through a full cycle of insulin between meals (so about 4 hours) partly so you don’t end up stacking insulin and partly so your body gets a ‘rest’ but other than that eat when you’re hungry and bolus accordingly.
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Thanks @Thebearcametoo for saying about the dietician's advice on the 4 hour cycle - obviously 'trying' doesn't mean you have to
 
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