Eat to Your Meter? (And cheap test strips!)
 

So do you track your fasting blood-sugars in morning, then also 2 hours post meals, as seems to be most commonly suggested?

Or if you do track...do you prefer a different tracking schedule?

I never did track until 2 days ago.

Found out that, despite being on lowish carb diet of about 70 grams per day, my morning fasting BG's are about 110. Right after a big low carb meal as high as 230. 2 hours after a SMALL LC breakfast my BG reading is 86.

I'm horrified at my numbers, but really feel tracking is going to help me get my diet dialed in much better in the long-run.

Of course test strips tend to average about $1 per strip which can make this a mighty costly undertaking...but I found some that appear to run only about 19-cents per strip, and the meter also has great reviews on Amazon.

Not sure if I'm allowed to post a link to it. But you can find it on Amazon.com under "Diabetes Testing Kit (TrueResult Meter + 100 TrueTest Strips + 100 Active1st 30g Lancets + Lancing Device)"

Replacement strips for this meter are only 19 cents per.

Here's a link if it's allowed. (It's NOT an affiliate link)

http://www.amazon.com/Diabetes-Test...arter+Kit+meter

One customer review would give me pause...where are the others raving about its accuracy? I did not have accurate results with the Relion brand from Walmart others usually find good. Check the on-line Diabetes suppliers for similar package deals.

My wife has a fancy expensive meter and strips, so I will use hers as well to see if my cheaper one is getting similar readings.

You're right, that kit has not been reviewed really. But their test strips have over 800 overwhelmingly positive reviews of both the strips and meters. The reviews are one reason I LOVE Amazon. Helps me avoid buyers remorse.

http://www.amazon.com/TRUEtest-Test...howViewpoints=1

(NOT an affiliate link!)

Well, since I starting tracking with a meter, I've become 100% sold on literally tracking how MY body reacts to various foods, in terms of blood glucose levels.

Can't believe it took me so long to start doing so.

Of course I was aware of the concept of "eating to your meter"...but felt there was no need for ME to do it. Boy was I wrong!

Because, as tracking has now shown me in a very objective manner, MY body does NOT do well on a more "lenient" version of low carb at all. The 70 to 75 grams a day I was eating usually (as high as 150 to 200 maybe once or twice a week) was resulting in dangerously high blood sugars. Both after meals and in morning fasted state.

I feel like I now have the objective data I need to really tweak and refine my eating habits for optimal health and weight control.

I would strongly encourage anyone who's "on the fence" about tracking, to DO IT! At least for 30 days to see how YOUR body is reacting to your current eating and exercise habits.

Because, as I just found out, you may very well be fooling yourself and causing your body great harm by not getting the objective blood sugar data you need to REALLY know what's happening when you eat certain foods and/or meals.

Another quick thought....I have NEVER had a tool that made me so motivated to watch what I eat, as with a BG meter.

The scale and mirror are too slow at reflecting one's dietary "indiscretions" back to them to be of optimal use. But the BG meter gives me INSTANT feedback on what a given meal did to me.

And it becomes almost like a fun game, to come-up with meals that WON'T jack my sugars too high on the meter.

A form of "keeping score" if you will.

Do I really want that great looking scone my wife baked this morning (I'm working on my carb-queen wife) when I KNOW for a fact that my meter will then tell me that scone jacked my sugars too high? Nooooo.

So again...I really would like to encourage you all, who aren't already doing so, to buy a meter, strips, and lances...then start TRACKING.

I've settled on tracking according to the following schedule for the next 30 days.

- Morning fasting levels
- 30-minutes after meals
- 60-minutes after meals
- 120-minutes after meals

After Jan., assuming it looks like I've totally normalized my BG levels, I will then probably just check morning fasted and PP 2-hour levels.

And if I do have a "weak moment" and give in to a carb splurge, I will still track that 30/60/120 to see how bad it effects me, and therefore motivate me to NOT do that again.

I eat to my meter most of the time, but the problem is the cheap WalMart Reli On meter & strips. The strips are $9/50 (.18 each) but the results are erratic. When they are off, it's usually on the high side. From time to time I compare with my Accu-Chek. Sometimes they are the same, sometimes the Reli On is higher.

I wish I could afford the more expensive strips, but I can't. VA sends me a box of 50 every 3 months. According to them, I'm only supposed to check my BG once every couple of days. Right. So I make do with the Reli On & try not to get depressed when the numbers are high & I know I'm eating OK.

On the other hand, I do know what I'm eating & how it effects me. Perhaps it's like daily weighing, which I gave up a while back. Now that I know I'm having a problem with gastroparesis, I really don't have to keep checking that.

I'll admit to a curiosity factor, although I've never had a blood test over the limit. However, back when I was eating a lot of carbs (especially sugars) I would often feel very sick after eating, and I have to wonder if it was a huge blood sugar spike. Wish the testing things weren't do darn expensive. All this said, I know full well that I now have to eat very very VERY low on the carb scale…sub 20 mostly, and at maintenance I can get away with a higher level one time, then must go back to my usual <20 style eating. It's what it is at this point in time, I don't get away with anything that deviates too much from induction Atkins.

I have to check my blood before and after due to being "carb sensitive" so far the only big jump was due to tomato sauce.... I think I need to make my own. I am insilin resistant as well as type 2 diabetic (which the IR lead me to)

I'm a firm believer in regular weighing. At least once a week, under same conditions each time.

Once again, it's sooo easy to fool ourselves without accurate and objective data. As the saying goes, that which gets tracked get improved upon.

That which is not tracked and left to mere happenstance trends towards entropy.

Good job, Jeff! I'm curious what brand of test strips your wife has?

I bought a meter last winter and didn't know what to make of the results. What should a reading be at 30/60/120 after eating or fasting in the morning? Also, this sounds silly, but what does 30 minutes after eating mean? From the time I started? From the time I finished? I've gotten into a habit of grazing more than eating distinct meals. I should probably stop that.

30 minutes after finishing. The reason 30/60/120 is chosen is because it will catch how sensitive you are to carbs and how fast you start processing them. If you eat a bunch of white bread, you might spike at 30 minutes and start declining by 60. If you put butter on it, you will probably spike later and not so high, but how you react is highly individual. I don't eat bread, but I can eat a small serving of well-buttered acorn squash with chicken in a meal and see a gradual rise in BG and gradual drop with no hypo trough.

It's also a good way to test a food that looks OK on the nutrition label, but you have concerns about how you react to it. For me there are "legal" foods like cheese, cream cheese and greek yogurt that spike and trough my BG more than other foods with similar amounts of carbs and make me hungry in a couple of hours. Now that I have graphs to prove it, I stay away with foods that send me on a roller coaster. Of course I'm human and occasionally indulge or slip up, but I've also figured out which foods get me back in line faster.

Jenny Ruhl has an excellent guide on how to test blood sugars and interpret the results:

http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14046889.php

I am curious about tomato sauce, as I do like a bit of no sugar added sauce on LC eggplant lasagna and in my LC chili.

I will be testing to find out.

Chili without some rotel tomatoes and a bit of no sugar sauce doesn't sound real appetizing to me. And i do love me some chili.

She uses One-Touch Ultra Blue strips, per the advice of her endocrinologist. They have some kind of capillary like action which literally sucks the blood sample up, so you can get a reading with even a tiny amount of blood.

I'm already finding out that I'm not much of a bleeder, so getting enough blood out of a finger prick can be a challenge.