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Basal Testing - What's safe to eat?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Hooked
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Ideally you should eat nothing during basal testing and that includes milk in drinks. But that depends on willpower. Eating low carb or even zero carb food is going to cause some effect on blood sugar and that is going to skew the results. On the tea drinking thing, if you do have the sane amount every day at the same time and never bolus for it then I guess you can include that in your basal without too much trouble. It all depends how accurate you need your basal to be. If you always eat the same things every day then in theory you could just keep doing that during a "basal test" and never take any bolus doses - as an extreme example.

Personally I eat nothing during a basal test and drink only water, but I don't find that hard. Not being addicted to caffeine helps! But if someone can't fast, I'm sure it's better that they do a basal test but eat food with no carbs, than if they didn't do a basal test at all.

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Hooked said:
Finally got peace to sit and read this today (ironically whilst in work!). It's a great piece and really explains every part of the process. Thanks so much for posting it.
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You are more than welcome
 
My DSN says carb free food is ok, but personally I choose to avoid food all together.


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hale710 said:
My DSN says carb free food is ok, but personally I choose to avoid food all together.


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I did it last night again without any food. Interesting to see the difference in the two evenings. First evening I ate salad leaves, cheese and mayo and my levels stayed fairly even, climbing very slightly if anything. Second evening, no food, levels gradually came down over the course of the evening. Just shows even carb free food does make a difference.
 
I did it this morning and was so hungry I almost at my own fist!


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hale710 said:
I did it this morning and was so hungry I almost at my own fist!


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It's the instant I know I can't have anything that I start to get hungry. I was counting down the minutes to 10pm last night, lol.
 
Hooked said:
It's the instant I know I can't have anything that I start to get hungry. I was counting down the minutes to 10pm last night, lol.
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I ate dinner at 6pm last night. Started basal test at 6am this morning. 11am I was basically banging my head off my desk haha


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I find I need to drop even carb free food, as even that causes a BG rise. I just starve myself for a day followed few days later by an evening and overnight, but I can cheat and use my Dex readings so no need to wake up every two hours.
 
Chas C said:
I find I need to drop even carb free food, as even that causes a BG rise.
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Same here Chas C, that is why Scheiner says you should abstain from food and only drink water during basal testing.
 
But if I did basal testing without my coffees and then altered my dosses accordingly... Then adding my qtys of coffee with milk back in.. My levels would be shot to pieces.....



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Do people bolus for coffee? I would have too if I didn't include mine in my basal rates. No way would I want to faff around doing that everytime my customers offered me coffees...especially with the dirtiest hands you could imagine..

I guess we all find out what suits us best!!


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I do not bolus for coffee or tea, the amount of milk included is so small it has no impact on me (and I drink about 5-6 a day)
 
I must have at least 10-15 cuppas per day (they are cups rather than mugs). So bolusing for these wld be a pain in bum!!


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If you are using your basal to cover coffees at certain times, what happens when you might end up not drinking a coffee at those times, for whatever reason?
 
Never a reason!! For the miniscule amount of basal it is and milks itmakes no odds at all. Everything is so totally flexible within range for me doing it like this..


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Thanks for posting this up, I just checked and found that for each tea/coffee I have its about 2g of carbs for the milk, so if I have say 5 cups a day that's 10g I'd not been accounting for. I will now be changing my habits and bolusing for each cup (even though its small).

I will also stop taking milk laden drinks whilst basal testing too.
 
Sorry to say it...but I think this is starting to get 'as long as it's short'. For those who want to just drink water... although basal need will drop a bit, what will happen when a bolus is done to cover beverages for frequent drinks, is that for some drinks a bolus will need to be done and for some, but for others, it wont. Remember the 4hr acting time and the bolus piggybacking on top of the meal bolus.

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Yeah it's as square as it is round.

I don't worry about stacking basal doses, though I'm very confident in my carb ratio. It's stacking correction doses that is the more serious risk I think.

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