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To snack or not to snack...

samantha13

Well-Known Member
Messages
392
So I'm type 1 on novorapid and levimer. I completed DAFNE a few weeks ago. They told us if we snack to 'park it' and inject to cover it at next meal instead of injecting at the time of the snack as this can lead to 'stacking' (at least this was my take on it).

I snack a lot! A lot a lot! And carb heavy ie biscuits, buns, crisps etc (I'm working on changing my eating habits to become healthy).

My question is what do other type 1s do? Should I avoid snacks and aim for three filling meals?

Thank you in advance
 
IF I snack ( and I love to graze rather than eat large meals) I snack on a few nuts or olives, nothing with carbs. I eat very small meals so I also take very low doses of insulin. It was very hard to switch from a grazer to 3 meals but it really is the best. Whether I would dose for a snack would depend on where my BS is at the time and what i am going to eat. I am VLC so that helps me enormously. I'm sure i am not helping you because I don't eat carby foods but stacking doses does matter and can cause hypos.
I don't pump and have no interest but from what i read people who like carbs and snacking can do quite well on them. Perhaps they will be around shortly
 
I personally would take insulin before I ate anything.

I inject before I eat anything at all.

I don't snack at all now but when I did, (NOTHING beats a bag of crisps lol) I would ALWAYS inject before I ate.
 
If you are snacking on carb heavy items, you should bolus for them. What happens if you don't is that you spike quite high between meals (which is known to be an issue in terms of risk of complications). I hate the DAFNE advice that you can park snacks and inject to cover as it really doesn't help manage glycaemic variation, and therefore oxidative stress. It encourages higher glucose levels.

I personally don't worry about stacking insulin. As far as I can determine, insulin stacking is additive and not multiplicative, so if you have the right amount for the carbs that you have eaten, it doesn't matter.

I find that by eating meals that are filling and have a higher fat and protein content, I am less likely to snack. Or if I do snack, eating things like nuts and lower carb snack reduces the need to require insulin and also satiates for longer.
 
tim2000s said:
I find that by eating meals that are filling and have a higher fat and protein content, I am less likely to snack. Or if I do snack, eating things like nuts and lower carb snack reduces the need to require insulin and also satiates for longer.
Click to expand...

This is what I do and the truth is the need for snacking is pretty much gone. The odd thing is the less food I eat, the less hungry I am and the more energy even though I LOVE food.
 
Sometimes the DAFNE 'one size fits all' approach doesn't work. I too like to snack and although I do try to eat low carb sometimes like today I will have a carb snack, I would never wait till the next meal as I try to keep my blood glucose as stable as possible so always take insulin for food. However if eating say nuts or olives then I would hang fire until mealtime to test and take insulin, the whole concept to the DAFNE approach is to try and behave as a non diabetic and sadly that doesn't work for a lot of type 1's. If you can look at no carb snack alternatives this would help you more in so much as you are not stacking your insulin, otherwise just inject and snack
 
definitely bolus for everything that passes my lips at the time.

@tim2000s pretty much nailed the subject in 1 response.

time now to retire to the kitchen for a snack
 
Do bolus for your snacks @samantha13, but your DAFNE trainer is spot on when they say you have to be aware of the stacking effect, especially if your injecting bolus doses close together.
 
I would always bolus for a snack. Stacking can be bad and I've noticed tends to be harder to control but in my opinion that's much easier to deal with than a high BG before the next meal!
 
I snack and usually eat carby snacks, but generally try to keep them 25g or less unless I'm out and have a piece of cake or similar. I bolus for them. I'd never leave my bolus until the next meal. In my opinion - and my opinion only YMMV - that's madness. Why would I want to eat, say, a couple of digestives and then have my blood sugar unnecessarily high until the next meal? I calculate the carbs and take an appropriate bolus before I eat it, taking into account my current BS and if I'm going to be exercising, etc

I've always snacked and have never found that they adversely affect my control. But I am confident in counting carbs and adjusting my insulin. If you're not, then don't do it without speaking to your DSN and getting some advice and some experience.

My DSN said stacking only really mattered for correction doses. It seems DAFNE says different. From experience, I'd go with my DSN's opinion.
 
So true @azure

Plus if you take a correction dose at your next meal to correct the high your not going to see a change for at least another 2 hours, far better to inject for the snack but exercise some caution keeping in mind the stacking effect.
 
Hello, when I was doing MDI I did literally of millions of MDI after DAFNE as it just wouldn't work for me personally otherwise. I'd even inject for a latte say at 10am, 4 biscuits at 11am, chocolate at 12 etc. I think towards the end I was on about 10 injections a day (injections never bothered me, just more the hassle of having to find it in your handbag etc)
I rarely stacked (just me here) but this would happen if eating a lot of high sugar, high fat and stacking would only happen after being high all day.

I'm now on the pump and obviously press that bolus button all the time for snacks. Good luck
 
My understanding from the DAFNE course was that you have two options when it comes to snacking: either

1) if it is more that 1 CP, bolus for the snack (but be careful not to correct a high at the next meal); or

2) add the snack CPs to you next meal and bolus at the meal.
 
I have an injection of Novarapid before my 3 main meals and 1 injection of Levemir at 10pm. I include snacks in my Carbs. If I am hungry. Type 1 for 49 years.
 
Another crazy advice from Dafne I do bolus for everything, sometimes even milk in my coffee
I do personally think though that snacking for type1 is not a great idea (unless you plan it and inject well in advance) Even small carby snack will cause some spike and if it happens couple of times a day, it affects your control. I try not to snack or snack low carb where I don't need much insulin
 
The problem with the DAFNE advice is they expect you to be following a low carb diet snacks and all, if this was the case you could Park it and bolus with your meal but with heavy carbs and high sugar ones you will end up with complications if you don't bolus as you eat, stacking of insulin is still possible so I tend to reduce my full bolus dose by 25% if I have heavy carb snacks to avoid stacking insulin but not have massive spikes either
 
Samantha, if you could wean yourself off snacking, your control would improve, because you'd become more insulin sensitive. Have a read/listen to Jason Fung. He's mainly targeting Type 2s, but his point is relevant to Type 1s too.

I think the old advice to snack is not good.
 
I used to snack a lot, but have weaned myself off them. I always enjoyed a (low fat) choc bar mid morning, but keep them for hypos now! On my DAFNE course we were told we could have up to 25g of carbs without the need for bolus as the basal would take care of it. Now I have my libre, I know this doesn't work for me. I had a small snack yesterday afternoon as I was 4.3 before driving, and spiked to 14, even though I was walking round the shops!

I weaned myself off snacks just because I don't want to have spikes. If I can do it anyone can!!
 
I haven't done the DAFNE training; my DSN advised me that I can snack and ignore up to 10g of carbs at a time, so I keep my snacks below that level rather than bolus.
 
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