Cajun
"If I exercised and it caused me to take any extra supplement, or any additional medication, I couldn't see the point of the exercise, sort of pointless to me in my thinking....."
Exercise will help most diabetics.It is important when you
exercise and the type and extent of exercise.Extreme exercise
helps my mental state a lot(it needs all the help it can get).
Rob
Seems that you have put the Bernstein program in it's proper
perspective.
Susan
Most of us probably "wing it" from time to time.I know I do.
The trick is to forgive yourself and get back on track ASAP.
I wouldn't worry too much about following Bernstein to the
letter.Personalize his plan to your needs.Seems like you're
doing fine.
Cheers to all
Eddie

We are indeed fortunate that we don't have to worry about the Bernstein gestapo knocking on our doors in the middle of the night and carrying us off...

I expect that, as I approach my weight goal, I will be able to lower my basal further and once I reach that goal will be willing to bolus more prior to meals.

Under 100 sounds like a great achievement and I would love to have that as a maximum target. I already use over 30 units of Lantus a day and will probably stay with my 120 max target until I get closer to my goal. I still lose weight pretty consistently but it is closer to one pound per week now instead of two.

I probably need to pick up my exercise - have been getting slack lately in that department.

/smile

I wanted to see how much insulin it is going to take to cover the tomatoes. But all the meat muddied the waters and it took a long time to digest it. 2 hour BG was 46 and FBG this morning was 241. Delayed stomach emptying at its finest...

Tomatoes and onions are a major source of my <50 carbs a day. Everything I cook is likely to include one and/or the other. So most of my 'slack' is used up with these two. My other quirk is that an hour or two of exercise, even medium intense gardening raises my BGs, so I have to take a bolus for it.

Life without onions, tomatoes and red wine just isn't civilized.

Rob, we all have our quirks. Exercise lowers my BGs and continues to do so for hours later. I can't exercise at night for that reason. When I do, I go severely hypo.

I feel sorry for the diabetics who depend on health care providers to "manage" them because the "managers" don't know the quirks of their patients and consequently, the patients end up living miserable lives, and often shortened ones. If I hadn't started managing my own diabetes according to my quirks 25 years ago, I would probably be dead by now.

I get this affect from 20 or 30 minutes on my recumbent bike. I actually don't know what happens yet when I do resistance exercise - needless to say I don't a lot of resistance exercising...

/smile

Susan - how did you know red wine was my other thing

I'm a T2 on Lantus/Novolog.

Before insulin, I got the same bg control with 50 g of "net" carb as with Bernstein's diet. I tested at 25g of carb for a week, then 30, then 35... etc up until 55 where I lost control. So I stuck to 50g "net" carb for years.

I don't personally see the benefit in going lower than necessary. Having a higher-than-Bernstein limit means I can eat large servings of veggies, cottage cheese and Greek yogurt, small servings of berries and melon, half a pomegranate or apple, and small servings of barley or buckwheat.

I'm not on his diet, but mine. I consider this a Bernstein-approach in that he developed his diet via bg testing and that is how I developed mine.

I lost bg control subsequent to a pancreasitis attack and am now on insulin. While learning to dose, I quit measuring "net" and just went with total carb for simplicity's sake. My personal "rules" for Novolog are 3u if preprandial > 100, 3u if first meal of the day, 1u per 5g carb, 1u per 10g protein and 1u "correction factor" to lower by 30 mg/dL if my preprandial is high.

Using my own insulin rules, I maintain good control if breakfast < 20g carb and lunch and dinner < 40 g carb. To me, good control means fastings and preprandials of 70-110 and postprandials of 100-140 (I need a wide target goal because my IR is very variable).

If my carb intake increases beyond 20g total carb at breakfast or 40g total carb at other meals, the amount of insulin that takes me to baseline at my next preprandial won't control my postprandials and I'll spike over 140, sometimes WAY over (my body seems to think if it hits 160, might as well go over 200).

So for *me*, that's where the law of small numbers breaks down. I presume YMMV.

ETA: I do not eat 100g carb/day. I average around 60-80g/day, of which 30-40% is fiber.

The limits above are the limits I've found as the most I can eat at any particular meal, but I suspect if I pushed those limits at *every* meal, my system would break down.

Because they just go together like sex and the post-coital cigarette.

Ok, cigarettes are out now, but I am going have my onions, tomatoes and Ripasso.

jpatti, sounds good. I think my limit is also going to be around 50 per day too. I can't do simple carb counting any longer because some carbs spike me more than others. I'm eating the absolute minimum amount of protein because it screws up my digestion unless it is fish or protein shake. It is going to take some experimentation.

I think there are plenty of diabetics who test to find the
best carb regimen for them.I did that long before I had ever heard of Bernstein.I just considered it common sense.
This thread really got me to thinking about all the unique problems that type 1's must fight through.
Wow!
Eddie

Thanks for the info Jpatti,

I assume you bolus in the neighborhood of 18 - 22 u per day Novo, not sure about your basal. Are you at a maintenance weight level or still losing weight? (of course this is none of my business)...

I wouldn't mind increasing carbs somewhat (and bolusing) as it would be convenient at times but I am concerned about weight loss issues. I would prefer, for the time being to keep insulin as low as I can to ease the process of reaching my weight goal. However, this may be naive as I really have no idea how significant 8 or 10 more units of Novolog would normally impact weight loss in a T2.

Presently, I take over 30 u Lantus and almost 0 Novolog. Do you know if I bolus 10 or so u of Novolog per day (from more carbs) if that would significantly stunt my weight loss?

TIA,
/smile

P.S. "This thread really got me to thinking about all the unique problems that type 1's must fight through.
Wow!
Eddie" me too Eddie - sounds similar to my sister-in-laws issues and makes me feel grateful.

About simple carb counting:
I have to completely avoid white bread,crackers,white rice,
french fries,certain sauces,sugar(did I forget anything?) because of their glucose impact.That's the way life goes for a member of the D club.
<sigh>
Eddie

I classify carbs into high, medium and low (Bernstein carbs) and also group pseudo-breads make from things like Carbquik, soy flour and flax, although they may contain some PRO too. They metabolize like low carbs for me.

Medium carbs would be low glycemic fruits, tomatoes, onions and perhaps some dairy products like cottage cheese because of the lactose.

High carbs are high glycemic foods that metabolize pretty quickly like potatoes, high glycemic fruit and sugar concoctions. I stay away from high carbs.

Complex carbs like whole grains are the worst to bolus for using fast acting insulin. I have to adjust my basal for those and I don't want to go there. Creates too many other problems and there is no essential nutrition in any of them.

I'm going to have to experiment to find a formula to adjust my bolus of 1u Humalog to 6 "low" carbs to account for the higher glycemic index of medium carbs. I'm going to initially try 1.5 u Humalog to 6 "medium" carbs.

I wonder if Bernstein ever tried it and failed?

Well, guys, it's what you make of it. On the positive side, we didn't go through years and years of elevated BG levels which were hidden like some type 2s. When type 1 happens, it is swift and you definitely know you are sick.