David, the Ucan bars are working great for me when i eat one with a plain 2% Fage yogurt 1 1/2 hours pre swim. but i really like the Ucan bars and was wondering if i can eat one without exercising and WITHOUT doing a bolus. i don’t know if its something i would need a square bolus for or take any insulin at all??? please help.
Hi Daisy,
It really depends on what the composition of the bar is. Can you take a photo of the ingredients and nutritional info? If the only carb content is resistant starch, then if you bolus I suspect you’re likely to go low (since RS shouldn’t raise your BG). But since I don’t know what is in it, I can’t say for sure.
The easiest way to experiment would be to get isolated RS (easiest, cheapest way is to go to the grocery store and get a bag of Bob’s Red MIll unmodified potato starch. The package nutritional info says a serving has a certain number of carbs, but I’ve not yet met anyone for whom it causes a rise in BG. The RS that Ucan uses is similar (but not identical) to unmodified potato starch.
Eddie, i love your quote!! I’m going to copy it down & keep handy. Thank you 
I’ve got to get better at exercising consistently & will follow your (and everyone’s) advice & tips to find what works for me.
Thanks again!!
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I know this is an older thread that has been bumped, but have you heard about untethered? They would use tresiba/lantus/levemir at 75% basal rate and the pump at 25% basal and all the bolus.
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here’s the nutritionals for the choc peanut butter
https://store.generationucan.com/products/barschocpb/p2
the other flavors are on the left side
Marie, i am familiar with the Ucan bar’s carb listing as 26 grms, but b/c of the “super starch” i am uncertain if this will offset the need for insulin bolus. yesterday before my swim, i ate a plain 2% Fage Greek yogurt and 1 1/2 Ucan bars. i waited 1 1/2 hours, tested and was only 180. i walked to the gym and when i got there my Bgs had come DOWN to only 150. i tried swimming but had to get out of the pool in half an hour as my BGs had come down to 115. i dont know the rhyme or reason for this as this has been my usual formula and has worked consistantly so that i can enjoy at LEAST an hour of hard fast laps.
so, the “answer” to my question is still not answered. i am blind as a bat. please help anyone.
oh I’m sorry, I misunderstood. I wish I could help you.
Marie, thats OK; i appreciate your effort 
Daisy Mae
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hey, haven’t been around for a while, but i still have questions. i am NEVER hungry after a workout. should i be forcing myself to eat something anyway? like, for example, peanut butter???
Right. Since we don’t know how much of the listed carbs is Resistant Starch (their first ingredient is their proprietary “Super Starch”), and you also ate the 2% Fage (which is fairly high in carbs, for plain yogurt, being lowish fat), we don’t know what the actual carb content of the UCAN bar is. They list 5g of sugar, which is higher than I would have thought (I thought it was a “pure RS” product).
My previous suggestion stands: experiment with plain old, pure Resistant Starch (You can order it from UCAN or get Bob’s Red Mill or similar): does it or does it not affect your BG (for me, it dampens exercise spikes, doesn’t raise my BG on its own)? Once you know that, try the Ucan bars, and see how much insulin you actually need to cover it successfully (to figure out what portion of the 20g net carbs are actually Resistant Starch).
I wish I could suggest a better, easier way to do it, but I can’t. It’s why I use isolated resistant starch, so I don’t have to “worry” about the effects of protein, fiber and sugar, and fats. As with most things diabetic, we’re left with trial and error ;/
This is an exercise science question, that I can asnwer (kind of) 
And the answer, of course, is… “IT DEPENDS.” You should eat after working out depending on what you want from working out. If you’re working out to relax and enjoy yourself, and general cardio, I wouldn’t worry about it too much: eat when you’re hungry. If you’re training, on the other hand, then you definitely need to eat afterwards.
If you’re training for endurance (i.e., swimming or biking competitions, marathons, etc.), you really should be eating carbs after you exercise in order to replenish your muscle glycogen stores. If you don’t, then you’ll have far less energy to use for physical exercise the next time you exercise. This is also important for Olympic style lifters, who burn a ton of glycogen on heavy lifts: if you don’t stock up on some carbs, your next workout suffers. If you workout while glycogen depleted, it reduces the efficiency of training your muscles for strength or endurance (which is fine for most people, but not if you’re competitive).
If you are training for strength, then you need some carbs post-workout (within 1 hour is supposedly supported by exercise science, but most exercise “science” isn’t science in the way I would talk about it otherwise). But more importantly, you need protein afterwards, and preferably a nice easy protein to digest without a lot of fat to get in the way of absorption. Your muscles need protein to rebuild after working out. General rule of thumb: if your workout sessions lead to sore muscles the next day (not injury pain, mind you), then you probably need protein to help rebuild (it’s not a sign of damage, the soreness is just an indicator that you’re doing a certain kind of and intensity of exercise). If you need to rebuild muscle, there are some rules of thumb: eat protein from half-hour before workout to one hour post-workout; this is optimum for uptake to rebuild muscle. You also need to get enough protein in your diet if you workout intensely. Again, a rule of thumb is 1g of protein per lb of lean muscle mass. You can calculate lean muscle mass by subtracting water weight and your bodyfat % * your weight (lean muscle mass includes bone mass because it’s hard to measure separately without an expensive DEXA scan).
Feel overwhelmingly complicated? Welcome to exercise “science” My rule of thumb is simple: if you are interested in exercise and health in general, then yes, eat some carbs and protein after you workout. I do milk, whey protein, and flavoring, to try to get about 25g of carbs and 40g of protein in the hour after I workout. Otherwise I lose weight and muscle mass consistently.
just a recent update: in the past 2 weeks, i have been on an elevated temp basal as high as 145%. this adds even more trial and error to the equation. yesterday, the elevated basal was too high, and my BGs crashed while swimming so i had to get out of the pool. i lowered the temp basal and continued with my day. over-night, i woke up at 44, took some G Tabs and lowered my temp basal again (increments) and went back to sleep. when i woke up this morning, my BG was 86. normal, right? so i went and bolused for Bfast. 3 hours later, my BG was 117 but went down to 86 before lunch. i figured i had it all mapped out. so i bolused for lunch( after 4 hours since my last bolus). within 1/2 hour, my BGs dropped to 33. (and now i am on 130% temp basal). i took 4 G Tabs and lowered my temp basal again, now down to 120%. after 2 hours, my BG is 121. hopefully this will be the end of the guess work.
TRIAL AND ERROR IS SCARY. (especially when i am not at home where all is safe and easy to deal with…but really scary when i am in the swimming pool 
)
i swim for health, pleasure and serenity. however, i do push myself and i deff get the tired sore muscles after a swim. i take Advil if completely necessary, but sometimes Tylenol or nothing, but always always always, when i do a hard swim, i get that feeling. i eat a high protein diet, so i will eat about 2 hours after my swim (dinner). so, what i’ve been doing is either having a few spoons of PB or a slice of the Ucan bar. dont know if this is helpful in any way, but i genuenly have NO appitite afterwards. even after 2 hours post workout…but then i force myself to eat a full meal.
i hope i am making sense. i am not a competitive swimmer by any means, but i know exactly what you mean by the physical feeling in my muscles. can you elaborate a little on this particular subject for me? i greatly appreciate all the info you are offering me 
You do, it makes perfect sense! To me, one of the great drawbacks of diabetes is that I can’t just eat for pleasure anymore. I used to eat what I wanted, when I wanted to, and when I felt hungry, in particular. Now, there are many times I have to eat (or drink) because my body demands it, and there are foods I have to eat or can’t eat (pizza) anymore without paying too high a price.
That being said, eating protein within two hours is probably fine, although PB is not a great choice: all that fat, while fine in most circumstances, isn’t great for replenishing the muscles after a workout. Most experience and research suggests simple carbs, easily digested protein (whey, chicken, etc.), and low fat after a workout. But if you’re happy with what your body is doing, don’t worry about it! If you’re having fun, feel good, and your BG is doing what you want it to do, don’t change your routine! Sounds to me like you have more work to do on the pre-workout, rather than what to eat after 
you said it !!! the pre-workout is a troublesome endeavor. lately i have been on a temp basal of 145% b/c of some insulin resistance and i find this the best way to keep my BGs in check. however, it is a real challenge coming down from the elevated basal rates. i do it incrementally based on noticing the patterns in my numbers. yesterday, all throughout the night and this entire day has been a horror show. i was perfectly in range, made the terrible mistake of eating Japanese food last night (out with family) and bolused incorrectly. my BG shot up over 300s. corrected with a shot manually and then came back into normal range. then woke up in middle of night to re-test, and was back over 300, so i took another shot. finally this morning all seemed well. i ate a healthy breakfast, a healthy lunch, BGs all great, then plummeted down to 30. drank some apple juice, swang back up over 300. took another correction shot. now i am coming back down. i lowered the temp basal to 120% and i am just waiting the 4 hours to see if there is any particular pattern going on.
needless to say, i did not go swimming this afternoon. i have been in bed with my cat, just sulking and feeling frustrated and hating having D.
BUT, PS: i am a PB addict, so i cannot even consider cutting back on that, swimming or not 