Ok, guys…maybe I am having a brain fart or something but why does my BG go higher when I eat half a bagel at 25 carbs than eat my one serving of refried beans at 23 carbs?
I mean, yes I know the bready stuff is bad and I have been a good girl for almost a WHOLE year (my dx-verrisary is this Sat) but I had the worst bagel craving this past Sat and went and got one. Now I did my calcuations and half a bagel is around 25 carbs (with my vegan cream cheese a bit more) but for my dinners every other day I eat my mexican dinner that is 30 carbs plus and I am at a good number 2 hours later. Why oh why can’t I have half a bagel?
I am wondering if it because I take my Metformin with my dinner and the bagel I ate as my lunch and no Metformin at lunch time. My mexican dinner consists of one portion of refrieds 23 carbs, a low carb taco shell 7 carbs, half a chopped tomato, my vegan cheese - around 5 carbs - 5 sliced black olives, some chopped green onions, vegan sour cream - around 5 carbs too. So estimately add that up it is probably around 40 carbs. So why the hell is my bagel that is lower in carbs raising me 85 points 2 hours later. It is a whole wheat bagel - not that that makes a difference. I am mad at my body about this -carbs are carbs bod - deal with it. Once I get a job, I am ordering those low carb bagels I saw online and my body better NOT complain.
Is the Metformin making the difference with my over 30 carb Mexican dinner vs. my half a bagel? I am wondering if I had my bagel at the same time I took my Met whether it would be difference but I have been taking it for a year so I thought I had a huge buildup in my body. That said, I am sure I have eat the close to the same amount of carbs for lunch before but just not a bagel and didn’t have this problem. I can even eat popcorn and be OK.
Also, sort of a bit off the topic had anyone noticed that if they include something new in their diet that sometimes it will spike them at the beginning but if they continue eating on a regular basis that they do fine after a while with it? (I noticed this with beans so that is why I am asking - I can eat more at dinner than I used too and have a decent number for the most part).
Two words- glycemic index. As much as it stinks different carbs react different ways on your bg and there are some foods that spike others and do not spike you and vice versa. It’s an ongoing experiment. Maybe you could have eaten more fat/protein with the bagel and had less of a spike. Maybe some almonds with it??
Eat to your meter and only do as your meter says. Which may not necessarily be the advice given to you by medical professionals. And which may not necessarily echo the experience of other PWDs.
I think it is quite normal to have varying mileage in this way. To share my own experience : Carb for carb, I can tolerate potatoes much better than bread. Low or high GI also makes absolutely no difference to me and in fact, low GI spikes me for longer than high GI, which goes in and out quite quickly. What this means in practice is that I have good post-meal numbers after French fries, while wholegrain bread spikes me for hours and hours.
Glycemic Index! Aha! Thanks Lil Mama. I forgot all about that. I really haven’t been looking at that because i have been avoiding most of the foods that we diabetics aren’t supposed to eat like bready thing.
The Whole Wheat products (my bagel was whole wheat) have a Medium Glycemic Index and beans have a lower one. Maybe that is it than!
I am still wondering why the bagels that are low carb would be different though. I am looking at these here which Gerri talked about before a few months back and they low carb
And they have some of the same ingredients (the whole wheat and flour) that my Whole Foods Whole Wheat Bagel does. I just wondering how these are lower carbs than the other Whole Wheat Bagels. Although there is no glycemic index listed on the site for these. I would think that whole wheat is whole wheat and it would be the same index. Makes no sense.
My vegan cream cheese has fat in it but not alot maybe if I mix it with vegan butter or have some peanut butter after words. Ugh. what a pain in the butt.
I forgot to add (although some of you know) that I a Type 2 with just Met. So that might make a difference too.
I don’t know the scientific explanation, I think the glycemic index is a good part of it, though not the whole picture and I think it is different for the types. But some foods just seem to be “more than the sum of their parts” and which foods those are are in common for some of us and not for others. For me, I tried in vain to eat cereals of every high fiber low carb healthy diabetic etc etc and no matter what I’d bolus for the carbs and end up through the roof. Ditto rice. And, I’m sorry to say, ditto bagels. I’ve loved bagels since I was a kid. Even made my own once (too much work and can buy better ones). Brown rice or whole wheat bagels make very little difference. I have a tad more leeway with bread and can eat one piece of artisan bread at 20 carbs, but two would be pushing it. Potatoes I can do as long as they are on the small side. Pasta is hit or miss and the amounts are usually too small to be worth it. None of these things make sense, they just are. Sigh. Some people are able to bolus for things that others aren’t. But when I met with my own personal Waterloos I fought it for awhile and then gave up, thinking the old saying, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results. Another huge sigh.
Greasy/oily foods always have their carbs absorbed more slowly. The refried beans might happen to be on the more greasy or less greasy side, but it doesn’t matter, they’re greasier than a bagel :-).
Many books and websites will have you believe that carb count is all that matters. Or that it’s the carb count times the glycemic index. I’m here to tell you that it’s not that simple, that the combination of foods eaten with the carbs, can have a big effect on the rate of carb absorption into the bloodstream. This is not a linear or additive effect (which is what the glycemic index guys want you to believe)… it is markedly nonlinear.
With T1’s (no natural insulin production) the delayed carbs and proteins and grease hit the bg later, also known as “the pizza effect”. With T2’s (especially T2’s on metformin, which profoundly reduces gluconeogenesis) they might not notice the later delayed spike.
I know! So far, the only bread I know I can definately have is this low carb Sprouted bread from Trader Joes. If they ever stop selling that stuff, I will just die! I was a big bread person before. I have been pretty contented this first year with leaving most of it out but for some reason the bagel craving (I used to eat them for breakfast almost every day unless I had biscuits) hit me big last week. I bought two bagel from the Whole Foods Bakery (I wasn’t about to buy a whole bag of the other brands they had there - even though it was like 40 carbs for a bagel so half would only be 20 but wonder whether it would still been bad).
I haven’t tried potatoes yet. I was a big potato eater - mashed and potato soup. I haven’t attempted the potatoes. I would probaby try fries first and see because I would probably eat them with vegan mayo which has lots of fat maybe that fat would help.
I have been able to hit small portions of pasta and it is OK but not great. Who wants a 1/3 cup of pasta? It kinda ruins the point of eating it to me. I would rather avoid it.
Sometimes I wish I could “bolus” for some special things.
Well, so far here is how my numbers went for the bagel today. Normally I don’t do all this testing because i am broke and can’t afford many strips but I wanted to see what this did:
to start 114
1h later - 123
2hr later - 200
3hr later - 167
4hr later - 119
So, took 4 hr to get back to beginning point (normally I am in the 90s at lunch time - I think period is coming. hehe).
Didn’t do much - I sat on my lazy butt on the computer studying for a phone interview because I wanted to see how it went with no exercise interuption etc.
That would be cool if one day could alter the glycemic index of some of these foods. I wish they would put the glycemic index on the labels of foods. I think I have seen it on a few foods before but usually not. Definatley a big sigh.
Thanks Tim! I didn’t know that. I know the fat in the oils slow the spike down as does protein. My refried beans are vegetarian so no fat in them (they are low fat I think but no oils or lards). I do sometimes add some oilve oil to them just to sneak in a few calories (because I am normally low on them) but haven’t noticed that making a difference if I do or do not.
I add lots of fatty vegan butter to my popcorn - don’t know if popcorn has a high or low glyemic index but i am sure all that butter makes a difference in why I can eat that stuff. No one wants to eat popcorn plain anyhow. I can eat one small slice of vegan pizza and be OK - its quite a small piece though.
I can actually feel it when the BG goes higher. I felt a bit crappy (nervous, anxious, maybe a bit sleepy) at the 2hr mark and my tongue gets dry so I can tell when the BG goes too high( - which normally it doesn’t because I keep my carbs down but I wanted to see if I could add something else - damn. ). But I can feel it going down too - now I am at the 119 and I feel “Normal”. I think for me if I go above 160 I tend to feel it - creeping closer to the 200 mark. That dry tongue is a telltale sign most of the time.
A few weeks ago I had a vegan shake (and yes, I know I was bad to have it). Damn, it was good. But I swear I felt drunk after drinking it. Maybe about a half an hour to an hour in. But it was a weird drunk - nervous, anxious and giddy. And I could feel it go down too in the hours afterwards. I didn’t test to see because I was out at a restaurant with people - I knew it was high I could tell - but I think it took almost the same amount of time for me to go back down to a level where I left normal. (well, that and I hopped on the treadmill).
Here is something funny too. I had the other half of this bagel on Saturday (along with a Starbucks but not going to count that!). Even though I was running around doing errands - a few hours later I was at 153. Went on the treadmill for half an hour (brisk walking to disco music) and a half hour after the treadmill I was at 77! Boy, it that go down fast! No Metformin because it was in the afternoon.
Bread seems to hit me hard no matter if it’s whole grain, mixed with lots of fiber, or whatever. I think it’s because it is ground so fine it makes the starch super easy to digest. The starch in bread is just a chain of glucose molecules easily broken down into straight glucose that is then immediately absorbed.
Beans have a fair amount of fiber and they are not milled into tiny particles so the carbs are absorbed slower. I think the fiber in whole wheat bread doesn’t have the same effect because the starch and fiber are really separated in bread.
For me it seems like I can handle carbs better in the evening. Perhaps you could try another bagel experiment in the evening.
I keep hearing about sprouted bread but have been unable to find some in my area. It would be nice to have the occasional sandwich again.
Are you considering the fiber in the beans? Most beans are high in fiber. Many diabetics (note: not all…) delete fiber from the carb count if there is 5g or more of fiber in a single serving of something. So the net carbs is actually lower…
My vote is for the high fiber in beans & how difficult it is to digest whole beans. In my vegetarian past, I couldn’t digest beans & had to eat them broken down in hummus or as refried beans. The net zero carb bread I posted is all indigestible fiber. Don’t bother with Healthwise bagels. They’re not boiled first, which is what makes it a bagel. They’re rolls in the shape of a bagel.
Carbs, simple or complex, white bread or whole wheat, begin to digest as soon as they hit saliva.
I thought you had said you tried some of those bagels? The Healthwise ones look like the Einstein bagels I like ( i think those are New York Style bagels?) so I was thinking about those but they got some bad reveiws. The Carb Krunchers one are not vegen even though they look yummy. Which ones did you try? The bagel chips look great! I would love to try those.
I never have had problems with beans - I can eat all kinds and be fine. It seemed like when I was first dx’d, even when it seemed like my numbers were more normalized, the beans would give me higher numbers but after eating them on a regular basis, they don’t anymore. It like my body got used to them (or my pancreas did!).
Since the bagel I had was from the Bakery it didnt have the carb info or fiber info just the ingredients which were similar to the package bagels so half would have been around 20 carbs. (not counting my vegan cream cheese). Funny how I went through all the packaged bagels they had there and there were ones that were Whole Grain and ones that were Whole Wheat and the carbs on both were the same (on the Wikipedia site it says Whole Grain is a low GI index). I forgot to look at the fiber. I know they don’t always put net carbs on it. Next time I go shopping I will be looking at it.
So is the indigestible fiber what slows down the numbers? (not sure what the difference is between digestiable or indigestable fiber - if there is a a such thing?)
So, I am staying away from that second bagel I have in the freezer…for now! I will eat it soon but not right now because I want to not feel crappy at least until Friday because I have an interview on Thrusday.
Not all sprouted bread is equal unfortunately. Just for some reason this Trader Joes stuff is low carb and It doesn’t say that on the package either - I went looking at the label and I saw 7 carbs per slice and I just about squealed!!! It comes is three varieties: 7 grain, rye and whole wheat. The rye is my favorite. The other brands fo sprouted breads I have looked at are NOT low carb like this. I don’t know why this one is and I don’t think they intended to make it low carb - it just is.
The weird thing about trader joes is they will often stop carrying something or making something just out of the blue and not all stores carry the same stuff. It is different in different states for some of their products.
If they ever stopped making this (and I am sure they will someday), you will see me on the news protesting out in front of the store. (unless my diabetes goes away! haha)
And there is always sugar in bread, it is needed to activate the yeast. You don’t need much to do this, but some bakers and bakeries add way too much sugar to bread because people like the sweetness.
