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New and confused re breakfast fruit!

Beth14

Beth14

Member
Messages
9
Location
Swindon
Type of diabetes
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
I was diagnosed Type 2 three weeks ago during blood tests for an unrelated problem. My fasting BG was 14.4 and my HBA1c 88!

I have made good progress, mainly through reading the advice on here and, after having to argue my case with the nurse, have got testing equipment on prescription. I am on Metformin (4x500).

I am struggling with an alternative breakfast to bacon & eggs (which I do love, and which is really working for my BG levels).

After reading advice on here, I tried plain Greek Yoghurt with brazil nuts and bananas, then read that a medium banana contains around 27g carbs, so changed this morning to blueberries and raspberries in the yoghurt.

However, my testing for each one showed that, while the banana yoghurt increased my BG by 0.9 from fasting (7.8 to 8.7), the berry yoghurt increased it by 1.5 (7.4 to 8.9).

I realise that everyone is different and maybe I need to repeat test, but what am I doing wrong please?
 
Hi and welcome,

You are doing nothing wrong, indeed you seem to be trying very hard. Maybe you are just adding too many berries? Also, blueberries have more sugar than other berries so you need to keep the portion low. I also have a full fat Greek yogurt for breakfast with some berries added. After many, many tests I know I can only add 3 average strawberries, or 4/5 raspberries, or very few blueberries, or maybe 3 or 4 blackberries. More than that and I get a bigger spike. I also add milled flaxseed. Just keep testing until you find a portion size that suits your body.
 
@Beth14 did you weigh the blueberries and raspberries? and so work out their carb amount?
 
My suggestion would be to also add more protein and/or fat as I doubt if there is enough in the yogurt to buffer the carbs. Most type 2's are more carb intolerant in the morning, so you may get a better result by basing your breakfast around protein/fat with the berries & yogurt as a "chaser". Seems to work well for me.
 
What happens if you cut out the fruit completely for a few days, to get a sort of base-line reading, and then day by day, add in small amounts of the different fruit and see what the effects are? I'm also just starting to monitor and realise this is harder than I expected! You realise how much of a mixture the food on the plate's sometimes been, and isolating the one that's affecting you may not be so straightforward. Reminds me of what i hear people doing allergy testing talk about.
 
Oh dear, no - I just put a big handful of each in!! I thought the berries were, kind of, 'free food' - every day is a learning day with this, isn't it? It was lush though :)

I also find that the yoghurt breakfast does not keep me full until lunchtime, so I will need to keep reading the forum suggestions.

Thank you so much for such constructive (and fast!) advice! :)
 
If you don't already have one, I'd invest in a digital food scale - I think all newly diagnosed Type 2's can learn valuable lessons by weighing food until they get a handle on how food affects their BG levels. Much easier to make adjustments too.
 
Hi Beth, well done on your approach and progress so far :)

Have you got the book 'Carbs and Cals'? Lots of pictures of foods in different portion sizes (including berries) with their respective values.
 
I have half a toasted lidl high protein roll with lots of cheese and Marmite on it Keeps me full and doesn't shoot up my BG s
CAROL
 
Beth14 said:
Oh dear, no - I just put a big handful of each in!! I thought the berries were, kind of, 'free food' - every day is a learning day with this, isn't it? It was lush though :)QUOTE]
Click to expand...


Not free food but fruits like Blueberries (14g of carbs per 100g) and Strawberries (8g of carbs per 100g) are much lower in carbs than most fruits.

Pleased you've found the forum a great help @Beth14 :)
 
A gentle note of caution - don't get too hung up on decimal points in your test readings.
Your 8.7 and 8.9 are near enough identical given the margin for error in home testing kits.

Wikipedia suggests that home meters must give a reading within 20% of a laboratory test.
This is kind of scary because this suggests with a BG of 10 your meter could read between 8 and 12.
I expect meters to be much more accurate than this, but a difference of one or two decimal points is rarely significant.

Sounds as though you are doing pretty well, though :)
 
Beth14 said:
I was diagnosed Type 2 three weeks ago during blood tests for an unrelated problem. My fasting BG was 14.4 and my HBA1c 88!

I have made good progress, mainly through reading the advice on here and, after having to argue my case with the nurse, have got testing equipment on prescription. I am on Metformin (4x500).

I am struggling with an alternative breakfast to bacon & eggs (which I do love, and which is really working for my BG levels).

After reading advice on here, I tried plain Greek Yoghurt with brazil nuts and bananas, then read that a medium banana contains around 27g carbs, so changed this morning to blueberries and raspberries in the yoghurt.

However, my testing for each one showed that, while the banana yoghurt increased my BG by 0.9 from fasting (7.8 to 8.7), the berry yoghurt increased it by 1.5 (7.4 to 8.9).

I realise that everyone is different and maybe I need to repeat test, but what am I doing wrong please?
Click to expand...
If you love bacon and eggs, why do you need an alternative?
 
meters have a tolerance of about 15 % so your 8.4 could be over 9 or under 8 and so could your 8.7 so there is little difference. I always take my readings from the same spot on the same finger because I actually find I vary finger to finger. What you are looking for are trends

Why not try without berries or even add grated or desicated cocunut or crushed hazelnuts or what I do to my porridge is mix in cinnamon as that adds a lovely flavour. Doing different things on different days gves you variety.

However, as Totto says if you like bacon and eggs why not have them. Although I understand that cooking them every morning when time is of a pressure can be a little bit of an issue
 
Indy51 said:
If you don't already have one, I'd invest in a digital food scale - I think all newly diagnosed Type 2's can learn valuable lessons by weighing food until they get a handle on how food affects their BG levels. Much easier to make adjustments too.
Click to expand...
Yes, I do have a digital scale in the back of the cupboard Indy - I will dig it out! :)
 
sanguine said:
Hi Beth, well done on your approach and progress so far :)

Have you got the book 'Carbs and Cals'? Lots of pictures of foods in different portion sizes (including berries) with their respective values.
Click to expand...
Thank you Rod, I will look on Amazon for it.
 
I usually have omelette - can get variety by putting different fillings in. I like this option as I get my first potions of veg on for the day.

Otherwise scrambled egg, maybe with mushrooms/bacon/sausage/tomato.
 
I certainly didn't realise home meters had such a large ratio for error, so I will bear that in mind.

As regards the bacon and eggs, Totto and Andrew, yes, is mostly just a question of time in the morning, although I have got it down to a fine art, getting all the pans and utensils ready the night before! But it is also nice to have a change sometimes.

Thank you for all the advice, and I will take a trip to LIDL to look for those rolls.
 
Andrew Colvin said:
meters have a tolerance of about 15 % so your 8.4 could be over 9 or under 8 and so could your 8.7 so there is little difference. I always take my readings from the same spot on the same finger because I actually find I vary finger to finger. What you are looking for are trends

Why not try without berries or even add grated or desicated cocunut or crushed hazelnuts or what I do to my porridge is mix in cinnamon as that adds a lovely flavour. Doing different things on different days gves you variety.

However, as Totto says if you like bacon and eggs why not have them. Although I understand that cooking them every morning when time is of a pressure can be a little bit of an issue
Click to expand...
Dessicated coconut really appeals to me, I will give it a try, thanks!
 
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