For information on blood sugar readings and why I am doing this, click here.
I have done forty or so readings so far. I know that I am terrible at remembering to follow up on my readings, but I haven’t failed to do so every time.
I have several complete readings, but most of my readings so far have been fasting.
My fasting numbers are exclusively between 4.7 and 5.9, most commonly being about 5.3
I know that isn’t great, but it isn’t bad.
I have eaten a bunch of reasonable healthy meals and rarely follow through to 2 hours. I have also eaten some classic fast food meals and taken measurements as well.
I ate a Subway tossed vegie salad and a 6″ Italian BMT on wheat. My blood sugar before eating was 5.3. At one hour it was 6.4 and at 3 hours it was 5.1. Surprisingly good.
On Nov. 13th I ate a steak and caesar salad that was made at home. Fasting was 4.7, at one hour was 6.5, at 2 hours was 6.8 and at 3 hours, 4.8. Odd little blip there, but overall, pretty good.
On Nov. 14th I ate a Tim Horton‘s Breakfast Sausage Biscuit with cheese and egg and a small hashbrowns. Fasting 5.5, one hour later 7.0.
For breakfast last week, I was Fasting 4.9 and ate an eggs benedict with a few hashbrown potatoes from Earl’s. One hour later I was 5.8.
Nothing scary so far, but the week early I got this measurement and it scared me badly. I ate a McDonalds Quarter Pounder with cheese, medium fries and diet coke and I went from 5.1 fasting to 9.0 at 45 minutes, to 10.1 at 1 and half hours and dropping to 6.5 at 2 hours and fifteen minutes!! I couldn’t find the healthy zone if I tried! What scared me was that the meal didn’t appear that bad to me. I almost never eat french fries any more, but I sometimes get the whole meal. I wonder if it was the fries that put me over.
Later in the week I tried to eat just the sandwich. I ate a Quarter Pounder with cheese, nothing else. Pre-meal 6.0, 1 hour 7.0, 2 hours 6.4. Not great, but infinitely better than the meal. I wonder if the diet coke played a role. I will have to test that. In any case, I tried the burger alone again and got another 7.0 at 1 hour.
Also during the last 2 weeks, I ate 3 slices of Fresh Slice pizza, cheese with hot sauce on top. That is not a lot of pizza, but one more slice than I usually try to get by on. 2 slices always leaves me hungry. My blood sugar was 5.2 at fasting, then shot up to 9.8 after one hour and dropped to 7.5 after 2 hours. Again, terrible numbers.
So, it does seem pretty clear so far. The carb load of a meal clearly effects my blood sugar. The 3 slices of Fresh Slice clock in at just over 850 calories with over 108 grams of carbohydrate in the form of flour and sugar. The Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal was 860 calories with 87 grams of carb, again all flour and sugar. I don’t know why the McDonalds meal effected me so poorly, but my guess is that Freshslice just isn’t very accurate with their nutrition information. The pizza seems awfully flimsy to have 108 grams of carbs in it. Still, it could be the calories. The meals were pretty even in calories and carbs, with Fresh Slice having the edge in carbs and McDonald’s in calories, so that would support the calories angle.
The subway meal was a combination of the BMT which was 410 calories of which 46 was carbohydrates. Of that 5 grams were fiber. The salad was 190 calories of which 13 grams were carbohydrate, only about 7 of which were refined and 3 of which were fiber. So, I will directly deduct the fiber and we get a total of 600 calories total and 51 grams of carbohydrate. These findings support both possibilities, or the possibility that it is a combination of calories and carbohydrates that raise blood sugar.
So, we have an experiment brewing. In fact, I think I am going to take on 2 at the same time. Get ready for the Round 1: Calories or Carbs.
