My friend, Anita, from my other group, to which you’ve all been invited but have not shown (but please don’t feel guilty ) and I were talking about eggs last night. She’s the wife AND mother of two 670G-wearing diabetics, and both of her loved ones are trying to figure out how to bolus for eggs. She says if they do no bolus at all, they’ll hit a 200 or higher. However, if they do even a UNIT, it causes a big crash.
As I have just learned about myself that eggs might be part of what’s complicating my morning, maybe the most annoying information in the world, I’d also like to hear thoughts and/or strategies. How do you experts handle your eggs? And is (@T1Allison, I think this was you) there anything to having to eat carbs along with them to avoid a spike? Also, while I’m in here… I had a whole bunch of turkey yesterday (more than what the average human should probably consume in one sitting) and then spiked. Was that from the protein?? Not surprising, I’ve never noticed this before.
Looking for thoughts…and to pass the time while I sit in YET ANOTHER Doctor’s office.
From “Think Like a Pancreas”, p. 51, “Protein’s effect on blood sugar is minimal. One exception is when very little carbohydrate is consumed. Without dietary carbohydrate to provide glucose for meeting the body’s energy needs, the liver begins to convert some dietary protein to glucose. For example, if you wake up to a breakfast of nothing but eggs and sausage, you may see a noticeable glucose rise a few hours later even though there was virtually no carbohydrate in the meal. However, when carbohydrate is present in a meal or snack, protein has little to no effect on blood sugar.”
But…in individual consultation with IDS, they’ve told me that once you consume more than 20 grams of protein in a meal, you need to count 60% of the remaining protein (above 20 grams) as carbs and do an extended bolus for it.
Three scrambled eggs (which is admittedly a large portion), has about 18 grams of protein in it. So theoretically you wouldn’t have to count any extra for the protein. But if you have eggs without some form of carb with them, it will probably lead to a spike according to the excerpt I listed.
I guess I’m going to start counting up protein… grams… I don’t even know how protein is counted, but I’m about to learn.
So there is something to it…
And unless I’m just making things fit because I want them to fit, this would maybe make sense for my mornings. I do get a small amount of carbs in my coffee. Maybe it’s enough to let the eggs slide by without creating complete chaos, as eggs have been known to do. On mornings where I’ve skipped my coffee, which are none ever, eggs have full reign and can bring me to my knees. Which is why I’ve never noticed. In summary, I’m not a bad person, eggs are sneaky little buggers who aren’t to be trusted, and coffee is even better than I thought. Hero status.
Based on all of that, I’ll learn to count up some protein stuff, continue to pay more attention, and continue to decrease my coffee intake. Reality’s a … downer.
If you don’t mind my asking a question, when do you bolus for the eggs? And is it just a regular bolus? Does it matter if you’ve mixed in carbs? AND does it make a difference if it’s egg whites versus with yolks?
I think the way you have to think about it is this: In the morning, you’ve been fasting all night. Your body wants fuel and it needs to operate your basic metabolic functions. If all you eat is fat or protein, it will go the extra mile to convert that food into glucose that can be taken up by cells. And that glucose requires insulin.
Add to that the insulin resistance caused in the morning PLUS the fact that saturated fat is known to increase insulin resistance, and to me it makes a lot of sense why Samson for instance will spike to 300 with eggs and why his body is then so resistant to corrections if we don’t nip it in the bud from the beginning. He eats them, his body starts converting it to glucose, meanwhile he gets insulin resistant.
We haven’t tested this in a while since he loathes eggs, but for us, bolusing for at least 20 grams of carbs in the morning seems to work well… (Another one that causes a huge, disproportionate spike is yogurt; even if he ate only 4g of carbs worth, we have to bolus at least as much as would be needed for an English muffin, which is about 20 g of carbs).
I wonder how fast do they crash? How much do they crash?
The reason I ask is because every morning for me is different in how my bg behaves. I eat the same breakfast seven days a week…but my bolus and my timing is usually different all seven days. Some days I get to eat all of the planned breakfast. Some days I only get to eat half of it. Sometimes I have to stretch my eating over an hour and a half to give the insulin time to do its incremental thing. Morning is just super volatile for me all the way around and if I can aggressively keep it under control each day, the rest of the day goes infinitely better.
Main point being, which is likely difficult with kiddos, is that I have to surf the heck out of breakfast each and every day. Sometimes I go a touch low…but it’s 2.5 hours later so I can see it coming on my Dexcom.
My other thought is that I really don’t have any “free” foods…at least not in any significant quantity that makes it worthwhile to dabble in. Anything that I choose to eat in any respectable quantity impacts my bg. This goes for protein, complex carbs, low carbs, fats, all of it. So I go ahead and make it a rounded out snack or meal with my generalized ideal carb/protein/fat composition and bolus for it. It just works better for me after trying to make “free” foods work with poor results for a long time. I realize this is probably not a useful statement for parents of T1D kiddos…but as an adult dealing my own T1D and food planning, this works best for my own bg stability through the day. YDMV.
I hear ya…but something like that which doesn’t have a whole lot of heft to it, I’m going to end up eating a lot of…and then I start getting into carb counts that I really do need to bolus for. I’m pretty darn carb sensitive so eating peppers (which I love) is going to raise me anyway…so I might as well add some red pepper hummus to them and officially bolus for them.
I crave calories and stuff that is going to stick to my ribs. So I just make it official and everything works better for me that way. Otherwise I personally end up chasing my tail and getting into precarious meal bolusing scenarios.
I’ve found that the type of coffee plays a big impact too. Not sure what the pattern is, but not all coffee is created equal for me. Iced americanos tend to have the smallest impact.
Also, I lazily dose for eggs. I look at the plate of delicious scrambled eggs with cheese, tomatoes, red pepper flakes and any other veggies lying around, and make an educated guess about how many units to use. Generally it’s between 3-5, but that also includes coffee. I’m nowhere near as technical as @T1Allison.
I think a large contributing factor to my difficulties in the mornings is the fact that there is so much time spent getting myself ready for work, getting my kids ready for their respective days, and getting my dog all set for the day (he’s older and requires several meds…and of course food and potty breaks and etc). So I have to really watch the climb and surf it through those 75 minutes of chaos to get myself well-positioned for timing out my eating and my coffee (which is required artillery).
Weekends work better for me since I don’t have the 75 minute psycho-time to manage and then I jump into chores which buffers whatever breakfast might do to me. But sometimes weekends require a surprising amount of management, too.
This was today’s breakfast line. I’m thrilled with it. And the amount of jockeying that goes into it is unreal, but as long as it works I really don’t mind anymore.
Really?!? Eric makes three eggs look easy. And so do I for that matter. He’s always angling for the meal that’s served with the most eggs (omelettes are bigger than eggs and bacon, for instance).
I think it’s because we do generally avoid potatoes and toast. That’s the hard thing to bolus for here - a bunch of carbs. Potatoes are always a disaster. Four or five French fries takes one unit, for instance.
I’m glad @TiaG chimed in! I was thinking of their breakfast routine and was hoping she’d mention it. I’ve read about it before but couldn’t remember where.
Also, @T1Allison what is this breakfast you eat every day?
You go, girl! We have a running joke about me ordering a “side of omelette” back when I was pregnant with #1 bc the “18 Wheeler” breakfast that I was ordering seemed undersized to me. I have a seriously hollow leg, but I find that I do best if I try to ignore that as much as possible and stick to non-hollow-leg portion sizes. I can seriously eat 3/4 of a large pan pizza without feeling any kind of fullness if I let myself do it. Maybe my stomach just dumps crazy fast as a T1D.
On shots, the only thing I could reliably make work in the morning was 8oz of milk with 1T of Ovaltine sipped over the course of an hour. I never could make anything else work reliably.
On the pump, I eat two slices of whole wheat toast with generous peanut butter plus a Yeti cup of Pike Place and a splash of milk.
I go through phases where I count all the protein I eat and bolus for it.
I did an extended bolus for 50% of the grams of protein. The bolus is extended so I do not deliver more than 1.5 U/hr.
So for example:
My ICR is 1 U to 6 g of carbs.
I eat 20g of protien
Bolus = 20g x 0.5 / 6 = 1.6 Units
Time = 1.6 units / 1.5 U/hr = 1 hour extended bolus
My blood sugars are fantastic when I do this.
Right now I am in lazy mode, so I have not been doing this regularly. Right now I just usually either run a high basal rate to account for protien or give a bit more insulin after I eat if I see my BG going up.
So last night I ate twice as many potatoes as I had bolused for…and still went low! No reason to account for that strange outcome such as exercise. Weird!!!
Were they cold? Or reheated? I remember @Pianoplayer7008 once saying that if the food was cold and then reheated it was less of a carb bomb. I can’t find that post of course, but I did find this about resistant starch:
) and I were talking about eggs last night. She’s the wife AND mother of two 670G-wearing diabetics, and both of her loved ones are trying to figure out how to bolus for eggs. She says if they do no bolus at all, they’ll hit a 200 or higher. However, if they do even a UNIT, it causes a big crash.
He’s always angling for the meal that’s served with the most eggs (omelettes are bigger than eggs and bacon, for instance).