The pot part, yes.
Okay. So I usually bolus for about 7-8 grams of carbs. Per cup. What it did the other day to my BG is the norm… it’ll put me up to a 250 or higher if I don’t do any insulin…
That second cup though seems to be fine as long as I get it right before I go out, but the first one is going to put me on a path to high… unless I bolus… so if I lose 1.25 units in an hour’s worth of 0 basal, then…
This is a bit of a problem.
The normal path is to have no meals, flat BG, and no IOB immediately before exercise.
Your coffee is like a meal, just in the way it spikes you. So you will have something that spikes you, and have IOB…
You can take insulin to counter the spike. But the insulin you have will behave differently before (when you are drinking the coffee) versus when you are running.
So it is not an easy thing to formulate.
Just a guess - take 1/2 your normal bolus for the coffee.
So…zero basal one hour before, 1/2 bolus for the coffee. And then run hard, because it seems like you will be spiking.
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with all that coffee, I might fly. 
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@Nickyghaleb
I didn’t do a good job of ‘splainin’ last night.
If you take carbs before you run, your body can use them for fuel. So the spike you might get from carbs is countered by then being able to use the blood sugar.
(Insulin allows the wonderful carbs to get pulled into the cytosol of the cell, glycolysis happens, and you get energy - wonderful ATP!)
So eating a few hours before a run has a great benefit.
But coffee…
Not sure why you spike so much from it. But it may spike you because the caffeine raises your heart rate which causes your body to release stress hormones like cortisol and norepinephrine, and those hormones cause your liver to release glycogen.
That liver glycogen can also be used to fuel your run. So it has some of the same benefit as eating carbs, except - and this is a big except - that it’s very difficult to calculate the amount of glucose you are getting from your liver as a result of the coffee.
Once you start running, any insulin you have in your body becomes super-charged. It has a much bigger effect. So calculating how much to take for coffee, and not fully knowing the liver-glycogen-induced-carb-equivalent of the coffee is very much a trial-and-error proposition.
So, does all of that make sense? Too much mansplaining, or too much blah-blah?
If it doesn’t make sense, let’s pick it apart and clarify it.
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I’m enjoying a cup right now… heart rate of 70. I don’t feel like testing, nor do I need to, but I can tell you this cup will give me at least a 40 or 50 point increase. If I have two back to back, it increases the high exponentially. If I don’t do insulin, I’ll hit the roof. If I do the proper amount, it will sometimes leave a full unit or two remaining when I start to crash… every morning is a watch, test, sip, jump, chug, pour extra, repeat kind of routine. I got myself up to a 74 explaining all of that. 
I had an educator once tell me I didn’t need insulin for my coffee and to stop doing it. (She also put in my file that I was a “difficult patient”, by the way). She had me do three morning without it as a test. All three mornings I rose to a ~300. 2 hours later my correction was exactly what I missed in my bolus. She didn’t put that in the file. But I’m not one to keep a grudge.
And that is as true as can be because I can’t GUARANTEE a rise. When I told you the other day I promised a spike, I was really just hoping that’s the way it was going to turn out. And it did! 
Oh, and the faster I drink, the faster/harder the spike. I can actually correct lows, which I do all the time, with a quick cup of coffee.[quote=“Eric, post:85, topic:4259”]
Once you start running, any insulin you have in your body becomes super-charged. It has a much bigger effect.
[/quote]
Yes… I have realized this. Question: is there a difference in how “charged” it gets between brand new insulin and older insulin? So let’s say I wanted to have my coffee and run in an hour, would doing a small amount of insulin upon waking have a different effect than a small amount as I went out the door? Does THAT make sense? I thought about that .8 the other day, and I thought maybe it was because it was so fresh…
It does, and it’s perfect. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the time you take. Some of what I’ve been doing for years has been just fine… I’ve just never understood why I was doing it. Some of what I’ve been doing is wrong. You’re making things make sense…
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Recall how insulin activity ramps up to a peak, and then tapers off. If you take the insulin just as you start the run, the insulin activity will be ramping up stronger and stronger during the run, plus your insulin sensitivity will be increasing from the exercise. Insulin taken 2 or 3 hours earlier will be on the downswing, although the effect will still be multiplied by your exercise-induced insulin sensitivity.
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Yep. Exactly what @bkh said above.
I don’t know if you are a difficult patient. But drinking coffee before running is going to make figuring out your dosing and BG stuff more difficult. 
If you can’t guarantee a spike from coffee, then it really becomes dicey. You either spike but you took the correct amount of insulin and hit it right on, or you don’t take the insulin and spike, or you take insulin and don’t spike so you end up crashing. It’s a big crapshoot until you can get it figured out.
Anyway, this would be good to try and iron out. Do you spike from decaf? Is the coffee black, or is there cream in it? Same brand of coffee every time? Artifical sweetener? Always in the morning, or does it spike you in the afternoon? Anything else you can think of?
As a side note, some people think coffee spikes them, but they always have coffee first thing in the morning. And for some people, waking up and getting out of bed spikes them (the liver releases glycogen to fuel their wake-up). I have mentioned before that for people who drink coffee in the morning and it spikes them, to make sure they identify 100% if it is the waking up that spikes them, or the coffee! Have you done that?
Okay, and that does make sense, but now I’m going to swing my examples in your direction just to see if I’m applying right…
Let’s say I get up at 8. I’d like to run at 9. I’d like to have 2 cups of coffee, no other carbs, before heading out the door. I wake up at a 60. If I do nothing else but drink my coffee, I’ll be at a 220 by the time I leave (@Eric, I think it’s the coffee, but I’ve got some testing to do in order to confirm). I’d PREFER not to run up my numbers for exercise, but I’d i get any insulin on board then that will most likely work against me. If I weren’t an exhausted mom, I’d run on the fuel of pure nature and drive, but in my current stage in life, it takes a full 2 cups to even get my shoes tied. Eric has me trying out a 60 min 0 basal going into the run. I think that’s going to give me that padding I need for the workout, and hanging at 0 for the duration seemed to work well (I was doing 50% for only an hour prior to starting, so this is a big change). But back to the coffee. If I want 2 cups, know I’ll rise, would prefer not to hit a 220, but would like to avoid having insulin on board… can I shoot it directly into a vein? Because it looks like that’s the only way it’s goinv to happen.
Would it make a difference if I did a small bolus as soon as I got up? Is there any way that would help anything? Maybe even a half unit? Or does that do nothing AND create a problem?
I do that all the time. It not only comes in right away, but it goes away quickly too, so it reduces the amount of time you have IOB.
I don’t think you were seriously asking, but if you were, I can tell you all about it.
If you are going to be at 220 from the coffee, you should definitely take something for it, without a doubt. It’s just as matter of finding the right amount and the right time.
Remember the 60 minute zero basal recommendation was based on what happened when you did 30 minutes of zero basal.
With a 30 minute zero basal (let’s call it a ZB) you had a 50 point drop and needed a gtab at the end.
But you weren’t 200+ from coffee. So I suggested going from 30 minute ZB to 60 minute ZB, to reduce the 50 point drop.
A 60 minute ZB on top of coffee is not the same as the middle of the day with no coffee.
It is very important to put all the pieces together based on the particular circumstances.
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I know you Do, and for this I have an enormous amount of respect… but I was asking if I could do it with coffee. 
But now that you mention it… if that means I could have my coffee and drink it, too, how hard is it do do with insulin??
Don’t I frickin know it.
And I KNOW already that you don’t want a whole bunch of numbers, but I had a coffee this afternoon, starting at a BG of 60, with .4 units on board (from almost 2 hours earlier) and saw a 44 point rise in blood sugar. It did, however, fall again back to an 83 almost an hour later. Here’s a pic…
With that quick of a spike and fall, I can almost guarantee that is liver glycogen doing it.
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And what about the .4 still on board? I don’t feel like a quick rise and fall describes my usual experience… any chance that .4 changed the results?
And what does that even mean? About the liver glycogen doing it? I mean, what is the significance in it?
Liver glycogen is a very quick spike because it does not go through your digestive system like food does. It is dumped directly into your blood. And because it is released as glucose-6-phosphate, I think it is removed quicker from your blood too.
And yes, that .4 could have been part of it too.
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And could’ve meant it wasn’t just a liver thing… 
hanging on by a thread here. So if I were to make a serious inquiry into the shooting up of insulin, what would you have to say? Because I noticed we moved right past that question… 
I didn’t run this morning. Had a 2.5 hour suspend just before I woke up, and I wasn’t sure how to deal with it. But it’s 5 now, and I’m on for a 7:30 run. I’m currently 125 and don’t plan on any other carbs before heading out… but would love my coffee. Can I just plan on doing what I did last time and do the 0T—what did you call it?— at 6:30, my coffee at 7:15ish, and out? Where I’ll give in to heatstroke because of hot coffee and 90 degree heat?
I thought you were no longer doing the auto-mode thing! What is going on with these random suspends?
So again, these plans are just general guidelines.
Like if you are 125 and flat, maybe a 60 minute ZB is okay. But if you are rising, I would cut that ZB in half or more, depending on how fast you are rising.
I think the coffee right before is okay for reducing its impact on your BG. But it will make your run more difficult if you start out with your core temp heated up. When you are hot, your body has to work much harder. Would ice-coffee be acceptable to you?
We can prolly discuss this in private.
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Okay, and that does make sense, but now I’m going to swing my examples in your direction just to see if I’m applying right…
Let’s say I get up at 8. I’d like to run at 9. I’d like to have 2 cups of coffee, no other carbs, before heading out the door. I wake up at a 60. If I do nothing else but drink my coffee, I’ll be at a 220 by the time I leave (@Eric, I think it’s the coffee, but I’ve got some testing to do in order to confirm). I’d PREFER not to run up my numbers for exercise, but I’d i get any insulin on board then that will most likely work against me. If I weren’t an exhausted mom, I’d run on the fuel of pure nature and drive, but in my current stage in life, it takes a full 2 cups to even get my shoes tied. Eric has me trying out a 60 min 0 basal going into the run. I think that’s going to give me that padding I need for the workout, and hanging at 0 for the duration seemed to work well (I was doing 50% for only an hour prior to starting, so this is a big change).
And I see I never hit “reply” on this…but no longer remember what I was rambling on about…
The suspends are part of the manual mode magic… it’s the other thing people are drawn to the 630 and 670 for. When I got my 630, it suspended me once at 5:00 in the morning, and I skyrocketed as I got up the next morning. I turned the feature off, despite medtronic’s Insistence to the contrary, and never looked back.
Now that i have gotten used to the feature on the 670, i’m all of a sudden afraid to be without it, but it is more often a problem than it is a safety net. However, i have nights where I suspend for 2.5 hours and wake up at a 60, eat 3 tabs, fall back asleep and wake up again in the middle of another suspend. I realize, as big a pain in the butt as it is, that it’s not a bad thing to leave in place… except for when it slips one past me and messes up my morning run.
Iced coffee… great idea. Yes, please.
Okay then, i’m all set. We’ll have that shooting up conversation in private… 
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Done. Went great, and I’ll be back to give u numbers, but quick question… so about 50 minutes into the 0 basal (before run), I started to feel gross tingling in my skin. I used to think this was a fast rising BG, but it’s not exactly… tested and was at 121. I then started thinking it was ketones because I could feel this on low carb diet at low BGs. But that wouldn’t make sense today. Is it from the lack of insulin? Whatever it was subsided about 15 minutes into the run…
I be back.