Test before bed?

Hi,

What did you eat for your evening meal? Check for higher carbohydrate ingredients (e.g starchy and sugary foods) , test for these again to see if they're raising your glucose levels and avoid them if they do. Your meter readings should help you find the foods that do this.

Robbity

Yes, you can mostly likely get it lower over time by diet and exercise, in particular, watching how many carbs you eat. It's not bad, so you don't have to go mad, just make an earnest attempt.

I used to be around that a year ago, now I get a bit of a panic if I am say 7.0 when I go to bed. I like to be about 6.0. Some poor souls are in the high teens.

Just work at it methodically. Watch what you eat, eat less be more active. You will over time also see your early morning 6.7 go down too. You want that to get below 6.0. It'll come if you try.

Good advice so far Coll, a few minor adjustments to diet/exercise will soon produce better results. Well done for getting a meter, best tool you can use to test progress.

I'm not on medication either, and have brought my levels right down by just sticking to my reduced carb, portion controlled way of eating. I still eat carbs, but, with the benefit a food diary (myfitnesspal) and recording my bloods, I have identified those I tolerate and those affecting my numbers adversely. I swim every day and generally am pretty active.

Having built up some knowledge, I now just test each morning, and before and after my main meal, or if I am eating something that may have "interesting" effects on my bloods.

Yesterday was:

Pre-breakfast: 4.2. - Breakfast was jumbo oats, with some fibre sprinkled over, with semi-skimmed milk
After breakfast - no test, but this breakfast usually raises the reading by 0.7, at 2 hours
Lunch - small portion of mackerel in a spicy tomato sauce, with a rocket based salad, left over from the previous evening. No test, but this lunch usually results in bloods falling at the 2 hour point.
Pre-dinner 4.3 - dinner was paella with proper bomba rice. This is the first full rice paella for a while, I had been having half rice, half cauliflower rice for a while, so was experimenting. Paella is one of my favourite quick, filling meals.
Post-dinner - 5.1. Quite happy with that.

As my numbers reduced, I found they would be stable for a short while, then step down a notch or two, and stay there. Now I have to ensure I don't reverse those trends in my experimentation!

In my view, the most important things are your records or food and readings, and a consistent approach.

You'll get there.

I haven't tested today but have felt ok ( get horrible sweaty feeling when it rises). Ivw behaved myself so should be ok.
Ill test in the morning .

Sent from the Diabetes Forum App

I am a little obsessive with my levels at the moment and when I see numbers above 7 I immediately do some exercise to sort it out. For me it only takes walking up and down the stairs for about 250 steps to bring my levels down by 2mmol.

Personally I make sure my numbers are in the 5s prior to eating (NHS say 7 - as I said obsessed) so I have somewhere to go before hitting higher levels.

If you can, try the stairs and see what it does for you - testing before and then after will give you an idea of how much exercise you will need. I have found that as I have got "fitter" (still a long way to go and it is getting harder) my muscles soak up much more glucose than they used.

I also test prior to going to bed and will make sure my levels are below 6 (I prefer closer to 5) and this sets me up for a great morning level.

If you are on medication you need to consider the effect of their interaction with the exercise and do not do too much (unless you mean to) or you can actually raise your glucose levels as your liver decides you need more to sustain the increased burn rate.

Small Print
Your mileage on my techniques may vary. No warranty is expressed either directly or indirectly laid down in this message. Follow at your own risk. Are you still reading this shockingly tiny writing? Please stop now! Those steps are waiting

Many people say "eat to your meter" but I have the opposite approach of "exercise to your meter".