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Today’s interesting diet (and BGL) experiment.

uart

Well-Known Member
Messages
424
Location
Australia
Type of diabetes
Type 1.5
Treatment type
Insulin
Today I decided to have a bit of a fast and to monitor my BG levels throughout. For those who don’t like to read long stories, the bottom line was that as I fasted my BG levels got higher, but as soon as I ate (LCHF) they went down considerably.

Pretty interesting, and it's not the first time I've noticed this.
 
The longer story with a few more details.

A bit of background. I’m T2 and a few years ago oral meds could no longer get my BGLs into single digits and I started on insulin. Soon after I also discovered LCHF and have been steadily reducing my daily insulin requirements ever since. I’m getting tantalizingly close to not needing any, but still seem to need a small amount to stop my morning levels creeping up to the 9 to 10 range. I’m not taking any other medications at all.

Anyway, last night I had just a few units of slow release before bed and this morning my BGL was 6.8, which is not bad for me. So I decided not to eat anything all day and monitor how my levels behaved

I had some light physical activity throughout the day. I took my dogs for a walk and did a some light work with hand tools. I had precisely zero calories all day. In the afternoon my I checked my levels again and they had actually increased slightly, to 7.2 this time.

Late afternoon / early evening I went and did some grocery shopping, and when I got home I was starting to fade, very tired. I hadn’t really planned this as part of the experiment, but I was too tired to cook my normal meal, so I slacked off and just threw a large (and fatty) lamb chop and two lamb sausages under the grill. (I’d normally have a more balanced diet, but just not today).

After dinner I crashed out on the lounge and slept for about 2 and a bit hours, but when I finally “resurfaced” I measured my BGL and it was only 5.0, yeah! Pretty interesting considering I had not had any medication for over 20 hours, well beyond the range of even to slow release insulin.

BTW. I should add that while waiting for the meat to cook I ate a few handfuls of peanuts (natural - roasted in shell), and I had a good amount of whole seed mustard on the sausages. All up (including that the sausages had a small amount of carbs in them), I probably had about 10 to 15 grams of carbs in that meal. But most all of the calories would have been fat and protein.
 
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Exercise will have raised your bg levels as it causes your stored glycogen (glucose) to be released so its a bit like eating a couple of teaspoons full of sugar. That coupled to your levels naturally rising if you have not enough basal insulin in your system either through not injecting enough or your being insulin resistant.

So no mystery there. No idea why your levels would drop after eating though but to get a better picture of what was happening you would have needed to test every half hour to see exactly what was happening to your bg levels over that period of time.
 
Levels can raise and lower based on dehydration levels. I have checked mine using same meals during a day but different fluid levels, significantly raised BG levels when dehydrated.
 
Sid Bonkers said:
Exercise will have raised your bg levels as it causes your stored glycogen (glucose) to be released so its a bit like eating a couple of teaspoons full of sugar.
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Yes, it was only very light physical activity most of the day though. I do often ride a bicycle, and then the exercise is way more intense, but not today.

That coupled to your levels naturally rising if you have not enough basal insulin in your system either through not injecting enough or your being insulin resistant.

So no mystery there. No idea why your levels would drop after eating though
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Sid, my hunch is that as a T2 my body can still make insulin, but that as part of the metabolic disorder associated with insulin resistance, I have difficulty utilizing glucose for energy. So basically I think that I need higher levels of glucose when trying to use that as my only source of energy. I'm thinking that, when fasting, I have to use glucose (from glycogen or synthesized in the liver) as the only source of energy, so the levels must rise until they reach a level at which my body can utilize it.

I was much worse when I was first diagnosed. I found it incredibly frustrating that I could fast for 20+ hours, feel absolutely famished, but still have BGLs well up in the 20's. Fortunately I've been able to improve that situation a lot over the past few months with LCHF and some weight loss.
 

I agree that your liver will likely have been releasing some stores to keep you going during your fast - a bit like can happen if we get very hungry/empty at any time.

I note you are eating LCHF. I'm wondering if you are having quite a few liver dumps, around mealtimes, if you are arriving at the hungry. As before, your live could dump some glucose into your bloodstream, then when you eat, your liver gets topped back up again, hence your blood scores have the potential to reduce - depending on what you have actually eaten. Are you losing weight, or in a maintenance place?

Just one final comments, not related to this particular issue; I looked at your profile to see if it would give me any clues about weightloss, and it suggests you are T1.5, whereas, your originating post states T2. No matter, just pointing it out.
 
Scimama said:
Levels can raise and lower based on dehydration levels. I have checked mine using same meals during a day but different fluid levels, significantly raised BG levels when dehydrated.
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Yep. However, I did stay fairly well hydrated all day today.
 
AndBreathe said:
. Are you losing weight, or in a maintenance place?
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I've lost about 10kg, and I probably should lose about another 5. Currently (last month or two) I don't seem to be dropping any, though I am maintaining a stable weight very well.

Just one final comments, not related to this particular issue; I looked at your profile to see if it would give me any clues about weightloss, and it suggests you are T1.5, whereas, your originating post states T2. No matter, just pointing it out.
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Yeah, to be honest I'm not certain. I've had diabetic symptoms since my early 20's but always (kind of) controlled it with diet and exercise. Metformin did precisely nothing for me, and insulin (or insulin stimulating drugs) were the only things that worked for me.
 
Yes as I said if you are insulin resistant which almost all t2's are then your bg levels will rise as you are not processing the glucose present in your blood stream and any extra glucose that is naturally released by your muscles and liver from any exercise however gentle will push your levels higher even if you have not eaten..

Perhaps I didnt explain my thought process very well but its not uncommon for levels to rise during fasting, you even use small amounts of energy when you are asleep, just "being" burns energy!
 
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