Diagnosed in June. HB1AC 89. Had been to GP due to strange feelings in toes. Have shed some weight, 102kg to 84 kg (6’4”tall). Was due blood test Friday to assess progress but tested positive for Covid on Thursday. Have been very low carb since diagnosis so hoping for positive progress.
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Hello
- Thread starter effayjay
- Start date
stephenS50
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- Relationship to Diabetes
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Leadinglights
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- Type 2
If you are following a low carb approach you may find some ideas in this link. https://lowcarbfreshwell.com/
Well done on your weight loss, the trick now is to find a regime that is sustainable to maintain that./
Can I ask a couple of naive questions about testing?
I have bought a Gluco Navii BG monitor but have not used it as yet. I have read a lot on here about testing but a couple of things are troubling me…
1. Have read about morning testing but also about a phenomenon that affects this. So why bother?
2. Understand testing before eating and then again 2 hours after first bite, to see the effect of the meal on BG. Most meals however have a few components. How do you know which one has caused the spike?
How often, and for how long, do you need to do this to get a good understanding of how your body is reacting?
My diabetes nurse told me not to bother with it, but I’m getting the feeling that she may be wrong.
I have bought a Gluco Navii BG monitor but have not used it as yet. I have read a lot on here about testing but a couple of things are troubling me…
1. Have read about morning testing but also about a phenomenon that affects this. So why bother?
2. Understand testing before eating and then again 2 hours after first bite, to see the effect of the meal on BG. Most meals however have a few components. How do you know which one has caused the spike?
How often, and for how long, do you need to do this to get a good understanding of how your body is reacting?
My diabetes nurse told me not to bother with it, but I’m getting the feeling that she may be wrong.
I have only been doing this for 6 weeks and I test in the mornings (Walk down Stairs and test) I am doing this to see my numbers come down. I try not to worry about the odd elevate reading (it could be me or the test strip) I am looking for my weekly average to drop.
When I retest in Nov I can see how my total average for 12 weeks relates to my HbA1c.
I have done a couple of double tests to see how I am reacting to food and found I was OK/
When I retest in Nov I can see how my total average for 12 weeks relates to my HbA1c.
I have done a couple of double tests to see how I am reacting to food and found I was OK/
Docb
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- Type 2
Really good questions.
This is my take on it as somebody who has spent too much of their life measuring stuff and then trying to make sense of the readings.
I do not pretend to understand what goes on with blood glucose but I do know that lots of things will affect the readings you get from a meter. Some things such as what medication you take and what you, eat you have a bit of control over but there are loads of things that happen automatically which you have little or no control over.
The point about the waking reading is that it is going to be the reading that is least affected by what you have eaten - provided you don't snack through the night. Because of this it provides a reference point. It is not going to be constant because of all the other things going on, one of which is that the body naturally dumps stored glucose in the blood on waking. Quite what this will do to the blood glucose level will vary from person to person and from day to day. To get anything from waking readings you need to take them for at least a few weeks. It is then good if you can plot them on a graph. What you will see is a very wiggly graph but you can see if generally, it is about the same, going down or going up. If you have a high HbA1c and are doing things to get it down then you might expect to see a downward trend in your waking reading. It might take a lot of readings to see it.
One of the big things that affects blood glucose levels is what you eat, in particular the carbohydrate content. Trouble is that different people react differently to different carbohydrates. Although you can make some general assumptions, checking blood glucose before and after eating is probably the best way of finding out how your system reacts to particular food stuffs. It is not an exact science so again you need to look at trends and not to focus on individual results. My suggestion is that you monitor before and after meals for a week or so, noting what you have eaten at each meal. Then look for trends. In particular look for times when the post meal rise is particularly high and see if there are any common food stuffs.
Your diabetes nurse has a point. Taking a few blood glucose reading here and there is not going to tell you much.
You also have a point. Taking blood glucose readings against a plan can be a very powerful tool for adjusting your diet as a means for bringing your blood glucose down.
How long and how many tests?
I confess to being a bit of a data nerd and now have a database with 5000 odd readings taken over the last five years. I can manipulate it to see the effects of diet changes, effect of medication changes, need for medication changes and can predict with some precision the results of HbA1c tests.
Others have tended to do quite a lot of testing to start with and when they have got a good handle on things have cut drastically back on testing.
The answer to your question depends very much on you and what you want to achieve but will only be worthwhile if have a plan and stick to it. A few tests here and there will be of little value.
Hope that helps.
rebrascora
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My body has a tendency to wait until I get out of bed before my liver starts to dump glucose into my blood stream (sometimes referred to as Foot on the Floor (FOTF)Syndrome), so I find it helpful to test as soon as I wake up and before I get out of bed as that gives me a consistent starting point for my daily levels even if I wake up at 6am one morning and 9am another.
Some people find that their body starts to release glucose as soon as it starts to get light, which might be before they wake up in the summer and this is called Dawn Phenomenon (DP). It is the same process, but happens earlier for some people than others.
My FOTF can raise my levels by as much as 6mmols in the first hour after getting up, so when I test has to be consistent, otherwise my numbers can be all over the place and not really mean anything! That said, I am Type 1, so I have very little if any insulin production of my own and I have to inject insulin to cover that glucose release from my liver. Plus I have a Constant Glucose Monitor (CGM) which shows me when my levels start to rise and by how much, which really helps understand how my body responds.
My suggestion would be to find a routine to test your morning levels, be it as soon as you wake up, or after you have been to the bathroom, so about 5 mins after getting up, or 20mins later when you have got washed and dressed and sitting down to a cup of coffee, and stick to that routine and then whilst there will be a certain amount of variation each day, you should see trends week on week, hopefully downward trends.
As regards knowing which foods cause your levels to rise the most when you have a variety on the plate, it is the carbohydrates which convert to glucose and get absorbed into the blood stream most quickly and easily.
The 3 macronutrients in food are carbohydrates, protein and fat. Carbs are sugars and starches. Grains are about 65% carbs and are probably our most regular source of carbs, so anything made with grains like bread, cakes, biscuits, pasta, rice, couscous and breakfast cereals including porridge and anything made with grains or flour is high carb. Potatoes are also a source of carbohydrate in the form of mostly starches and some sugars.... new potatoes and sweet potatoes have a slightly higher amount of sugar than older potatoes which have more starch I believe, but as diabetics we generally look at total carbohydrate.
Sugar is just a simple carbohydrate and of course we look at reducing our intake of the refined stuff, but it also occurs naturally in fruit and some fruits have more sugar than others. Things like banana and mango and pineapple and grapes can be quite high in sugar whereas berries and more tart fruits like kiwi and plums are lower. Of course all fruits will vary according to their ripeness and variety as some are much sweeter than others. Apples and oranges are somewhere in the middle.
If a meal, shows a string (Edit... should read strong) BG rise then it will be the carb rich elements in that meal which will have caused the spike and you would look to reduce those to lower the spike. So if you had a Sunday dinner of a large Yorkshire pudding, a dollop of mash a couple of roasties and some meat and veg. The Yorkie, mash and roasties are going to be the main causes of your levels spiking, so those are the elements of the meal to reduce to stop your levels going so high. Maybe try a smaller Yorkie and decide if you prefer mash or roasties and cut out the other source and have more veggies on your plate to fill you up and see how that works. If you still spike too high after a couple of meals tested, then depending upon preference, cut out the Yorkie or have just half of a small one as I sometimes do, and only have 1 roastie and test again. Keeping notes is really helpful in the early days, but gradually you develop a mental database for which foods cause your levels problems and which you can get away with.
Hopefully that gives you some insight into how you figure it all out and adjust your diet.
Some people find that their body starts to release glucose as soon as it starts to get light, which might be before they wake up in the summer and this is called Dawn Phenomenon (DP). It is the same process, but happens earlier for some people than others.
My FOTF can raise my levels by as much as 6mmols in the first hour after getting up, so when I test has to be consistent, otherwise my numbers can be all over the place and not really mean anything! That said, I am Type 1, so I have very little if any insulin production of my own and I have to inject insulin to cover that glucose release from my liver. Plus I have a Constant Glucose Monitor (CGM) which shows me when my levels start to rise and by how much, which really helps understand how my body responds.
My suggestion would be to find a routine to test your morning levels, be it as soon as you wake up, or after you have been to the bathroom, so about 5 mins after getting up, or 20mins later when you have got washed and dressed and sitting down to a cup of coffee, and stick to that routine and then whilst there will be a certain amount of variation each day, you should see trends week on week, hopefully downward trends.
As regards knowing which foods cause your levels to rise the most when you have a variety on the plate, it is the carbohydrates which convert to glucose and get absorbed into the blood stream most quickly and easily.
The 3 macronutrients in food are carbohydrates, protein and fat. Carbs are sugars and starches. Grains are about 65% carbs and are probably our most regular source of carbs, so anything made with grains like bread, cakes, biscuits, pasta, rice, couscous and breakfast cereals including porridge and anything made with grains or flour is high carb. Potatoes are also a source of carbohydrate in the form of mostly starches and some sugars.... new potatoes and sweet potatoes have a slightly higher amount of sugar than older potatoes which have more starch I believe, but as diabetics we generally look at total carbohydrate.
Sugar is just a simple carbohydrate and of course we look at reducing our intake of the refined stuff, but it also occurs naturally in fruit and some fruits have more sugar than others. Things like banana and mango and pineapple and grapes can be quite high in sugar whereas berries and more tart fruits like kiwi and plums are lower. Of course all fruits will vary according to their ripeness and variety as some are much sweeter than others. Apples and oranges are somewhere in the middle.
If a meal, shows a string (Edit... should read strong) BG rise then it will be the carb rich elements in that meal which will have caused the spike and you would look to reduce those to lower the spike. So if you had a Sunday dinner of a large Yorkshire pudding, a dollop of mash a couple of roasties and some meat and veg. The Yorkie, mash and roasties are going to be the main causes of your levels spiking, so those are the elements of the meal to reduce to stop your levels going so high. Maybe try a smaller Yorkie and decide if you prefer mash or roasties and cut out the other source and have more veggies on your plate to fill you up and see how that works. If you still spike too high after a couple of meals tested, then depending upon preference, cut out the Yorkie or have just half of a small one as I sometimes do, and only have 1 roastie and test again. Keeping notes is really helpful in the early days, but gradually you develop a mental database for which foods cause your levels problems and which you can get away with.
Hopefully that gives you some insight into how you figure it all out and adjust your diet.
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Thanks, that’s very helpful
Thanks, that’s very helpful
Leadinglights
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- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Very well done, most of us struggle to get below high 30ies let alone 30 and your cholesterol is fantastic as well, not that it was terrible before.
Hopefully what you were doing has become your new normal way of eating and can be maintained.
Docb
Moderator
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 2
Well done @effayjay. Pretty good bet that losing the 20kg was the key to getting things under control and if you can keep it off, then its also a pretty good bet that you can get on with life without worrying about problems with diabetes.
I reckon your bathroom scales will be just as useful as blood glucose monitoring as a means of keeping you on track!
Any tips on how you lost the weight that you can pass on?
Thanks for the encouraging words, much appreciated.
Probably the biggest help was a book called “End your carb confusion” by Eric Westman. It’s available on Amazon ( a bit expensive) but I came across it by chance in a charity shop. Very similar messages to the Freshwell app with just a bit more science which I liked.
BobbleHat
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What a fabulous result!
That is pretty amazing - you must be well chuffed