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Carb Counting and Chocolate

victoria__1986

Well-Known Member
Messages
117
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
Hi,

I have been carb counting for the past three weeks, and I'm just sat down reading through the list I have of all the carbs and their values. I have been a diabetic since I was 3 years old so have never had chocolate as a snack only as an emergency in a hypo. I'm reading through the list and and it says a standard Crunchie bar has 22g of carbs.

I do 1 unit for every 10 grams of carbohydrate. I have always been told not to inject with chocolate as it raises sugars then they drop very quickly.

Using carb counting, if I fancied chocolate would I inject to match the carbs in it or would it result in me having a hypo?

So complicated!

Thankyou in advance
 
A good suggestion if you fancy a chocolate treat is to eat it after your main meal to avoid a spike, you will still need to take the carbs into consideration when your bolusing but you won't get that high that you expect by just eating it on it's own.

I don't know if you like dark chocolate but Aldi do a 85% cocoa chocolate, it has 5 bars per pack and each one has around 4g of carbs each.
 


Thanks for the reply but would eating the chocolate and injecting increase the risk of a hypo?

Will definitely look in Aldi for them cocoa chocolate bars though. Thank you very much x

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victoria__1986 said:
Thanks for the reply but would eating the chocolate and injecting increase the risk of a hypo?
Click to expand...

When injecting you have to take into consideration the carb amount for the total meal, otherwise you'd inject too little insulin and probably get a postprandial high..

No one can really say if anyone will go hypo after eating as we are all individual, hope you enjoy the Aldi Chocolate, the brand name is Moser Roth.
 
I have always injected for choc as because of the fat content it is a medium acting ish gi, though high in sugar and fat so not a healthy option lol, did u see fat v sugar? Not a good mix, have occasionally as a treat
You mentioned using choc for hypo treatment, should not do that because it might not act fast enough, always use high sugar low fat fir hypo treatment, lucozade (few sips) 3~4 jelly babies etc.

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Yeah I never usually fancy chocolate and I need to be so careful with my insulin as I exercise a lot and I'm quite tiny so everything affects me!

I've found Lucozade to be the best thing to push my sugars up. Only need a little though

Thanks for the reply
x

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From experience when I used to inject novo rapid when I ate chocolate and I did not find it caused hypos after but it may just be me



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I've always found chocolate a tricky one to get right. Because of the amount if fat in the chocolate, it causes a delayed BG spike. So I find if I give myself Novorapid at the time of eating, I'll go hypo. So it needs an injection around 2 hours after eating it. Like Noblehead has suggested, the darker the chocolate, the less sugar, so the better your BGs will be if you do suffer from the delayed BG spike. I tend to go for the 85% bars.
 
Hi Victoria, for me, if I fancy a wee treat, I just bolus for the carbs in the choc and inject immediately before eating and have never had a problem with spiking or going hypo. But the only way to see for yourself would be to try and test regularly after to see how it goes.
 
Everyone is different and so the best way to test out your queries is to inject for your snack and monitor your blood sugars.

I would be quite happy to give insulin for anything I eat at any time, you do need consider what insulin is still working in your system though if its in between meals.

I think with chocolate bars, as others have mentioned, the glucose from them doesn't hit the blood stream that quick due to the fat content so I believe most folk would be fine with the action of their quick acting insulin for a standard chocolate bar.

I personally try and avoid mid meal snacks because I like to see an on target blood sugar at meal times, a wee bit OCD you see....
 
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and nice boxes of low sugar chocolates….but I don't tend to eat much chocolate in a go, so to have a box means lots of little treats that I can spread! I might have a square or something like that or a bite, I sometimes have little chocolate pots after a meal but that is only just over 10g and loads of fat in it!
 


Me to lol OCD as well
 
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