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Hungry despite high BG levels

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debs248

Well-Known Member
Is it normal to feel ravenously hungry despite BG levels being elevated?

Since I ate lunch ~5 hours ago I've been getting fingerprick readings between 12-13.5. I was trying to wait until they went down before eating again but they haven't, and I'm realĺy hungry now!

Surely if there's all that glucose in my blood, I shouldn't need to eat yet?

Really frustrated grrr
 
That’s normal for T2 with high numbers, What makes you hungry is those high numbers, your body is throwing out insulin to try & deal with all the sugar racing round your body, in T2 insulin resistance means that the insulin doesn’t work as it should so the more glucose in your body, the more insulin you produce but it doesn’t work so your body thinks you need food to use up that insulin so it tells you you’re hungry.

Once you get your numbers down that hunger should go down too. Many people on low carb or keto diets eat a lot less because they’re not getting the hunger signals from over producing insulin with eating carbs. Carbs make anyone including those without diabetes hungry, which is why lots of people snack.fats and to a certain degree proteins don’t trigger an insulin response so that makes them more satiating which is why you can lose weight easier on a low carb diet


Edited to correct spelling
 
Unfortunately my numbers are going up, not down. Also I am confused about why, if there's still loads of glucose in my blood, my body would demand I eat *more* food? I really feel like my liver is not on my side, pumping out all this useless and harmful glucose!
 
That looks a good meal that shouldn’t raise your numbers, what are your other meals like? Do you know how many carbs you’re eating in other meals? I did notice that you’d posted you’d had steak pie because your partner fancied it - that will probably be high in carbs, pastry & probably flour in the gravy, that would put my numbers in double figures too, and probably trigger hunger & cravings a couple of hours after eating it.

I’m not criticising or judging you, I know how hard it is, believe me, I struggle with an eating disorder on top of T2 and sometimes I have to be minute by minute trying not to step into the abyss, just trying to help & find you a way to reduce your numbers
 
debs248 said:
Unfortunately my numbers are going up, not down. Also I am confused about why, if there's still loads of glucose in my blood, my body would demand I eat *more* food? I really feel like my liver is not on my side, pumping out all this useless and harmful glucose!
Click to expand...
Hi - the issue is that the glucose is in your blood (which is only the transport system) rather than in your muscles or liver in accessible stores as glycogen. It's not useless but can't be used by the muscles until it gets into the muscle cells. This is a dynamic system and the glucose in the blood should be constantly in use replacing glucose (stored as glycogen) stored in muscle cells and being used as fuel for muscles. I've got a complex graphic (attached) which shows this, taken from Bilous and Donnelly.

So at the same time, you have loads of available glucose in your blood, but your muscles are experiencing a shortage. The shortage sends signals to the liver to try to add glucose, and to "eat more food" so you feel hungry, but if you eat, this will only add to the circulating glucose which still can't get into the muscle cells. That's one reason why T2 makes us gain weight - some of that additional glucose is eventually stored as bodyfat.

At the same time you will have had elevated insulin levels as your system tries to deal with the glucose that's piling up in the bloodstream, and that can have its own problems, including making insulin resistance worse.

Low carb breaks this vicious circle by in essence removing glucose from food intake: depending on the individual's insulin system, the level of circulating glucose will eventually fall as it gets moved into stores and the liver learns that we can get by with much lower levels of circulating glucose. The rate that happens at seems to vary from individual to individual, and how "broke" our systems are.

This works differently for those of us in ketosis and being fuelled to a greater or lesser degree by bodyfat.
 

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lovinglife said:
That looks a good meal that shouldn’t raise your numbers, what are your other meals like? Do you know how many carbs you’re eating in other meals? I did notice that you’d posted you’d had steak pie because your partner fancied it - that will probably be high in carbs, pastry & probably flour in the gravy, that would put my numbers in double figures too, and probably trigger hunger & cravings a couple of hours after eating it.

I’m not criticising or judging you, I know how hard it is, believe me, I struggle with an eating disorder on top of T2 and sometimes I have to be minute by minute trying not to step into the abyss, just trying to help & find you a way to reduce your numbers
Click to expand...
i've logged everything I've eaten as far as I can since diagnosis about 8 weeks ago, and have been trying to eat low carb for nearly 10 years so really disappointed that it doesn't seem to help me keep BG down.

Before diagnosis I was mostly having one meal and a snack per day but I had to shoehorn in an extra meal to take meds and also up my carbs a bit to prevent hypos and I haven't gone back to "normal" yet since stopping the gliclazide.
 
KennyA said:
Low carb breaks this vicious circle by in essence removing glucose from food intake: depending on the individual's insulin system, the level of circulating glucose will eventually fall as it gets moved into stores and the liver learns that we can get by with much lower levels of circulating glucose. The rate that happens at seems to vary from individual to individual, and how "broke" our systems are.

This works differently for those of us in ketosis and being fuelled to a greater or lesser degree by bodyfat.
Click to expand...
Unfortunately keto isn't currently an option due to family circumstances but I had been hoping low carb would help. I suppose if it worked for me I wouldn't have become diabetic in the first place.
 
I have food intolerance.
My choice of foods that I now eat, have to keep my BG levels in of around normal as I am able to.
But my intolerance is mainly carbs, but how or each is different and portion size is different to everybody else. My three worst foods are 1. Potatoes. 2 Oats. 3 Wheat.
And it's not the gluten, it is the wheat itself.
My sugar intolerance is not as bad.

The big issue is knowing what certain foods are good and the ones that spike you too high. Which exacerbates the symptoms you are getting.
And , I read you have tried for around a decade and other than coming off Gliczide (well done) you are still struggling a bit. Finding this out will take time.
I would suggest another review with your diabetes doctor, maybe one of the newer meds that acts on why you have the fluctuating blood glucose levels.
 
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