Eating a big breakfast

Hello. I have prediabetes, and oftentimes my morning BG is anywhere between 5.7 to 6.0. Sometimes it is as high as 6.6 or 6.9. I'm male and 42. My BMI is 25.5 so I'm hardly obese, but could do with losing a few pounds.

My daytime glucose isn't too bad most of the time, so I think I'm still in the fairly early stages of prediabetes thankfully. For years I have been a breakfast skipper. Usually my routine has been to eat a small breakfast or skip it, eat a moderate sized lunch, and eat a big dinner.

Recently I went on vacation to Mexico, ate like crazy, and put on 5 pounds. While on holidays I enjoyed quite a large healthy breakfast. Not to mention lunch and dinner. I also drank quite a bit as well. I feared coming home and testing my glucose levels. I thought it would be sky high!

To my surprise, for the first few days upon return, my fasting glucose had dropped to between 4.5 to 4.7, of which, 5.7 was the lowest fasting BG I've seen in the two months previous. However, I was still skipping breakfast after I returned. On my third night I ate a large meal with a significant amount of fat, and obviously skipped breakfast. The following morning my fasting glucose was back up to 6.6!

I have been measuring my glucose before, and I often continued to skip breakfast, because I thought, "oh my glucose is still high".. might as well skip it, not produce insulin, hope it will drop a little, and then have a decent lunch. So I would start my day at 5.8 or something, eat lunch, and a few hours later it would bump up to 7.0. It would stay at around 6.7 until around dinner time. I would eat again, and maybe in the later evening it would go down to like 5.8.

Ok, so glucose is supposed to go up after eating a big meal, right, especially if it contains carbs and sugar? So recently now I start off at 5.7, ate a huge breakfast first thing in the morning, eggs, sausage, bacon, sweetened coffee, toast with peanut butter. Ok, so now I was curious what would happen to my blood glucose. One and two hours later, my glucose is around 4.5 or 4.7! ? HUH?! This is weird? Skipping breakfast, and after lunch it goes up a point.. but not skipping breakfast, after breakfast, it goes down a point?? HUH?!

I'm trying to understand what is going on, because this seems quite repeatable to me. My morning fasting glucose numbers are now dropping down to around 5.4. Perhaps I'll get it back down to the 4.5 or 4.7. It is hard to believe that just changing the time I eat makes so much of a big difference. It is also interesting that if I do the initial "breakfast drop" in the morning that my glucose numbers for the rest of the day seem to be lower as well, and go a bit lower for the following morning fast as well.

As a result of not understanding all this, I did some googling, and came across some articles such as this:

http://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/R-D/Study-Big-breakfast-could-help-manage-type-2-diabetes

So it seems there may be even some scientific merit in all this. I would really like to understand more fully as to what is going on, because this is something that doesn't seem to be talked about as much.

Hi B..

I also forgot to mention.. that even though I've been a breakfast skipper, that generally for the last 5 years I've been also a mostly low-carber, even when I didn't even know I was prediabetic. This probably explains why I'm not significantly overweight, but I could do better.

I ate a bit of carbs, but usually would have less than 6 tsp of sugar per day, for example, and many days close to none. Most of the carbs I would eat were usually on the slower side and not pure starch that is more typical of carbs, and also I did eat a relatively high-fiber vegetable rich diet as well. So in that regard I don't see a low-carb diet to really helping my situation at all, I've mostly been following that already.

It is also interesting that low-carb alone wouldn't likely get me out of this mess.. but changing the time I eat, it seems, could. I'm also now quite suspicious of eating high-fat and high-protein in the evening, and think that this could contribute my poor BG the following morning. Currently I'm experimenting with consuming the bulk of my fats and protein in the morning or at lunchtime, and then going slow-carb in the evening. I'm trying to eat a more high-fiber mostly vegetable diet in the evening, with a smaller portion of carbs, protein, and fat.

It is also fascinating, that the serious mistake of my life was skipping breakfast, and perhaps so much so, this is even the cause of my prediabetes, and even in the case where I already was a reasonably healthy weight and eating a low carb diet.. This makes me very suspicious of eating a fair bit of fats and protein at night, which I used to eat a lot of.

I'm going to hypothesize a claim.. perhaps a lot of fat and protein in the evening causes some inflammation, and contributes to insulin insensitivity. Perhaps eating a lot of fat and protein in the morning, contributes to enhanced insulin sensitivity, and any inflammation is gone by the time the dawn phenomenon rolls around, which seems to be a really critical time. However, other resources to support or deny this claim would be helpful.. I'm just learning about all this.

Hi All.

I'm answering my own question a little bit here.. I discovered this radio show that seems to further discuss a little more of some of this phenomenon and what may be going on.

http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/...lood-sugar-disorder-hypoglycemia-episode-144/

Brunneria said:

Interesting that you've already been low carbing.

I've been doing the same - for years, and I'm convinced that is why it has taken so long for my prediabetes to progress as far as it has. I've been handed a pretty strong set of genetic predispositions!

One thing though, if you avoid protein and fat, at night, what do you eat? Do you fast in the evenings? Because the obvious alternative is carbs, and that would either give me a too low dip in the night, of a huge dawn phenomenon, to compensate...

Click to expand...

Hi B.. The odd thing is, the rest of my family is pretty high-carb, and even overweight, and yet their glucose levels are totally fine for now, and they are much older than I am. I'm the youngest, and I'm the one with the trouble. I'm pretty convinced that the low-carb thing in the wrong way has been the actual source of the trouble. I was actually totally fine 5 years ago when I started this "low carb" diet to get more healthy. Uhhh.. NOT! If I had even eaten a little closer to what the rest of my family has eaten, I'd probably be more fat, but not in such trouble. But the lesson to be learned here is that it is not high-carb or low carb that is so important.. it is what you eat when, is so important.

Yesterday I ate a huge breakfast, high-protein, high-fat, and fruit, very small carb. Lunch was small carb, medium protein, medium vegetable. Night time was high-vegetable, small amount of high-carb (pasta even!). Wow.. My fasting glucose this morning is 4.8 ! Wooohooo!!

Eating *fats* at night totally spikes my following morning blood glucose levels. By spike, I mean like approaching a 7.0. High-carb goes into my system, then my system not too long after clamps it down and deals with it. Of course, portion sizes are really important here. Maybe 20% of my calories of the day come from the evening meal. I'm now trying to get 80% of it in the first half of the day. So a small spike of carb and high vegetable in the evening, really isn't a big deal, and it contains no fat to mess with my morning glucose for the next day.

Perhaps it is very counter-intuitive thought for some, however, for whatever reason, it seems to be really working for me. I've been reading more about "Carb backloading", where people eat some carbs at night. There is quite a bit of information on the net about it. I was suspicious at first but I'm becoming more convinced!

Hi B.. Yes, I'm aware of the rebound effect. However, if 90% of my calories are coming from fairly low carb.. 10% spike of high-carb isn't really a big rebound either. I'm curious, when you eat 100 or 150 calories at night of high carb, that causes a big swing in the following morning glucose? And if you're doing that, is 80% of your calories coming from the first half of the day? Because, if the timing is different, everything gets thrown off completely. I'm sure the only way that the 100 or 150 calories at night doesn't impact anything negatively for me, is because the majority of calories during the day are low carb.

Also, the "over reaction" problem from very low carb, may cause a spike in the following morning's glucose.. for a while. but eventually it may settle out and be fine.

Also, if a little carbs are bad. What about skipping dinner? Does that wreck your morning glucose? For me it has no effect other than making me hungry.

Hey.. I'm not directly saying that at all. If even 50% of my diet was carbs, I'm completely sure it would be absolutely horrible to my blood glucose. And I'm 100% sure that the biggest impact on my total blood glucose is very much eating of serious amounts of fats first thing in the morning, and the overall timing of the food I eat. If it wasn't for the high-fats in the morning, my pre-diabetes would be back with a vengeance. If I ate a small amout of protein and fat and no carbs in the evening, with high-vegetable, I'm sure I would do OK. What I'm saying is, that a *small* and the emphasis on SMALL, amount of carbs at night is not a problem for me or perhaps it even helps. So, timing and portion sizes is everything. Carbs in the morning or afternoon is disastrous for me, and so is even a moderate amount of carbs in the evening. I've been a low-carber for 5 years and still believe it is extremely important, but I do think that following it with wreckless abandon may not be the total answer as well, case in point, I developed prediabetes by following low-carb with wreckless abandon.

Hi Andrew.. If I eat a high fat meal in the evening.. My glucose is about 5.8 before I go to bed. I wake up with sometimes a 6.9 in the morning, especially if I've skipped breakfast. Maybe a 5.8 if I haven't. If I eat a huge breakfast, and huge breakfast being the *most important thing*, and then I limit my caloric intake in the evening (even eating a small amount of carbs).. My glucose is averaging around the same, like around 5.8.. but I wake up in the morning with a 4.8.

To sum up:
If I have a big high-fat meal at night, the following morning's glucose is higher no matter what.
If I heat a huge high-fat breakfast, the following mornings glucose is lower no matter what.

Are you saying what happens if I eat a high-fat meal in the evening, and then have a small carb meal for breakfast? Horrible things. Normally after the high-fat evening meal I'll feel mildly gross and still satiated so I'll want to skip breakfast anyways. But if I ate carbs for breakfast my glucose would spike up to like 7 or 8 and stay there, and then I would have cravings and go on a roller coaster ride.. I'd have no inspiration to do that.

I think the real danger for me was the high-fats at night which also caused me to not be hungry the next morning.. Then spinning me in this cycle where I would always want to skip breakfast. Hence the root of the overall cyclical problem. I was never a breakfast skipper until I switched to low-carb, and even then, it was a being on it for a while before I started wanting to skip breakfast.

Hi all. I've since also come across this article that sheds some worthwhile insight as well, however I'm not advocating a high-carb diet by any means. I still think low-carb for your first two meals, and certainly high fat for your first meal, is the way to go. Lower carb or low carb in the evening may also be great, but it seems it is not as important as the first two meals. Of course, if you're fully type 2 or nearly so, that could well not be the case.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/carbs-at-night-fat-loss-killer-or-imaginary-boogeyman.html