That's all good info there. I use Clif Shot Bloks and Gu Chomps interchangeably on my rides as they seem to react in me around the same as they do in you.
To answer your question, though -- I think feeling things at 60 mgdL is great. Not that it feels great (of course not), but that's the range right where you want to have awareness that you are going down and need to react to the low. Right now I've got my Dex CGM set at 80 so that I can get out in front of even feeling the lows.
Good luck.
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Thanks for the detailed report! I would say feeling hypo "at" 60 is pretty decent awareness. I will notice a drop off in "performance" (sic? LOL...) in the 70s on my meter (when I pull over to test...) as it seems to become harder/ more work to maintain the same pace? It seems pretty reliable but, at the same time, I'm not a huge fan of running to where I'm out of gas as it takes a mile or two before the sugar will hit and sort of dampens the fun? I'm not a huge fan of the cliff shots/ blocks/ etc. as I think the maltodextrin hits more slowly. That being said, I had one about 1/2 hour before a 1/2 marathon once and felt really strong. I also had one during my nightmarish Chicago Marathon last year and, while it didn't fix the cramps, it made me feel better for 30 seconds?
I found an interesting article about pre-race fueling while trying to see if it might help cramp-proof me to lay off milk, that also goes into quite a bit of interesting detail about eating and balancing and fueling for longer races, which is probably sort of like hiking, with less bears?
http://www.marathonguide.com/training/articles/MandBFuelOnFat.cfm
The article on fueling is really interesting - mightbtake a couple of readings for me to fully appreciate it, but there’s a lot of good info in there.
Since we are talking about lows, I wanted to throw this question out there:
If you’re sitting down to a meal, test your BG, andcrealize you’re low (60-65) - what do you do?
I had this happen today at a buffet - sat down to order drinks and I was at 65 - I thought about treating, then testing, then bolusing, then eating but decided to try something else: I grabbed a plate of food with some rice and bread that I felt comfortable bolusing for and started to eat - mainly the carbs - before taking any insulin to give the carbs a head start. About five minutes after eating some rice I took a bolus for the entire meal which I calculated off the total carbs and my BG reading of 65. Basically, instead of the 3 units I’d take for the meal if I were at my target BG, I took 2 units and took them five minutes into the meal instead of 15-20 ahead.
So far it seems to be working - I’m still within two hours of the meal and will be testing shortly.
The only issue was that the rice/carbs took a longer to raise my BG than a tablet would so I still felt a bit hypo even after finishing off all the carbs I had taken.
What do you guys find as a useful strategy in similar situations - would you treat the low first with tablets, etc. and then eat or try to use the meal and bolus dosage/timing to make it work?
Apologies for the tangent - I figured it was somewhat relevant considering the hypo topic.
I think that was a good strategy, though interruptive. In the past when I'm in that situation, I just bolus less before the meal, then jump on the eating thing (right away). I might give your way a go, just to see how I do with it. Good job figuring this out for yourself.
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