Let’s compare. You have to test a lot and it takes a long time to get a good feel for it.
Here is a comparison. Look at yours and mine and see if you think yours needs to be moved one way or the other.
your insulin peaks early and then your BGs go back into range much quicker than mine. at least as far as your graph goes. but with all of my testing throughout the day, i have much more of a flatline than this pic represents.
help me out here; i am totally lost and confused.
The graph is not BG. It is insulin activity.
My insulin hits its peak at 1 hour. That is where most of the insulin is active. You see how it flattens out at 150 minutes? That is where most of my insulin is gone. The rest of it trickles out until 270 minutes (4.5 hours).
Also my insulin is fairly active at 30 minutes. Usually if I bolus 30 minutes before a meal I am plummeting by the time I eat.
So think through your insulin activity. How long does it take to start working? When does it really kick in a lot? Then does it kind of trickle out the rest of the time, like hours 2-4?
Describe how you think your insulin activity is, from the time you bolus until the bolus is all gone. Make sense?
Here is another way to think about it. Suppose you were locked in a room with nothing but gtabs. And evil scientist injects you with 10 units and tells you that you need to keep your BG level for the next 4 hours. Describe how many gtabs you would need to eat at each 30 minute mark to stay level. Would you eat 2 within the first 30 minutes and then eat 6 for the next 30 minutes and then 8? Could you wait longer than 30 minutes? At what time would you need to eat the most gtabs to stay level? The more gtabs you need at a given time means the insulin is more active. Obviously, if you were trying to stay level you would not be eating them all at once and you would need to eat more at some times, and less at other times. Think through that a bit.
In this example you would need to keep your BG flat to assess insulin activity!
(I didn’t make up this evil experiment. This type of thing is called a euglycemic clamp study)
the extra bolus oatmeal swimming experiment:
an experiment that did not work, so i will write it off as another learning experiment. this moring at 1am i woke up to see if my BG was in target range b/c of some basal rate tweaking. it was perfect, so i went back to sleep. then, i woke up again at 6 am to test, and my BG was 50; i took 1 Gtab and went back to sleep until 7am. at 7 i usually eat, but my BG had not budged at all. i took another Gtab and thought that i would have to adjust my meal bolus and go swimming one hour later than usual. a PITA, but it was what it was… at 8am, my BG was only 56, so i drank some juice and waited 1/2 hour and tested again; my BG had come up to 95. phew, breakfast time.
i bolused for the oatmeal as usual but added an additional 1 unit to prevent from spiking later when i typically begin my swim .prep. (i will go from 100 to 180 when i eat the oatmeal). however, i tested 2.5 hours post bfast and my BG was 63. i took another Gtab and decided to bag the swimming today and to not feel discouraged but to write it off as another learning experience.
this oatmeal is very tricky
i refuse, as usual, to give up, but obviously, this is going to take some work and possibly several experiments before i can nail down the secret formula. otherwise, i will revert back to my regular breakfast meals which do not cause early morning high carb spikes. and, i want to remind myself that having a balanced high protein breakfast is still a healthy choice. (eric may disagree with that, though) Nevertheless, a hearty breakfast is still a hearty breakfast and i have had my system for it down pat. and i need to remind myself that if it ain’t broke, dont fix it!
signing off for now. hope that this helps someone else , especially if you are trying out new things, whether it relates to bolusing for food or anything else you may be experimenting with in your life.
DM
Sure, a breakfast with mostly protein is healthy and healthy, but the result of that is less fuel to burn for exercise.
You were running low this morning, so 1 unit extra was too much. On a normal morning maybe 1 extra unit would be okay. But if you are running low, maybe a 1/2 or 1/4 unit extra would be okay.
It’s still early. You can still salvage your swim. You usually turn off your basal for 2 hours at 11:30, so you could still be in range for your swim if you still want to give it a try.
there is a reason that i always swim at 2pm. starting at 3pm there are crowds of children that come screaming in and five people must share a lane. its disturbing and i dont get a quality swim.
i’m okay with it though. i can always walk over the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan and back for some well deserved exercise. 
you are very lucky that you can run whenever you wish to. my swim revolves around pool hours. 
which stinks.
Explain to me what happened today. You were lower than you wanted to be, but you still had a couple of hours to correct it before 2pm, right? Wasn’t it around 11:30am when you bagged it?
at 6am i was 50, then 46, then 56, then 63, then 61…no matter what i ate to correct it, i couldnt come up. i tried my best until 12:30: and then i just couldnt deal anymore.
today has been a day of basal corrections b/c my BGs have been too low (for me, anyway )
i skipped lunch today so i could see how my basals were this afternoon. i continue to slide low. i just lowered my BRs from 9am through the rest of the day. i’ll see how it goes. when i was at 61, i ate 2 Gtabs and then waited an hour, i went up to 104, but w/in another 1/2 hour, i was back down to 80 (and sliding low again. ) i do not, any longer, think that this is an OATMEAL problem. i think it is merely a basal problem 
I promise this is not true! 
You can always bring it up. Sometimes it just takes a bit more!
Work through the insulin activity problem I presented to you last night. How would you take the gtabs to stay as flat as you could for 4 or 5 hours? That will help you to understand your insulin activity. Then I can send you the IOB numbers for when you swim.
maybe one tablet every 1/2 hour to an hour depending on how low i am and depending on how fast i might be crashing.
but, i just lowered my basal rates for both bedtime, through the night, and through the afternoon. the only thing i have eaten today was the oatmeal this morning at 8:30am. as i mentioned already, i skipped lunch to see how i responded to my basals and i am still running low. the Gtabs will bring me up, but within 1/2 hour, i am going down again. i was able to flatline it a month ago and maintained stability for a long while. then i needed some tweaking and i think i over-tweaked. now i am slowly returning to more healthy basal rates.
THE OATMEAL EXPERIEMENT # 2 :
talk about a super food that sustains you while you exercsize!!! it took some fiddling around to get my morning/breakfast bolusing down pat before i believed that i could actually eat so many carbs for breakfast and NOT spike. but i persevered and i did not spike at all. and all i did was to add an extra .5 units to my regular morning bolus. before bfast i was 85, and 3.5 hours post, i came in with a smooth landing at 115. perfect BG for a great swim.
( i just want to say, however, that this oatmeal magic did not work on the first try; just like my swimming, it took several attempts to find the formula. it was frustrating at times, b/c it was threatening to get in the way of all the progress i have made with my swimming. crazy BGs, etc. but i continued to try until this morning: POOF, just right. live, take suggestions, and keep on going; there are answers out there. patience and persistance and willingness and a drive to be unlimited )
here are the stats for today:
started prep at 11:30 and my BG was 120, then i wait my usual 2 hours before leaving for the pool at 1:30. so, here goes
1:15 BG 130 begin walking to the pool
2pm BG 150
2:30 BG 126
3pm BG 111
3:30 BG 94 bolused 1.7 units
4pm BG 109 bolused 1.6 units for my post swim refueling (32 gms carbs )
as usual (at least from looking back over the patterns i have, i level off after the 2nd hour, and then i plateau. tomorrows swim (friday ) i plan on swimming for 2 hours. i would like to swim very hard the first hour (basically, b/c its when my BGs are high enough that i am comfortable and can get away with it w/out crashing ) then i want to do a moderate to hard swim for the next half hour, and then for the last half hour, i want to use the kickboard (which is no easy task )
this is the goal. and, as usual, i will let you know how all of it goes, right down from the oatmeal to the carb re-loading.
thats my latest report OATMEAL IS THE BOMM!
DM
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DARED TO DARE AND THE AMAZING PLATEAU:
when i started prepping for my swim, my BGs started climbing higher than i was comfortable with, so i consulted eric; he suggested (and encouraged me with a little pushing) to leave for the pool earlier than usual (1/2 hour earlier). so, i was only off my basal for only 2 hours as opposed to the usual 2.5 hours. a little apprehensive, but excited to see what would happen with this new experiemnt, i followed his lead and left my house for my walk to the pool. when i left the house at 1pm, my BG was 148.
1:30 BG 149 right before jumping intot he pool
2pm BG 124
2:30 BG 86 took 1 glucose tablet
3pm BG 87
3:30 BG 86 took 2.2 units
4pm BG 84 took 1.6 units for carb replacement.
it was a strong hard swim for 2 hours. and, with the exception of starting out high, i leveled off into a perfect target range and plateaued there for 1.5 hours.
i am feeling really good about myself, and i plan to have a wonderful weekend. i hope that it doesnt rain so that my husband and i can walk into Chinatown over the Bridges and have a total overload of carbs and protein swimming fuel of a brunch 
hope you all have a wonderful weekend as well.
DM
signing off
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DM, this is super awesome stuff!
Next is that drop that happens that first 30 minutes. But it depends on where you are. Today was perfect. You didn’t want to stay at 149, so the drop landed you in the correct place. But if you were a little lower, a few carbs would reduce that drop.
The other thing is if you want to reduce the climb before swimming, you can start working on the basal before swimming. Instead of zero, you can go to 10% or something like that. But that would increase the drop you have, so you’d need to counter with more carbs right at the start.
But even if you don’t do anything, these numbers are great. Nothing wrong with what you have right now.
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A NEW TWIST ON ANOTHER AMAZING SWIM:
unlike my previous swims where i start out high and then go lower before i plateau, i started off on the low side and stayed level for my entire 2 hour swim. i am shocked and thrilled and high as a kite on endorphins
before i left the house, my BG was only 91; i took 1 glucose tab and figured that it doesnt usually kick in for at least 15 minutes so by the time i got to my locker, it would start doing its thing. my objective was to head off my usual crash that happens in the first 1/2 hour to 1 hour.
when i got to my locker, i retested and my BG was 101. i took another tablet and jumped in.
1:45 BG 101
2:15 BG 110
2:45 BG 113
3:15 BG 104
3:45 BG 92 / bolused 2 units, showered and walked home.
4:15 BG 75 / bolused 1.6 units and drank my 2 “replacement” shakes
i feel wonderful and very proud of myself. this was a huge accomplishment for me. this is something i couldnt of even dreamed of when i started last year. i didnt think it was possible.
I AM LEARNING (MUCH BETTER) HOW TO GO WITH THE FLOW:
before, if my BGs were not elevated enough at the beginning of my intended swim, i would be too afraid to go in the pool and so i would bag the entire experiment and not swim at all. on the other hand, if my BGs were too high, i would be afraid to swim as well, and i would bag the swim. i didnt know how to handle the ups and the downs of dealing with and managing this disease and truly be unlimited; then i met eric, and my life began to change. you all know the story so i dont need to go into it. and then, i met you guys and you rooted me on and made me feel worthwhile enough that i could make little accomplishments one after the other and i began to see the progress. so i continued to try despite my fears.
what i have learned is to watch out for different and ever-changing patterns and to not get stuck in an “uncomfortable” situation. now, i know how to handle being a little too high or a little bit too low and still feel comfortable jumping into the pool for a long swim. it is truly amazing. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!
DM
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DM, you are an elite D badass! Awesome job today!
That’s the best it’s ever been.
The carbs you took right at the beginning prevented your usual drop. That’s one of the things we talked about last week. You’ve completely unlocked the formula.
Congratulations on an awesome day!
I’m guessing 85% tonight. What’s your guess?
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This. Is. Awesome!!!
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thanks for your cheers! it really keeps me going.
my guess is that i will stay at 100% basal. i have not yet needed to lower it. in fact, i have usually gone a little high during the night and then go lower during the day after a good strong swim; especially the 2 hour swims. (i am not certain why the extra 1/2 hour makes such a difference, but it always does.)
i plan to do another 2 hour this friday after thanksgiving. the pool will be closed tomorrow and thursday 
. but the good news is that i will totally be able to refuel on thursday!!!
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