Daisy Mae's swimming BG thread

Sports & Exercise
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1633

FAR OUT OF TARGET RANGE AND CLIMBING EXPERIMENT #1:

at 5am this morning my BG was 150. i took a correction and went back to sleep. i had recently lowered my early morning basal rates b/c i kept waking up low. i should have just let it ride and used Gtabs to correct. but i wasnt thinking things through, and i paid the consequences. and it stunk b/c all through the night my BGs were excellent (100 ). anyway, the correction brought me down to 125 before eating my bfast, which although high for me (i prefer to be around 70 or 80 on a fasting BG), i thought, this will work itself out, i will have a nice bfast, and i will prep for my swim. i forgot that my basal rates were set so low. ugh. after bfast, my BGs started to climb: 135, 155
i still had IOB from my last bolus, so i thought i would make only a slight correction and i increased my basal rates ASAP. by 11am, my BG was still high at 142, so i took an IM shot, b/c i knew that whatever insulin i was giving myself would be out of my system within 2 hours and it would not interfere with my swimming ( i didnt want the extra IOB while i swam, especially since i crashed in the pool at 54 last week) i did a minor .2 units through my pump before turning it off, knowing that that tiny bolus would be in my system for 4 hours, but it was so minor that i wasnt very concerned that it would interfere.

and then i waited. w/in 45 minutes my BGs started coming down. Phew. and, by 1pm, when i was getting ready to leave for the pool, i was down to 119. and that was just fine for me. i knew, b/c this happens every day i swim, that the 0% basal would really kick in and to expect a rise by the time i got to the pool. and i was right. as usual, i rose from 119 up to 122. i took no Gtabs and jumped into the pool. i had a nice, strong 90 minutes swim. the pool was relatively empty.

here are the stats:
1:20 BG 122
2pm BG 107 ( took 1/2 Gtab)
2:30 BG 87
3pm BG 86

and PS: i put my basal rates back up. hopefully tomorrow will be better. dont know why my BGs have been so fickle. its truly frustrating :persevere:

signing off,
DM

oh, and PPS: this is the very first time that i have taken an IM shot before exercise. i wanted to convey how wonderfully effective it was ! :sunny:

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1634

VERY BAD OVERNIGHT, BUT AN EXCELLENT RECOVERY EXPERIMENT #1:

woke up twice last night with high BGs. took corrections for both. not the most restful night’s sleep. but i woke up close to target range and bolused for bfast.i mistakenly over-bolused and it ended up bringing me into perfect target range for my swim :smile:.

it was a fabulous swim. the pool was practically empty, and i had the entire lane to myself for an hour and a half!!! OMG. perfection. peaceful, relaxing, and awesome BGs.

i took the first stretch to warm up, and then progressively pushed it into a nice, hard strong swim.
no aches, no pains, just comfortable through and through.

here are the stats:
1pm, BG 103 (left house for pool)
1:20 BG 109 (took 1 Gtab)
2pm BG 98
2:30 BG 90
3pm BG 87
3:30 BG 87
nice flat line without any major drops.

lost about 5 pounds since i have upped my swimming from 3-4 days a week to 5 days a week; now i have to up my calories, especially my carb intake. i know a lot of you are on low carb diets. i used to be on HFHPLC diet, but since my swimming, i just cant get enough fuel eating that way. so i have had to make modifications. it has worked out very well, and i love being able to eat all the carbs without my BGs spiking. (did i mention my pizza fest from this past saturday??? what a pig out that was :star_struck::yum: !!!

anyway, i am hoping that i have ironed out my basal rates. so far, so good. i just have to get those overnights reeled in. what a PITA it is to be waking up several times during the night to do corrections. ugh.

signing off,
DM

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1635

Perfect numbers!

What did you have for breakfast this morning?

1636

STRONGEST SWIM EVER EXPERIMENT # 1:

i feel like Gumby now. my arms and legs are wasted from a very strong swim. the pool was crowded today, but it wasnt bad b/c i was in pace with the other swimmers sharing the lane. i felt very competitive today, so i used the “fast” lane and tried my very best to keep up with the other swimmers. it was fabulous. i am on a major endorphin rush right now :wink: :star_struck:

i am on a 95% TB, and i might have to lower that as the evening goes on. also, i bolused slightly less for my basal replacement as well as for my refuel chocolate shakes. i hope that does the trick. i am trying to decide what i want to do for dinner. what i really want requires a dual bolus, and i am hesitant to do that when i dont know exactly how much basal i am going to need as the evening progresses. i really want to have some Japanese food, but i would need to do a 40/60 % split (upfront followed by a square over 2 hours). anything can happen in those 2 hours. but maybe that is just part of being UNLIMITED. COURAGE IN THE FACE OF FEAR. should i go for it ???

eegads, so many choices and so many possibilities :thinking:

here are the stats:
1:20 BG 120
2pm BG 119
2:30 BG 98
3pm BG 84
3:30 BG 88

i’ll keep everyone posted on how the evening and the overnight go. tomorrow is my recovery day, so i wont be swimming. i am eager to see how much basal i will need tomorrow after having swam 3 consecutive days in a row. i am just guessing here, but i think it will be something like between 90% and 95%. eric keeps reminding me that “today’s swim, effects tomorrow’s BGs.” he calls it “the 24 hour rule.” i will be keeping a close watch.

(this is where a reliable dexcom would be really helpful. i see my endo next week. perhaps we can iron out some problems, and maybe i can find the right sweet spot to place my sensor. lets hope for the best.)

signing off,
DM

PS: (later in the day) had to lower my basal down to 90%. my BG is only 71 after taking 2 Gtabs 1/2 hour ago. hopefully they will kick in. if not, i will wait for the lowered TB to kick in before making other changes. i am looking forward to a hearty dinner, but dont want to give myself insulin while i am trending down. trying to be smart and cautious at the same time.

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1637

FYI:

had to lower my TB last night down to 85%, but throughout the entire day today, it has been at 95%. i am going to turn it off at around 8pm tonight, so that i will be at 100% basal throughout the night and tomorrow as well. (i didnt swim today and i am not swimming tomorrow so i am betting that i will need my regular basal rates at full power.)

PS: hope this info is helpful to someone out there. i have been very slowly learning one lesson at a time. its certainly been a long road
and so it continues) :sunny:

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1638

UNEXPECTED LOWS AND HIGHS EXPERIMENT # 1:

Well i was wrong about needing the 100% basal when i turned off my 85% TB tuesday night. i went low all throughout my sleep, and low in the morning as well. so i turned on a 95% TB and i used that for an entire 2 days after not swimming. it worked like a charm. dont understand why i didnt need much insulin, but i had such great BGs that i really didnt care :wink:.

but then this morning came. i woke up at 71, but after breakfast i climbed to 123 and i realized it might be time to go full power ahead with 100% basal, so i turned off the TB, hoping that would keep me from not going higher before i prepped for my swim. well that didnt help me any :disappointed_relieved: i continued to climb and climb and climb


by the time i got to the pool, my BG was 169. i dont even remember the last time i was that high when starting out. it was like i was a year ago !!! so i took a tiny bolus before jumping in of .1 units (eric’s suggestion, of course). well, i figured i would swim as hard and as strong and as fast as i possibly could so that my BG would come down. it was a good plan, but boy oh boy did i drop. i went from 169, down to 103 in 2 hours!!! i mean, dont get me wrong, i am very pleased with the outcome, and i had a fantastic swim, but what a crash!!! :blush:

since i wont be swimming tomorrow (eegads, a saturday in the pool
no way Jose) i doubt very much that i will need a TB either tonight or tomorrow. just a hunch, but i will, as always, keep you informed. i will be back in the pool for sunday, monday and tuesday, though. so tomorrow will be a nice “rest and refuel” day.

here are the miserable stats:
1:15 BG169
2pm BG 154
2:30 BG 118
3pm BG 104
3:30 BG 103

you can see the nice plateau that happened after 2:30pm. this is where i typically plateau. if i had swam longer, i would have easily stayed in this range. i think (just thinking out loud here) that if i had not given myself that extra .1 unit bump as well as swimming as hard as i did, i would have probably not seen such a drop from the BG of 169. dont get me wrong; i am glad that my BG came back nicely into target, but i do prefer the more flat line swim. well, there are some good days, there are some worse days; today was kind of a combination of the two. :smile:

signing off,
DM

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1639

You didn’t start at the best place, but you finished at 103, and that is outstanding! Nice recovery!

I think it is better to drop from 169 to 100 and stay at 100, than it is to stay around 140-150 for 2 hours. So I think that 0.10 unit bump was perfect!
:wink:

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1640

thanks for that, and your brilliant idea to take that .1 unit !! i have been stable and on target ever since. (still at 100% basal )

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1641

EH and I have finally caught up! Got a little behind this spring, and it took me a bit to make it to the end of the thread again (1627 posts is a lot!) but we both have found it really helpful to read. Sorry to have fallen off of the replying end of things there for a while.

Thanks for taking such detailed notes and sharing them with us. I do think it’s very interesting and we are trying to figure out how to apply all your hard work to running and diabetes. :slightly_smiling_face:

Keep up the good work!

(As I drug my new-to-running self up a hill in the 90Âș heat yesterday, I reminded myself of your progress DM and told myself that if you could do your swimming and it got easier and more fun and better, then I could probably run up the hill and someday it won’t seem as hard! LOL! It worked. I’m not still sitting two miles from the car in a field.)

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1642

isnt that awesome!!! congrats to you!!!

when i started swimming i was the slowest one in the “slow” lane. now i am the even-steven swimmer in the “medium” lane. one step at a time
or for me, one lap at a time :wink:.

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1643

A DARING BUT INTUITIVE SWIMMING EXPERIMENT # 1:

after a night that required multiple IM injections totaling 3 over a 6 hour period, just trying to bring my BG down from 278 ( pump problem?? ), i woke up this morning with my BG at 70. perfect target range. i ate my usual pre-swim bfast and went back to snooze for 2 more hours. when i tested my BG again, i had spiked to 144. now that is WAY out of target range for me, especially for my swimming. i had a lot of IOB still, leftover from my bfast, but i took a chance and gave myself a tiny correction of .3 units. i didnt know what would happen. would i go low and crash. that would stink. oh well. i would just be as flexible as possible and go with the flow.

well, it ended up that i did exactly the right thing. my BG came back down to 92, and i was ready to start my swim prep. i turned off my pump and, despite still having IOB, i bolused .4 units to keep myself from spiking after having no IOB for the next 2.5 hours before jumping into the pool. this was also something i did upon instinct and all my previous experiments added up together.
and it worked out beautifully.

well, after 1/2 hour after that bolus, my BG came down from 92 to 80; i panicked. i thought, “oh no, i have too much IOB now. better give myself a 1/2 of a Gtab to keep myself from crashing.” well, with my pump being off, having 0% basal, i didnt need that 1/2 tab. i will try in the future to remember the power of the zero basal. it amplifies everything. anyway, i just let it go; live and learn. when i got to the pool my BG had risen, but i was just fine for a good hard swim. and i knew that i would be swimming the next three days in a row, so i was really happy knowing i had no other obligations to myself but to be in the pool just swimming my heart out. :blush:

here are the stats:
1:50 BG 130
2:30 BG 122
3pm BG 85
3:30 BG 82
4pm BG 81

today was a great learning experience and i had a wonderful swim. now i am going to sit back, kick my feet up, and enjoy my chocolate shakes and my incredible endorphin rush :wink:

signing off,
DM

5 Likes
1644

EXHAUSTED BUT STILL SWIMMING EXPERIMENT #1:

when i jumped into the pool this afternoon and swam my first lap, i could tell how tired my muscles were from yesterday’s hard swim. i thought to myself that i would only swim for an hour today and take it easy since i will be swimming again tomorrow. well, i am competitive by nature, and the pool was very crowded today; if someone in my lane is swimming faster than i am, i must speed up. i cant stand being the “slow one” in my lane. so all my thoughts of taking it easy today went out the window. i started pushing myself harder and harder. i didnt want to lag behind. so instead of a short swim, i ended up doing a really challenging swim, and didnt get out of the pool until 1.5 hours later! :blush: right now i am wasted. i think i’ll need an Advil tonight. :wink:.

i dont think i will need to lower my basal rates yet. i am suspecting that i will, though, tomorrow. i will probably go down to 95% TB for a day or even 2. then i take the wednesday off, but am back in the pool on thursday.

instead of giving myself the usual 2 units for basal replacement, i only bolused 1.8 units. and similarly, to cover my Boost Chocolate Shakes, i usually bolus 50% of the carbs. today i cut that down from 1.6 units to 1.4 units. hopefully that will help to keep me from crashing later on. also, i’ve raised my mealtime ICR up to 1:16 (it used to be 1:12 for supper time before i started swimming) its been working out well for me. took quite a bit of patience and experimentation before i landed on that percentage.

also, just an aside note: i took no Gtabs during my swim today. you can see that reflected in my significant BG drop from my first 1/2 hour in the pool going into my 2nd 1/2 hour. i think that this drop is b/c i was swimming on all of my own glucose, rather than burning off the glucose in a tab. eric will know the answer to that better than i do. but that’s my hunch. after that i just plateaued, which is usual. i dont get nervous over a lower BG when i get back into the pool, b/c i know i have been on zero basal for almost 4 hours. how low can i possibly go with no insulin in my system???

stats for today:
1:20 BG 127
2pm BG 108
2:30 BG 85
3pm BG 81
3:30 BG 83

signing off,
DM

PS: am thinking about getting up at 4am tomorrow and eating my bfast earlier so that i will have no IOB 3 hours earlier. i heard a rumor that the pool is not as crowed before lunchtime, and my entire swim prep takes 6 hours before i am at the pool. how crazy does that sound??? :laughing:

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1645

Fantastic numbers!!! Can’t tell you how amazed I am with all your hard work, improvements and now really it seems like you really achieved non-diabetic status!!! Yay!!! At least while in the pool. What an achievement.:sunny:

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1646

Your numbers were great today!

Yes, without the gtab, your body takes the easiest fuel it can get, and it happens to be whatever is in your blood.

It might be worth thinking about you shortening your ZB time. Instead of 2.5 hours, doing 2 hours and just taking a gtab or two. You would start a bit lower, and the gtabs can help cover that. It might be easier for you to have less ZB time, and also reduce the spike you sometimes get from waiting 2.5 hours.

Don’t let ego can get in the way. There is really only one person you need to beat, and I think you know exactly who that is. She’ll be there tomorrow.
:wink:

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1647

i have been considering this for some time now. my pre-swim prep starts out great. nice and low and in target. and it stays that way for about 2 hours. then, like a magic wand waving, at 2+ hours of no basal, boom. my bg shoots up. i could leave my house at 90, and when i get to the pool, my bg will have spiked to 120 or even higher. and thats only in a 15 minute time period.

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1648

this is a definite problem of mine, instilled when i was a child. i think it started at home, b/c i have sisters who all vied for parental attention. :wink:

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1649

AN ORDINARY DAY IN THE POOL EXPERIMENT #1:

nothing spectacular happened today. i went in with great numbers and i came out with great numbers. i swam strong and hard, despite the fact that i am exhausted from the past 2 days of back to back hard swims. i thought i might just do an hour today, but i sucked it up and went for the full 1.5 hours. i am off tomorrow anyway, and i see my Endo on friday, so i will have a couple of days of rest to re-coop.

am on 95% TB and am finger-sticking every 1/2 hour. did some basal changes to try and remedy my overnight spikes. we’ll see how that all works out. i think i have finally nailed down the appropriate ICR for my dinner meals. thank God, b/c that took a long time, patience and perseverance. i am no longer crashing right after i finish eating. phew. i hadnt wanted to make any major changes at once. so, i did everything very gradually. it took longer that way, but i think that it was a safer route.

another thing i have noticed since increasing my time in the pool, is that i really need to eat more to keep my weight on. i guess thats a no-brainer, but i thought i would just put it out there, for what its worth. not that that’s a bad thing b/c i love to eat. so, no complaints there :wink:.

stats for today:

1pm BG 94
1:30 BG 109 (took 1 Gtab)
2pm BG 119
2:30 BG 93
3pm BG 71

if you had told me last year that i would accomplish anything like this i would have told you that you were out of your mind. it seemed and felt impossible and unachievable . OMG!

signing off,
DM

3 Likes
1650

You know what’s funny about this? If you’d asked me last year if you could accomplish this, I would have told you that I knew you could do it. Reading 100 posts, I already knew you would succeed. :hugs:

@Eric told me all about your beginning successes and how hard you were working to start at under 200. I knew success was imminent!

Also, I got this little photo for you - EH is trying the Boost Shakes

image

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1651

does he like the shakes? i buy the “chocolate sensation.” (everyone at FUD knows about my obsession with chocolate :wink: .)

they just have to be really cold and shake them really well.

i drink them after working out and would consider drinking them as an afternoon snack. but beware: they are very very filling!!!

ENJOY

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1652

He got the chocolate one! He said they were good. AND I made him put the cap back on and shake it really well!!! Lol!

Although he did wind up going low in the afternoon. We are having the same post-multiple-days-of-exercise late afternoon lows issue you’d mentioned a while back. We need to fiddle with the dials a little more.

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