Lower Readings At Weekends

[rhubarb73]

Some interesting analysis. After a particularly spiky day, I was prompted to look back over my blood test results over the last couple of months and I've noticed a distinct trend. What prompted me to look was continually getting high readings in the middle of the day, often higher before my lunch than after it. I test usually 6 times a day, before and 2 hours after every meal. I have over 250 results since I started testing, so enough for a statistically significant sample.
I noticed when I looked over the results that this trend of higher lunchtime readings didn't seem to be happening at weekends.
In fact at weekends my results are 4% lower than on weekdays, and 9% lower for those weekend readings in the middle of the day. My readings are fairly consistent either side of breakfast, and fairly consistent either side of dinner (a bit lower at the weekends maybe due to a bit of wine!).
The weekday middle of the day discrepancy though is worthy of investigation because it is quite a consistently big margin of difference. My food diet isn't any different and in fact I am more likely to have some porridge at the weekend for breakfast (although it doesn't spike me). My diet is mainly LCHF and I rarely see big post meal spikes. I have two main suspects for the difference - which I intend to put to the test in succession,
Firstly is the obvious difference that I work during the week, so am moving around more, under more pressure, more stress. I'll see if this changes when I take some time off in a couple of weeks.
However, I think the more likely candidate may be coffee. I think I drink more coffee and stronger coffee in the week than at the weekends, and I think this may be spiking my readings.
Anyway I will report back to see if a decaff-detox helps lower my scores on weekdays but I thought I would share in case anyone else has any observations they think I might be worth looking at.

 

[Goonergal]

Really interesting @rhubarb73 I may have to get my spreadsheet out later to do some similar analysis. Have another months worth of data to upload first though.

 

[Deleted Account]

I read somewhere about someone else noticing caffeine affecting their BG - they changed to decaf and saw their BG come down.
Do you change anything else in your regime at the weekend? As my job is office-based, I tend to move around more at the weekend which will reduce my BG.

 

[rhubarb73]

I read somewhere about someone else noticing caffeine affecting their BG - they changed to decaf and saw their BG come down.
Do you change anything else in your regime at the weekend? As my job is office-based, I tend to move around more at the weekend which will reduce my BG.

Maybe - at weekends I have more flexibility as to when I can exercise so that may be a factor.

 

[Canvaspic]

Do you sleep more at the weekends.
I also make better food choices when I am well rested.

 

[rhubarb73]

Do you sleep more at the weekends.
I also make better food choices when I am well rested.

I don’t think this is down to food choices. Sleep may inherently improve the numbers though - it is healing.

 

[Alison Campbell]

I had my best HBA1C during a 13 month period of redundancy. Eating when hungry rather than around meetings, less stress, lots of exercise.

Now back in work my fasting levels are always higher on work days. I need to win the lottery!

 

[kitedoc]

Hi @rhubarb73, I believe caffeine can stimulate the liver to release some stored glucose. On the forum I recall hearing that some people are affected more than others. Certainly if I am having a cafe-style cappuccino I take a bolus insulin equivalent to 25 g carb.(to allow for the effect of caffeine plus milk).
Also more coffees = more stress for me

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

However, I think the more likely candidate may be coffee.

Something else to consider is stress. Are you less stressed at the weekend? This could easily be just me but yesterday I had to claim my State Pension which I thought I'd do online. I worked in IT for 35 years so felt I should at least make the effort to be in the 21st Century. I started at 10:00 and it all seemed straight forward until I had to verify who I am. Fair enough, I don't want anyone else claiming my pension. WWW.GOV.UK don't do the verifying, you have to go to a third party, Barclays Bank and the Post Office were two of those third parties, they say it takes 5 minutes, took me 20, never mind, onward and upwards. Then you basically have to supply the same sort of info to the online application which is where I got stuck. I didn't like it. There then followed several phone calls, basically being followed from pillar to post, before I realised that if I didn't want to continue making my online claim and just made a new claim by phone it would be sorted, and it was, although I have five phone number which are no good to man nor beast and one good one. The phone claim took 20 minutes and that was only complicated because I had contracted out so my pension is smaller than the £164 a week. The contracted out portion was going into my private pension so no worries. I finished at 12:30.

The FS Libre enabled me to see how bad my BG was getting during those 2 1/2 hours and I was amazed. No breakfast, no food since 19:00 the night before. BG at 12:30 was nearly 15. I could also tell that my BP was up because my face looks like I've been out in the sun too long. It came down rapidly and was good by 14:00.

Sorry for lengthy reply.

 

[rhubarb73]

@DavidGrahamJones - that’s ok. You clearly needed to vent which is always ok. I bet your readings went up whilst writing it.
Yes - stress may be a factor. I have more of it than I sometimes acknowledge

 

[DavidGrahamJones]

I bet your readings went up whilst writing it.

Yep, that time of the day. This dawn phenomena is a real pain in the neck. I think I can safely say that the increase in BG yesterday was not DP. The interesting thing about stress is that you don't necessarily recognise it straight away. I kept my cool with all the people I spoke to who after all aren't responsible for rubbish phone systems that the powers that be use to stop you from talking to a real person. There were some options that took you round in circles and one that just said thank you and good bye, that really is annoying.

I think it's brilliant that you are keeping such good records and can therefore hopefully identify trends and their causes. There definitely doesn't seem to be a one size fits all but at least this forum allows suggestions from people with similar experiences.

 

[rhubarb73]

Thanks @DavidGrahamJones - I use the MySugr app on my phone so the record keeping is easy. I uploaded the results into a spreadsheet to create the chart but it only took a few minutes. It’s a great app.

 

[Lampman]

I drink coffee some days and not others, and I have not noticed any difference. It is ground coffee and I like it industrial strength so I reckon it would show up. But maybe thats just me. Sleep and stress do make a difference though, and lots of stress seems to make for bad sleep patterns too.