Best time to take blood sugar level

What you are looking for is a stable BG throughout the day within your target range (the target for T1 is between 4 and 7, not sure what it is for T2).
This is affected by many things such as
- food (which is why many people suggest testing 2 hours after eating),
- time of day (you may have read about the "dawn phenomenon")
- stress (mental and physical)
- exercise (cardio and resistance/weights)
- illness
- weather (hot and cold)
- drugs (legal and not )
- ...

Many people take readings to understand how these things affect them and then adjust (e.g. carbs or exercise) to maintain the ideal levels.

Hi @steveis36 ..
"Feet on Floor" is a good maxim for your fasting BG reading .. ie: as soon as you wake up and get out of bed. Otherwise, immediately before a meal and then 2 hours after you start eating. Readings taken after exercise will almost certainly be skewed and higher than "normal" (whatever that is)

Hope this helps

When Exercising you should test before & then at a minimum of 1 hour after exercise. Your BG will be elevated if you take it immediately after finishing exercise

woodenone46 said:

When Exercising you should test before & then at a minimum of 1 hour after exercise. Your BG will be elevated if you take it immediately after finishing exercise

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BG after exercise will depend on many things - type of exercise, length of exercise and your fitness (for that type of exercise).
If I walk for 3 hours, my BG is unaffected.
If I run for 30 minutes, my BG is lower than usual
If I rock climb for an hour, my BG is higher than usual.

Testing will show you how different types of exercise affect you.
And you have to keep testing because, as you get fitter, the affect on your BG will be reduced (unless you increase the intensity/duration/weights).

For what it's worth, I did a couple of hours hedge-trimming yesterday. (New machine working above shoulder height). It felt like a weight lifting session, and was hard on the biceps and shoulders. I felt really knackered and came indoors for some water, and tested to see how low I actually was. Flaming 8.2 !!
So either that was poorly washed hands or my body was reacting to some hard labour and my liver was dumping extra sugar supplies into my blood. An hour in the bath and I was 5.3, so no dramas.

If I could only test one time each day it would be just before my main meal of the day - that way I would get a good comparison of how I'm doing day to day without the dreaded dawn phenomenon influencing my tests.