carbs for breakfast

noblehead said:

Worth doing a basal check, skip your breakfast and the bolus dose you'd normally take with it and see if your bg levels increase (or falls) from your waking levels.

Much like Azure and many other type 1's I bolus a good 15 mins before food to give the insulin a head start before the meal starts to digest, doesn't always work for some people but it might reduce the postprandial spikes for you with a bit of luck

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Totally agree NobleHead, That is the right approach!
I always measure the bg before any of the main meals, so as to know in advance if high/medium/low before the meal and if the bolus should be a bit higher or not and especially if it allows/demands bolus 15 or up to 30 minutes before getting to the table. (or sometimes not until the meal starts if the bg was in the low end).

azure said:

How high us your spike? Breakfast is often a difficult meal, eg I have to do differently at the weekend than in the week due to getting up later.

You're doing the right thing by having your bolus in advance. That can help a lot.

What do you have for breakfast?

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Very private questions you ask here Azure of our fellow poster!
I too sleep a bit longer in the weekends, making breakfast a bit more challenging to control the bg than others parts of the day.
But for me, its probably more to do with that the weekend breakfast is the moment I can sit and relax for a good quiet meal to start the day. So enjoying the moment with a couple of more cups of tea than normal, reading a good book or newspaper, while eating probably a bit more than on normal weekday mornings. AND... At times having a bite or two of one of those 'forbidden pleasures' called home-made jam, Nutella, Danish roll, etc.

I take six Weetabix for breakfast...have done it for the past 5/6 years as always up from around 6/6:30 and it's what I'm used to.

Early days for me yet in terms of learning and understanding and about finding out what works best for breakfast. I'd feel disappointed if I had to change my breakfast routine of 6 weetabix and a cup of tea

6????

Haha yes...it's six because always hungry in the morning especially with running/cycling training the night before. But, since I'm now a type 1 I probably have to change what I take for breakfast? Might do a week of very close monitoring of my sugars post-breakfast. A learning experience definitely.

donnellysdogs said:

6????

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Thought exactly the same - Wow!
Teacher appears to be a tough and very patient guy!

Think though its one of the absolute best breakfast cereals around, and very healthy for all (incl diabetics).
Do though need some milk to get my 2-3 pieces down. Not sure if Teacher approves of that, if he is all hardcore?

I notice in the running fitness magazine they actually state- "so a high carb diet could cause a disruption in long term muscle efficiency."

Ok, so I have monitored my sugars closely after the 6 weetabix and cup of tea for breakfast.

I woke up and my sugars were 5.5 at 07:45
I took 4 units of novorapid and by 08:50 my sugars were at 11.6
At 09:45 they were 9:4
At 10:00 they were 9.3
I walked to church (about 15 minutes) and at 10:25 they were down 5.9, ate an apple on the way.

Thoughts?

teacher123 said:

Ok, so I have monitored my sugars closely after the 6 weetabix and cup of tea for breakfast.

I woke up and my sugars were 5.5 at 07:45
I took 4 units of novorapid and by 08:50 my sugars were at 11.6
At 09:45 they were 9:4
At 10:00 they were 9.3
I walked to church (about 15 minutes) and at 10:25 they were down 5.9, ate an apple on the way.

Thoughts?

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Start- and end-values of bg can hardly be any better, so your insulin intake versus your breakfast sugar intake appears to match well.
Trouble is of course the bg spike peaking above the magic 9-10 mmol/l limit.
Your timeline description above does not say exactly when you took the Novorapid (just at 7:45, when you woke?) and when you ate?
But to counter the peak above 'good bg practice' then it appears you should inject the insulin a bit earlier compared to today and when you start eating your meal.

Weetabix does have 69% carbs / 100g, whereof plain sugars are just 4.4g. So it should be possible to counter with right fast acting dose and timing.
Don't give up your favourite breakfast just yet.

EDIT: Btw just wondered if you took your morning insulin of NovoRapid in the leg? Insulin uptake time can at times be up to 50%+ longer when injected into the legs vs the stomach area. Likewise, its uptake rate from the legs is dramatically increased if you suddenly become physically active with the leg muscles. Which (if the case you confirm leg injection of the NovoRapid) could all explain your slow counter at the breakfast time, and then the rapid drop in just 25 mins when you arrived at the church after the 15 mins walk.

I took the Novorapid (4 units) at 07:50 into my stomach and started eating about 07:55/08:00.

Should there be a normal rule when to inject insulin or does it depend on what you are eating? Haven't received much guidance from Diabetic Nurse to be honest.

Sugars been all over place today, up at 12.6 now not feeling great!

PATRICK317 said:

Hey, I know what you mean. If you are a pumper like me, I have been using a super bonus which is reduce your basal to 80 % for 2 hours for example and add the difference to your Bolus. This will make a much lower spike. You can find it out in the book " PUMPIN INSULIN" ;

again, I am not a doctor this is the example in the book, so start with small changes to your Basal rate and Bolus. Very good resource. Or if you don't pump talk to your doctor about it. You may also find an example on You tube.

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I tried this super bolus this morning. I halved my basal for three hours and added the halves (0.3x3=0.9) to my pre-breakfast bolus. Worked like a charm. Pre-breakfast and one-hour post-breakfast both "in the zone", no spike and no crash. And porridge for breakfast!

teacher123 said:

I took the Novorapid (4 units) at 07:50 into my stomach and started eating about 07:55/08:00.

Should there be a normal rule when to inject insulin or does it depend on what you are eating? Haven't received much guidance from Diabetic Nurse to be honest.

Sugars been all over place today, up at 12.6 now not feeling great!

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Five minutes is not long enough. Leave fifteen minutes before eating. That will reduce your "spike". If it's still too high, change your carb to insulin ratio.


Exercise makes a huge difference too. If you didn't walk after breakfast today, then you definitely will have a higher blood sugar.

As you then dropped to 5.9 then it would be best to alter the timing of your novorapid rather than the qty.

Really you should be looking at skipping your breakfast and testing hourly to see what happens without breakfast.

If you were to increase your bolus more this would inevitably lead to a hypo.

It does however seem to me that with a 6ml rise in blood levels that you do not tolerate weetabix well. You should be looking at foods that give at least 1/2 the rise of 6ml in blood levels.

If you went without breakfast and effectively basal tested this would also show if you get DP.

Thank you for the helpful posts. Yes, I just feel that I need to alter my breakfast. What other possibilities are there for breakfast?

So as a general rule I should be taking my insulin 15 minutes before I eat anything and then my blood levels (spike) should be no more than 9/10 in the first hour and then returning to under 8 by the second hour?

@teacher123, have a read of the following article, it explains how to reduce postprandial spikes as has been suggested in the thread, the guy that wrote the article is the same guy who wrote the book Think Like a Pancreas, its a great book for type 1's and has lots of advice and information on controlling diabetes:

http://www.diabetesselfmanagement.c...blood-glucose-management/strike-the-spike-ii/

For breakfast I eat tradional porrige oats with seeds, natural yogurt and blueberries (50g of carbs), I bolus around 15 mins before much like RuthW does.

Personally Indon't test 1 hr after food. Only 2 hours.

Noblehead suggestion of breakfast is a good one. Make sure you read the labels though as porridge brand is important. As is weighing it initially!

donnellysdogs said:

Personally Indon't test 1 hr after food. Only 2 hours.

Noblehead suggestion of breakfast is a good one. Make sure you read the labels though as porridge brand is important. As is weighing it initially!

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On my pump it was originally set to 2 hours for the after-bolus blood test. But if you bolus, wait (ten - fifteen minutes or so), eat (fifteen - twenty minutes), that setting means you are testing one and a half hours after finishing eating. So it's OK.

I just wanted to "strike the spike" a touch more, so I shortened my test prompt on the pump to 1:30, which means I'm testing one hour after finishing eating (generally). I found that article very, very helpful.So much so that I immediately ordered Scheiner's book.

donnellysdogs said:

As you then dropped to 5.9 then it would be best to alter the timing of your novorapid rather than the qty.

Really you should be looking at skipping your breakfast and testing hourly to see what happens without breakfast.

If you were to increase your bolus more this would inevitably lead to a hypo.

It does however seem to me that with a 6ml rise in blood levels that you do not tolerate weetabix well. You should be looking at foods that give at least 1/2 the rise of 6ml in blood levels.

If you went without breakfast and effectively basal tested this would also show if you get DP.

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Agreed - Teacher can definitely not increase his bolus here, as he would hypo.

Teacher 's 'challenge' is mainly that he eats an awful lot of the Weetabix in one go!
The total carbo intake just due to the 6! Weetabix is = 78 grams.
Main reason is that Weetabix is made of wheat, which has approx.70% carbohydrate content.

To convert the meal into oatmeal instead, as suggested, then the 6 Weetabix (weighing 112 grams in total) would result in just a 14 grams carbo intake in comparison, while should fill up the stomach in similar fashion. And Oatmeal has an average GI (glucose index) of only 55, which makes it a low GI food and an ideal choice for the sugar-sensible eater and easier to counter with the bolus. The Weetabix GI is btw 74.

As also noted above, Teacher definitely need to inject the bolus more than just 5 minutes before starting his feasty Weetabix meal. Though admit his numbers are not really way off, so with some adjustment, it might still be possible to keep the bg below the magic 10mmol/l mark.

Normal standard porridge combined with chopped almonds is lowish in carb and tastes really nice with a tsp of plain yogurt to replace the milk........2 dsp of porridge plus 2 dsp chopped almonds, put in bowl with boiling water from kettle to just cover it. Leave to stand for 10mins to allow for porridge to absorb water, stir in the yogurt and enjoy......about 14g carb

Thanks will definitely try the porridge ideas.

I am going to try three weetabix tomorrow with semi-skimmed milk and then some greek natural yoghurt with raspberries to see what happens.

Feeling frustrated tonight because don't know what to eat for lunch at school without resorting to rolls/sandwiches and feeling hungry