Increasing Blood Sugar!

[arfanj]

Hi everyone!

So yesterday was a confusing day. I’m still kind of testing to see what stuff is good and what’s bad for my own system. I decided to have Nando’s, a butterfly chicken, salad and some chips for lunch. My glucose levels came down nicely after the 2 hour mark. (Around 6.9). For dinner I decided then indulge in Pepe’s which is another food establishment similar to Nando’s. I had a BBQ panini, mozzarella sticks and a chicken quesadilla (really bad of me I know - but I was testing) anyway, 2 hours later my glucose meter reads 9.8, I do it again after 20 mins and it’s rising to 10.5, and again after 10 mins and it’s coming back down to 9.8.

I had this dinner around 8pm.

I’m not sure what happened here? The total carbs in the dinner was 122.2g (I just checked that on their website). I’m not checking my sugar levels all the time but this is the first time I’ve seen an increase after 2 hours.

Is this normal when eating something high in carbs? Is 122.2g a lot of carbs for a prediabetic? Is eating so late the culprit?

Also on a separate note do any of you recommend purchasing the free style libre 2, to monitor levels?

Thank you

 

[Geordie_P]

If I ate that many carbs, I'd expect to see a similar number. It's a quite a lot of carbs.

 

[Ronancastled]

Is this normal when eating something high in carbs? Is 122.2g a lot of carbs for a prediabetic?

Carbs are only half the issue here, you also need to factor in the additional fats/protein in meal this size.
The pulsing nature of digestion means carbs are been broken down in varying amounts over a longer time frame.
Research the Pizza effect, essentially the 2 hour test is useless in this scenario.

The 2 hour mantra comes from the OGTT where you receive a sharp shock of glucose with no other macros to interfere with the result.
It's a decent rule of thumb when eating a simple meal & not a 3 course buffet extravaganza.
Having said all that nobody likes to see a 10 on their meter, non-diabetics are known to exceed 7.8 for only 30 mins per day so that's essentially what you're aiming for.

Also on a separate note do any of you recommend purchasing the free style libre 2, to monitor levels?

100% on the Libre, told me more in 2 weeks than what a year of finger sticking taught me.

 

[In Response]

@arfanj what you are seeing is that different carbs are digested at different rates.
The recommendation to test after 2 hours is taking a best guess at when most carbs are digested.
As a rule of thumb, the sweeter something is, the faster it is digested and the fattier something is the slower it is digested.
Those of us who are susceptible to hypos (usually due to our treatment such as insulin) are very aware of the fast acting carbs such as jelly babies to treat hypos.
Fatty foods such as pizza, creamy pasta and curry, can take 4 or more hours to digest and will affect my blood sugars for many hours after eating.

I suspect this is what happened with your second test meal.

 

[TriciaWs]

That is a lot of carbs for someone with prediabetes.
Low carbing is a shock at first but there are compensations - I eat foods I never had before and enjoy indulging in full fat milk, double cream and cheese after years of on-off dieting counting calories.

 

[Resurgam]

It doesn't seem confusing to me - diabetes is the inability to deal with carbohydrate - and you ate a lot of carbohydrate.
Protein and fats are fine - I exist very well on them with the addition of around 35 to 40 gm of carb even on a day with a dessert in it. These days that is all I can cope with.
If I'd not been pushed to eat all those 'healthy' carbs I would probably never have become fully diabetic, nor put on so much weight. I am 70 now - maybe take my advice that the response to your carb fest is an indication of how not to eat from now on.

 

[jaywak]

If I ate a meal containing that many carbs I would not be to surprised if I had a bg reading in the low twenties , Thats way to many carbs for one sitting , On special occasions I will have maybe 60 - 70 carbs and end up with a bg of 12 - 14 but that I feel is ok now and again .