Has anyone found a reliable strategy with beer?

TigerZZ

Newbie
Messages
3
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
Perhaps the ad was misleading then.
'All the sugar turns to alcohol'
Or has this lager changed over the years?
All the fermentable sugar turns to alcohol. That can leave a lot of dextrins and even starch (glycogen) that gets converted to glucose once you consume it.
 

TigerZZ

Newbie
Messages
3
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
All the fermentable sugar turns to alcohol. That can leave a lot of dextrins and even starch (glycogen) that gets converted to glucose once you consume it.
So better to drink a beer that has been completely converted to glucose during mashing and then end fermented. Lagunitas IPA works for me. Regular beers drive my sugars a bit wild. I'm Type 2 btw
 

ayceejay

Member
Messages
5
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
To add my five eggs, relying on Freestyle Libre as the OP does in this situation is micro-management and a mistake.
A doctor once told me back in the 80s that binge drinking or occasional drinking was more of a problem than regular drinking. I don't think he advised me to drink every day, only that one would develop a strategy with experience.
 

MaryCH

Newbie
Messages
1
My experience is to carb count and dose for the first 2 pints but, if I drink any more (which is rare because I am small and it makes me drunk), I need no more.
I also have a policy to avoid carbs of any kind if my levels are above 10 as I become insulin resistant.

Recently, I have started drinking non alcoholic beer. This has improved greatly in recently years and actually tastes of something other than water. At first I dosed assuming a similar carb content to alcoholic beer. Turns out low/no alcohol beer is also low carb and pretty tasty.
I'm in interested in your post because I have found non/low alcohol beers very high in carbs.
 

T3X

Newbie
Messages
2
When I started drinking at age of 22 I only needed 1u of regular insulin for each can of long neck, now at age of 28 I need about 8 to 10u to each one. Yesterday october 2 I drank 9 heineken long necks and applyed insulin many times to keep stable levels. My tip for you is to take insuline before you drink, and drink at most 2 cans per hour, with this method I can mantain stable levels through the whole day. Bellow measures from that day starting at 12 to 21:00
Screenshot from 2023-10-03 17-11-32.png
 

Antje77

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
19,477
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
When I started drinking at age of 22 I only needed 1u of regular insulin for each can of long neck, now at age of 28 I need about 8 to 10u to each one. Yesterday october 2 I drank 9 heineken long necks and applyed insulin many times to keep stable levels. My tip for you is to take insuline before you drink, and drink at most 2 cans per hour, with this method I can mantain stable levels through the whole day. Bellow measures from that day starting at 12 to 21:00View attachment 63499
Looks very good at the start, but it also looks like this approach sent you into hypo levels for at least 5 hours.
Please be careful!
 

RobertJ

Well-Known Member
Messages
217
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Pump
When I started drinking at age of 22 I only needed 1u of regular insulin for each can of long neck, now at age of 28 I need about 8 to 10u to each one. Yesterday october 2 I drank 9 heineken long necks and applyed insulin many times to keep stable levels. My tip for you is to take insuline before you drink, and drink at most 2 cans per hour, with this method I can mantain stable levels through the whole day. Bellow measures from that day starting at 12 to 21:00View attachment 63499

This kind of thing is why I started the thread. For me, the enjoyment is just worth it when it goes wrong and you're dealing with lows.

It looks like you gave several doses even after going low. I think that was a very bad idea.
 

In Response

Well-Known Member
Messages
3,483
Type of diabetes
Type 1
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Pump
I find the insulin to beer ratio changes as I drink more beer.
After a couple of pints (my tolerance at which I feel drunk), I take no insulin with future alcohol.
I have never tried this with 9 pints. I don’t think I could.
 
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Westley

Well-Known Member
Messages
194
Type of diabetes
Type 1
I barely drink at all these days, but I remember a few bad experiences in my early diabetic days as a teenager where after having quite a few drinks I felt hot and headachy but sober, then I tested and realised I had very high BG. So I injected a big correction and suddenly it was like the insulin made all the alcohol from the last few hours hit my brain at once.
 

jrussell88

Well-Known Member
Messages
98
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
I enjoy real ale and find that 15g per pint is about right, and the BG uplift is fairly quick, whereas even rapid-acting insulin takes 4+ hours to have most of its effect. Darker beers may be higher, around 20g per pint.

Irritatingly, very few brewers, even the bigger ones, publish nutritional information for their beer as they are not required to do so. Perhaps we should start a campaign to change that.
 

Zinadane

Well-Known Member
Messages
289
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
It's frustrating for sure.
Currently enjoying a couple of hatherwood ipa from Lidl. Nothing on carbs comes up after googling.
Fairly safe to assume 15g per bottle I reckon, but who really knows!
 

Zinadane

Well-Known Member
Messages
289
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
You probably crucify me for this question!
Will having 3 pints or equivalent every day (with good level management). Cause more of a problem to a diabetic than to a non diabetic?
Could it impact insulin resistance?
 

Antje77

Oracle
Retired Moderator
Messages
19,477
Type of diabetes
LADA
Treatment type
Insulin
You probably crucify me for this question!
Will having 3 pints or equivalent every day (with good level management). Cause more of a problem to a diabetic than to a non diabetic?
Could it impact insulin resistance?
A quick google search seems to bring up sources concluding that moderate alcohol intake improves IR and worsens IR, so I guess the jury is out on that one. Of course most of those results are about T2's, not T1's with additional IR.
Many T1's don't have to take IR into account at all.
 
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Zinadane

Well-Known Member
Messages
289
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
How's dry January going?
Had my fair share Xmas week. So decided to try for a dry month. Just caved in (4days pathetic!) with some red wine.
Certainly up and down days with t1 are enough to drive you to drink!