I think not, Acid. The OP, (Tom) will probably have to choose between a post bagel/cereal breakfast 300+ spike and rethinking his breakfast choices. For us, who have had years of compromising and choosing to get acceptable glucose ranges;It may not be that hard to eat a spinach omelette with cheese.. Kind of difficult for a young athlete who is used to a carb pile up. ( I see he is a member of the Power-lifrtng group)
Tom, you may have to do the dreaded logging and charting to see just how and why your blood sugar is rising and IF your carb insulin ratio and basal need changing.. Also explore the effects of the prior day's exercise determine the DP. I personally, would just forgo the bagel AnD the cereal amd replace one of them with a protiein source, such as eggs/suasage Actually, the only bagel I have ever eaten for breakfast was the little min -ones with 30 grams of carbs, then I only ate half of it. For the most part I would not eat a bagel for breakfast) ....Too much work to figure out how to bolus for such a high carb breakfast,...tTom,you are new to pumping.As gardan noted , Do you use square and-or extended wave bolusses? You will learn how to do it.. You may have to restrict some food items until you have things figured out ,though.
I dunno, I was sort of the same way "I need carbs" but, as Gerri points out, the protein "converts" to carbs. Maybe the math varies depending on what your BG is or various other inputs but that's probably part of my "I'll eat 6G of carbs worth of veggies in my 0G of carbs eggs, throw in a gram's worth of cheese and bolus for 15G of carbs and be ok? Any "stray" insulin can go into offsetting DP or driving to work stress or whatever but it works ok. I think the emphasis on carb loading is a bit misplaced.
One of my buddies is a *gonzo* P90X/ Insanity/ etc. trainer and ha gotten freaking *huge*. He is very low-carb oriented and works out like crazy and has dropped probably at least as much weight as me on like 1700 calories/ day. I don't think he does it by carb loading but by carb timing. If' I'm gonna run 20 miles, I will definitely have a couple of pieces of toast but, most of the time I don't run that much and I don't think we suffer from cutting out carbs pretty aggressively and using them intelligently to fuel workouts, etc. .
I notice in the morning I need to wait at least 45 min after injection (humalog) even if I am under 100 to start if I want to eat cereal or any carbs for that matter. If I don't wait I'll pay the price big time. Lately I've been using R in the morning as I get up real early. Using R I have to wait at least an hour and a half. If I am high in the morning I'll stay completely away from carbs all together but I will be miserable for hours. My guess is It's either due to our metabolism's or Insulin resistance. BTW I eat cereal all the time. MY I:C ratio is terrible. One unit covers only about 7 grams. As a grown man I eat way less carbs then the average man would but I am usually doing at least 60 to 70 grams per meal. Sometimes I go on sugar binges and just keep shooting up. I can't stand feeling deprived and really eat whatever I want. I just keep the portions on the small side. The whole thing is so overwhelming to deal with. Even after nearly 40 years I look at my bottle of insulin before I inject in complete anger and I wonder how much more of this punishment can I take?
Like I said somewhere else here, we don't actually need the amount of carbs that are in a "bowl" of cereal. If you weigh your cereal, a "serving" and a "bowl" may be two entirely different thing as well. I usually use these little kid bowls from IKEA and 28-31G (depending on which sort of cereal...) doesn't even remotely fill up a kid bowl, much less a "regular" bowl from a set of dishes, the standard serving size for millions of people eating cereal every day. It's not that eating less carbs than the "average man" should be considered a "problem", the "problem" is the number of carbs the "average man" is eating.
You've mentioned your feelings repeatedly Gary and you've tossed it out there a couple of times that "I eat cereal all the time". I can't help but think perhaps the cereal is more of the problem and that you might be able to enjoy a smoother ride if you'd ditch it?
I was on Symlin for about 2 months because of the spikes and was told to only eat 45g of carbs. The nausea was horrible I lost like 6lbs in less than a week I think from not being able to eat, and would end up going really low so the Dr advised me to just take it with big meals but I have not taken any because the nausea is horrible, I heard it goes away with time but for me it seemed like it was getting worst. I may have to try it out for breakfast, I've never been a cereal or bagel person but once in a while I'll have a waffle or pancake and they make me spike I'll have to try it and see if it works..
Nate rarely eats cereal, if he does its on a weekend, before our real breakfast, I have him bolus for both and even make him wait for a real good number to start eating it. And we always weigh the serving of cereal and milk.
For me personally, I have figured out lots of tricks to prevent spikes after my daughter having diabetes for 1 year. But cereal is the one thing we could not figure out. We tried the superbolus, that didn't work for us. Combine with a protein. Still no good. No matter what, we always spike above 400 with cereal and then plumett down. The whole time my daughter complained of being hungry. I think it's the time of the day, and the fact that your body digests it all at once and dumps it all into your blood stream at once. We stick with eggs or egg whites, sausage, and either yogurt or fruit for breakfast. Keeps her very steady until lunch. The rest of the day we don't have strict rules about which foods. But cereal is our evil-enemy.
It's crucial with any carbs especially higher glycemic that you really only eat them when your sugar is on the low side or your insulin dose is at its peak time. The lower the better. 75-85 is much more ideal then even 120 for consistentcy. I notice if I wake up around the 80 range in morning I can bolus humalog and don't feel it starting to drop for 40-45 minutes. If I did that during the day or night I'd be in big trouble. As far as cereal specifically, I eat it as a bedtime snack just about every single night and hardly ever have a problem. The morning is more challenging but I don't think its the cereal per say as I've seen spikes If I don't wait long enough with any carbs. Yeah the easier thing to do is avoid carbs but to me its like asking a person that smokes cigarettes to stop smoking them. In general I notice my sugars are far more stable from diner time till bed. For some reason that is the time frame I generally feel better. Most of my mornings and throughout the day is horrible. Though still nothing is by any means 100%.
I dunno, I'd suggest trying to switch to eggs for a couple of weeks, see how it goes and maybe it would provide a different sort of buzz? If things are as bleak as you have indicated, it wouldn't likely be worse? BSC tossed out the "eggs and sausage" suggestion earlier in the thread. Or turkey bacon, as long as you don't scorch it in the microwave, it's pretty tasty. Although I am always tempted to eat the entire box...
I have a really hard time with carbs in the morning. I don't mind missing cereal (never really liked it in the first place), but I occasionally have a bagel with lunch or dinner when I can handle it better--usually only a half or a fourth, because one bagel=enough carb to be a whole dinner. In fact, all of the breakfasts that I miss--pancakes, biscuits, hash browns--are easier to eat as dinners when I have those occasional carb cravings.
The OP mentioned that he can handle the carbs better if he is going to exercise right after--so maybe switch up breakfasts for something more proteinier when he knows he isn't going to be able to exercise.
"I usually eat a bowl of cereal, a bagel with peanut butter and a glass of milk".
Wait, you eat both a bowl of cereal AND a bagel? ;-) Might want to at the very least pick one or the other, otherwise your going to be chasing those highs. 60+ carbs alone in the bagel.
I find anytime I eat a bagel, no matter how much I cover, it goes up. Same with cereal. Everyone is different, but despite not wanting to change eating habits, some compromise is likely going to have to come into play.
I agree! This sucks. I too, like everyone else, can't seem to find anything to eat for breakfast and my sugars just continue to rise even if I wake at 70's. My I:CR is about 1:7 - 1:8, compared to the 1:12 - 1:15 in afternoon and evening. I was good this morning 2 hrs after breakfast with just low carb yogurt and coffee - 103, within an hour back up to 170. Not sure what to do about this. I have to bolus something in the morning, use some fast acting or my numbers will continue to rise...but other mornings I've dropped really fast too. No rhyme or reason to this crap, simply hate all of it all the time!
I used ot have the same problem when I ate processed cereals in the morning. My Endo stated that the spike in BS is due to the high glycemic index and the fact that it is a processed food. She stated that in order to avoid the high BS i should dose my rapid/Apidra 20-30 minutes before i eat.....which seems to work. Otherwise if I have to have carbs in the morning for breakfast I usually have a cup of oatmeal with almond mik and that seems to keep my BS below 130. Hope this helps!
Ha, look at the responses you got here. Should speak volumes, eh?
I treat cereal and milk in general like a low food. By that I mean something I turn to for it's fast acting attributes.
Lose the cereal. Bagels aren't THAT bad. They're fairly slow burning, but the overall amount of carbs in a bagel is pretty high. As many as 60 carbs.
I remember when I was around 23 and working as a painter, I'd eat a bowl of cereal before work and unknown to me then go sky high on the way to work and fall asleep on the train on my way there.
Keep the eggs and sausage. Lose the milk and cereal and see if it spikes less. (it will)
I'm still super insulin insensitive in the morning and tend to JUST eat eggs. There's a single gram of carbs in each egg and 4 or 5 carbs is enough to start you on your way believe it or not. Once I've got this first jolt to my system I'm bulletproof again.
I thought I might mention because someone said you were into working out. I used to work out with weights and have a 3500-5000 calorie intake. Breakfast was solved by low carbing, but I didn't give up carbs during the day, so don't worry about that.
Mornings are tough but you can still carb load afterwards. Just keep it to slow mellow carbs, and keep glucose nearby for lows when insulin overtakes the large volumes of carbs from time to time.
I’m so sensitive to cereal that I’ve just eliminated it all together so I have a little trick I do to curb the craveing ( when I make my 5 year olds cereal in the morning I take a spoonful or two and the fact that the bowl was made with her choice of cereal forces me to have to keep my self control and not finish the whole bowl
I like my carbs too....but there does have to be a limit. Could you do the cereal OR the bagel? Could you drink almond milk instead of regular milk? (Good source of calcium, but a couple fewer carbs per glass)
I also like including higher fiber options when I want a carb-heavy breakfast....so look for fiber enriched cereals or bagels.
hey I have the same problem and what I do is try no to eat that many carbs in the morning I usually have around 45 carbs per meal so for breakfast I have a yogurt, granola bar and some type of fruit of vegetable and also my doctor rised my dose of insulin in the morning I just started a few days ago hopefully it works for me. hope you have found your solution. =)
