New to forum (but not new to diabetes!) Advice please?

Hello all,

I’m new to the forum (guilty of a bit of lurking though) and have had T1 for 32 years. I use a pump. No problems, touch wood, but I recently decided to go low carb after putting on a little bit of weight. My issue is... protein!

When I eat a low carb meal but it has protein, my BG has rocketed. I’ve done some reading around this and there seems to be conflicting advice regarding it. Some reports saying that protein has minimal impact on BG but others saying it should be counted in the insulin calculations. If so, how?!

Prior to going low carb my BG was reasonable so I don’t want to mess that up now. I just can’t get my head around the protein issue though.

Does anyone have advice/experiences they wouldn’t mind sharing please? I’d been hoping to speak to the dietician at my video call last week but then it got cancelled and new date is in August. Little bit of a wait so thought I’d ask for experiences here.

Thank you in advance

barrym said:

I wouldn't say this is advice, but I too notice that if I have a 'next to zero' carb meal I find my BG levels go haywire for a few hours.

I aim for 100gm a day, but generally have some carbs with all meals. Generally 30gm with a main meal, and 10 for meals like breakfast. Seems to keep my body stable (ish). I suspect some will say if you go very low carb you will adjust too.

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Hi,
This makes sense because I’ve noticed that if I have some carbs my BG isn’t as unpredictable as if I have zero carbs. I think I will give your method a go.

Many thanks for sharing your experience!

Antje77 said:

Hi @kittyscrafts , and welcome to the forum!

From what I've heard from others eating low carb, many of them dose for the protein as if they were half carbs. Of course we have no way to tell if this works for you, so please be very careful when experimenting!

A way to work it out could be to go slow. You already found protein spikes you when eating very little carbs, so you already know it needs insulin. The only thing you don't know is how much. So you could keep a log with the amount of protein you had and the amount of insulin you took until you find your insulin to protein ratio.

Good luck!

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Hi,

Thank you for your reply. That’s interesting that some people dose for half carbs. I was having a bit of a guess at taking insulin with a zero carb/high protein meal but as you say - I don’t know how much I need.

I think I’m going to try what barrym does and ensure that I have some carbs rather than no carbs since I have noticed a similar response to him.

I really appreciate you replying!

I’d be glad to. Will keep you posted