Need a bit of a boost

[SOTR]

My last HBA1C was down to 57 from 80. I stopped using Freestyle Libre monitors, partially due to the cost and partially due to going on holiday to stay in a hotel.
I have tried to keep to a low carb diet. However yesterday I got a new Freesytle monitor and at the moment I am on 12.8, having not had more that instance coffee, yoghurt wit a bit of Lizzis granola and a tiny bit of cheese.
I am despairing slightly - I also wake up at 1am regularly and the Freestyle confirmed that this was at the time of a blood sugar spike.

I guess what I need to consider is
a) start some exercise. I am shamed to say I do none at the moment. I am going to join a walking group this evening
b) cutting down on the alcohol. I have no alcohol free days in the week at the moment
c) intermittent fasting - which would be a big step for me

 

[ianf0ster]

Black unsweetened coffee, full fat plain greek style yogurt and cheese are all foods which won't raise your BG. If anything they will terminate any liver dump of glucose caused by Dawn Phenomenon or 'Foot on the floor'.
However granola almost always contains carbs and most T2's are at their most carb sensitive in the morning - so granola is not a good idea for a breakfast.

Drinking alcohol the previous evening delays the processing of the carbs in any meal around then meaning you get lower BG numbers than without alcohol until after the liver has completed its priority task of getting rid of the alcohol. Then the BG will start to rise as normal but perhaps at an inconvenient time since you're unlikely to exercise away the BG late at night or very early next morning.

Aerobic exercise is good for all diabetics the same as for non- diabetics and we should all try to get our 30min 5times per week or more of it , but weight bearing exercise to build muscles is specifically good for T2 diabetics because more muscle means more places to use BG as energy rather than it having to be stored as fat.

IF or time restricted eating seemed a natural progression from Low Carb for me purely because once 'fat adapted' I was no longer hungry in a morning, and it's pointless to eat when you aren't hungry since it is reduces the time window of lower BG and hence ilower insulin needed by your body.

 

[ianpspurs]

My last HBA1C was down to 57 from 80. I stopped using Freestyle Libre monitors, partially due to the cost and partially due to going on holiday to stay in a hotel.
I have tried to keep to a low carb diet. However yesterday I got a new Freesytle monitor and at the moment I am on 12.8, having not had more that instance coffee, yoghurt wit a bit of Lizzis granola and a tiny bit of cheese.
I am despairing slightly - I also wake up at 1am regularly and the Freestyle confirmed that this was at the time of a blood sugar spike.

I guess what I need to consider is
a) start some exercise. I am shamed to say I do none at the moment. I am going to join a walking group this evening
b) cutting down on the alcohol. I have no alcohol free days in the week at the moment
c) intermittent fasting - which would be a big step for me

The big picture clearly shows what you have done worked - HbA1c dropped significantly. Libre sensors can be notoriously "patchy" Have you compared to a finger stab or looked in the event log? Good on you for joining the walking group.

 

[Dandelade]

Well done on all your progress and so far and proactive ness!

If you find the walking group too much, I started off from 20 minutes after food, very gently and it had a noticeable effect on bloods. It can quickly build up from there!
Good luck

 

[SOTR]

Thankyou all. May I ask what 'fat adapted' means?

 

[ianf0ster]

Hi @SOTR Being 'fat Adapted' means being fully able to use your own stored body fat for energy rather than needing to actually eat something.

The way this works is that 'Fat adaptation' used to be the normal state of human we lived in times when food was plentiful in some seasons and scarce in others. Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere used to be season of plenty it still is for bears who use the abundance of fruit and fish in order to store fat for the winter and early spring. Humans have the same capability to store excess food in the form of body fat and then use that body fat as fuel when times are hard. The hormone which controls this process is insulin - when insulin levels are high, fat can be stored but existing body fat can't be accessed s fuel - so we are reliant on the carbs, fat and to a lesser extent protein that we eat. Thus we can't get slimmer with high insulin, only fatter. But when Insulin levels drop low enough for long enough we revert to our default state of being to use energy both from what we already have stored in our body fat plus the energy in our food. Because even slim people have several weeks worth of energy in their fat, this allows us to never get very hungry or lacking in energy (as opposed to being fatigued) since their is always a plentiful store of energy even if we are fasting.