Blood sugar in the evening

Hi, I don't have diabetes but I have been monitoring my blood sugar and I have some questions about what I've seen.

I have noticed that my blood sugar seems to spike after dinner, often going between 7 & 8, and then it seems to level-off in the low to mid 6s for much of the remainder of the evening, right through until I go to sleep. This is despite the fact that I am eating relatively light dinners (certainly nothing particularly high in fat or carbs), and am having nothing further to eat in the four or five hours between dinner and bed. Nor am I doing anything else that should cause this. The result is that I am starting to see fasting blood sugar levels in the morning in the high 5s. The strange thing is my fasting level has actually gone up quite significantly in recent weeks and months, since I started eating better and undertaking regular exercise. I regularly used to have fasting levels in the low 4s, even if I'd gone to bed with levels quite a bit higher.

Grazer said:

Agree with Mary, but if you're in doubt, then get a test at the doctors. If you're pre-diabetic for example, then the sooner you know and take corrective action the better.

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Sorry for the delay in responding, but having done more tests over recent days I'm getting slightly concerned about my blood sugar levels, particularly in the evening. My levels are certainly not going into diabetic levels, but overall my blood sugars appear to have gone up in recent weeks, and I have noticed that they seem to go relatively high (for me anyway) in the evening and stay there for several hours.

Take this evening for example. I had dinner at around 8pm, with pre-meal blood sugar in the low 5s. It was mainly vegetables; courgettes, onions, chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, and a slice of wholemeal bread. All told, there were around 30g carbs in there, about half of those being starch in the bread, the rest naturally occurring sugars, with very little fat or protein. I went for a light 30 minute walk after the meal. An hour after eating my BG was 5.3, 1hr 45 mins after it was 6.5, 2.5 hrs after it was 6.0, and it was 6.0 again 4.5 hours afterwards.

I noticed a similar pattern on previous days, again where I had relatively light meals, and on days when I didn't walk afterwards either.

As diabetics you may not think there is much to worry about with such figures, but my concern stems from the fact that over the last few weeks my BG levels seem to have been getting worse. This is despite the fact that I've cut back on carbs, mainly in the form of added sugars, I'm eating a lot more fruit/veg, and I'm exercising regularly (normally about 30 minutes 5 days a week before breakfast). I had a HbA1c test a few months ago which came back with a result of 33mmol/mol, so my GP had no concerns. But back then I wasn't seeing this sort of pattern, and I was regularly seeing my BG go down into the 4s by bed-time, and I had fasting levels around the same. Now my fasting level tends to be in the mid-5s.

This all just seems rather odd for a non-diabetic who has improved his diet and exercise regime; from my perspective, while I generally feel much better, my BG levels seem to be going in the opposite direction.

borofergie said:

jammy1988 said:

Take this evening for example. I had dinner at around 8pm, with pre-meal blood sugar in the low 5s. It was mainly vegetables; courgettes, onions, chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, and a slice of wholemeal bread. All told, there were around 30g carbs in there, about half of those being starch in the bread, the rest naturally occurring sugars, with very little fat or protein.

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That's pretty impressive, low in carbs, fat and protein. What was it high in? Water?

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Well, yes

I actually started recording my food intake in recent days (I'm basically giving myself a health MOT at the moment, hence the BG monitoring too, after several years of eating rubbish). I found that I'm not eating nearly enough calories. On most days I'm only hitting around 1500, but then I grow concerned about trying to boost that because it will elevate my BG readings. I'm 5ft 10 and about 65kg, so it's not as if I need to be trying to lose weight!

On a side note, I was wondering if anyone happened to know why there appears to be a mismatch between the UK calorie and macro-nutrient guidelines? If you add up the RDA for protein, carbs and fat for a woman for example, and convert that to kCal, it comes a few hundred under the RDA of 2000 kCal.

Forgive my apparent paranoia for the moment, I'm basically in an experimental period with my food and exercise, so I'm trying to find a good balance, at which point I'm sure I'll stop bothering people on here with non-existent problems!