confused reduced all carbs but blood sugar still high

[Indy51]

Hi Indy
Yes I'm in Australia in perth I know with the lite and easy that it doesn't seem like a diet at all the food was so delicious and filling all I know is that when I had it all my symptoms that I was having went away and all my blood results came back good I'm not sure how that could have happened with an all carb diet I must admit that I didn't test my blood after meals when I was in lite and easy I had lost a lot of weight and was feeling very fit exercising more and wasn't even thinking about food or shopping for food
I too wish they would cater for people with diabetes if I'm unable to lose weight on a LCHF diet I might consider going back on lite and easy and test my blood sugars When you lost the weight on lite and easy were your blood tests. Better

I didn't know much about Type 2 at that time and was only testing at 2 hrs as told by the diabetes educator and the literature handed out. It turns out that I have reasonably good phase 2 response, but my first phase is really poor. When I started testing at 1 hour and realised I was going up over 10, it totally freaked me out. So I switched to LCHF and mostly my BG has been excellent ever since. I've also kept the weight off for over 2 years which is something I've never been able to do with calorie controlled diets in the past.

 

[donnellysdogs]

The fitness pal is excellent because for me I can also type in my work-gardening and actually make sure I am eating enough to stop weight loss.

It is the best app I've found


Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

 

[lynbrown]

Is LCHF. Low carb high fibre?

 

[daisy1]

Low carb high fat.

 

[brdavies]

Hi Mysterylady -

First, it's possible you were indeed diabetic all the time. If a GP took my levels today (well, by next August which is when I predict my HbA1c will be below 6%), they'd say I did not have diabetes. That's because my bloods would show near normal. Only a Glucose Tolerance Test would reveal that I really in fact do have diabetes. It's just that my blood glucose levels are being controlled by my diet.

Second, it's possible that you might actually have Type 1 or 1.5 diabetes, or another form of diabetes that is a result of the loss of ability to produce insulin. This is something you should find out. It's quite important that you determine if this is going on; there are a couple of types of diabetes that can occur during adulthood that have this nature, and in those cases you need a different plan to deal with it.

The ideal percentage of fats, carbs and protein will depend on the person. I'm using a 20% carbs, 30% fats, 50% protein mix most of the time. I don't obsess over fats though, so I am happy to let fats go up and protein go down. However I strictly limit carbs and try to reduce them further if I can. Carbs are what spike my blood sugar. (Note that high protein can be problematic if you have certain conditions though.)

You mentioned bread substitutes. The thing is, once your body gets used to this kind of regime, you'll find you don't need or want bread. The carbs you get from broccoli or a capsicum are actually a lot tastier and more interesting than bread. When you go low carb, your sense of taste adapts and everything is more exciting to eat. Bread actually tastes kind of boring and plain, like eating cardboard.

 

[mysterylady]

Hi Mysterylady -

First, it's possible you were indeed diabetic all the time. If a GP took my levels today (well, by next August which is when I predict my HbA1c will be below 6%), they'd say I did not have diabetes. That's because my bloods would show near normal. Only a Glucose Tolerance Test would reveal that I really in fact do have diabetes. It's just that my blood glucose levels are being controlled by my diet.

Second, it's possible that you might actually have Type 1 or 1.5 diabetes, or another form of diabetes that is a result of the loss of ability to produce insulin. This is something you should find out. It's quite important that you determine if this is going on; there are a couple of types of diabetes that can occur during adulthood that have this nature, and in those cases you need a different plan to deal with it.

The ideal percentage of fats, carbs and protein will depend on the person. I'm using a 20% carbs, 30% fats, 50% protein mix most of the time. I don't obsess over fats though, so I am happy to let fats go up and protein go down. However I strictly limit carbs and try to reduce them further if I can. Carbs are what spike my blood sugar. (Note that high protein can be problematic if you have certain conditions though.)

You mentioned bread substitutes. The thing is, once your body gets used to this kind of regime, you'll find you don't need or want bread. The carbs you get from broccoli or a capsicum are actually a lot tastier and more interesting than bread. When you go low carb, your sense of taste adapts and everything is more exciting to eat. Bread actually tastes kind of boring and plain, like eating cardboard.

Hi Br Davis

Thanks so much for replying I had a Glucose tolerance test and that showed I have Diabetes, my doctor put me on metformin 500mg lunch and dinner after 3 weeks my blood testing hadn't changed in fact it seemed to have gone higher. so my doctor said to have 500mg at lunch then up the dinner one to 1000mg ive been doing that for 2 weeks but the morning testing just seemed to go up even more I was getting consistent readings of 9.1 or 9.3 before they would be 8.5 a diabetic nurse I telephoned recommended me have a little bit of carbs either fruit or crackers before bed she said im proberbly going to long without carbs so I tried that and now my readings are back to 8.5 they still need to be a lot lower
I just feel like im doing every thing wrong im still waiting to see a diabetic educator and hopefully she can help me understand whats happening inside and explain why my blood sugar readings raise from 6.8 at 11pm to 9.1 by 5am and all I had was water
Did you see a diabetes educator and are you on any medication at all

 

[Mazzer]

Hi Mysterylady, Quite a few people have a higher reading in the morning, due to the liver dumping glucose into your system ready to start your day, it is known as the "Dawn Pheomenon". Normally, Metformin helps to reduce the amount of glucose it allows into your system, so your bg should start to drop soon. It does take Metforming a few weeks before you feel the maximum benefit. I personally follow the LCHF diet and have just had the first results of my HBa1c test today since being diagnosed in February and I have managed to reduce my bg from 64 (8%) to 45 (6.2%) in three months. If I eat carbs my bg goes through the roof. I am on 1000mg of Metformin per day. However, everyone is different, so you need to test before and 2 hours after each meal to see what affect your meal is having on your bg

Hope this helps.

Marilyn

 

[k1elec]

Hi Br Davis

Thanks so much for replying I had a Glucose tolerance test and that showed I have Diabetes, my doctor put me on metformin 500mg lunch and dinner after 3 weeks my blood testing hadn't changed in fact it seemed to have gone higher. so my doctor said to have 500mg at lunch then up the dinner one to 1000mg ive been doing that for 2 weeks but the morning testing just seemed to go up even more I was getting consistent readings of 9.1 or 9.3 before they would be 8.5 a diabetic nurse I telephoned recommended me have a little bit of carbs either fruit or crackers before bed she said im proberbly going to long without carbs so I tried that and now my readings are back to 8.5 they still need to be a lot lower
I just feel like im doing every thing wrong im still waiting to see a diabetic educator and hopefully she can help me understand whats happening inside and explain why my blood sugar readings raise from 6.8 at 11pm to 9.1 by 5am and all I had was water
Did you see a diabetes educator and are you on any medication at all

Hi I am newly diagnosed I maybe type 2 or type 1 and I see the same thing but my readings are much higher then the readings you are getting
it's only been 3 days that I have results for so it is early days and I am not reading too much into results at the moment
1st day I had an increase of 1.3 (15.2 before bed 16.5 in morning)
next day 0.1 increase(14.2bed time 14.3 in morning)
but yesterday had the lowest reading yet before bed 9.9 I even re-took the test to confirm but this morning it had shot up to 13.1 a 3.3 increase
not eating much in the way of carbs at the moment but did have a couple of gin and slim tonic last night I am sure it will start to stabilise as the meds and diet take effect I have read that the liver can dump some sugar into the blood in the night so that may be the reason

 

[brdavies]

Hi Br Davis

Thanks so much for replying I had a Glucose tolerance test and that showed I have Diabetes, my doctor put me on metformin 500mg lunch and dinner after 3 weeks my blood testing hadn't changed in fact it seemed to have gone higher. so my doctor said to have 500mg at lunch then up the dinner one to 1000mg ive been doing that for 2 weeks but the morning testing just seemed to go up even more I was getting consistent readings of 9.1 or 9.3 before they would be 8.5 a diabetic nurse I telephoned recommended me have a little bit of carbs either fruit or crackers before bed she said im proberbly going to long without carbs so I tried that and now my readings are back to 8.5 they still need to be a lot lower
I just feel like im doing every thing wrong im still waiting to see a diabetic educator and hopefully she can help me understand whats happening inside and explain why my blood sugar readings raise from 6.8 at 11pm to 9.1 by 5am and all I had was water
Did you see a diabetes educator and are you on any medication at all

Hi again Mysterylady,
Everyone's different so what works for me might not work for you, especially if you don't have the same type of diabetes that I do. I started off on medication, but wasn't happy with the doctor I had, so I fired him and got a referral to a proper endocrinologist. In the mean time, I dropped the medication and started controlling with diet and exercise only. By the time I had the endo appointment, my HbA1c had already dropped from 10.4% to 7.5%, and so he advised to keep doing what I was doing (no meds) and we'll reassess in another 2 months whether to go on Metformin. I probably will because it would give me a little more headroom (which I think I need given how insulin resistant I appear to be).

All of my diabetes education (with the exception of my chat with the endocrinologist) came from obsessively researching things on the Internet, as well as testing my blood sugars extremely frequently and seeing what different foods do.

It sounds like you are going to have to figure out what works for you. Probably the easiest way to do that is to have access to a BG meter and lots of test strips (which are expensive if you have to buy them yourself). What you can do is test just before you eat a meal and again 2 hours afterwards, writing down in a logbook what the measurements were and what you ate. This way you can find out what different foods do to you, and over time figure out how best to manage it. But note that you will go through a lot of test strips doing that.

And yes, the 'dawn phenomenon' occurs when the liver puts sugar into the blood stream to get you ready for the day. My morning readings are quite often higher than the night before reading.

One thing I noticed is that when I did a crash-course to zero carbs (during my freaked-out period), my body at first allowed BG to drop, but then seemed to resist and hang onto every carb that it could. I got what could be described as a whiplash effect where if I did eat anything with even moderate carbs, my BG would go way high. So I backed off a little and added back in some carbs for a while. My body was happier with that and allowed the BG to go down further. Then as I reduced the carbs more slowly, it seems better behaved.

 

[mysterylady]

Thanks again Brdavis that's some very good advice I think that's the only way I'm going to find out how my body is reacting to food and hopefully I. To can control it better and come off the metformin I don't really like to be on tablets because I believe once you are in tablets constantly your body gets used to them and after time needs larger doses to have the same affect I think uve done really well to control it like you have thanks again your advice has been. Very helpful.