I am type I on humalog and Levemir. I now have a CGM, which is great, but shows me that my current breakfast does not work-- spikes up and then crashes down.
I like eggs, but not every day.
I have looked at Dr. Bernstein's book for recipes... found an omlet with smoked salmon, and that worked well.
today I had a 1/2 bagel teaspoon of cream cheese and salmon.
I occasionally have sausage and eggs.
I like rice crackers and nut butter and like half an apple.
How far in advance do you pre bolus for breakfast? Found that can be the big factor in how high you spike especially with breakfast. The spike and crash is usually due to miss timing the slower start of insulin action and the speed of a rapid carb hitting your system. With a CGM you can see when the insulin begins to work as your BG will begin to turn/slide lower. If you wait till you see that and then eat you will have better results with how high you go post meal. And since you will not have as much insulin still hanging around after your meal has digested you will not get the crash after. Check out Stephen Ponder and Sugar Surfing.
lots of ideas on this page. I have cottage cheese a lot, or eggs. I never figured out how to bolus for all the carbs in a bagel. if I'm having smoked salmon, I usually make little rolls out of them, with cream cheese and capers inside.
Eggs, bacon. I like to toss some spinach in eggs as it's really good for you and is pretty seamless flavorwise. Lots of black pepper in the oil or butter. We don't keep bacon on hand but my daughter is on the poms team and lives on sandwiches so we have corned beef, ham, pastrami, etc. which all work pretty well with eggs and spinach.
I'm trying to think of something with a little carb because some people are saying if you eat ONLY fat and protein, your body might 'interpret' it as carb, and you might have to bolus, anyway. Never heard that before. Strange new idea to me, you think that's true?
I have also found that I need to wait much longer after I bolus for breakfast (30-40 minutes) than I do for other times of the day (more like 20 minutes) or I will spike and spend hours trying to bring my BG back to normal. It took a lot of trial and error to determine this, and a lot of very slowly and gradually increasing the time between bolus and eating. You might want to first check with your MD or CDE, and then perhaps extend your wait time by just a few minutes and see what happens.
Humalog takes about 15 minutes to become active and does not peak util about an hour, so if you only prebol;using by 5 minuets then carbs have a head start and you will spike. I use novolog and will try to prebolus by as much as 20-30 minutes and get good results that way with out going low. my morning BG runs around 85 and I can do it with out crashing. I have my cgm set to alert me if i go below 80. I did not get ther in one jump. I kept moving my prebolus back by 5 minutes until i got the kind of result i wanted but could still get it safely. having a cgm will let you do this a step at a time until until you find a combo that works.
I can get away with a shorter prebolus at lunch, but need the longer one at dinner or i will be chasing the high after dinner. So be aware that it will be different for different times of the day. CGM is your friend. You will also find that a carb is not a carb. I have very specific types and amounts of carbs that work for times of dayand others that may have the same number of carbs that are a total no go. You will find this out with lots of trial and error.
By avoiding those things and focusing on protein and a small amount of carbohydrate, I'm usually okay. Also, since I am eating a lot of protein relative to the carbs, I use regular insulin to cover the meal. Fast acting analog insulin starts and ends too soon to cover the protein adequately. Regular's slower response curve fits those meals much better -- for me, anyway.
The protein can be almost anything -- bacon, ham, fish, chicken, eggs, you name it. Doesn't seem to matter.
That's the formula that works for me to give a predictable, manageable BG response. Your physiology may react differently, of course.
Oh, and one other thing. I use a smart scale to weigh portions so I know just exactly how much carbohydrate I'm taking in and can dial in the insulin dose accordingly.
Are you sure your basal insulin, Levemir, is accurately set? Have you thought about doing a basal test to confirm your Levemir dosing? Could you skip breakfast and still experience level blood glucose?
Many, if not most, people with diabetes are insulin resistant in the morning, so that makes breakfast more challenging. Pre-bolusing the amount of time that is customized to you is a powerful tool to use to experience good post-breakfast blood glucose. I use a CGM and can often go up to one hour between my breakfast insulin dose and eating. I watch closely on my CGM since that long of a pre-bolus time puts you in danger of going low before eating. Personal experimentation with the pre-bolus time, like hobbit mentions is a great idea.
For me there is nothing like eggs and some kind of breakfast meat to make post meal BGs behave. There are so many ways to dress eggs up, like salsa, avocados, and cheese. I like to make scrambled eggs with heavy cream. Heavy cream is high fat and low to no carbs and makes fluffy and flavorful scrambled eggs.
Dr. Bernstein mentioned eating sardines and cheese for breakfast. I think the big key is keeping the carb content low. I like eating a Starbucks sausage/egg/cheese breakfast sandwich but I only eat about 1/2 of one of the muffins (about 10 grams carbs).
Definitely. When you take in little or no carb, the body converts a small portion of the protein to carb. It can be enough to influence BG. Since I eat very low carb meals, I do have to allow for that. This only really comes into play when you're avoiding carbs, however. If you eat a high carb meal, this generally doesn't happen, or at least not enough to make a detectable difference.
This is discussed in greater detail by Bernstein, among others.
I got that from u, David, and the "Think like a pan" book. Still haven't read Bernstein. You all assign a lot of homework! Thanks for teaching me some stuff and prompting me to become a human guinea pig and experiment with your low carb meals. The first night I tried it, I ate a can of imitation texturized vegetable protein scallops. They were delicious! I ate like a beast! Consumed 17g of protein per serving. I bet I ate 4 servings. Overdid it. I knew not what I had done. I almost ■■■■ my pants, but I learned something new. LOL.
Ame, I read your posting and all replys. I believe many folks will find soon that the bolus choices for mealtime will have a great option available with the new Afrezza, inhaled insulin..Contact Afrezzauser on twitter. He was is the final trials with it and he is quite convincing with his experience...Nothing closer to acting like your pancrease should do at mealtime for quick response..Good Luck.
LOL -- "a lot of homework". Well, yes, if your intention is to manage the diabetes instead of allowing it to manage you, I'm afraid that's just the price of admission. :)
Of all the serious medical conditions you can have, this is one of the very few that you can control yourself. But the other side of that coin is that you must. Or to be more precise, you must; no one can do it for you. For one thing, no one knows your individual body like you do, and for another, no one else is there 24x7x365 to do it. So to have the best shot at succeeding, you need to acquire all the knowledge you can. And keep up, because this is a body of knowledge that grows constantly.
One of our standard ironic sayings is that diabetes is the club no one asks to join. I tend more to think of it as the subject I never wanted to become an expert in. But we play the cards we're dealt; how we play them is up to us.
During the work week I enjoy these quick & easy breakfasts and my blood sugar remains stable; Smoothie made with skim milk, sugar free yogurt, blueberries, flax, spinach, s/f vanilla syrup.
Steel cut oats w/a tablespoon of s/f peanut butter & s/f syrup.
Bran buds, s/f yogurt and fruit.
Weekends I make eggs & toast (Silver Hills little big bread - 7g carb/slice)pretty often.
