Cloud Burst wrote in message ...

  Oops.     A general goal for diabetics is to never go above 140 mg/dL for
any reason.

Another goal is to keep your "2 hour after meal blood sugar" to no more than
30 points higher than your "before meal blood sugar".

For most of us,   breakfast is really difficult.    There's some hormone
effects at Dawn and early morning which amplify the effects of eating carb.

Regards
 Old Al

Hi CB,
What kind of toats did you use; wheat, white, multi grains ? How many
carbs in that jelly ? You might want to experiment eating peanut butter
with cellery and bacon/egg to see how your glucose would react. I think
that 211 and 197 are a little bit high. Some people are more sensitve
to carbs in the morning than others. I can not make any comments on the
medications due to lack of knowledge. By the way, remember that
discussion about that Kevin Tredeau book a while ago, I was shock to
see that book being sold at Costco. Anyway, take care yourself.

Tomorrow try eggs and/or meat with no toast and no jelly, use cream instead
of non-fat whatever in your tea and coffee.   See if that don't give you
better numbers.

Your post meal numbers are not normal, nor reasonable, and certainly not
okay!

The American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists recommends people
with diabetes keep their blood sugar level under 140 mg/dl at 2 hours.

In your case, your breakfast toast and jelly are full of fast-acting
carbohydrate which is what raised your blood sugar.  Try eating 2 eggs
tomorrow instead of the toast and jelly and see whether it makes a
difference.

Because your fasting blood sugar is normal, you could probably normalize
your blood sugar at all times just by cutting way down on carbohydrate
throughout the day. You'll also probably feel a lot better energy. With
your blood sugar going W-A-Y up and then dropping back down, you
probably feel tired or starving a lot of the time.

--Jenny

http://www.geocities.com/lottadata4u/  Type 2 Diabetes info
http://www.geocities.com/jenny_the_bean/  Low Carb info

Excellent result - to learn from. Terrible result if you
intend to continue doing that.

Tomorrow, try just two changes: a non-carb spread on the
toast (peanut butter, or cheese (real, not American:-)) and
pure cream in your coffee.

You'll get a surprise. But to really get good breakfast
numbers, you'll need to eventually cut the toast and have
some sort of protein instead. I've added some ideas at the
foot of this answer.

Aim to be eventually under 140 at one hour. Read this:
http://www.alt-support-diabetes.org/NewlyDiagnosed.htm
Then print it out and read it again.

Still coming down from that high. Aim to be under 120 at two
hours.

Still coming down - the carbs in that half-and-half had a
small effect, but if the breakfast had been OK, the later
tea would have been fine.

Definitely smaller.

Can't answer that one. Some ideas for breakfasts:

Breakfasts With Minimal Carbs

1. Egg. The humble egg can be cooked in so many ways:
poached, fried (minimal oil in a non-stick pan), normal
omelette (beat it lightly while cooking), fluffy omelette
(seperate, whip the white with a spoonful of water, fold
back with filling and yolk), scrambled with a little milk,
frittata (sort of a heavier omelette with filling), and
baked. Use fillings, cheese, fresh herbs if you can, dried
if you can't.

2. Meat. Bacon, Ham, small steak, hamburger patty (watch the
fat), chicken, prosciutto, hot dogs and so on. Can be fried,
grilled/broiled, chopped after cooking and added to
omelettes, frittata or scrambled eggs. For bacon or other
fatty meats, drain on absorbent paper before serving.

3. Fish. Smoked, canned or fresh. Can be poached, fried, as
a mornay (easy on the thickener), mixed in a stir-fry etc.
Same for seafood.

4. Mushrooms. Small ones can be sliced and cooked with
onions, herbs , garlic etc and a little oil and a smidgin of
flour for a gravy. Large ones can be filled with bolognaise
or napoli sauce (or whatever you like), topped with grated
cheese and baked in the oven. Also another good omelette
filling.

5. Casseroles and stews - beef, lamb, chicken, mince (ground
beef) etc can be pre-prepared and divided into individual
breakfast sized serves. Put them in small plastic containers
in the freezer and zap one in the microwave for breakfast.
Check the carbs in the recipe to check suitability. Beef
bourgignon, Irish Stew (watch the spuds), chicken fricassee,
whatever your favourite is. Always test at 1 hr the first
time with casseroles - thickeners are usually the carb
culprits for high BGs.

6. Leftovers - slices of roast meat, re-heated or cold,
re-heated chops etc

Cheers, Alan, T2, Australia.

Hi CB...

Your 8a number is just wonderful.

Your other numbers are just not.

Here's the advice I give all those who are looking to get control of
their diabetes...

Sounds like you're planning a move to take control of your diabetes... good
for you.

There is so much to absorb... you don't have to rush into anything.  Begin
by using your best weapon in this war, your meter.   You won't keel over
today, you have time to experiment, test, learn, test and figure out just
how your body and this disease are getting along.  The most important
thing you can do to learn about yourself and diabetes is test test  test.

More than most anything, what you eat will affect your diabetes and
your blood glucose numbers.

And more than anything you eat, carbs will affect your diabetes and
your blood glucose numbers.

So, the most important information you can begin to compile about
yourself, is how your body handles carbs.

This sounds like you would need a low carb food plan right?

You don't... what you need to uncover is YOUR   Personalized Carb Number.

Which actually works better for most everyone.  Because low to one
person is wildly high to another, but waaaaay too low for someone
else.

Is low carb less than 30g a day?   Is it anything less than the
Pyramid reccomendations?

Finding your Personalized Carb Number is easy.

Here's how you can figure out your own Personalized Carb Number.

The single biggest question a diabetic has to answer is:

What do I eat?

Unfortunately, the answer is pretty confusing.

What confounds us all is the fact that different diabetics can get great
results on wildly different food plans.  Some of us here achieve
great blood glucose control eating a high complex carbohydrate diet.
Others find that anything over 75 - 100g of carbs a day is too
much.  Still others are somewhere in between.

At the beginning all of us felt frustrated.  We wanted to be handed
THE way to eat, to ensure our continued health.  But we all
learned that there is no one way.  Each of us had to find our own path,
using the experience of those that went before, but still having
to discover for ourselves how OUR bodies and this disease were coexisting.

Ask questions, but remember each of us discovered on our own what works best
for us.  You can use our experiences as jumping off points, but eventually
you'll work up a successful plan that is yours alone.

What you are looking to discover is how different foods affect you.  As I'm
sure you've read, carbohydrates (sugars, wheat, rice... the things our
Grandmas called "starches") raise blood sugars the most rapidly.  Protein
and fat do raise them, but not as high and much more slowly... so if you're
a T2, generally the insulin your body still makes may take care of the rise.

You might want to try some  experiments.

First:  Eat whatever you've been
currently eating... but write it all down.
Test yourself at the following times:

Upon waking (fasting)
1 hour after each meal
2 hours after each meal
At bedtime

That means 8 x each day.  What you will discover by this is how long
after a meal your highest reading comes... and how fast you return to
"normal".  Also, you may see that a meal that included bread, fruit or
other carbs gives you a higher reading.

Then for the next few days, try to curb your carbs.  Eliminate breads,
cereals, rices, beans, any wheat products, potato, corn, fruit... get all
your carbs from veggies.  Test at the same schedule above.

If you try this for a few days, you may find some pretty damn good
readings.  It's worth a few days to discover.

Eventually you can slowly add back carbs until you see them affecting your
meter.

The thing about this disease... though we share much in common and we
need to
follow certain guidelines... in the end, each of our bodies dictate our
treatment and our success.

The closer we get to non-diabetic numbers, the greater chance we have of
avoiding horrible complications.  The key here is AIM... I know that
everyone is at a different point in their disease... and it is progressive.
But, if we aim for the best numbers and do our best, we give ourselves the
best shot at heath we've got.
That's all we can do.

Here's my opinion on what numbers to aim for, they are non-diabetic numbers.

FBG                          under 100
One hour after meals       under 140
Two hours after meals     under 120

or for those in the mmol parts of the world:

Fasting                              Under 6
One hour after meals         Under 8
Two hours after meals       Under 6.5

Recent studies have indicated that the most important numbers are your
"after meal" numbers. They may be the most indicative of future
complications, especially heart problems.

Listen to your doctor, but you are the leader of your diabetic
care team.  While his /her advice is learned, it is not absolute.   You
will end up knowing much more about your body and how it's handling
diabetes than your doctor will.   Your meter is your best weapon.

Just remember, we're not in a race or a competition with anyone but
ourselves... Play around with your food plan... TEST TEST TEST.  Learn what
foods cause spikes, what foods cause cravings... Use your body as a science
experiment.

You'll read about a lot of different ways people use to control their
diabetes... Many are diametrically opposed. After awhile you'll learn that
there is no one size fits all around here.  Take some time to experiment
and you'll soon discover the plan that works for you.

Best of luck!

Jennifer

Thank you everyone for the mostly on-topic replies.  Today's numbers
are much better now that I'm aware of what's going on.  

On a side (yeah, off topic) note, I checked my wife just for fun and
she was 238 one hour after breakfast.  I was 130.  The difference
was she had real (brown) sugar and non-fat half-and-half with her
oatmeal while I had mine (and my coffee) with non-fat milk and equal.  

My wife has never been diagnosed diabetic, by the way.  

CB