Diet General - Carbs & Sugars, etc.

DJA-440 · Jan 10, 2025

Hi all, please be gentle as i'm still trying to get my head around things... I'm using My Fitness Pal for now to try and track carbs (instead of the usual calorie counting) and the below is how this day will end.

Aside from the massive spike in salt from the soup it looks like i'm on for a total of 96 grams of carbs for the day. I haven't been given any specific advice as yet on diet but i've read some say 40, some say much lower etc. etc.

The largest sugar contribution of course is the orange but i'm eating that as part of my dinner, i should have put that in that section actually but doesn't matter it's there. So according to another article i've read i am eating things in the righ order to minimise massive sugar spikes and drops.

KennyA · Jan 10, 2025

Ah. You're focusing at sugars, and not including carbs. All carbs (sugars are carbs) when digested are broken down to glucose. So your brown bread and heinz soup are giving you nearly 60g carb, all of which will become glucose. And that's the biggest of your macros compared to fats and proteins added together. Yes, the orange does have 17g sugars (actually fructose) in its 22g carb, but bread, soup and orange all ends up ultimately as glucose. Fructose has a few other wrinkles as well. Salt won't affect your BG.

Your app (I think?) is a bit misleading as the separation between carbs and sugar sort of implies they're not related, when they are pretty much the same thing.

If I was looking at this for me as daily food I'd have a few observations - nowhere near enough fat, therefore not enough energy, and way too much carb. But then I'm someone who aims for around 20g carb/day and eats one meal which is mainly fat and protein.

Some people report that the order they eat things in matters - others (like me) it makes no difference. Are you testing your blood glucose before and after eating, to see how well you deal with the various carbs? It is perfectly normal for blood glucose to rise and fall constantly in response to food and a host of other stimuli. These aren't "spikes" - which sounds a bit dramatic. It's what you'd expect to see if you weren't diabetic.

Anyway - the key thing that demonstrates whether this works for you or not is what fingerprick testing before you eat and at +2 hrs will tell you about how well your system handled the carb.

Best of luck!

DJA-440 · Jan 10, 2025

KennyA said:
Ah. You're focusing at sugars, and not including carbs. All carbs (sugars are carbs) when digested are broken down to glucose. So your brown bread and heinz soup are giving you nearly 60g carb, all of which will become glucose. And that's the biggest of your macros compared to fats and proteins added together. Yes, the orange does have 17g sugars (actually fructose) in its 22g carb, but bread, soup and orange all ends up ultimately as glucose. Fructose has a few other wrinkles as well. Salt won't affect your BG.

Your app (I think?) is a bit misleading as the separation between carbs and sugar sort of implies they're not related, when they are pretty much the same thing.

If I was looking at this for me as daily food I'd have a few observations - nowhere near enough fat, therefore not enough energy, and way too much carb. But then I'm someone who aims for around 20g carb/day and eats one meal which is mainly fat and protein.

Some people report that the order they eat things in matters - others (like me) it makes no difference. Are you testing your blood glucose before and after eating, to see how well you deal with the various carbs? It is perfectly normal for blood glucose to rise and fall constantly in response to food and a host of other stimuli. These aren't "spikes" - which sounds a bit dramatic. It's what you'd expect to see if you weren't diabetic.

Anyway - the key thing that demonstrates whether this works for you or not is what fingerprick testing before you eat and at +2 hrs will tell you about how well your system handled the carb.

Best of luck!

Thank you. This is the web version of the My Fitness Pal app which i agree i don't think is doing a particularly good job.

I'm only testing before meals at the moment and just before i take my Novarapid, then i'll eat 15 mins later as discussed with the Diabetes people. I think testing after my means will come in soon as they figure out what's happening with me.

Thanks for clarifying the macros, i appreciate that. It did warn me that from a calorie perspecitive i am dangerously low on calories, therefor energy. After today my evening readings will be interesting i'm sure as all that turns to sugar.

Trial and error at the moment, i obsess over data and ultimately this will do my head in for a long time.

KennyA · Jan 10, 2025

Yes - I'm a bit cautious because you've described yourself as "pre-diabetes" but on insulin. It doesn't really square.

The thing about the testing routine is that (for BG management purposes anyway) the initial test establishes a baseline and the second test shows you how well your system handled whatever carb you threw at it. Leave one or other of the tests out and you can't really be sure what the effect was. But maybe you're being asked to test for another reason, maybe to do with the novorapid and ensuring you don't go too low.

Anyway, welcome to the forums and please ask as many questions as you like.

MrsA2 · Jan 10, 2025

If you are on insulin you should also have been given a cgm. That means you dotn have to finger prick (except to check odd levels) and can see for yourself which food raise your bg too much.

Are you really prediabetes? It's usually to be on insulin if so

DJA-440 · Jan 11, 2025

KennyA said:
Yes - I'm a bit cautious because you've described yourself as "pre-diabetes" but on insulin. It doesn't really square.

The thing about the testing routine is that (for BG management purposes anyway) the initial test establishes a baseline and the second test shows you how well your system handled whatever carb you threw at it. Leave one or other of the tests out and you can't really be sure what the effect was. But maybe you're being asked to test for another reason, maybe to do with the novorapid and ensuring you don't go too low.

Anyway, welcome to the forums and please ask as many questions as you like.

Yeah there wasn’t an option for “don’t know” that I could see so chose the most on the fence one I could see! I guess it’s fair to say they are suspecting type 1 but one can hope!

DJA-440 · Jan 11, 2025

MrsA2 said:
If you are on insulin you should also have been given a cgm. That means you dotn have to finger prick (except to check odd levels) and can see for yourself which food raise your bg too much.

Are you really prediabetes? It's usually to be on insulin if so

I haven’t been given a cgm, no. And I chose that because there wasn’t an option for “don’t know yet”. I’ll change that to type 1 for now I think then hope for the best

KennyA · Jan 11, 2025

"Prediabetes" isn't actually a diagnosis although it does indicate that blood glucose levels are out of normal range. It's firmly fixed in the Type 2 set-up, though. I see you've switched your designation which should help people judge replies to you better.

DJA-440 · Jan 11, 2025

KennyA said:
"Prediabetes" isn't actually a diagnosis although it does indicate that blood glucose levels are out of normal range. It's firmly fixed in the Type 2 set-up, though. I see you've switched your designation which should help people judge replies to you better.

Thank you and apologies for the continued waffle. My head is mush (even more than normal).

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