early morning blood levels

[syb]

hi guys

I am 4 weeks into this , and I am awake at 2am , not a very good sleeper , the last time I eat food was around 5pm I have just taken my blood levels and it says 5.0 is this a good figure ?

 

[Pez68]

Yes mate, good morning figures. I was 5.1 when I got up.


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[Squire Fulwood]

It's not a bad figure but it is many hours since you last ate so I would expect the liver to start supplying sugar any time now. This could mean that the blood glucose level will rise even without food if it hasn't done so all ready.

If you regard the reading as a fasting level then it is good.

 

[syb]

oh not with all this diabetic stuff yet, what does that mean then if its been a lot of hours without food the liver starts to make it higher , what does that mean , is that dangerous ?

 

[Madbazoo]

No its not dangerous so don't worry. Your liver has just identified your lower levels and so is trying to compensate. Try testing your level again two hours after your breakfast and it should be falling again.

Keep reading all the other posts on this forum and you will find so much helpful information on diet and levels that you will soon be an expert.

Good luck


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[Squire Fulwood]

No it's not dangerous. You run on sugar which you get from food. If you don't eat for some time you would run out of sugar. Your body has a back up store of sugar and will supply it under fasting conditions which means after 5 or 6 hours.

The liver is the organ that supplies your back up sugar and when it does it is called a liver rush and sometimes it is called the dawn phenomenon since few people eat overnight and so the morning is when most liver rushes occur.

 

[syb]

oh thankyou for that , something I learnt good today
I know this might sound silly , but what it the best levels to try and keep your bs at , someone told me 4.8 but isn't that a little low ?

 

[whompa73]

Avrage levels of between 4 and 6 is perfectly fine and normal

 

[Squire Fulwood]

oh thankyou for that , something I learnt good today
I know this might sound silly , but what it the best levels to try and keep your bs at , someone told me 4.8 but isn't that a little low ?

Blood sugar levels go up and down all day according to what you eat, when you ate it, how long since you ate it and whether or not the liver is joining in.

There is a sort of standard that your blood sugar should be below 8.5 two hours after eating. It is said that this is a NICE guidline although I have not seen the original NICE document. Still, this is the reading that most of us use for comparison purposes. For your interest you could take readings at other times but some of them might cause you needless concern. For example, the one hour after eating might seem frighteningly high.

Many people try to keep their readings as low as they can but I should forget that 4.8 figure since you might only achieve that for short periods during the day and maybe not at all.

 

[Squire Fulwood]

I just looked up the NICE documents and found this.

http://publications.nice.org.uk/type-2- ... rol-levels

 

[syb]

interesting ,
why do they tell u to eat wholemeal things and low GI foods ,,,,, I have been eating low GI foods all day yesterday and it doesn't work for me , after 2 hours my blood sugars are 6.3 bowl porridge , 1 wholemeal bread with some cheese on ,

normally after 2 hours its back to in the 5s, , how is low GI good for you when it makes your bs go higher

 

[Squire Fulwood]

I don't know why they tell you to eat wholemeal foods. First of all there are quite a number of us who can't eat flour products no matter what they call them. Secondly "wholemeal" is considered to be a typo by many and it should say wholegrain.

If you imagine a graph showing your sugar levels going up and down during the day then it may have high spikes in the graph which is something you should try to avoid. Low GI foods are foods which the body absorbs more slowly and therefore the graph will look lower and go on for longer.

If you ate low GI foods yesterday then it is possible that the graph rose more slowly and peaked around the 2 hour mark. The 6.3 reading is fine by the way and is miles below the 8.5 recommendation. You seem to be doing the right things.