i am not able to process simple foods despite the carbs counting and blousing properly. i cannot eat things like english muffins (whether whole wheat or otherwise). i cannot eat corn or breakfast cereals,hot or cold. i just look at steak and i spike to 300s. (despite dual boluses)
i cannot eat greek yogurt, despite the fat content.
anyone here have these problems and/or frustrations? i have other D friends who have no problem w/ these foods as long as they bolus according to carb counting. UGH.
Even steak puts your blood sugars up? I don’t give any boluses for proteins… that seems unusual. Have you asked a family doc/endo/dietician? That must be so frustrating! It’s hard enough having to try to properly carb count let alone doing that and still having strange results.
Daisy Mae, I can understand you spiking with muffins and breakfast cereal. The steak is a bit harder, but what did you eat with the steak. I bet it wasn’t just steak. Root vegetables or corn on the cob would spike your steak meal. Some greek yogurts have sugar in them, check the ingredient list.
I don’t carb count at all. I am doing something which I deem much superior: I learn from experience. The rules are simple: If my BG ends up too high then I used too little insulin. If my BG ends up too low then I used too much insulin. Timing plays a big role. Nobody ever told me that I had to compensate with insulin for protein. I thought steak was zero carbs and no additional insulin was required. I admit that I am gullible. I would eat a nice, big steak, drink red wine and skip salad and sides. My BG never budged. The next morning my BG would always be high. I could never get a grip on it. Did I have a hypo at night? Did the steak seasoning have sugar in it? Was the wine too sweet? I used BG test strips at the time and tested when I went to bed and when I got up in the morning. Dexcom eventually let me in on the secret. After a steak dinner at 7 pm my BG starts to rise at 1 am. By 2 am my BG would make it to 250. Now, after a steak dinner, when Dexcom wakes me up at 1:30 am, I bolus and dial in a temp basal for 4 hours. Problem solved. I rather work with the feedback from dex than rely on sophisticated predictive models that don’t work. My analogy is: I can be a blind person with instructions or a seeing person (looking at my dex). Who do you think would have the edge in real life?
thanks for your reply. i only had a salad w/out dressing w/ my steak. on the very rare occasion that i do eat beef, i always have this problem. mostly i eat chicken or fish.
however, if i do opt for a burger, i eat it w/ a bun and a lot of ketchup. i do the dual bolus over a 3hour period, but still can’t get it right.
as far as the yogurt is concerned, i eat plain greek yogurt, 100% fat (i have tried the 0% as well as the 2%.) nothing works w/ that either. i’ve tried Fage, Ciobani, Trader Joe’s…no difference for me at all. and i LOVE yogurt…plain w/ nothing added.
my CDE suggested that i do a dual bolus for morning oatmeal/toast etc. i haven’t tried that yet, but i think she might be on to something.
We are all so different. The dosage and timing that works for me might not work for anybody else. What always works: Look what happens to your BG after eating a certain food. If BG goes too high then just bolus more. Forget about ratios. Play it like a video game. If BG goes up too much, press the down button harder. It is a simple game. One button for up (food) and one button for down (insulin). The delay makes the game interesting. Otherwise it would be boring. Let me share one more insight with you. Wouldn’t everybody love to have fast-acting insulin which can bring down BG in 5 minutes? Surprise: We already have it. It is called glucose tablets. Don’t let your BG go too high and correct with insulin. That takes hours. Plan for your BG to stay steady or trend down. If BG stays steady then you won the prize. If BG is trending down then eat a little fast acting carbs. For example: fruit. This is not as bad as it sounds. You can keep your BG in a normal range without trying hard.
thanks for your thoughtful reply. i tend to go low rather than high. i dread it, so i under bolus and correct later. the funny thing is that if/when i get low, i get to indulge in all the foods i usually stay away from (chocolate, oval tine, juice, bananas…).
also, since having my dexcom cgm, i am hyper vigilant about my BGs. my A1c came down from 8.9 to 6.5 and i am really proud of that. so, call me neurotic. i also have OCD.
Ugh. I know you didn’t mean anything by it; but, as a person who is blind, I (and the blindness community in general) would love if you could come up with a different analogy in future.
This sounds a lot like Sugar Surfing. Might be a good book for @Daisy_Mae to check out. I don’t completely agree with all it has to say, but it’s another set of tools to add to the diabetes toolbox.
I agree with your sensing a connection to Sugar Surfing, @Jen. I attended a Sugar Surfing workshop, put on by the authors, last weekend. The idea of responding and reacting to a live CGM trace seems more appealing than just doing the static math and hoping for the best. Now, I know we all react to BGs that swing too high or too low but Sugar Surfing seems to anticipate and react to BG swings sooner.
@Helmut, you’re right, of course, that it’s much faster to pull out of a hypo with quick carbs than it is to turn around a high BG swing with insulin. For many years I favored adding more insulin so I could quickly correct with carbs, many times with “forbidden” treats. That caught up with me as I gained a lot of weight, doubled my total daily insulin dose, and became insulin resistant. Now, I know this extreme is not what you meant, but it can get out of hand. I know you’re much more disciplined than I used to be and would not allow that to happen.
I’m going to have to check out sugar surfing. I’ve always dosed more based on experience than on exact carb counts, generally because accurate carb counts are not available to me more often than not…
There is something to be said for just doing what we know how to do even when sometimes it isn’t exactly precisely explainable why or how we know that.
@Terry. When I read your posts I feel like I have a twin.
I struggle with the same weight gain issues that you mentioned. I am on the border between normal and overweight. I know that I could easily lose weight by cutting out wine and cheese. And of course pizza. But that would be boring. This is my excuse.
I know you didn’t mean any offense, and I didn’t take any. I’m sorry if my comment came across too harshly. I just get so tired of these types of analogies and how pervasive they are and how (taken collectively) they really undermine everything blind people advocate for in terms of independence and equality.
