Fasting BG 2018

[bigskygal]

85 (4.71) this cloudy morning, 86 (4.76) at bedtime last night.

[skb]

My only reason to meet her or any doctor is to understand whether i should go for metformin at my numbers. Part of me wants to continue my efforts on low carb without medicines.

What good is a doctor if she doesn't prescribe. That is their system, and there are very few doctors who would risk breaking from it. You'll be lucky if it stops at metformin.

As a vegetarian (I'm not contesting your personal choice) how do you go low carb ? I would suggest making a diet chart (like Shottlebop) for a few days which would include weighing the food that you eat. From there work out your macro ratios. That would throw some illumination on how many carb gms you are consuming each day.

[rocky]

I was busy job hunting for a couple of days so I couldn't post.
But I've been checking every day. 91 this morning.

@ccd JFYI I take one metformin at night. There is no harm in it.

More later.

[Shanny]

I take 800mg of metformin each day. It is a completely safe drug. What it does is help your cells take in whatever insulin is in the blood. Unless you're making no insulin whatever, metformin will help your body utilize whatever insulin is available.

[Tamagno]

143 this morning.

Odd weather here as well with temperatures yesterday and over night in the 50s. That, along with steady rain, melted a lot of snow; fortunately at my place the stream flooded only a bit. Today is back to quite cold as the day progresses.

Having had some childhood experience with major floods I can empathize in some small measure with the mess of clean up of mud and debris afterward, however nothing like the problems out in California.

[Carbcrazydog]

107 today morning.

Thanks everyone. I know what all of you are saying makes perfect sense. And i need to get on board. I try and remind myself that i am lucky to have something that can be controlled.

skb- I do eat eggs thankfully. So my vegetarian diet is mainly paneer and eggs which i love in whatever variety, high fat low carb salads and a couple of bread/roti per day. I do end up munching in chocolates which i need to stop/cut down on and also the diet coke vice is not helping.

[skb]

I would suggest making a diet chart (like Shottlebop) for a few days which would include weighing the food that you eat. From there work out your macro ratios. That would throw some illumination on how many carb gms you are consuming each day.

[walkerwally1]

92 this morning.  There is a slight chance of rain next weekend and into the following week but that is really too far out to be accurate.  The worry is for the burn area that is still going to take several days yet to clear out the mud and water.  There is a 50-60% chance of rain there and that would be hard to deal with.
CCD, like SKB says, you need to really work at it if you want to get by with diet only and use no medications.  When I started I measured or weighed every single thing I ate and wrote it down in a diary and tested before and after each meal until I knew exactly what my carb count, fat and protein was for every meal.  It is a lot of work and demands a lot of time but it works if you can do it.  You are working and raising children so you probably just don't have the time for that.  If you can work on keeping your carbs down and don't worry about using the help from medication it will surely help and if you can keep your bg in line it will do a great deal for your health.  Eat to your meter works but it is best if you can keep a record and test often.  The downside is that it takes time and uses a lot of strips. 

[skb]

It is a lot of work and demands a lot of time but it works if you can do it.

Not really. Not if a handy kitchen scale is used only to weigh the food. The content data is readily available on the internet. There is a page on my blog as well, with content ratios of some ready made Indian foods. Each roti contains a minimum of 12.5 gms carbs. Bread is a little more. So a couple of rotis means 25-30 gms of carbs. If Paulomi is crossing 50 a day, it wouldn't be LC IMO.

And this needs to be done just for a couple of days until most of the foods consumed are recorded. Then you can get a hang of the amount of carbs consumed just by looking at the food quantity. A salad can be made HF, but a substantial quantity of Oils would need to be added (preferably Coconut or Olive). Then again 1 table spoon is 10-12 gms. So how many tablespoons are added would depend on the quantity of salad. Unless the Fat content is 3 times that of carbs, the HF tag cannot be true.

[bigskygal]

90 (4.99) this partly cloudy morning, 88 (4.88) at bedtime last night.

It got up to 45°F (7.22°C) today, even saw a bit of blue sky for a while. Lots of melting and water in my yard and garage.

[skb]

Unless the Fat content is 3 times that of carbs, the HF tag cannot be true.

I eat 2 meals a day, BF and dinner. My intake consists only of Poultry, Meat, Fish and 1 serving of greens or lentils at dinner. Analysing my macros, I find that my intake is High Protein instead of High Fat, because the goat meat available doesn't have enough good Sat Fat. When beef was legally permitted, I had no problem going HF, as I used to buy really fatty cuts.

[Carbcrazydog]

110 today morning.

Thanks skb! I agree that counting carbs in Indian meals is not as tough. What is tough for me is eating at proper times and at one sitting. Sometimes in the whole rush i forget to eat and then munch between meal times. Carb counting gets difficult in that mode. I need to prioritize myself to my kids and work at sometime. How to do that consistently is what i need to figure out.

I made salad with lettuce and red/yellow capsicum, mushrooms and paneer sauteed in butter, cheddar cheese (lots), caeser salad dressing and mayo. I am guessing this would be high fat....

[skb]

I made salad with lettuce and red/yellow capsicum, mushrooms and paneer sauteed in butter, cheddar cheese (lots), caeser salad dressing and mayo. I am guessing this would be high fat....

Why guess, is all I'm saying. All it will take is for you to weigh each ingredient before mixing up, and then apply their content ratios. Sum them up, and there you go. You'll know if it is HF or not. Most of the packaged items would have labels on them to guide you.

[Tamagno]

125 this morning.

My kitchen scale sees a lot of use. I'm fortunate, however, in that I'm rarely in a situation where I eat out or with friends who are insensitive to carb intake. Being retired makes it easier as well as I eat many small meals throughout the day. Admittedly, it often seems as though most of my time is occupied with food.

Very cold here!

[walkerwally1]

91 this morning.  Weather here remains mild.  Same 65° (18.3°C) for a high every day for the next week.  Very slight chance of rain for the weekend.
CCD, I do agree with SKB that guessing is not going to work for you if you are serious about controlling your bg with diet and no medicine.  I do realize that it is more difficult for you because you have more demands on your time.  Being retired freed me up to devote a lot of time to keeping track of everything.  You need to use something like Myfitnesspal https://www.myfitnesspal.com/
Create an account and you can enter food for each meal and once set up, you need to look up the nutrients, Fat, Carbs and Protein, for each item but once it is entered it is there in your foods list and then it is just a mater of clicking on it.  You need to measure the weight or quantity of the food to get an accurate account of the nutrients.  You then will have a total of the "Macros" which is just the fat, carbs and protein for each meal.  It's more work when first starting but gets easier as your food list grows.  Most things I weigh on a kitchen digital scale but some things are easier to use a measuring cup.  Either way you can get the macros from a data list, I use https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/
or there is :
http://nutritiondata.self.com/
From either you can get all of the nutrition data for each item in your diet.  It is also useful to check the nutrition values from any recipe that you may want to check and if too high it gives you the ability to change ingredients to make it more carb friendly.  I still say it is work but it is kind of fun and you will see a difference.