Carbs or Sugar?

In a short answer yes, sugar is just a very fast acting carb which will cause a spike in your bg faster than other carbs but they will all increase you bg. Ask your DN/GP to refer you to a DAFNE course, they'll teach you how to carb count

you need to look at total carbs. The other thing to be careful with is fibre. It's also a carb, but either digested very slowly or not at all. Some nutrition labels include fibre in carbs, soem don't so if you have a high fibre diet you may need to adjust your doses downwards slightly.

I find this is the case with something like a lentil and bean chilli for example.

DAFNE is great, but will not teach you subtleties like this - that's coem through a bit of trial and error

Spurlad,
Try the online carb counting course at www.bdec-e-learning.com/‎

Look at total carbs as all carbs will contribute to blood sugar although low-GI carbs will minimise spikes