• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Spike after breakfast

D

Dee1960

Member
Messages
21
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Morning, I'm having trouble with spikes after breakfast! I've tried porridge, whitabix, scrambled eggs on 20gram soda bread brown. I would rather just have white toast with marmalade but that's not going to happen is it
 
All of the things you mention would cause spikes for me because of the level of carbs.

If your preference is for toast then there are low carb breads available on line. They are expensive though. I like a low carb sourdough made by a company called Robert Andrew, but it isn’t the lowest possible low carb bread. I haven’t seen low carb marmalade but I think a company called srsly might do a low carb jam.

Scrambled eggs should be fine on their own…add an extra egg to fill you up if you need to. Or try scrambled eggs with bacon, or cheese. Or another option is Greek yogurt with berries, or with a low carb granola. Keto hana make a range of nice ones available on line and I think in Waitrose and Holland and Barret.
 
Everything you list (apart from the eggs) is carb-heavy. If you eat carbs in any quantity, you should expect to see your blood glucose rise. That's quite normal. Are you getting unusually high levels? What are the actual values before eating and at two hours after eating?
 
My waking is 6.1 before breakfast it's 8.3 but it does go down 6.6 mmol 2 hours after. Is it because my mmol is quite high before I eat still trying to work it all out.
 
It may be that your rise comes later than 2 hrs, maybe try testing at 3 hours. I used to find that sometimes I had good numbers at 2 hrs but higher at 3hrs when I was eating carbs when first diagnosed. Especially porridge
 
Dee1960 said:
My waking is 6.1 before breakfast it's 8.3 but it does go down 6.6 mmol 2 hours after. Is it because my mmol is quite high before I eat still trying to work it all out.
Click to expand...
Those figures aren't really all that high and are not spikes. You've probably got a touch of dawn phenomenon, where your liver is upping your glucose to give you a start in the morning. Adding carbs via a carby breakfast will usually stop the DP but your BG will still see the effect of the additional eaten glucose.

There's little you can do about that directly, but these days I can stop mine rising with three almonds. Seems to reassure my liver I have food. It possibly/probably will lessen as your liver gets used to lower BG levels overall. Took mine months to adjust, though.

I buy a low carb "bread" selection from SRSLY low carb. They do excellent bagels and good wraps. They also have a nice cinnamon bun with a couple of raisins, and some rolls, which are a bit lacking in taste but are much better fried in bacon fat and then used for bacon sandwiches. If I recall correctly, there are 6g carb in each wrap, and the other items are lower - under 3g for the rolls, for example.
 
Wow, lucky you with those levels, what ever you are doing it sounds good. My waking level is 17.2 having been at 14.7 half an hour before waking. Heard about the Dawn syndrome but what is the average rise
 
squidds said:
Wow, lucky you with those levels, what ever you are doing it sounds good. My waking level is 17.2 having been at 14.7 half an hour before waking. Heard about the Dawn syndrome but what is the average rise
Click to expand...
Everyone's different, so there really isn't an "average" rise. And it also depends on how long you let it go on rising. As an experiment, I once tested hourly from six am - steady slow BG rise, all liver-produced, until I got bored at 2pm and had something to eat.
 
KennyA said:
Those figures aren't really all that high and are not spikes. You've probably got a touch of dawn phenomenon, where your liver is upping your glucose to give you a start in the morning. Adding carbs via a carby breakfast will usually stop the DP but your BG will still see the effect of the additional eaten glucose.

There's little you can do about that directly, but these days I can stop mine rising with three almonds. Seems to reassure my liver I have food. It possibly/probably will lessen as your liver gets used to lower BG levels overall. Took mine months to adjust, though.

I buy a low carb "bread" selection from SRSLY low carb. They do excellent bagels and good wraps. They also have a nice cinnamon bun with a couple of raisins, and some rolls, which are a bit lacking in taste but are much better fried in bacon fat and then used for bacon sandwiches. If I recall correctly, there are 6g carb in each wrap, and the other items are lower - under 3g for the rolls, for example.
Click to expand...
KennyA said:
Everyone's different, so there really isn't an "average" rise. And it also depends on how long you let it go on rising. As an experiment, I once tested hourly from six am - steady slow BG rise, all liver-produced, until I got bored at 2pm and had something to eat.
Click to expand...
I am very interested in your 3 almond liver reassurance trick! When do you eat them? Straight after waking? Do you eat breakfast later or use IF? I know everyone is different. Very interesting.
 
jennyholding said:
I am very interested in your 3 almond liver reassurance trick! When do you eat them? Straight after waking? Do you eat breakfast later or use IF? I know everyone is different. Very interesting.
Click to expand...
It's not something I do in any way regularly, as I'm no longer bothered about what my liver gets up to in the mornings. I rarely eat anything in the mornings. I eat when I want to, this can mean very long intervals but I have no "fasting routine". On the rare occasions I eat any breakfast - as I did last Friday - I almost certainly won't eat again that day.

I think someone on here - sorry, can't remember who, it was years ago - noted that food seemed to turn off liver glucose production in the morning. That also works for me, and I just experimented a bit (it was lockdown and there wasn't much else to do) to see what the minimum amount of "food" might be. Three almonds was the smallest amount. For all I know one almond might do it. I guess (a real guess) that the enzyme reaction to having a food, maybe any food, in the mouth might be enough. It also raises a question about whether chewing gum might have the same impact.

This is not to say that this will or should work for everyone. As i haven't tested for this for years, it's also possible it no longer works for me.
 
KennyA said:
It's not something I do in any way regularly, as I'm no longer bothered about what my liver gets up to in the mornings. I rarely eat anything in the mornings. I eat when I want to, this can mean very long intervals but I have no "fasting routine". On the rare occasions I eat any breakfast - as I did last Friday - I almost certainly won't eat again that day.

I think someone on here - sorry, can't remember who, it was years ago - noted that food seemed to turn off liver glucose production in the morning. That also works for me, and I just experimented a bit (it was lockdown and there wasn't much else to do) to see what the minimum amount of "food" might be. Three almonds was the smallest amount. For all I know one almond might do it. I guess (a real guess) that the enzyme reaction to having a food, maybe any food, in the mouth might be enough. It also raises a question about whether chewing gum might have the same impact.

This is not to say that this will or should work for everyone. As i haven't tested for this for years, it's also possible it no longer works for me.
Click to expand...
Thank you! Most interesting! I’m going to use it to test myself.
 
KennyA said:
Those figures aren't really all that high and are not spikes. You've probably got a touch of dawn phenomenon, where your liver is upping your glucose to give you a start in the morning. Adding carbs via a carby breakfast will usually stop the DP but your BG will still see the effect of the additional eaten glucose.

There's little you can do about that directly, but these days I can stop mine rising with three almonds. Seems to reassure my liver I have food. It possibly/probably will lessen as your liver gets used to lower BG levels overall. Took mine months to adjust, though.

I buy a low carb "bread" selection from SRSLY low carb. They do excellent bagels and good wraps. They also have a nice cinnamon bun with a couple of raisins, and some rolls, which are a bit lacking in taste but are much better fried in bacon fat and then used for bacon sandwiches. If I recall correctly, there are 6g carb in each wrap, and the other items are lower - under 3g for the rolls, for example.
Click to expand...
I buy from Seriously too. Products are pretty good but their quality control is appalling - loaves different sizes, all squashed in the box at delivery, last lot of bread rolls I got were like rocks. BUT... there's not much V. low carb out there and their products are vehicles for, for example, sandwiches or egg on toast.
 
Jo_the_boat said:
I buy from Seriously too. Products are pretty good but their quality control is appalling - loaves different sizes, all squashed in the box at delivery, last lot of bread rolls I got were like rocks. BUT... there's not much V. low carb out there and their products are vehicles for, for example, sandwiches or egg on toast.
Click to expand...
If I want a low carb breakfast with something "bready" then SRSLY product works.

But your problem is exactly my problem with them. The delivery system can be appalling and trying to negotiate the ordering/amending orders on their website is an absolute nightmare. I've had a bag of rolls go bluemolded within a day or two of arrival. To be fair, they've dealt with my complaints pretty well: I just don't think I should be in the position of having to complain. I also don't like the happy clappy "low carb legend" stuff they insist on doing.

I'd recommend the bagels and "not cross buns" very strongly. The rolls are OK, but as you say, mainly a vehicle for marmite or bacon. The wraps (I've just discovered) do well as substitute galettes (but only around 5-6g) when lightly fried in bacon fat.
 
My experience with SLC is similar to @Jo_the_boat & @KennyA so I get my rolls & bread from the Low Carb Food Co, I also prefer these over seriously ones (though they have recently changed their packaging and I’m find the products dry out very quickly if you don’t wrap them well in either a freezer bag or foil when in the fridge) and I get bagels and the cross buns or the fruit loaf & sometimes the little croissants from SLC, I like the croissants but even by keto bread standards find them a bit on the expensive side at £9.99 for 10, which sounds a bargain until you realise they are bite sized. The wraps are the best low carb wraps I’ve used as you can actually “wrap” them - any others I’ve had crack or break as soon as you begin to bend them
 
lovinglife said:
My experience with SLC is similar to @Jo_the_boat & @KennyA so I get my rolls & bread from the Low Carb Food Co, I also prefer these over seriously ones (though they have recently changed their packaging and I’m find the products dry out very quickly if you don’t wrap them well in either a freezer bag or foil when in the fridge) and I get bagels and the cross buns or the fruit loaf & sometimes the little croissants from SLC, I like the croissants but even by keto bread standards find them a bit on the expensive side at £9.99 for 10, which sounds a bargain until you realise they are bite sized. The wraps are the best low carb wraps I’ve used as you can actually “wrap” them - any others I’ve had crack or break as soon as you begin to bend them
Click to expand...
I got so fed up with the inconsistency of SLC I tried Heylo. A mixture of things. Some of it tasted OK like the seeded bread and brown bread, but I found the loaves small, almost Soreen fruity malty loaf size and not ideal for my poached eggs.
But the white bread was a horror show, tasting like it had been toasted in the plastic wrapper. It sort of melted and oozed rather than toasting and really didn't taste nice at all - despite loading it with lightly salted butter!
I'll give the Low Carb Food Co a go on your recommendation, but when SLC get it right (1 in 3 perhaps) it suits me just fine.
I was a baker in a former life and though I realize that the techniques to make these low carb products must be very different to conventional bread, the results can be disappointing at times.
But, credit where its due, when they get it right, these Low carb Cos make products that allow us to return to 'normal' eating. I spent 4 years with no bread whatsoever before discovering SLC.
 
I too spent some time as a baker @Jo_the_boat and yes if you have bakers knowledge on more than a even excellent home baker you realise these breads hit the spot but the term “bread” for them is a very loose term ;) but I appreciate that they give me that bread hit & what research & effort goes into them to try and produce a product, which in turn helps me accept the cost of these “baked goods”
 
Dee1960 said:
Morning, I'm having trouble with spikes after breakfast! I've tried porridge, whitabix, scrambled eggs on 20gram soda bread brown. I would rather just have white toast with marmalade but that's not going to happen is it
Click to expand...
As others have mentioned, there are low carb breads available. I confess to having toast as my comfort food. I was cdoing without altogether, until some kind folks in here pointed me to the companies providing low carb bakery items. Such as SRLSLY low carb and lowcarbco.


lowcarbfood.co

Low Carb Food Co | Making it easier to adopt a low-carb lifestyle

Low carb, guaranteed. Clear, transparent nutrition. Is it keto? We'll make it clear. We supply a great range of low carb bread, flour, pasta, pizza bases, cerals and snack bars from our low carbohydrate online supermarket. Home delivery straight to your door!
lowcarbfood.co lowcarbfood.co

The SRSLY company also produce low carb jams, which could be a decent substitute for your marmalade?
 
Back
Top