I fill these little bags of Smarties mixed w/ Starburst jellybeans. I prefer to just eat quick acting sugar to balance my BG during running/ etc. (3-4 hours). I eat a reasonable breakfast, eggs w/ veggies toast and maybe an extra piece of toast for the 14+ mile excursions but do that a couple hours before "blast off" so the insulin is gone or mostly gone before I start running. If it's not totally gone, I'll have some quick acting sugar to get there before I run.
I bring Gatorade to drink and that has some more carbs but I try to use that for fuel/ drink and the bean mix for diabetes adjustments and that works ok for my head. I only worry about protein a lot if I am doing some sort of strength exercises. There was one lady in our running group who brought bacon to snack on but, for once, no one else was interested in the bacon!
So this quick high will take you longer as opposed to eating a good carb/fat/protein snack?
When my son was beginning his exercise with this he would get low fast. So the quick low fix is the 4 oz of juice or fruit roll up. This got him "up" fast but did not last. The doc told us to give the meal before to sustain longer.
Perhaps this is your system? and Also he is new and in honeymoon, so his pancreas is producing insulin. I assume this is tied in with your pump.
He leaves school at 3:10. Volleyball starts at 3:30. So he has a few minutes to change and grab a hearty carb snack. Perhaps it could be supplemented with some quick carb food instead. He is in honeymoon, new diabetic, no pump. He drops fast with exercise.
I wonder what natural sweet gatorade type drink may be added to the equation. I would like to find a natural sweet. Gatorade is corn syrup. I have to look at the market to see who may be making a natural sports drink.
Well, it's tied into my pump and CGM and experience, Sally's basic point that protein and more complex carbs take a long time to digest is the main thing. If you're in the middle of a game, an hour or two, a sandwich at halftime won't really boost your BG for a while. If you're low, you need it ASAP, like glucose or dextrose, although the jellybeans are HFCS, they improve the texture of the dextrose Smarties a lot so I've stuck with them.
I also like having the food before several hours before because that's when the carbs from the food will be "deploying" in my blood. There's a chart in Think Like a Pancreas I know I've seen on the internet but I can't find it at all so I'll post a pic here, because it's been that useful for me:
Basically, if you are doing an hour at 100%, you cut the pre-game bolus by 50% and eat your snack. I prefer to clear the insulin out by eating early but it can work closer in, if you are careful and can test at changeovers or whatever they do in volleyball. I use the same %ages for cutting basal during races, but that's much easier to do with a pump. And I do stuff like "13%, because it's a lucky number..." etc. too, when my BG gets low.
I use the powdered Gatorade b/c it's sucrose and dextrose, mostly because it works faster. I don't buy the bottled stuff but more because I'm cheap than any sort of health concerns but I'm not sure what's in that. I'm not sure about apple juice, Gerri and some other sharp food people have pointed out that fructose is metabolized in your liver and I'm not 100% sure how that would play out during exercise, if it would take longer, impair hormones or whatever.
Larabar's are Great! They are a cleaner and more pure bar out there.
I will take a look at the variety and ingredients therein. So he would get the short boost carbs from the dried fruits. Good fats and proteins from the nuts. And less sugar.
Good point. What is metabolized where and at what rate?
Lot's of science. I guess you have to figure out where you are grabbing energy from. Short reserves or long reserves. As a runner you may know of Stu Mittleman? His science was to teach the body to ride longer on fat as opposed to carbs. I am not sure where that can come into play with a type 1. Lot's to learn here!
Kind Bars are good too. There's a Walnut/Macadamia/Protein flavor that's like 15G of carbs and pretty tasty. We buy boxes of them as we both like them. Again, that's the sort of thing that deploys slowly, there might be some advantage to having it at like 1:30 for a 3:30 game. I'd think that wouldn't disrupt school too much but they can be funny about that sort of thing.
So, as a runner you use full meals as reserved fuel and when you run you use short acting sugars? I have a lot to learn here, but isn't that a false fast high?
It's not false, if my BG gets low while I'm running, I want it to raise it as fast as possible. Gatorade is more for thirst/ fuel on the long runs. 20 miles is like 3-3 1/2 hours for me but, if I eat a granola bar at the turn, it's not really going to "deploy" until I'm close to done or even after, when I don't need it.
I agree the protein/ good fat/ healthy food plan ahead of time but during, I want stuff I can bring down the trail, with as many carbs in as compact a pouch as possible. Which may be a bit different w/ volleyball, since there's a bench, etc. For an hour, the only thing I'd worry about would be BG management. I'd focus on the nutrition for the rest of the day. I've eaten eggs/ spinach and broccoli most days for breakfast to load in 2x extra servings of vegetables, large bag of veggies for lunch, etc. I think that works well for me and my BG stays pretty decent most of the time.
I guess that part of this is figuring out his trends, keeping the day spread with the "good" carbs/proteins/fats and using the faster carbs intermittently?
As you exercise, you "fuel" yourself with fast acting carbs to keep your sugars up and going.
I've run into quite a few runners who will run their BG up. This again is for longer runs, etc. My average BG is pretty low though, and I like to think that paying close attention to it and not looking to load up on carbs helps with that a bit but I'm not exactly a brilliant scientist or even logger.
Thank you. I like this answer. I am finding over and over again that it is all individual. This is also a new 15 year old. In honeymoon when he is producing "some" insulin I do not know what the rest of his body is doing. Perhaps that is why he drops quicker now and will not when he is out of honeymoon. Hard to say and I am not aware of the science at this time.
If I feel that we need to stuff him to get through exercise it shows me that his long insulin can be cut back. I will call my endo's office again. Last week they lowered his long acting and then gave him one unit of insulin for every 45 grams of meal (so, just about one meal). That day he was low after breakfast (his first one unit) and then they took him off). The idea being that reducing the long acting insulin would bring him higher and the short acting before breakfast and lunch would bring him back to normal and then he would be left higher before exercise so that he did not have to use so much food to get through exercise. We will have to continue to tweak this!
