I understand the basic ideas of dealing with prediabetes (lose weight, increase exercise, low carb), but none are particularly applicable to me. I am a very healthy weight and stay pretty active and eat as low carb as I can tolerate. I've tried going much lower carb and seen no difference. I've tried exercising more and seen no difference (initially helped, but effects seemed to wear off over time). I have even lost some weight and seen little difference (BMI is currently 21). I don't care to just wait around until my diagnosis changes from pre-diabetes to diabetes. I am currently on metformin since life changes made no difference, but I would like to have better numbers than I do now. When I was pregnant I was told to be under 120 at 2-hours and that is my goal these days. It keeps getting harder to manage.
So, after trying the regularly recommended ideas I went back to something I did when I did way back when I was diagnosed with reactive hypoglycemia - eating small meals every two to three hours with a balance of carbs and protein. As soon as I switched to this pattern of eating my numbers have generally dropped to a more consistent level and my 2-hour levels are more often in the 90-110 range (rather than the 120-150 range). However, in searching for information on this as a method of dealing with blood sugar issues I have found nothing but bad news (increases insulin resistance). Yet it really seems to be working for me so I plan to continue.
I was wondering if other people have used this technique for good or ill. I figure if it works I will keep going with it, but I'm a bit unnerved by the bevy of negative information available.
Well, at least one study had some good news for you:
Increased feeding frequency leads to a reduction in the total secretion of insulin, an improvement in insulin resistance and a better blood glucose control, as well as an improvement in the blood lipid profile. The experts agreed that, as long as we do not consume more energy than we use up and we only eat when we are hungry, it may be useful to split our total energy intake into as many meals as our social pattern allows. However, the pattern of eating cannot be completely dissociated from the composition of foods consumed.
Maybe it's not wrong for everyone if indeed it led to "an improvement in insulin resistance and a better blood glucose control, as well as an improvement in the blood lipid profile." And perhaps high carb is not a necessary component for making frequent small meals a beneficial way of improving blood glucose control.
Interesting! When my doctor told me to eat like that 20 years ago (when I had the reactive hypoglycemia diagnosis) he treated it like the obvious solution. However, he emphasized the need for a high protein intake and warned against isolated or too much carbohydrate intake as that would cause the sugar spike/sugar drop cycle to repeat. In addition, by eating frequently my hunger would never drop so low as to result in eating too much. His advice was to eat no more than 30g of carbs and always match that with at least 7g of protein. These days I try to go for 9-20g of protein and only 15-20g of carbs for each snack.
That makes for one study of encouragement. Thanks!
I will just say that whatever works, works. IF this way of eating works for you, then stick with it until it no longer works, and then find some other way that works.
For me, intermittent fasting, went a long way towards helping blood sugars stabilize. But that is just me!
Honestly, I think the high carb content they're referring to was simply because they were looking at habitual fourth meal eaters in France and that just happens to be how it worked out. I don't think it's at all saying high carb is necessary.
