JayAmerican
Well-Known Member
- Messages
- 80
Hello all, I haven't posted in a while, I had a period of time where I couldn't be on top of my diet as well as usual and stopped testing my blood all the time. I'm back on track now pretty strictly for the past 2 months (average A1C based on testing 6.5 American scale), just diet-based no drugs.
I have noticed something very odd that I tested to make sure it wasn't just random:
Usually in the mornings I will see a dawn effect of blood sugar being anywhere from 140-160 ml/dl. This is mostly expected, we all know why, and when I finally get myself to the 6.0 A1C range it will float down to more like 120-130. Totally understood.
The weird thing is:
If I skip breakfast and re-test myself before eating, it will still be in the same 140-160 range. But, if I had eaten a breakfast after the morning testing, as low carb as I can of course, usually some form of eggs, cheese, and vegetables, coffee, cream, or even minor carbs that are tolerable (meaning a breakfast of at most 5-10 carbs), if I test my blood 2 hours later it's 120-130 ml/dl sometimes better.
Why does it not go down from the morning levels when I *don't* eat but does go down after about 2 hours when I *do*?
I have a theory I have no way to prove: I believe that because T2D are not insulin-intolerant but rather insulin-resistant, we still only have insulin released after we eat but not from a low-grade glucose release in the AM by our liver to wake us up. I do believe that if we are actually fasting and also add in some cardio activity in the day while fasting it will eventually go down and stay down until eating (or until the next morning's dawn effect) but when we are not fasting then the body is not going to bother sending out insulin unless it knows we just ate.
Of course, although this causes blood sugar to initially spike, it will allow the insulin to do it's job BUT we have to be careful to not eat more calories than we need or else the body will store those and we'll just keep fueling glucose spikes from the liver in the morning that stay with us until, guess what, we eat.
So here is what I am thinking, and again this is just theory:
Outside of fasting, and especially during periods when there is not enough time to fit in cardio activities that day, a breakfast should always be eaten but it should be as close to zero carbs as possible and should be absolutely calorie-deficit meaning small portion. That will kick in an insulin response, will bring down the morning dawn effect, and give nothing for the liver to store as fat. The rest of the day our usual low-carb diets.
I may be wrong and perhaps it's has something to do with the coffee, or something to do with our body's regulation system where if it is used to a morning meal and then doesn't have one the glucose keeps getting released by the liver thinking we need it. I believe if we allow that, it helps in one way by freeing up stored glucose but it hurts in another is that no insulin gets released and it trains our body to be insulin-resistant vs insulin-accepting.
Thoughts from anyone else?
I have noticed something very odd that I tested to make sure it wasn't just random:
Usually in the mornings I will see a dawn effect of blood sugar being anywhere from 140-160 ml/dl. This is mostly expected, we all know why, and when I finally get myself to the 6.0 A1C range it will float down to more like 120-130. Totally understood.
The weird thing is:
If I skip breakfast and re-test myself before eating, it will still be in the same 140-160 range. But, if I had eaten a breakfast after the morning testing, as low carb as I can of course, usually some form of eggs, cheese, and vegetables, coffee, cream, or even minor carbs that are tolerable (meaning a breakfast of at most 5-10 carbs), if I test my blood 2 hours later it's 120-130 ml/dl sometimes better.
Why does it not go down from the morning levels when I *don't* eat but does go down after about 2 hours when I *do*?
I have a theory I have no way to prove: I believe that because T2D are not insulin-intolerant but rather insulin-resistant, we still only have insulin released after we eat but not from a low-grade glucose release in the AM by our liver to wake us up. I do believe that if we are actually fasting and also add in some cardio activity in the day while fasting it will eventually go down and stay down until eating (or until the next morning's dawn effect) but when we are not fasting then the body is not going to bother sending out insulin unless it knows we just ate.
Of course, although this causes blood sugar to initially spike, it will allow the insulin to do it's job BUT we have to be careful to not eat more calories than we need or else the body will store those and we'll just keep fueling glucose spikes from the liver in the morning that stay with us until, guess what, we eat.
So here is what I am thinking, and again this is just theory:
Outside of fasting, and especially during periods when there is not enough time to fit in cardio activities that day, a breakfast should always be eaten but it should be as close to zero carbs as possible and should be absolutely calorie-deficit meaning small portion. That will kick in an insulin response, will bring down the morning dawn effect, and give nothing for the liver to store as fat. The rest of the day our usual low-carb diets.
I may be wrong and perhaps it's has something to do with the coffee, or something to do with our body's regulation system where if it is used to a morning meal and then doesn't have one the glucose keeps getting released by the liver thinking we need it. I believe if we allow that, it helps in one way by freeing up stored glucose but it hurts in another is that no insulin gets released and it trains our body to be insulin-resistant vs insulin-accepting.
Thoughts from anyone else?
