cgm libre unwanted truths in blood sugar management

[ert]

Three days in with a cgm and I've discovered:
Running for 50 minutes elevates my blood sugars for 8 hours. I've been doing this daily for two years without any knowledge of the consequences.
Eating breakfast spikes my blood sugars for 6-8 hours. I think my insulin is lower than low overnight so having only cream with coffee elevates what little insulin I have so that lunch (which is my breakfast) doesn't spike my blood sugars.
Heavy weights drop my blood sugars like a stone.

Who would have thought? It shows the danger of making decisions without enough data. Maybe my next 3 month HbA1c will be finally under 5.7%.

 

[Juicyj]

Hello @ert The Libre is great for spotting patterns, but particularly in the first few days check against your meter, interested in your comment about running elevating your levels for 8 hours, prior to the Libre were you checking your levels after running with a meter ? As you should of spotted elevated levels with your meter, and are you acting on the information your Libre is telling you, so with your breakfast are you changing your insulin ratio to counter the effect or correcting afterwards ?

Also take overnight readings with some caution as compression on the Libre can cause false readings, so again best checked against your meter.

 

[Ellenor2000]

Hello @ert The Libre is great for spotting patterns, but particularly in the first few days check against your meter, interested in your comment about running elevating your levels for 8 hours, prior to the Libre were you checking your levels after running with a meter ? As you should of spotted elevated levels with your meter, and are you acting on the information your Libre is telling you, so with your breakfast are you changing your insulin ratio to counter the effect or correcting afterwards ?

Also take overnight readings with some caution as compression on the Libre can cause false readings, so again best checked against your meter.

when I used Libre it always showed me about 1 mM lower during the night than during the day and I think that is a function of sensor compression.

 

[deszcznocity]

When your body needs energy, it draws on its glycogen stores stored in your liver and muscles. When you run, your adrenal glands produce adrenalin and cortisol. Cortisol also increases glycogen synthesis (glycogenesis) in the liver, storing glucose in easily accessible form. At any given time, there are about 4 grams of glucose in your blood. When the level begins to decline—either because you have not eaten or are burning glucose during exercise—insulin levels will also drop. When this happens, an enzyme called glycogen phosphorylase starts breaking glycogen down to supply the body with glucose. For the next eight to 12 hours, glucose derived from liver glycogen becomes the body's primary energy source.
HOWEVER, when you are doing weight lifting your body uses glycogen stores that are already in your skeletal muscles meaning you directly use the energy storage from the muscle itself by breaking down of muscle glycogen. What this does is it impedes muscle glucose uptake from the blood, thereby lowering your blood glucose.
Hope this makes sense...

Regarding breakfast - I assume you do not eat low carb. Do an experiment - eat 2 pork sausages and scrambled eggs WITHOUT bread or any other carbs for breakfast and drink your coffee/tea WITHOUT milk. Do finger prick test each hour - see what happens. I can assure you, it will not be the same glucose response as you are used to.

I recommend you google Dr Bernstein and either start by watching his youtube universtity channel or better buy his book. I have been diagnosed in Sep2019 with HbA1c of 124mmol/mol and went down to 42mmol/mol in 4 months following his protocol.

 

[KK123]

Three days in with a cgm and I've discovered:
Running for 50 minutes elevates my blood sugars for 8 hours. I've been doing this daily for two years without any knowledge of the consequences.
Eating breakfast spikes my blood sugars for 6-8 hours. I think my insulin is lower than low overnight so having only cream with coffee elevates what little insulin I have so that lunch (which is my breakfast) doesn't spike my blood sugars.
Heavy weights drop my blood sugars like a stone.

Who would have thought? It shows the danger of making decisions without enough data. Maybe my next 3 month HbA1c will be finally under 5.7%.

Hi Ert, it's fascinating isn't it? It just goes to show that the finger prick regime tells you not a lot really, other than what your blood is doing right at that moment. With me when I run, I found that in the very first minute, my levels shoot up from around 5 to 9, then 3 minutes later they're rapidly on their way down to 4. Then after 30 minutes back to where they started. How high do yours stay for the following 8 hours and then do they go low and stay low? x