Food/BS Stats

[ShottleBop]

Wednesday, January 9:

4:32 AM (FBG, before breakfast:  102
Breakfast: avocado, Carbmaster vanilla yogurt, baby greens, coffee with heavy cream

10:30 AM (snack):  TJ's handful dry roasted almonds.
   
2:24 PM (before lunch):  106
Lunch: chicken salad (canned chicken breast, mayo, hard-boiled eggs, cabbage) (about 2/3 of the container Mrs. S filled)
   
7:01 PM (before dinner):  86
Dinner:  salami-and-Swiss omelet, 1/2 cup sliced cucumber, low-carb lemon ice cream topped with heavy cream and SF salted caramel syrup, coffee
9:01 PM:  100
   
Average for the day:  99

Macronutrients:  50 grams carbs (18 grams fiber), 143 grams fat, 96 grams protein

Calories:  1,932

[ShottleBop]

You've been maintaining your Food / BG Stats log for a very long time, and it is very well followed and appreciated. I think you also manage Dr. B's forum.

Would you like to write an Article for this Forum, on your experience / observation and maintaining of your Food Log ?

Thank you for the invitation!  I will think about doing that, once work settles down a little.

This is a short history I posted (in Diabetes Forums, IIRC) back in April, 2011, shortly after the three-year mark:

I was diagnosed as the result of a routine physical, in February, 2008. My fast BG was 127, and my A1c was 6.5. The ADA had not yet issued its recommendation that people with A1cs of 6.5 or more be diagnosed as diabetic; at the time, diagnoses on the basis of FBG required two measurements of 126 or higher. My doctor called me up and asked me to come in for a second test, telling me that, if it were 126 or higher, I would be diabetic, and would have to make drastic changes in my lifestyle. For the next week, then, I started cutting out sugar and the like. My second test came in at 123. That made me "prediabetic," instead of diabetic.

My doctor wrote me a prescription for a meter and strips, and had me go to a prediabetes class, which addressed basic nutrition using the food pyramid approach. My doctor, however, had also told me that I would have to cut out fruits and other things that raised my BGs. I ate to my meter, but didn't count carbs or cut out bread--I mostly cut out desserts, most fruits, and white bread, and experimented with wholegrain and Ezekiel breads. I also ate low-fat, cutting out cheese (and hamburger) almost entirely. I used my meter to eat to the AACE's recommendation that BGs not exceed 140 two hours after eating. I started walking for half an hour or so most days.

Over the first three months, my average FBG settled in to the 110-115 range, and my A1c came down to 6.0. I lost 30 pounds. After Passover, though (a week in which I ate almost no grain), I discovered the difference that grain products made in my post-prandial readings. I had not yet bought any books about dealing with diabetes; I finally ordered Gretchen Becker's book, The First Year: Type 2 Diabetes, on Amazon, which informed me that many people who bought that book also bought Dr. Richard Bernstein's book The Diabetes Solution. I found Jenny Ruhl's website, Blood Sugar 101. I started eating to keep my post-prandial readings below 120. (For me, that peak can come any time from 90 minutes or so to three hours after a meal; only if I eat something with an unexpected load of sugar to I spike in the first hour.)

I found that limiting carbs, in the manner generally recommended by Dr. Bernstein, worked for me. I dropped another 35 pounds over the next six months, bottoming out at 155. (Since then, I've started using the stairs from and to the 24th floor on my way to and from lunch on a daily basis, and riding a stationary bike for 25 minutes or so 4 or 5 times a week, and I've added back some muscle. I've been at 180 for well over a year, now.) My average BGs immediately dropped into the 100 range. After another year, they dropped to where they are now: my average monthly BGs for 12 of the past 15 months have been 90 or less.

These days, I probably eat in the range of 40-60 grams of carbs a day. I eat a lot of fish-sardines, salmon, or smoked herring on a regular basis, as well as a range of other proteins and fats. Generally, I eat whatever I'm hungry for, but avoid sugar and most non-veggie carbs. Breakfast is almost always an avocado, a Trader Joe's chicken sausage, and coffee with cream. I have a cup of decaf with coconut oil many days for a midmorning coffee break; sometimes I have a scant handful of almonds. Lunch is often a Cobb salad or an omelet, or a bunless burger with steamed veggies or a side salad; sometimes grilled salmon over a salad. Nuts, or a half-ounce of unsweetened baking chocolate, as a mid-afternoon snack. I have homemade low-carb ice cream, based on coconut cream, almost daily. Dr. Helen Hilts's description is apt: "No roots, no fruits, no grains, no milk."

In retrospect, I more or less backed into this whole thing, having been prescribed a blood glucose meter and attended one two-hour class on prediabetes, then let loose to control my blood sugars. Best to keep our minds open, so that our expectations don't become limitations.

[Grammabear]

I never had the opportunity to read your history about being diagnosed.  You have a very interesting story.  It is too bad more people do not have the same approach as you did.  I do enjoy your daily logs and they are an encouragement to me even though I am T1.

[ShottleBop]

I pretty much ate like that until January, 2015, when, at the urging of my new PCP, I agreed to try a lower-fat diet:

Hey, folks:

I met with my new PCP this morning. I gifted her a copy of Dr. Bernstein's book, and explained to her exactly how I've maintained my blood sugar levels over the past seven years. She is very concerned about my LDL (270), and understands that I don't tolerate more than 10 mg pravastatin per day. She prescribed 600 strips for me, for three months, and I promised to reduce my intake of fat--especially saturated fat. That means, of course, increasing either or both of my carb intake and my protein intake. So, I'm going to keep my word. I'm going to continue to minimize my intake of processed foods, but I'm going to add some carbs to my diet, and see whether I can manage my blood sugars while keeping my cholesterol down. [I know that eating a diet low in saturated fats will reduce my LDL; many years before being diagnosed as prediabetic, I undertook a very-low-fat diet, and successfully reduced my LDL to 130-something.

We shall see. I'm not going to go hogwild eating carbs; I'll add in some whole grains, and, probably, eat the lower-carb fruits (read, "berries") more often than I have been (once every couple of weeks or so). Instead of the Cobb salad at my favorite lunch place, I'm going to try the quinoa salad. Instead of gyros meat with my Greek salad at another lunch spot, I'm going to try the falafel. Instead of my beloved Louisiana hot sausages, I'm going to eat Tofurky Italian sausages. I'll still eat my Nicoise tunal salads, but I'll watch my total egg consumption. Mrs. S will probably make my omelets with egg whites.

Unless my blood sugar levels spin entirely out of control, this experiment will last for three months, until my next PCP visit, to see what happens to my cholesterol. For obvious reasons, I will NOT be posting my daily diet in this thread. Still debating whether I post them elsewhere in this forum. (If I don't, and anyone's interested, I will happily friend you on Sugarstats and Myfitnesspal, where I keep track of the numbers I've been reporting here.)

[ShottleBop]

I kept that up for a year and a half.  My blood sugar levels now average about 10 points higher than before I undertook the experiment, and my fasting levels are higher, as well.  I also experience far more dawn phenomenon than I ever did--if I lie in bed awake at all, or postpone eating, I see blood sugar readings in the high 115-125 range that I hadn't seen since I was first diagnosed.  I don't know whether that was a result of my year-and-a-half of eating more carbs, because, honestly, my average BGs didn't appear to change that much over the course of that period.  Here was my report on the experiment in July, 2016, just before I resumed my original regime (posted originally in Diabetes Forum):

So, folks: a year and a half ago, I left the "Low Carb Daily Menu" thread and started this thread, because I had embarked on a mission to lower the fat in my diet (to try to accommodate the concerns of a new PCP, and to induce her to continue to prescribe enough strips for me to test as often as I like).

While, for several months, I managed to reduce my fats, I have, in the long run, merely changed the
composition of my fats, through a drastic reduction in my consumption of cheese and heavy cream.

For comparison purposes:

For the one-month period PRECEDING the beginning of this experiment (Dec. 19, 2014-Jan. 18, 2015):

Average BG: 88
Lowest: 61
Highest: 110
Average FBG: 94.17
No. days where all readings <100: 21
No. days where at least one reading > 110: 0

Avg daily carbs (including fiber): 52 grams
Avg daily protein: 103.09
Avg daily fat: 150 grams
Avg daily sat fat: 54.3 grams
Days sat fat <50: 12
Lowest sat fat day: 33 grams

I successfully reduced fat for the first few months:

For the first month of this experiment (Jan. 19-Feb. 18, 2015):

Average BG: 91
Lowest: 58
Highest: 183
Average FBG: 88.14
No. days where all readings < 100: 7
No. days where at least one reading > 110: 10
Avg daily carbs (including fiber): 99 grams
Avg daily fat: 94 grams
Avg daily sat fat: 19.4 grams
Days sat fat > 23: 7
Highest sat fat day: 29 grams

For the second month of this experiment (Feb. 19-Mar.18, 2015):

Average BG: 89
Lowest: 57
Highest: 125
Average FBG: 88.81
No. days where all readings < 100: 11
No. days where at least one reading > 110: 5
Avg daily carbs (including fiber): 103
Avg daily fat: 105 grams
Avg daily sat fat: 25.4 grams
Days sat fat > 23: 16
Highest sat fat day: 41 grams

For the third month of this experiment (Mar. 19-Apr.18):

Average BG: 87
Lowest: 62
Highest: 131
Average FBG: 88.07
No. days where all readings < 100: 11
No. days where at least one reading > 110: 5
Avg daily carbs (including fiber): 101.5
Avg daily fat: 103.6 grams
Avg daily sat fat: 23.2 grams
Days sat fat > 23: 13
Highest sat fat day: 36 grams

But, by fall of last year, I had pretty much reverted, with respect to fat intake:

For November, 2015:

Average BG: 86
Lowest: 64
Highest: 151
Average FBG: 88.52
No. days where all readings <100: 19
No. days where at least one reading > 110: 3

Avg. daily carbs (including fiber): 110.87 grams
Avg. daily protein: 120.27 grams
Avg daily fat: 148.03 grams
Avg daily sat fat: 45.27 grams
Days sat fat <50: 20
Lowest sat fat day: 24 grams

For the last 30 days:

Average BG: 91
Lowest: 66
Highest: 114
Average FBG: 91.61
No. days where all readings <100: 13
No. days where at least one reading > 110: 2
Avg. daily carbs (including fiber): 100.03 grams
[Highest: 132; lowest: 52]
Avg. daily protein: 125.8 grams
Avg. daily fat: 147.03 grams
Avg. daily sat fat: 46.33
Days sat fat <50: 19
Lowest sat fat day: 23 grams

As you will note, I never got my average daily carbs much above 100--and, for the last couple/three months, I've greatly increased my intake of fiber, to approximately 40% of my daily total carb intake.


Anyways, even though I've doubled my average daily carb intake, I think it's fair to conclude that my daily reports are better referred to as low-carb results, than here, as part of a "lower fat experiment," and I will be rekindling an appropriate thread. Please come visit there.

[skb]

Thank you. Your post

https://www.diabetic.pub/forum/index.php/topic,35.msg18075.html#msg18075

is a good one to be copied to our "My Story" thread here;

https://www.diabetic.pub/forum/index.php/topic,771.0.html

If I were to do that (copy/paste) the post will lose your credentials, so I would request you to do it.

What I was suggesting was an Article on your Food Log, as in, after your diagnosis what prompted you to opt for this, how you went about making the log, the tools that you use and how it has helped you in controlling your BG, finally why you'd suggest this to a new patient.

I could snip paragraphs from your 2 posts and make one, but it is so much better coming from you in your own words.

[ShottleBop]

Just pulling together source material.   

[ShottleBop]

Thursday, January 10:

5:32 AM (FBG, before breakfast): 113
Breakfast:  avocado, TJ's Italian chicken sausage, coffee with heavy cream

11:40 AM (before lunch):  91
Lunch:  leftover chicken/egg salad from Wednesday, 1/4 bar Montezuma's Absolute Black

6:25 PM (snack): 1 oz. Gentleman Jack's   

8:52 PM (before dinner [late night at the office]): 79
Dinner: rotisserie chicken over lettuce, tomato, basil pesto sauce, TJ's handful dry roasted almonds, Truly Spiked & Sparkling
10:49 PM:  103
   
Average for the day:  97

Macronutrients:  55 grams carbs (30 grams fiber), 137 grams fat, 86 grams protein

Calories:  1,924

[ShottleBop]

Friday, January 11:

5:07 AM (FBG, before breakfast):  96
Breakfast: avocado, Carbmaster blackberry yogurt, coffee

11:56 AM (before lunch):  89
Lunch:  Cobb sala

1:30 PM (snack):  1/4 bar Montezuma's Absolute Black
   
4:15 PM (snack) 1.5 oz. Gentleman Jack

6:21 PM (before dinner):  87
Dinner: turkey sauteed with onions and bell peppers, low-carb chocolate/peanut butter ice cream with whipped cream, coffee wihth heavy cream
9:10 PM:  106
   
Average for the day:  95

Macronutrients:  59 grams carbs (23 grams fiber), 124 grams fat, 87 grams protein

Calories: 1,879

[ShottleBop]

Saturday, January 12:

5:53 AM (FBG, before breakfast): 108
Breakfast:  avocado, Carbmaster cinnamon roll yogurt, TJ's spicy Italian chicken sausage, coffee with heavy whipping cream

12:38 PM (before lunch):  97
Lunch: chicken soup (chicken, celery, soup) 1 Kirkland peanut butter cup (6 grams carbs), 2 squares Ghirardelli 100% baking chocolate

1:45 (snack):  1 oz. Clontarff Irish whiskey

3:12 PM (snack):  1/4 cup raw pecan pieces
   
5:04 PM (before dinner):  102
Dinner: Salmon patty, TJ'as wasabi mayo, arugula, 2 tablespoons TJ's almond butter, 1 teaspoon Nonesuch mincemeat (found in the back of the fridge)
7:38 PM:  101
   
Average for the day: 102

Macronutrients:  66 grams carbs (25 grams fiber), 137 grams fat, 115 grams protein

Calories: 1,913 

[ShottleBop]

Sunday, January 13:

6:58 AM (FBG, before breakfast): 118
Breakfast: toppings off two slices of pizza, 1/2 bag TJ's Power to the Greens, coffee

9:15 AM (snack):  coffee with heavy cream and 1.5 oz. salted caramel Canadian whisky

11:15 AM (snack):  1 oz. Clontarff (Irish whiskey)
   
12:16 PM (before lunch): 101
Lunch: low-carb chocolate/pb ice cream, toppings off last slice of pizza, 2 (21-gram ea.) slices Swiss cheese,

3:54 PM (snack): 1.5 oz. cinnamon vodka, coffee with heavy cream

4:25 PM (before dinner):  86
Dinner: 4 tbsp almond butter, 1.5 oz. cinnamon vodka, grilled boneless, skinless chicken thighs
7:33 PM:  96
   
Average for the day:  100

Macronutrients:  46 grams carbs (12 grams fiber), 125 grams fat, 102 grams protein

Calories:  2,151

[ShottleBop]

Monday, January 14:

5:08 AM (FBG, before breakfast):  111
Breakfast: avocado, TJ's spicy Italian chicken sausage

11:48 AM (before lunch):  93
Lunch:  salad (leftover grilled chicken thighs, tomato, cucumber, lettuce, sriracha ranch dressing), 1/4 cup roasted, salted macadamias
   
7:20 PM (before dinner):  91
Dinner: leftover grilled eye-of-round stirfried with veggies and curry powder, coffee with heavy cream, Carbmaster raspberry/white chocolate yogurt, 1 teaspoon Nonesuch mincemeat   
9:20 PM:  125
   
Then snack: 3 (21-gram) slices Swiss

Average for the day: 105

Macronutrients:  51 grams carbs (18 grams fiber), 124 grams fat, 111 grams protein

Calories: 1,782

[skb]

Just pulling together source material.   

Anything yet ?

[ShottleBop]

Just pulling together source material.   

Anything yet ?

Buried at work. 

[ShottleBop]

Tuesday, January 15:

4:36 AM (FBG, before breakfast): 96
Breakfast: avocado, 2 oz. Carando hard salame, coffee with heavy cream

11:29 AM (before lunch):  108
Lunch: 2 Oscar Mayer uncured beef franks, 1/2 bag TJ's power greens, TJ's handful dry roasted almonds
   
[Forgot my meter at work]

Dinner:  1/2 chicken queso burrito, 1/4 avocado, coffee with heavy cream

Average for the day: 102

Macronutrients:  45 grams carbs (25 grams fiber), 135 grams fat, 60 grams protein

Calories: 1,624