Wanted to give the lettuce test a try after I posted it on another thread
So gave it a whirl on my flight home to New York tonight
Ate a Caesar salad with croutons removed so just romaine / Caesar dressing that had zero carbs and lots of Parmesan
Wanted to see if bg just rises when you eat anything - even water fiber and fat
And there you have it - i injected 4 humalog as well just in case it did rise and wouldn’t go too far but it went up from 80 to 116 before the humalog caught it - that dose wasn’t enough to bring it down so I put in another 4
Goes to prove it’s not carbs or protein - just my body needs at least 8 whenever I eat anything !!
The Cesar dressings I’ve had have quite a few carbs in andnof themselves. If I ate strait lettuce and Parmesan without the Cesar dressing I wouldn’t expect my bg to rise (not very much anyway)
When I was just starting out I was told that if I eat a head of iceburg lettuce with nothing on it my BG will rise, because filling my stomach will trigger my liver to dump some glucose to power the start of digestion.
I don’t know if that’s just a story or if it’s really true.
I’m pretty sure one of the problems in people with T1 is that their liver does release glucose after they eat, which is one reason it’s so hard to control postprandial spikes.
I definitely need to take insulin if I eat any carbohydrates at all, even a very small amount, but eight units would be a lot for me. Do you have insulin resistance?
I would also question your basal rate. Though I know that can be very, very challenging to get exactly right so that you don’t rise or fall at all when not eating (at least for me)!
My basal is fine - it’s flat as anything if I fast from 4 pm until midday the next day it doesn’t go up or down more than 10 values from 10pm until midday when I eat - and that is 20 tresiba injected twice a day (10 each injection am and pm)
I’m not insulin resistant as 20 tresiba is spot on basal dose for my weight -203lb - it would be higher I think if I was insulin resistant
No carbs in the dressing said on the little container - total carbs in parm and romaine had to be less than 5g if that maybe more 3g
If I eat 2 eggs : cheese and ham for a meal then I need about 8-10 humalog - so about 16g of protein there
I I eat about 12g of carb for a meal from vegetables I need about 10g of humalog
Seems like body just needs to pump out enough glucose for that 10 units of humalog whatever the source - carb / protein or just my liver !
Avidly reading online about this subject I’ve come to the conclusion that the medical profession has little clue on how the liver processes work around glucose - and also don’t seem to comprehend the challenges it creates for type 1s - when you search ‘liver dump’ on all the forums it’s a very popular topic that type 1s complain about - everyone has a different theory or a different experience and doctors all have different theories
1 - on a ketogenic diet - the liver is depleted so the DP and liver dumps reduce - conversely they can go up as the liver detects a lack of glucose in the system so it dumps by making it from pixie dust
2 - high carb reduces DP as all the glucose is coming from the carbs so the liver doesn’t need to produce any - conversely it increases as there is more insulin for cortisone present - basically nobody knows why some get it and some don’t and how to stop it
3 - insulin slows down hepatic glucose production that’s why we take it for basal not for ingesting into cells which don’t need it - of course the converse is also claimed to be true
4 - high carb diets based on plant like mango man claim to reduce insulin resistance but others claim all this does is flood the system with sugar from carb and cut down basal and glujconeogeneis in the liver which by reduces sugar
5 - metformin reduces hepatic glucose production but nobody has a clue why exactly !
6 - insulin resistance of the liver and high hepatic glucose output are interchanged
7 - fatty liver is the problem or not - not always clear
Time to stop reading online I guess and just figure out what works for me and hope it’s not slowly killing my liver it makes a big joke around the various rules for dosing your insulin around carb intake - all that is thrown out of the window when you reduce carbs - maybe the doctors were on to something in the past when they advocated very high carb intake - flood the system with so much glucose the liver stops producing any glucose as it doesn’t need to - it’s too busy sucking up all the glucose being eaten !
That experiment is too confounded: the lack of a spike might just reflect a form of autonomic neuropathy, analogous to my hypoglycemic unawareness. The experiment would be cleaner on a relatively new T1.
On me or him ? I’ve had every test known to man in the last few months to find out what damage I have and they all came up clean- including the tilt test and the QSART - I have zippo neuropathy thankfully - or fatty liver despite drinking huge quantities of alcohol over the years
Speaking of salads, does anyone live in a city with a Sweetgreens? If so, I can’t recommend them enough. I don’t have any close to me (yet anyway, I keep hoping), but they are in a number of cities I frequently travel to (Boston, NYC, Chicago), and they make some delicious salads, all of which can be customizable, as well as have unsweetened iced teas as fountain drinks.
This is my goto takeout place. I think the guacamole greens salad and shroomami bowl are delicious! Hopefully the chain continues to grow! The produce is so fresh.
it makes a big joke around the various rules for dosing your insulin around carb intake - all that is thrown out of the window when you reduce carbs - maybe the doctors were on to something in the past when they advocated very high carb intake - flood the system with so much glucose the liver stops producing any glucose as it doesn’t need to - it’s too busy sucking up all the glucose being eaten !