Saturday, May 19, 2012

Breakfast Starts in the Evening

Articles - Diabetes Articles
Thursday, 06 January 2011 08:18
I have a love/hate relationship with breakfast cereal.  I love it enough to eat it everyday.  It's been my favorite choice for breakfast for as long as I can remember.  It's fast and easy to make, especially during the work week.  I had 22 years to get used to eating it and making it my breakfast habit.  And I'm such a stubborn creature of habit that I refuse to make anything else for breakfast during the week. 

Enter diabetes: 

Most breakfast cereals cause a major spike in blood sugar, even those with the least amount of sugar.  So I try to

pick a cereal that is high in fiber and protein to hopefully combat the spikes.  My favorite cereal choice is Kashi Go Lean Original, and I usually eat 3/4 cup with 3/4 cup skim milk.  However, I still see the spikes, like shoot up into the 250s for 2 hours spikes.  I don't see these spikes all the time, but I have everyday this week.  I never really could explain why I saw them sometimes and sometimes not. 

Until this morning. 

This morning didn't really start out any different, I woke up and tested:  138 mg/dL.  I dialed in a correction and bolused for my cereal:  33 g.  Then I hopped in the shower (oh yeah, don't forget the 0.5 u bolus to combat the dawn phenomenon).  I get out of the shower, feed the dogs, water the cats, and then filled my bowl with the carefully measured 3/4 cup of cereal and milk (roughly 30 minutes have passed by now since the bolus).  I usually see the spike begin about the time I start to dry my hair.  But I kept waiting, and kept waiting, and kept waiting, but nothing.  I looked down at Constance to see that she has barely crested 100 mg/dL (I actually went low down to 70 mg/dL before the cereal kicked in).  But I didn't even peak past 150 mg/dL. 

Constance graph showing about the time I woke up (5 AM), the low before my cereal kicked in, then the "spike" under 150 mg/dL. 

So what happened to cause this non-spike spike?

Last night I exercised for 35 minutes on the Wii Fit and followed it with a protein-filled dinner of taco salad.  I have heard that the blood sugar effects from exercise last as long as a day, but I had never really seen it in action.  I have stuck to my resolutions (so far) of trying to exercise at least 3 days/week or every other day.  And the exercise that I did wasn't that strenuous, either.  I hardly broke a sweat and didn't even disconnect Arnold, and no low followed. 

I have always been a proponent that diabetics can and should be able to eat anything that they want.  It just takes lots of testing and tweaking to figure out how to keep your numbers stable.  I have conquered the beer/pizza super bolus, and now I can check off "breakfast cereals" on my list, too.  So now I know that when I start to see the spikes from my cereal in the mornings, I need to get my butt up and exercise in order to avoid them. 

Diabetes win! 

 
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