When does 2 hours start

AuditKitty said:

Hi all,

After hoping that taking Metformin would miraculously keep my blood sugars in check I am beginning to realise that I may have to do some work to give it a helping hand.

Started on the low carb (though not that low) diet a couple of weeks ago and delighted to say i've lost 6lbs. Am looking at doing some monitoring and (after looking on here for inspiration) have purchaed a Tee2.

My only question (at this moment ) is about this 2 hours after a meal. Is this 2 hours from the start of your meal or 2 hours from when you finish. By the time we've sat down and discussed our day etc during our evening meal it can be an hour from start to finish.

Thanks for your help

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Hi @AuditKitty. All good steps and progress so far. I was told 2 hrs from first bite. Best wishes and hope that helps.

The 2 hour thing is based on a 75g OGTT where you swig back 300ml of pure glucose.
They then declare you normal if your <7.8 @ 2 hours.

Real eating is not like that, 2 hours after the first bite could be 1 hour after the chocolate brownie you had for desert so you chance catching that at it's peak.
Doesn't answer your question but I suppose it explains where the 7.8 comes from.

AuditKitty said:

Thanks @ianpspurs that helps a lot

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To help even more, it doesn't need to be exactly two hours, but it is first bite.
The reason why for two hours is because if you consistently do pre meal and two hours, that will give you an idea, if the food you are eating is responsible for the high spikes that causes the symptoms.
A food diary, with a lot of detail, will within a few months, you will be able to see if you are doing well and the trends in blood sugar and from these readings, if your dietary changes are working.

To confuse you, the signal for your hormones to respond to your food is usually between five and ten minutes before first bite, it is the hormonal response of insulin that has a significant impact on the glucose derived from your food.
This is why, some people who cook and prepare food, lose their appetite as the food is tabled.

Take care

When I started low carb I was sceptical about the 2 hours which seemed rather arbitrary, but it seemed to work.
In theory an initial burst of Insulin is released about 5-10 minutes after starting eating and the second phase release of insulin reaches its maximum effectiveness after about 2 hours. So a non diabetic would get back to their starting level after 2 hours which is why we test at that point. Recently I had a trial of of a Libre2 and from the graphs of blood glucose it produced it would seem that the theory works in practice. With an average low carb meal my bg peaked after about 1 hour and was a little above the starting point at 2 hours. I had some meals with higher carbs, but low GI, and these too conformed to the theory, peaking less but with a later peak and longer duration, the rise after 2 hours was still a good guide though.

AuditKitty said:

That's what I was thinking, it could only be an hour from the end of the meal before I was testing . . . however chocolate brownies are out at the moment until I loose a bit more weight, by which time I might have a clue what my body is doing

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FWIW, my favourite keto baking recipe is a chocolate brownie made with almond flour and erythritol or monk fruit. It doesn't spike my BG significantly. I make it rarely as I'm trying to focus on "real foods" as much as possible.

Good luck. You got this.