First, let me mention that “our” A1C was 7.0. In my book that’s pretty good. It was 7.8 last time, but she had gone through a monster growth spurt. Ok, now looking at the downloaded info from the meter, we’re on a pump, we noticed a lot of scatter. She is in range about half the time and a bit high half the time. Too many peaks, especially at night. So we’re going to try to work on those late night highs. We’re going to start eating “healthier” at dinner to see if that has any affect on those peaks.
So I guess my question to you all is: Do you keep a food log? And if not do you just count carbs? How does that work for you?
We usually have just counted carbs and not worried too much about fat or protein. I usually cook dinner so I have control over portions and fat and protein amounts, and I could lose a few pounds so eating healthy isn’t a bad thing. I’m just wondering how far I should go. I’ll start leaving out the corn muffins and the garlic bread. Go easy on the butter in the mashed potatoes, use skim milk instead of 2%. Stuff like that, but I don’t know about changing too much too soon. Like going to whole wheat pasta and brown rice.
What do you think is the biggest culprit? The fat? That’s what I’m thinking. The carbs will tend to peak early unless there is a bunch of fat that slows the absorption.
I don’t know. Would love to hear your thoughts. Do I need to log protein amounts and fat? That might be hard to figure. I htink I’ll just log what we eat. So I know rice and stir fry does this, and spagetti and salad does that. And hopefully we’ll get more even numbers.
Hi there. We are on a very strict regimen, so my answers might not apply to you … but here goes.
In my book, it’s the carbs - not the fat - and only slightly the protein. Potatoes turn directly to sugar, so we cut them out completely. So does corn - so no corn muffins. We don’t do bread, pasta or rice.
Shocked?! Most people are. BUT … we eat delicious food and have a great A1C.
My advice is yes … log your food AND count your carbs. We aren’t on the pump, so we log blood sugar and corresponding food. It’s great because then you can really pin point where the problem areas are.
How fast you make the change is up to you … we went “cold turkey”. One day we were on one regimen, the next day we were on a different one. Just be CAREFUL with going low when you cut out certain ingredients.
Great job in getting the A1C down. Good luck to you.
The 7.8 was unusual, we usually are right around 7, 6.8 - 7.2 typically. The 7.8 was due to a major growth spurt so I was glad to see it come back down to “normal”. I’m not unhappy with the 7, I would just prefer to avoid the major spikes. So I really don’t feel the need to cut out carbs or starchy foods completely. I’m just trying to stop the major peaks. We are avoiding pizza for the time being, and Chinese food, and all fast foods in general. And I’ll likely switch to brown rice and whole wheat pasta eventually. But we eat whole grain bread, that has lots of fiber, and I know the fat has a lot to do with absorption rates. Just look at what pizza does to BG’s. So we’ve started logging food, but I’m basically just writing down things like cheese raviolis and salad and whole wheat toast. And not breaking it down any further than that. I was just wondering if others did more than that. Sounds like that’s what you do.
I’m just curious Lisa, what do you send your kids to school with in their lunch boxes? I’d be worried my kids would trade their cheese stick for cookies once they were out of my sight.
I log all the foods that Riley eats, no matter what it is. That way if I see him spiking I can go back and see if the spikes might be caused by certain foods.
