Felt faint this and Friday morning after exercising and having breakfast - What should I do next?

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PDaveAngel

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Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
I am feeling faint if I eat after exercising like am floating these days and this lasts until the afternoon sometimes, but I ate a banana this morning and feel a bit better. Tell me what should I be doing?

I weigh 63.7 Kgs taken in the morning, gone down from 68 a months ago, bike exercising Monday to Saturday for an hour or more: Do approx. 6000 steps a day
Height: 170cm
Age:52
Diet
Weekdays:
Breakfast: Porridge for weekdays, bread, cheese and tea for weekends
Small lunch: bread & soup or whatever is around
Larger dinner:
Wednesday: cheese sandwich with salad, tomatoes, apple slices
Thursday: Wholemeal pasta with vegetables and pasta sauce
Friday: Have a pizza or wrap with salsa and cheese
Saturday: Chips & wraps - only potato I have
Sunday: vege Burgers
 
Welcome to the forum, @PDaveAngel
I am not clear if you have diabetes +if so, what type) or if you are at risk or diabetes or if you are asking whether diabetes may be the cause of your faint feelings.

It would also be useful to understand what type and intensity of exercise you are doing.

For example, my partner definitely does not have diabetes (he tests his levels occasionally just out of interest because I have a meter). When he cycles he really goes for it for an hour. He can then feel nauseous and wobbly. This is due to "bonking" and completely unrelated to diabetes.
 
I don't know about the feeling faint part, but I can see your diet has a lot of carbs - bread, pasta, pizza, chips, porridge - perhaps you need to re-look at your diet and lower the carbs, they will make you BG too high.
 
What was your HbA1C when you were diagnosed @PDaveAngel and are you testing your blood sugar at home? If not, it would be a good idea to do so.

Simple answer but perhaps you’re just exercising too intensely?
 
PDaveAngel said:
I am feeling faint if I eat after exercising like am floating these days and this lasts until the afternoon sometimes, but I ate a banana this morning and feel a bit better. Tell me what should I be doing?

I weigh 63.7 Kgs taken in the morning, gone down from 68 a months ago, bike exercising Monday to Saturday for an hour or more: Do approx. 6000 steps a day
Height: 170cm
Age:52
Diet
Weekdays:
Breakfast: Porridge for weekdays, bread, cheese and tea for weekends
Small lunch: bread & soup or whatever is around
Larger dinner:
Wednesday: cheese sandwich with salad, tomatoes, apple slices
Thursday: Wholemeal pasta with vegetables and pasta sauce
Friday: Have a pizza or wrap with salsa and cheese
Saturday: Chips & wraps - only potato I have
Sunday: vege Burgers
Click to expand...
You do not say how long you have been diagnosed or what your HbA1C is, which is information which will help people comment.
The things you are having suggest you are veggie but the thing that is noticeable is your diet is pretty high in carbohydrates, bread, pasta, pizza, wraps, chips and some veggie burgers are all high carb foods.
If you are not eating before you exercise then your body will release glucose from the liver to meet the energy requirement and then you are having high carb food adding to the high glucose levels.
There are many lower carb veggie meals you could have.
It would also be worth you getting a blood glucose monitor which you will have to self fund but inexpensive ones are available on line The GlucoNavil being the one with the cheapest strips which you only use once so you can test the effect your melas are having by testing before you eat and after 2 hours. You would want to aim at no more than 2-3mmol/l increase or not more than 8.5mmol/l
 
Hi, I have exactly the same feelings, takes me till way after lunch time to feel human. Spaced out etc. I put this down to morning insulin resistance, my profile is type 1 but I have characteristics of both. I have fasting sugars now down to about 5 but I’m at 10 an hour later with no food, if I eat it can be much higher so I usually have a bite of a low carb peanut bar to stop the sugar dump from my liver and eat a little later. Porridge will be sending you so pretty high I would imagine. Maybe try some low carb alternatives for breakfast. Greek yogurt and berries maybe, you can also get low carb granola to sprinkle on top. My DN is forever telling me to eat porridge and I can’t eat even 1/4 of a bowl without being in the teens !
 
Thanks
Diet
Think I need to rethink my diet and my exercising...
And Christmas is coming

Breakfast cereals

Find out the nutritional values of your favourite cereals, to help you make an informed choice on your healthy breakfast for diabetes.
www.diabetes.org.uk www.diabetes.org.uk

10 tips for healthy eating with diabetes

What 'diabetes diet' should you really be following? Try out these tips for healthy eating, from choosing smarter snacks to eating more fruit and veg.
www.diabetes.org.uk www.diabetes.org.uk

There is so much about dieting on the Internet on diabetes
I suppose I want a simple diet to follow...
Should I eat porridge?
Shouldn't I?
I suppose the answer is it depends on my body.
Thank you all for helping me lots and lots
 
PDaveAngel said:
I was diagnosed around September
What is HbA1C?
Click to expand...

The HbA1C blood test would have been what diagnosed you with diabetes. You should have been told a number. If you can access this information, it will guide you because you’ll be able to see where you are in the ‘diabetes zone’ - eg are you just over the line into diabetes (in which case some small changes might be the answer) or are you well into the diabetes zone (in which case you might need to look to make more radical changes).
 
PDaveAngel said:
Is feeling faint and spaced out a hypo?
Click to expand...

No, a hypo is very low blood sugar - hypoglycaemia. Your feelings might be low sugar or it might be high sugar or it might be something else. You won’t know unless you test. That’s why getting a meter is a good idea. It will also enable you to work towards lowering your HbA1C.
 
Just to add that hypos are uncommon unless a person is on certain medications eg insulin.
 
PDaveAngel said:
There is so much about dieting on the Internet on diabetes
I suppose I want a simple diet to follow...
Should I eat porridge?
Shouldn't I?
I suppose the answer is it depends on my body.
Thank you all for helping me lots and lots
Click to expand...
Hi.

This is why we strongly recommend that people get themselves a Blood Glucose meter kit and test before and then 2 hours after a meal to see how their own body responded to the food they ate, because it can vary significantly from one person to another. For instance, some on this forum who control their diabetes through diet may be able to get away with a small portion or porridge or a couple of slices of wholemeal bread whilst others can't. Portion control is also really important. So you might get away with 40g porridge oats made into porridge but not 50g. Or one slice of bread but not 2..... or maybe porridge will be your nemesis and is best avoided and find something else for breakfast that you enjoy but is lower carb.

A basic BG test kit costs about £15 but you will need lots of extra test strips, particularly when you are first starting to work out what your body will tolerate and what it won't. For that reason, the two meters which are most often recommended for reliability and economy of use because the test strips for them are much cheaper than many others, are the Gluco Navii and the Spirit Healthcare Tee2. You can then start keeping a food diary along with your readings and a rough record of portion size of the main carbohydrate components of the meal and you will soon start to build a picture of which carbs are not a good choice for you and which you body copes with or in what portion size. It sounds quite complicated and intensive but it soon becomes second nature and is really helpful in seeing the foods which send your BG into orbit and that makes it easier to avoid them when you can see what they do to you.

It would be helpful if you could tell us what if any medication you have been given to treat your diabetes as that can have an impact on the dietary advice we offer and if your can find out the result of your HbA1c blood test, that gives us an idea of where on the diabetes scale you are. You can ring your GP surgery and ask for the information (it will usually be a number in excess of 47 if you have an actual diagnosis)

I would also recommend that you switch to lower intensity exercise at least until you know what your BG levels are like. Exercising herd when your BG levels are very high puts your body under stain and maybe why you are experiencing problems. A brisk daily walk is a much better alternative or steady cycling if you are using your exercise bike. Something which gets your heart pumping a bit faster and you breathing a bit more deeply but not gasping for breath and feeling the muscle burn.

It sounds like you are already quite slim and fit and I wonder how easily that weight has dropped off you and also if you could tell us a bit about how your diagnosis came about ie was it highlighted by a routine blood test or were you symptomatic?

The more information you can give us the better idea we have of what is going on, but getting a BG test meter can be really useful particularly to know what is going on when you are feeling unwell after exercise, so if you get one, do use it at those times as well.
 
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