Counting Carbs

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Pam123

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
Sorry in advance if this is a silly question but when you read labels that show carbs and sugar how do you calculate what the sugar is if that makes sense
 
I think you’re on insulin @Pam123 ? You just look at the total number of carbs for the portion you’re about to eat. What insulin are you on?
 
Inka said:
I think you’re on insulin @Pam123 ? You just look at the total number of carbs for the portion you’re about to eat. What insulin are you on?
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I have Lantus just once a day in the morning started on 12 units now after 6 months ive slowly increased it to 30 units thats been about a month now,
 
‘Of which sugars’ can be helpful in giving you an idea of how quickly something might be absorbed by the digestive system, but can be a little misleading because a) absorption speed can vary quite a lot from person to person and b) it doesn’t give you the whole picture, eg an item with lots of both sugar and fat might absorb slower than you expect, while something with low sucrose (table sugar) but highly processed grains, eg many breakfast cereals, might hit your bloodstream much quicker than you’d have thought because it is labelled whole grain and high fibre, but your gut ignores that and just gets to work swiftly on the mashed up grains

Concentrating on the total carbohydrate content gives you a more reliable indication of how much a food or meal is likely to raise your glucose levels.
 
Yes, fibre doesn't seem to slow my digestion down much at all. Fat does
 
Pam123 said:
I have Lantus just once a day in the morning started on 12 units now after 6 months ive slowly increased it to 30 units thats been about a month now,
Click to expand...

I thought it might be Lantus but wasn’t sure. In that case, you’re counting the carbs to make sure you have roughly the same carbs for each meal each day, eg if you decided to have quiche for lunch instead of a sandwich, you’d want to check the carbs to ensure they were roughly the same and add/remove food as necessary.
 
everydayupsanddowns said:
‘Of which sugars’ can be helpful in giving you an idea of how quickly something might be absorbed by the digestive system, but can be a little misleading because a) absorption speed can vary quite a lot from person to person and b) it doesn’t give you the whole picture, eg an item with lots of both sugar and fat might absorb slower than you expect, while something with low sucrose (table sugar) but highly processed grains, eg many breakfast cereals, might hit your bloodstream much quicker than you’d have thought because it is labelled whole grain and high fibre, but your gut ignores that and just gets to work swiftly on the mashed up grains

Concentrating on the total carbohydrate content gives you a more reliable indication of how much a food or meal is likely to raise your glucose levels.
Click to expand...
what i have noticed is if i have a sandwich for lunch it is normally salad with cheese or maybe lean home cooked ham, i tend to not eat the crusts because most of the time my BS has shot up from 6 ish before eating and then nothing seams to change until 2 hours laster and it has shot up to as much as 15, but recently its doesn't seem to happen all the time. i can monitor it as i have Libre 2, i have checked it with a finger prick and it is mostly the same.
 
Inka said:
I thought it might be Lantus but wasn’t sure. In that case, you’re counting the carbs to make sure you have roughly the same carbs for each meal each day, eg if you decided to have quiche for lunch instead of a sandwich, you’d want to check the carbs to ensure they were roughly the same and add/remove food as necessary.
Click to expand...
thanks i will do that, i haven't doing that up to now .
 
It depends....you need food that your body/ insulin can deal with.
If you are just on a basal then slow digesting foods, with a low gi, will cause a lower and longer rise. Whereas if you are on meal time insulin a very slow to digest food could mean you go low before the foods hit your blood stream.

If you are just on basal insulin then, yes, low gi/ slow to digest food is probably good.
The less processed a food is, normally, the lower gi, so i would expect raw carrot would hardly show a rise, cooked carrot more of a rise, and liquidised, eg as a smoothie, could give more of a rise.
An apple causes a reasonablr rise, but fruit juice is rocket fuel to blood sugars
Fat slows the rise, as does protein to a lesser extents, and fibre too.
Let your blood sugar monitor guide you to what your body does
 
Tdm said:
It depends....you need food that your body/ insulin can deal with.
If you are just on a basal then slow digesting foods, with a low gi, will cause a lower and longer rise. Whereas if you are on meal time insulin a very slow to digest food could mean you go low before the foods hit your blood stream.

If you are just on basal insulin then, yes, low gi/ slow to digest food is probably good.
The less processed a food is, normally, the lower gi, so i would expect raw carrot would hardly show a rise, cooked carrot more of a rise, and liquidised, eg as a smoothie, could give more of a rise.
An apple causes a reasonablr rise, but fruit juice is rocket fuel to blood sugars
Fat slows the rise, as does protein to a lesser extents, and fibre too.
Let your blood sugar monitor guide you to what your body does
Click to expand...
Thank you that is really helpful
 
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