Sugar dragon or low blood sugar

[Guest]

I am on day 8 and not sure if my experience is one of will or one of need.

I am having three large meals and one very small meal at bedtime so that I can take medication. Meals are proteins, fats, and veggies. I am getting some starchy veggies and as few fruits as I can stand, which has been one-half to two fruits a day. Getting to the meal size I am at has taken some work and I am pretty sure I do not need to be eating more at meals, but I might be able to.

Lunch is around 1:30 or 2:00 and dinner is around 7:30. (Our mornings start a little late and days end a tad late, too, for now). About 3 hours after lunch, (and sometimes late in the morning) I am getting hungry. I check my sugar and it is borderline low.

I am confused if I should have the snack or if I should give myself some tough love and see what happens. I was trained to eat, but I may be feeding my sugar dragon. I'm not sure. I almost always have a few olives and a few nuts and maybe a veggie.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Oh, and this is type 2 diabetes, my a1c is already below 6, and I only take metformin.

[Tom Denham]

It took me more than a year to work down from 5 or 6 meals per day to 4. And then almost another year to work down to 3. Most people move faster, but I can be slow. So take that into account when I say, you might want to look at eating every 4 to 5 hours for a while until you get to a better place. I think eating 4 or even 5 meals is better than snacking. The meals should be smaller than if you were eating 3.

[Guest]

Thanks for the tip. I'm not sure I can add a fourth meal right now, no matter how small I made the four. My three meals have gotten a smaller. For the past two nights, I couldn't even fit in my mini-meal to take my meds. My belly is very puffy. I eat until I am sufficiently full and my belly puffs soon after I eat. By dinner, I'm not all that hungry and even less so at bedtime when I need meds. My blood sugar is trending low even with the stress of not sleeping well and an uncomfortable belly. I have adjusted, although I do feel a little jittery when it drops.

Patience will be my guide.

[Sarah Bartels]

I have been on Metformin for more than a decade (ugh almost 1.5 decades)... and I have never, never taken either my morning dose or evening dose with food. At some point I had a pharmacist tell me I could take it before bed; and I've been doing that ever since. I'm know the recommendation is to take it with food - but maybe you can try taking it without and skip that last meal-let that is making your stomach hurt and not sleeping well.

My A1C has been under 6.0 for quite a number of years (even during pregnancy where I got the gestational diabetic diagnosis). But I can remember during the phase of "getting the blood sugar under control" that when my BS would drop under 90 I'd feel sick and queasy - and then after a while it was only the case if I was under 80 - now I routinely wake up with a BS in the low 70's high 60's and feel great. This took a long time; quite a bit more than 30 days - so I would guess you need to make that "low blood sugar snack" smaller and smaller as your overall blood sugar set-point gets lower. I know what i'm saying is all non-sciencey and not exactly data driven - but I hope it makes sense. I'm sort of hoping that the whole30 helps me to reduce and then ideally eliminate the need for Metformin.

For what it's worth I've never been formally diagnosed with T2Diabeties; but pre-diabetic and I was originally put on the Metformin for PCOS.

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply, Sarah.

I do have type 2 diabetes after a childhood of hypoglycemia. My A1c on the first day of my Whole30 was 5.9. I did not take my metformin with food for about two years, and doing so helped me to lower my A1c by about .2. Because of the dawn effect, I also relied on a protein snack at bedtime to keep my morning readings lower. Most of my readings were above 100 up to the start of my Whole30. The transition to the Whole30 has resulted in consistently lower readings, but too low can be dangerous and does require intervention. I do think that I was not eating enough to sustain my blood glucose for 5 to 6 hours and my liver and pancreas were confused. I just opened the book to the chapter on hormones, so I hope to have a btter understanding soon. I hope to have much tighter control of my blood glucose as I near the end of my Whole30 and get to know a new doctor who practice functional medicine.

As of about day 10, I have been virtually snack-free and am not jittery or hungry.

[Zoodles]

I have type 1 not type 2, but couldn't you just bump up your starch a bit at lunch?

[Moluv]

In regards to your "puffy belly"- if it's uncomfortable enough to keep you awake at night- That's not normal. Something you are eating is causing irritation and inflammation or is not being digested properly. As I recall from the hormone chapter- that is enough damage to keep your hormones out of whack.

Do you have digestive disturbances prior? Adopting the IBS (not the AIP) protocol has resolved my tummy bloating and tenderness. Just food for thought.

[Guest]

Zoodles, I pretty much increased all of my foods and am doing better overall.

Moluv, I think my belly reacts fo certain fats as a result of a bile salt imbalance from no gallbladder. Kombucha and other things seemed to help. Time did, too. But, I had canned fish again yesterday and I was really uncomfortable. I bought the digestive enzyme supplement at Whole Foods over the weekend, but it is less than compliant, so I will stick with coconut oil until I find a place that sells the NOW brand. I don't get to town much, but I'm fine with coconut oil until I can give my body some support. After that, I'd really like to give it variety. I don't know much about IBS or the IBS protocol. I am interested in learning more. My book was on order when I began, so I started with the chapters about good foods. I'm getting closer, though. Excited to learn about hormones today.