Non-diabetics using glucose meters

rheddmobile

Diabetic here - I use Bayer Contour next, strips plus meter and lancet come in an inexpensive kit on Amazon and replacement strips can be cheap from the right sellers. Contour next was found to be one of the most reliable ones by consumer testing.

A healthy person’s glucose should stay within a pretty tight range, so I’m not sure how useful the info will be, but if anyone tries this let me know how it goes! Be aware that there’s an accuracy range of about 10-15% either direction, so small fluctuations aren’t reliably an indicator of anything.

Nony_Mouse

Since there were some people interested in this:

I downloaded the free baselining spreadsheet for the Data Driven Fasting posted about on p1 and have been doing that this past week. For the baselining phase you're meant to just check your blood glucose when you get up (ie fasted), then before each time you eat, and one to two hours after eating. Three days' of data gives you what they call your personal trigger. Then you move to 'hunger training' (this isn't part of the free spreadsheet, but you can have a go at it based on what the free version gives you) - that's where you wait until you are hungry, then test your BG. If it's below your trigger, you eat, if it's not, you wait. Pretty simple. Over time, your personal trigger gets lower.

A big part of it is teaching people to recognise when they actually need to eat (hence hunger training), as opposed to just thinking they need to (we all know hunger signals get messed up when you're overweight). And obviously there's the fasting aspect, if that's your thing. It focusses essentially on 'minimum effective dose', rather than extended fasts, with the idea being that people doing extended fasting are more likely to overeat and/or reach for calorie-dense rather than nutrient-dense foods when they break their fast.

Before anyone points out the blatantly obvious that you can just count cals to lose weight, well, yeah. This is another tool and I can see how it could be really useful for some people (particularly those with insulin resistance, pre-diabetic, etc). And as shocking as I know this concept is, not everyone wants to track calories and/or weigh their food. This would actually work really well in conjunction with a portion size estimate approach, I think.

Anyhoo, there you go, thoughts based on a mere week and not actually doing the full version. I did gain some insights and it helped me dial in some things in terms of meal timing. I thought about doing the 30 day challenge that starts tomorrow (they run these pretty regularly), but am planning to do their nutrient optimisation masterclass in Feb and have a diet break scheduled starting late Jan that would just throw everything out of whack.

Again, not affiliated with Optimising Nutrition in any way. I do recommend having a poke around their site though, they have a load of free stuff for getting more nutrition for your calorie buck, for anyone interesting in ensuring they actually are eating a well balanced diet.

Nony_Mouse

This is what my data looked like btw, for the curious (you only have to do waking glucose and after meal for the first few days, after that it's just before meal):

Kait_Dee

I test my levels once a week with my regular check in. I’m currently in a mass gaining phase (pretty high levels of carbs) and I want to ensure insulin sensitivity for optimal nutritional partitioning and use.

Nony_Mouse

Kait_Dee wrote: »

I test my levels once a week with my regular check in. I’m currently in a mass gaining phase (pretty high levels of carbs) and I want to ensure insulin sensitivity for optimal nutritional partitioning and use.

I have a diet break scheduled to start late January, which will mean a substantial increase in carbs to drive leptin back up. I am very curious to see what happens with glucose levels!

sarah7591

rheddmobile wrote: »

Diabetic here - I use Bayer Contour next, strips plus meter and lancet come in an inexpensive kit on Amazon and replacement strips can be cheap from the right sellers. Contour next was found to be one of the most reliable ones by consumer testing.

A healthy person’s glucose should stay within a pretty tight range, so I’m not sure how useful the info will be, but if anyone tries this let me know how it goes! Be aware that there’s an accuracy range of about 10-15% either direction, so small fluctuations aren’t reliably an indicator of anything.

rhead...what is your opinion of a healthy range? I am not diabetic but feel I am heading that way since I eat way too many carbs. Many times when I eat I feel very sleepy and carbs are like a sleeping pill for me. Whatever I eat I try not to let my BS spike more than 140 for the two hour period after I eat. After 2 hours it should go back to 100. What are others goals for their BS and eating window (2 hours)? I use the Relion meter and strips from Walmart. I have had high A1C (5.8) which is prediabetic so that is why I started testing mine. Thanks in advance.

MaltedTea

@Nony_Mouse thanks for sharing your data and experience with this. When you do get to the gaining phase, it would be interesting to get an update!

@sarah7591 While I've not yet made the plunge (nor am I pre-diabetic), I hope someone will chime in with how they approach their readings.

Nony_Mouse

@sarah7591 - this chart shows what is generally considered healthy range:



@MaltedTea - maintaining (for two weeks), not gaining! I have a sizeable chunk of lard still to lose

rheddmobile

sarah7591 wrote: »

rheddmobile wrote: »

Diabetic here - I use Bayer Contour next, strips plus meter and lancet come in an inexpensive kit on Amazon and replacement strips can be cheap from the right sellers. Contour next was found to be one of the most reliable ones by consumer testing.

A healthy person’s glucose should stay within a pretty tight range, so I’m not sure how useful the info will be, but if anyone tries this let me know how it goes! Be aware that there’s an accuracy range of about 10-15% either direction, so small fluctuations aren’t reliably an indicator of anything.

rhead...what is your opinion of a healthy range? I am not diabetic but feel I am heading that way since I eat way too many carbs. Many times when I eat I feel very sleepy and carbs are like a sleeping pill for me. Whatever I eat I try not to let my BS spike more than 140 for the two hour period after I eat. After 2 hours it should go back to 100. What are others goals for their BS and eating window (2 hours)? I use the Relion meter and strips from Walmart. I have had high A1C (5.8) which is prediabetic so that is why I started testing mine. Thanks in advance.

@Nony_Mouse posted the official numbers. A non-diabetic person should only see numbers as high as 140 after eating a LOT of carbs - like, a pancake breakfast with syrup and a juice. And it should come down very quickly, with a healthy insulin response.

I try to keep mine within normal range, and mostly succeed due to careful timing of meals to coincide with exercise. I have managed to keep my a1c under 5 since being diagnosed, but I am definitely still diabetic! If I eat the wrong thing at the wrong time (example: as little as half a cup white rice, or 2 small flour tortillas, and get into an argument with someone which raises my cortisol levels) I have seen spikes as high as 160. If it gets high I can usually do about 30 - 60 air squats and quickly drop it to normal levels. The air squats work well, and are portable, I can even do them in a restaurant bathroom if I have to!

I have found that with most meals my bg is highest at 45 minutes and actually most of the way back to normal by 2 hours. So if I tested at the approved time I would never know how high my spikes were. Play around, see if your tiredness corresponds to any particular reading. I had eaten a ton of carbs after a run the other day and was so sleepy, assumed I had overdone it with the carbs and was high, and found out my actual reading was 76! Oops! That will indeed make you sleepy. Probably since it was a lot of quick carbs it did get high, but just as quickly dropped due to the aftereffects of exercise.