Roasted potatoes and onions can easily accumulate to 100g carb. Yum.
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This may or may not have been covered elsewhere and is a basic question:
When checking BG “2 hours after a meal”…
Does it mean:
- 2 hours after the bolus (different folks have different pre bolus times)
- 2 hours after the first bite
- 2 hours after the last bite of the meal?
I tend to like to fingerstick around 1.5 hour after bolus, and around 2 hours after bolus to get direction. 2 hours is when my insulin seems to peak. If I can, I check 2+ hours to see that the BG is decreasing, often slowly, or not at all.
The ingestion/digestion of food causes BG rise. Insulin brings down BG…So I check near the peak action time of insulin between around 1.5 to 2 hours. Is this reasoning sound?
It can probably be inferred that I have a fear of hypoglycemia. After 2 hours, I tend to conclude that not much will happen with BG. I tend to not correct less than 2 hours (the exception, I learned is when I eat rice with high protein. In this case, at around 1.5 hours, I bolus about half of my initial bolus. This is more like an extended bolus).
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Unless you are running a special test to understand what is happening with a new meal or some other thing like a basal test, why would you not just wait until the test could lead to action. I would think it would be simpler to wait until such time that if you test and things aren’t right you will be able to act, so that diabetes isn’t the over-riding focus. For us, prior to a CGM, if we wouldn’t take insulin until 2 hours we would test at 2 hours, if it was out of whack we would treat. The only exception I would say is when we aren’t worried about being high, but being low. Anytime you feel low a test is in order.
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Makes sense totally!
Regarding the guidelines on the chart for gestational diabetes and type 1 or 2 diabetes that I shared in another post -
I was wondering why or how the “guidelines” were established. It’s 2 hours. I guess someone had to pick a number.
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Yes, overall numbers that work in a population don’t always work for an individual. So caveat emptor. It isn’t a terrible place to start from, but you know you better than anyone else. And I have confidence in you.
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For me that’s not a reliable rule. I can get surprises at 3 or 4 hours. The CGM shows me this.
I don’t know the history. I was just told after 2 hours I should be below 140, and I too wondered 2 hours after what. Turns out it doesn’t matter much, and as Chris says, just test when you feel off or when you’re ready to make a correction. Oh, and test before driving and before going to sleep to help avoid trouble with hypos.
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Thank you.
Better late than never that I learned about this…
I was doing it, probably inconsistently, that is not always using a scale. What I did not know is that carbohydrate factors for common foods are available in a list can be found on the internet; although values can vary.
Is carbohydrate factor one of the basic things taught to diabetics when first diagnosed? My BG’s has been better and seem closer to 100 with a more consistent use of the scale and I:C ratio between 1:6, 1:7.
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I don’t think so. In fact, years ago I saw a dietitian at a hospital-based diabetes clinic, and she didn’t seem to understand why I’d ever want to use carbohydrate factors. She just gave me a list of serving sizes and carbohydrate amounts (reminded me of old exchange lists) that she suggested I use. So I’m not sure it’s common knowledge even among diabetes centre staff. I think I learned about it in a book, possibly one of Gary Scheiner’s books, although I could be wrong.
You can find lists of carbohydrate factors or you can create your own with a scale and a nutritional label. The thing I like about them is not only that they’re precise, but that I don’t have to measure food (I can just serve it onto a plate like the average person, just need to tare the scale each time), but also that it’s only a single value to remember, rather than having to remember both a serving size and a carbohydrate amount.
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I support simplicity! Yes, weighing makes more sense. I would not measure a cup of spaghetti. Supposedly we eat the same 75 foods.
About the carbohydrate factor, for example, grapefruit - is it with or without skin? It probably doesn’t make too much of a difference. However I have found, at times, different carbohydrate factor for the same food, depending on the source.
I am so appreciative of all that I’m learning 
.
Thank you all on FUD for supporting & sharing!.
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I’m pretty sure a dietitian told me once that we eat the same 20 foods about 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time, we eat foods outside those 20 core foods.
I would assume without. However, if I’m eating something like an orange, I’m too lazy to peel it and then weigh it (and would forget to do that half the time, even if I intended to do it). So I just weigh it fist and then peel. If I’m eating out of a bag of something (like tasty crackers), I often weigh the bag or box before I start eating, bolus an estimate of what I might be eating, eat whatever I want, and then weigh the box and subtract that weight from the starting weight to get the weight of the crackers I actually ate, and then I can bolus more (or eat more!) depending on how the calculations line up.
At the moment, I’m not doing any of this. I just eat and guess. But my blood sugar definitely benefits form more precision (far fewer after-meal highs or lows).
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Yup, I know what you mean. For dinner tonight, I bolused twice. For some meals, I’ve bolused 3 or maybe more times. The first bolus for a little fruit before the entree, the second one for the main meal, if I am still hungry and have seconds- that’s a third bolus. If I want a small dessert, that’s another bolus. Altogether, that’s 4 injections. Is this weird? It is often that I don’t know how much I would eat. The what is pretty clear; but the how much isn’t clear.
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I was dx’d 50 years ago so I don’t really know what’s taught now, but my sense is that it’s not widely taught or widely used, which is a shame. As @Jen said, it’s much more convenient than measuring everything out or being “restricted” to a specified serving size. It’s especially convenient for home-baked goods and mixed things like stews. You calculate the total carbs (the amount of flour and sugar, for instance), then weigh the finished cake to get the carb factor, and then you can weigh whatever portion you want to get an accurate carb value.
I have a long list of carb factors I keep attached to my log book and that I’m constantly adding to … licorice allsorts x .14, almond croissant x .4, fruit pie x .4, dry pasta x .7, trifle x .3, perogies x .3, etc. Then it doesn’t matter if I have a sliver of pie or a big wodge, I just have to weigh it to know the carbs. (Of course every fruit pie is different, but over the years I’ve found the carb factor is close enough to cover all kinds.)
I’d be suspicious of a list that didn’t specify. For me, and based on Diabetes Canada food guides, with rind is x .05 and without (segments) is x .1. So it could make a difference.
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Yes! And don’t forget to also weigh the dish before you bake the recipe, so you can subtract it from the final amount, especially if it’s a heavy glass dish.
Exactly! And weighing it isn’t a big inconvenient thing. You’re serving the piece of pie onto something, just set that dish on the scale and press the on button as you’re getting ready to serve, then with that two seconds of extra effort you’ll get the weight. Multiply it by the carbohydrate factor on your phone, and you’ve got the exact number of carbohydrates in that food (or at least as close as we’ll ever get to exact with this disease). And although people tend to look at carbohydrate factors and feel it’s more calculations, I feel it usually results in doing fewer calculations than trying to work with artificial serving sizes.
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That kind of bolusing is completely normal for me. Plus any correction boluses later on as needed. It’s a bit more convent with a pump, but on MDI around 8-12 boluses per day was typical.
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I have a lot of learning and catching up to do!
For the first few years, I simply avoided a lot of the carbs, eating Paleo ish (if there is such a word), animal protein, lots of vegetables and some fruits, mostly berries. I attempted LCHF - and felt very restricted.
Better late than never that I learn about carb factor!
Is there a “carbohydrate factor” app?
I looked for it and tried to download an app from the Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin that didn’t seem to work.
I use the Calorie King app, which gives you nutritional information based on grams. I find a lot of the carbohydrate counting apps use serving sizes but don’t include grams.
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I know calorie king Is there one that has for example,
Broccoli 7%, tomato 3%…etc? The serving size doesn’t make sense. The grams make much more sense because I would weigh the food, look up the carb factor, just like you mentioned in the earlier post :-). My BG’s have been much better since I’ve been weighing almost all of my food.
I found this list to be a helpful starting point:
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