Testing every two hours or 1 hour after food?

I definitely agree with him, that we should know how much certain food affects our blood sugars, so that's why I think its important to use a Continuous Glucose Monitor (like Libre) or monitor with a meter, but not necessarily to avoid certain foods, but to know how you can improve you insulin management when you eat something that thing.

Doing that I discovered that I should bolus for my meals (usually around 50g of carbs) 10-15 min before eating and to always take half the amount before and the other half when I start eating. It works great for me In the way that makes you "knock it out" the spike with the proper amount of insulin at the right time.

And yes, non diabetics can spike up until 140 mg/dL (7,7 mmol) 2h after eating, but not more than that (source: https://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes_care/blood-sugar-level-ranges.html)

derry60 said:

Hi All,

I have been on YouTube watching a guy called Dennis Pollock. He is a diabetic and does a lot of low carb testing. He eats foods, then tests to give Idea's what makes his Blood sugar level increase. He also tests the no go foods for diabetics. He believes that we should all test every hour after food rather than every 2 hours, as this is when we find out how much we have spiked. He seem's to think that when we test every two hours after food, we are missing the important spikes, even when the Blood Glucose level has gone down after 2 hours. So what do others feel about this, I would really like your opinions on this. I thought that even non diabetics spiked after only 1 hour.

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I think that the two hours after starting to eat test reflects both suitability of the meal generally and how it is dealt with personally.
When I found meals which did not unduly elevate my blood glucose levels, I kept to them and then saw that the numbers were going down week by week. The difference at one hour, I suspect would not have been so positive and encouraging. I could see the change and - perhaps imagine that I was getting control, which kept me feeling positive about things.

derry60 said:

Hi All,

I have been on YouTube watching a guy called Dennis Pollock. He is a diabetic and does a lot of low carb testing. He eats foods, then tests to give Idea's what makes his Blood sugar level increase. He also tests the no go foods for diabetics. He believes that we should all test every hour after food rather than every 2 hours, as this is when we find out how much we have spiked. He seem's to think that when we test every two hours after food, we are missing the important spikes, even when the Blood Glucose level has gone down after 2 hours. So what do others feel about this, I would really like your opinions on this. I thought that even non diabetics spiked after only 1 hour.

Click to expand...

If you take that everyone spikes at different times during the half hour and one and a half hours after. To find the spike and how high that spike is, can give you a lot of information about your glycaemic and insulin response to meals.
The quicker the spike, the likelihood of insulin resistance, and the need to be careful with portion control to offset the spike.
If that is a single food, then a combination of fats, protein and carbs will slow the digestion and the spike will be slower and less dramatic.
Testing around the hour mark is a way of checking and seeing trends in how your body responds to food. This is why a food diary can be a great tool.

When it comes to testing I just say, walk your own path with it. Test when you want to. If you tend to eat the same meals, you'll get to know what to expect with them after time and not need to test as much all the time.

Depends entirely what you are eating.

if i was eating carbs, then yes, sure, there would be a raised level at the 1 hr mark. Hopefully lower at 2 and lower at still at 3.

But the last time i had a carb fest meal (mixed car, protein and fat) of significant proportions 3 or 4 years ago (high tea in local cafe, for my birthday), my blood glucose rose steadily for 2 hrs and took 5 more hours to come back down.
It would be a rich t2 who could afford to burn test strips hourly for 7 hours after every meal.

On the other hand, my current keto carnivore way of eating shows no more than a 1mmol/l rise at any point after a carni meal. So testing hourly through the day is a waste of strips. I actually get more bg variation at night.

When i was eating keto and not just carni, my peaks were usually 2.5 hours after meals, and often no more than a 1.5mmol/l rise. So testing at 1 hr was another wasted strip.

as I say, all depends what you are eating, when and how often you need to test.

I don’t tend to test much these days but if it’s a carbier meal than usual or one I’ve not tried before I test at 2 and 3 hours to see which way my BS is going. If it’s still rising I will test again at 3.5 or 4.0 hour point. For example I had sausage, mash and baked beans the other night and was 7.9 after 2 hrs, 7.8 after 3 hrs and 6.5 after 4 hrs so I knew my BS was on the way down albeit quite slowly.

derry60 said:

Hi All,

I have been on YouTube watching a guy called Dennis Pollock. He is a diabetic and does a lot of low carb testing. He eats foods, then tests to give Idea's what makes his Blood sugar level increase. He also tests the no go foods for diabetics. He believes that we should all test every hour after food rather than every 2 hours, as this is when we find out how much we have spiked. He seem's to think that when we test every two hours after food, we are missing the important spikes, even when the Blood Glucose level has gone down after 2 hours. So what do others feel about this, I would really like your opinions on this. I thought that even non diabetics spiked after only 1 hour.

Click to expand...

I'm not officially diagnosed as prediabetic but after having gestational diabetes and trying to reintroduce carbs in the postpartum period and seeing spikes I didn't like (10 mmol at 1 hour and 8mmol at 2 hours sometimes), I decided I would stick to low carb eating as a new habit. I was testing like mad for a few months when I first had gestational diabetes, and also after giving birth. I tested every 15 mins once or twice after a high carb meal just to see what was happening. Now I hardly test at all if I am eating low carb.

Today we had guests who brought pizzas around to share... I saw 25g carbs /100g on the pack (they were frozen pizzas) and thought I might get away with a slice or two. Our guests ate varying amounts of pizza - one of the guys ate a whole (small) pizza about 4 times as much as I did. Just for fun, I asked him if I could test his blood sugar readings since I was doing mine again after eating carbs. The difference with my readings vs the guy who ate the whole pizza was interesting:


(I didn't test before the meal)
1h (me) 7.7 mmol; (him) 7.2 mmol
1h30 (me) 9.4 mmol; (him) 5.7 mmol
1h45 (me) 7.3 mmol
2h (me) 4.7 mmol

I only tested him twice but it seemed his levels were going back into the normal range much faster than mine and I'd only eaten about a quarter of the amount of pizza he had. I tested myself more often when I got the surprise late spike at 1h30mins. Must have been the "pizza effect"? Fats and carbs together? Anyway, in the end, I wish I had just eaten the pizza and not checked because it made me preoccupied for the next 2 hours and I was starving before 2 hours had passed because I'd only eaten 2 measly slices...

Needless to say, I won't be eating pizza again anytime soon. At least not until I have perfected a low carb pizza crust...

When I first started I test to an excess level- partly to 'prove' to my husband that the LCHF diet was the way to go and partly to give myself encouragement that what I was doing was working.

I now regularly eat less than 20 grams a day of carbs and usually less than 10 grams. I still try to test a few times a day- It certainly shows that stress is not good for the body and also shows the effect illness has on our body. I test now when I try something new- I never really trust any sort of diet drink or jelly or anything really until I have tested I also test to make sure I don't get too relaxed. If my HbA1C went up I would certainly start testing more frequently again. In Australia there was government campaign about terrorism- be alert but not alarmed- I guess that's what I'm aiming for.

I'm so new in- less than 6 months but the advice here helped me bring my HbA1c down to normal levels- I can't take that for granted.

I was interested in the difference with those that tested themselves and someone without diabetes. I guess that it is a stark reminder that the reality is you can control the disease but if you stop controlling it you will end up where you started.

My spikes occur at about the one hour mark. I'm not sure which is more important - lower spikes, or returning to normal levels in 2 hours regardless of the spike level. Differing opinions here on that.