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

Struggling....need a bit of guidance

S

Samantha_jo

Member
Messages
6
Location
Northern Ireland
Hello and good afternoon. If your reading this, thanks for taking the time to do so.

I'm a 29 year old, type 1 diabetic on Levemir and Novorapid. Unfortunately I have not been looking after myself all these years and now i'm trying to change that. My blood sugar levels were through the roof, way over 15mmol, and I was eating like a pig. I decided to wise up and start looking after myself and to bring the sugar levels down. I am also 3 stone overweight and need to shift this also. So, moving on, I did a lot of research online about food, insulin, carbohydrates and blood sugar levels. It seems the way forward is to eat lower carbohydrates so I can lower my blood sugar levels and then insulin levels. However it doesn't seem to be working out for me. I'm still running at around 11mmol and haven't been able to reduce my insulin by that much. I am taking more insulin to try and bring the sugars down.

A typical food day involves - BREAKFAST: 2 eggs, 2 rashers of bacon or salmon and eggs, LUNCH: two slices of nimble bread (8.1g carbs each), DINNER: meat (could be steak, fish, lamb etc), vegetables (broccoli and cauliflower) and 1 small potato. I then have strawberries and cream before bed and maybe cheese mid morning or afternoon if i'm hungry. Am I eating too much protein?? Is this what is causing my blood sugars to rise?

I am so confused around what foods to eat that are high in fat yet low in protein and carbohydrates and what to eat that doesn't spike my blood sugars. To be honest it is so frustrating and I have run out of things to try. I could literally scream. I appear to be going about this all wrong.

Any advice?? What foods would a typical day include for you??

Samantha xx
 
That diet seems ok, it does take a few days for your body to adjust so don't get fed up with it, give it a couple of weeks. To be honest its better to do it slowly.
 
Hi Samantha,
Personally, I would ditch the bread, potato and strawberries. Low carbing is typically practiced to avoid carby foods like bread, potato and fruit. It sounds like your levels have come down. My levels were all over the place to start off with, but is really is worth persevering with. I got my hba1c from the 7s to the low 6s by LCing. It will take time to figure out how much insulin you need.

If you're like me then it won't work matching your insulin dose to carbs when you are low carbing. Have a google for "the Chinese restaurant effect", you will need to match your insulin to the size of your whole portion, not the amount of carbs. If you've got any questions, then ask away.
 
Thank you. I have googled the Chinese restaurant effect and do understand it now. However I am not eating enough in one session to warrant that effect, but I will keep it in mind for the future.

My blood sugar levels are still high yet I am not eating any carbohydrates. I am having to constantly take insulin to bring it down. I'm really not sure if this low carb way of life is safe for me. I am having to take even more insulin than I did before I went low carb so I really don't understand what is going on.

This morning my blood was 3.5. I had breakfast of two eggs and three rashers of bacon. No carbs, therefore no need to take short acting insulin. Two hours later my blood sugar is 11.5. How is this when I didn't have any carbs?? I took 6 units of insulin, yet blood sugar only came down to 8.5 two hours later. Therefore I needed to take more insulin to bring down to 7mmol but it never got down to that. A further 4 units of insulin brought it down to 8.1. This is not working and i'm taking injection after injection!!! I feel like taking drastic levels of short acting insulin to get my blood sugar down and I am feeling very frustrated :x
 
Samantha_jo said:
Thank you. I have googled the Chinese restaurant effect and do understand it now. However I am not eating enough in one session to warrant that effect, but I will keep it in mind for the future.

My blood sugar levels are still high yet I am not eating any carbohydrates. I am having to constantly take insulin to bring it down. I'm really not sure if this low carb way of life is safe for me. I am having to take even more insulin than I did before I went low carb so I really don't understand what is going on.

This morning my blood was 3.5. I had breakfast of two eggs and three rashers of bacon. No carbs, therefore no need to take short acting insulin. Two hours later my blood sugar is 11.5. How is this when I didn't have any carbs?? I took 6 units of insulin, yet blood sugar only came down to 8.5 two hours later. Therefore I needed to take more insulin to bring down to 7mmol but it never got down to that. A further 4 units of insulin brought it down to 8.1. This is not working and i'm taking injection after injection!!! I feel like taking drastic levels of short acting insulin to get my blood sugar down and I am feeling very frustrated :x
Click to expand...

Following the 3.5, it may have been your liver kicking out glucose to correct the low.
I'm interested to hear what others have to say on this thread. My levels are all over the place and having reduced my carbs to between 60 - 80g a day seems to have me also injecting more rather than less insulin.
 
I'm going out of my mind :x . I've just had a stinking low, blood sugar reading 1.9mmol, no doubt because of the amount of insulin i'm hammering into myself through the day. I have just seen on another thread that initially on a low carb diet the body will get rid of all glucose stores before using fat as a source or energy, so this could be why our sugar's are running how.

But the big question is, will it ever stabilise??? And how long does it take?!
 
The Chinese restaurant effect will act when you have bacon and eggs. I need 4-5 units for it. If your BGs went up after eating, it means you need more insulin. It's all trial and error until you are confident with portion size and insulin dose.

It too me a few weeks to figure things out properly.

Are you sure that your long acting insulin is correct?
 
Hooked said:
I'm interested to hear what others have to say on this thread. My levels are all over the place and having reduced my carbs to between 60 - 80g a day seems to have me also injecting more rather than less insulin.
Click to expand...


When you reduce carbs you have to increase protein and fats, we mistakenly think that it's only carbohydrates and protein that raise bg levels but dietary fat can have an impact too, if you read my last post in the following thread there's a good explanation of how this works by Gary Scheiner:

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=47429

And another:

http://www.joslin.org/dietary-fat-can-a ... betes.html


Much like like SamJB I need nearly the same amount of insulin for bacon & eggs than I do for say a breakfast of porridge, with porridge I inject just the once, with bacon eggs I would have to inject twice as giving the insulin in one dose would mean a postprandial hypo.
 
Hi Samantha!

I answered you and Scotty in Scotty's post earlier, but I'm copying my response here in case you don't see it in the other post:

Hey Scotty and Samantha!

I have LADA and I low-carb to around 50g a day. I am on basal/bolus of Levemir/Apidra. My current HbA1C is 5.6%.

The thing with low-carbing is that it will make your bolus:carb ratio completely wrong and you will need to find a new balance of bolus to food. The mistake a lot of Type 1s make when starting to low-carb is to assume they don't need to bolus for a low or no carb meal. My experience is that i need a couple of units of Apidra even for a very low-carb meal. For bacon and eggs for example, I will bolus 1.5 units. For steak and salad, maybe 2 units. I'm afraid this is a bit trial and error, but once you get the hang of it you can get good HbA1cs and pretty stable BGs.

I would suggest you both get a copy of Dr Bernstein' s 'Diabetes Solution'. It was a real revelation to me and helped me to understand the impact of protein on my BG in the absence or near-absence of carb. I don't stick to Bernstein's recommended food plan, because I don't want to be that regimated with my food, but nonetheless, his book was an essential resource for me when i first started low-carbing.

Take care

Smidge
 
Back
Top