readings

Hi Roy

I use a period of fasting of at least 12 hours, which is what fasting tests are at our local lab. On post prandial testing, I have usually tested 2 hours after completion of the meal.

Regards

Doug

If you test 1 hour after a meal and you have had some fast acting carbs, the test will normally be higher. If your meal contained a lot of fat, this spike will be delayed a bit, as fat slows the absorbtion.

Under normal circumstances, at a 2 hour test your body's insulin will have started munching away at the sugar and the reading should give a sensible picture of how a food item affects your blood sugar overall.

Of course it is a bit annoying when you get a spike, but on the other hand, delaying the test to get a better result sort of defies the purpose of testing - either you want to know what the food does to you, or you don't.

The test that you could do say 3-4 hours after a meal should be back around the level of your normal fasting blood sugar - it does depend how your body is coping, and a combination of carbs and fat can make this go slower than you would normally expect - let's take the pizza or fish and chips example... In the event of a steak, a few boiled taters, and a heap of vegetables this should generally fit though. If you do low-carb, you would find that you hardly get a spike at all - eating the steak and the veg, and not having the potatoes for instance.

Hope this helps.

No problem. Of course this info is also useful the other way around.

Say if you were to eat only fruit and bread at a meal, if you want to really know what it does, you'd want to test at pp 1 hour.

If you went for the pizza option, you might find that you don't get the full expected spike at 2 hrs pp, but rather 2.5-3.

So, it does depend what question you ask your meter, and what you're after - super-acurate control after meals, or a general idea about what you can cope with, not worrying about the 'micro-highs'. I'm personally a bit towards the first, but I think it's a personal choice whether you think that small short spikes are bad for you or not bad enough to matter in the long run.

The guys with the science hat probably have more information on that. I tend to think that the closer to normal patterns I can get myself the better.