Shannon, I'm sure the grass cutting helped, but maybe pizza doesn't spike you the way it does us. I could probably hate you for that, ya know? LOL For a while I was getting readings in the 300s and had 1 over 400 once. I know that you are supposed to go to the ER with that, but I didn't. Sometimes I would walk on my treadmill for a while in an effort to get it down. The glimiperide the doctor prescribed helped to get it down and now I am pretty much keeping it down with diet and exercise. A few glimiperide here and there as needed.

What is the issue with canned fish and BPA? I have a tendency to eat too much fish, but my concern is the mercury.

I usually don't eat breakfast until I'm up for a couple hours, but tomorrow I am going to drink a glass of milk right after I check my FBS and see if I get a spike. I'm so curious about that.

Carol Sue did you see my last post about the 9:30 test? It was up to 169. I tested again at 10:30 and it was back to 133. I realize that's nothing like a 300 but anything over 140 after 2 hours concerns me. This gives me the conviction I need to continue on my journey. I cannot go back to who I was.

I'm not sure there is any issue with BPA in canned fish. Someone just mentioned it but others poo poo'd it and that is when plastic was mentioned. My researching is turning up some possible options.

This might be politically incorrect, but, looking forward to hearing about your milk experiment!

Shannon, no, I had not seen your post about the reading of 169. I still think it would have been higher had you not cut the grass. Do it again, and don't cut the grass. LOL LOL Unless you were using a riding mower, the walking with the lawnmower would have helped lower your BS. The ADA says your 2 hr should be under 180, but they also say 45 gm of carb per meal, and we know THAT doesn't work. I would have never been concerned with the 169, but that's the kind of thinking that got me where I am. Trying to avoid a formal diagnosis, you are right to be concerned.

This morning my FBG was 148. Before bed last night it was 119. I am so afraid of going too low when I'm asleep that I am in the habit of eating some crackers before bed. I think that is what causes these morning highs. I have to switch to something else, like celery sticks. So anyway, I just drank my cup of milk and will test later to see how high I go. Usually, if I am high in the morning and I eat my eggs for breakfast it comes down nicely without medicating.

Another thing that I think was causing my problems was that I have a habit of grazing between meals. By doing that, I'm not giving my blood sugar time to come down. Eating a little bit here and there keeps it up, and then I'm eating my next meal with my blood sugar already high. Now I don't do that grazing and I also check my blood sugar before I eat to make sure my glucose isn't already high. If it is, I eat a very small meal.

Lately, I have not been hungry at lunchtime and we have been eating an early dinner so I have not been eating my kale and other vegetables. The weirdest part is I don't even think about lunch and don't feel hunger start until at least 2 - 3 PM. But my body is noticing it. After I started eating all the vegetables, my aches and pains went away. I used to get pains in my shoulders and arms, which I believe was tendonitis. It would come on at night, while lying down. After I started eating all those veggies the pains went away. I contributed it to the vegetables because of all the nutrients, phytochemicals, antioxidants etc in them. I must have been right because it's been over a week since I've been eating them and the pain is returning, especially in my shoulders. I still eat veggies cut up in my eggs and a serving at dinner, but my lunch servings were huge because that was all I was eating. I was eating them even if I wasn't hungry because they are so low calorie. The only other thing I can do is eat a lot more veggies with dinner. DH would never eat kale, so at dinner, I usually have veggies that he likes, like peas, corn, broccoli and cauliflower.

Restless, for a while I was putting ACV in my water bottle and was also adding lemon juice because I heard that it helps with the taste of the vinegar. One day there was a bottle of water in the fridge that I had not finished and put back. I grabbed it and took a sip and it was ACV water. I am going to have to get back to that. It took me a while to get used to it because I don't like the taste of vinegar at all.

Almost 2 hours after I drank the milk my BS is 160. Remember, I started out at 148, so I do not consider that a "spike" but a normal BS rise due to consuming food. Normally by now I would be a little lower, but I feel that I can add milk to my diet without a problem. I intend to do another test on a day when I wake up with a lower blood sugar. I checked the nutritional info on my milk and 1 cup is 13gm of carb, 12 of which is sugar, and 9gm of protein. No fat since it is skim milk. I have always heard that protein and fat will inhibit the rise of blood sugar, but have never really tested that theory. I rarely eat a carb without having something else, fat or protein with it. I do know the fat and protein in pizza doesn't help! LOL

After the FBS of 204 yesterday morning - I exercised, drank lots of water, chugged some ACV, ate protein all day long and the number went down. FBS was 121 this morning.

Shannon - I'm with you. This was a real wake up call for me that I am diabetic. Not borderline etc. but I have a real problem with sugar. When I think about how I used to eat, I shudder for my poor body. It is good to know.

Restless - I loved hearing about your cat! I have a cat I adore who coos and talks all the time and runs from here to there - it did not occur to me maybe she's trying to tell me something or is reacting to me. I doubt she's as smart as yours but I'm going to study her more closely.

Carol Sue - About the grazing - For me, eating more than 3 times a day makes my sugar higher. I think my body likes the break in between where it doesn't have to deal with the processing of food. Since I used to eat continually, this has been a real change for me. But now I find it easier to deal with food 3 times a day instead of 3 times and snacks. I just try to find something else to do unless it is "time" to eat. I make sure I get the essential food groups at each "meal" including good protein and fat to tide me over to the next meal. Eating snacks just gets me back to thinking about food all the time and then before I know it, I'm eating all the time.

My fbs was 129 after the great sugar experiment. I really don't ever want to see numbers like I did last night. And yes, Carol Sue, I'm trying to prevent an official diagnosis so anything elevated for a "normal" person concerns me, though I'm happy if my fbs is below 120. My dr told me she thinks a big part of my fbs being elevated is the disrupted sleep I have with my daughter. She thinks my cortisol levels are high and are factoring into my glucose elevations. At any rate, like I said, this experiment really helped solidify why I cannot have a lazy mindset about staying on plan (for losing weight, yes, but more importantly, for keeping my glucose under control).

On an unrelated note when I weighed today I remembered my scale does body fat %. I haven't used that function on it in 5 yrs according to the age that was in there for me, lol. I had to go online to find the user manual but I was able to get it set up for my current age. It was 42.9% yowzers! I know these scales are not completely accurate, I just want to be able to track how it changes.

Shannon, my daughter didn't sleep through the night until she was over three years old. It was hard. I gained SO much weight and all of it was around my abdomen. That's when I started having trouble with my BP and my doctor started warning me about diabetes. You have all my sympathy. Lack of sleep and interrupted sleep drive your cortisol way way up. We found a book called Sleepless in America (and I've read almost every other book on sleep and children) that finally helped us get things on track.

Also, I had a thought about your eggs - have you tried poaching them? I have a little egg poaching pan that gets used most days because I can cook eggs without having to babysit them.

You guys are so chatty, it's hard to keep up! Not much has changed with me. My biggest problem is forgetting I'm supposed to be watching what I eat. It sounds so stupid. I need to tattoo "should you really eat that" on the inside of my wrist or something.

Olivia is turning 4 and still wakes 1-2 times a night on average. She came out of the womb refusing to sleep. Gah! I have ready gobs of books and have paid an online consultant for a sleep plan. Everything has very limited success. But, I will check that book too! Not giving up....she WILL sleep!

I do not know what a poached egg is....is it runny, can you see the yolk by itself? If so, I probably cannot eat it that way. I'm kind of weird with texture on eggs (and chicken....coincidence?)

I'm the chatty one here, too much time on my hands I guess, lol....not really, I just have internet addiction issues. Got over my FB addiction and just replaced it with 3FC I guess.

Which new med is this? I think I saw someone post about headaches with Lantus.

Restless Your cat is amazing and I would also say a real blessing to you the way she takes care of you. Sounds like she is better than a watch dog. LOL

Shannon It is so amazing to me how much exercise/movement of any kind really helps to lower blood sugar. Doing the lawn was a great idea. Hope you will be able to resolve your daughter's sleeping habits.

TheSecondHalf I heard that about the sleep and cortisol years ago. That is probably one of the reasons that I had problems with getting diabetes under control years ago when grandchildren were young. They were so active day and night and I seldom got much sleep. Even a few years ago when DH daughter and her family lived with us for a while, I would try to take a nap and just as I got to sleep someone would stomp up the stairs by my room and wake me up. I remember how I would just seem to shake on the inside. Now that it is just us, I do my best to get 8 hours of sleep at night. I hadn't thought about it, but that is probably why DH has difficulty getting his blood sugar under control is that he experiences so much insomnia.

My fbs was 133 this morning, but I'm not really surprised since I forgot to take my medicine yesterday until late last night. Metformin doesn't seem to work good for me unless I take it with my largest meal of the day. I had to grab a snack to take it so I think I'm just thankful it wasn't higher. My weight is at a new low this morning at 223.8, but I'll wait to see if it is real or not before changing my ticker. If this is real, then I've finally lost a total of 15 lbs. It is so slow.

One good thing about eating a few more carbs each day and not Atkins Induction is that I seem to have more energy. I actually felt like getting into my closet and straightening it up this afternoon so it doesn't look like a cyclone has hit it. So I have that done. I've started checking out things to see in a few cities we plan to go while on our trip. DH is always good about taking me to see new places where I have never been. Someday I would love to be able to take him some places I've been that he hasn't seen if we can stay healthy long enough. Also making lists of some things we need to take what we need to purchase.

DGS isn't going to FL as he had originally planned when we first decided to take this trip. He has to go to summer school in May and June like he did last year to save his scholarship. He won't be able to go home until Christmas. He is supposed to stay with some friends, but I've decided that I'm not going to allow him to keep me from going home as I haven't seen my Daddy in 3 or 4 yrs and he is turning 91 in June. If DGS doesn't find a place to stay while we are gone, I'm going to have my neighbors keep a watch to be sure no parties or anyone is in my house while we are gone. There was a time I would have trusted him, but he has never had a lot of friends until now. I might be crazy, but I just don't trust leaving a 20 year old who suddenly has all these friends that he would rather do things with than study especially when he admits to having problems making good/smart decisions like he should. He is basically a good kid, but I'm not sure what he would do for his friends.

Sorry I didn't do a lot of Indies. We have become a chatty bunch and I too like that because when I have time, I too am very chatty. I just lose track of all I want to comment on. Y'all sure give me new things to consider and think about.

Hope everyone is having a blessed Sunday

Restless When I was diagnosed with diabetes this last time, I decided to do what I heard that my step-sisters hubby did when he found out he was diabetic.

He tested after most of the food that he ate to see how it his blood sugar responded to it. For example, he learned that he could have an Egg McMuffin on the way to work if he removed one slice of the bread. He learned that if he snacked on peanuts that his blood sugar stayed level. Once he knew what foods he could and couldn't eat then he planned all his meals around those foods.

This is how I learned that I could eat 1/2 a serving of oatmeal and not raise my bs, but if I ate a whole serving that my blood sugar went through the roof. This where I learned that just because the ADA diet says that a diabetic can eat something does not mean that I can. I've decided that maybe I can eat some of those foods some day, but if I can never eat them again that it really isn't such a big deal. This is why I'm trying to learn to have a different attitude and see the foods I can eat that aren't allowed on most diets as something special instead of "a woe is me" attitude because I can't have what I used to eat.

This is just what has finally started working for me. Hope this helps as you work toward learning how to make things work for you. We all have different ways that we have learned what works for us and many of us are always changing and tweaking as we learn more. Be patient with yourself as you find yours. I think each individual diabetic has to make their plan "personally" theirs because just "one size" does not fit all in clothes... one diet doesn't fit all either.

Good luck on your journey.

kris I know the fbs of 204 was scary for you after always being so low. Mine use to always be like that until I got the carbs out

Carol Sue I may try avocado once more with some added items to it. Carol Sue I have had a few readings in the 300's in that past also and didn't go to the ER. My body worked it out

Restless , Killer is a wonderful companion, I'm happy you have her and her senses all I can say is wow Restless, I didn't need to hear that about the potatoes but thank you

Shannon it makes perfect sense to be able to tell your husband and know in your mind that something isn't good for you. I totally understand and what's great is that it will keep you at bay. Wish I had the same discipline Shannon sometimes with eating off plan, I don't think it is the food so much that makes us totally feel bad (because honestly you wouldn't purposely over indulge in something that is bad for you especially as health conscious as you are) hope that doesn't sound mean, it's not meant to be and hopefully you know me by now but what I'm saying is that when I eat things that I should not have. I get a sick feeling but it's because I am asking myself what on earth were you thinking? and the more I give it thought the worse I feel. Now that makes me say no the next time. Because all I do is worry about numbers every where Shannon I'm serious you are gonna have to invite me up for a taste test I would surely come on over who turns down food, certainly not I ... though not really funny because you could have really been hurt (so be careful next time ) but you and that avocado had a time today Ian's canned fish thread caught my eye also. I think he's fine

Hi Trish

TheSecondHalf

I don't want to leave anyone out but honestly I'm tired of reading now

I am totally screwed up. I start off good each day, but before the day is over I eat some carbs. I was doing so well. It seems that I got out of sync on Easter and haven't really been able to get back on track. My weight and BS go up and down (up right now). This is not the plan. It's all about the bread. I can stay away from white store bought bread. DH has it in the house all the time. But not rolls, or special breads. Yesterday, DH wanted a Subway Sub for lunch, and I ate about 1/3 of it, roll and all. Delicious. Since we had that, neither of us was hungry for dinner so I made a pot of vegetable soup. DH usually likes French or Italian bread with it but I didn't feel like going to the store so I had a loaf of frozen bread dough in the freezer and baked it for him. I knew, deep in my heart, I was going to eat it, and I did. Sky high blood sugar, even with the glimiperide. Tonight I'm supposed to make lasagne. It won't spike me as high as the bread does, and I will cook some kale to eat with it. I bought a big bunch yesterday so I have to eat some every day or it will go bad. I don't feel as thought I have the right to offer advice to anyone else because I can't follow it myself.

Trish, We never trusted our kids to stay at home alone either. They had a lot of friends, and would be happy to open our home to them. We only went away without them one time and made them stay at grandmas. They sure didn't like that!

Restless - I always seem to be warmer than everyone else in the room. Sometimes my thyroid acts up and for a while I will be so cold I feel chilled to the bone and can't get warm no matter what. DR tried meds but after a week or so my thyroid would go back to normal and I had to stop the meds again. It sounds as though this is a side effect of your new meds.

I am not able to give any advice to you because you are on insulin and I never had any experience with it. The insulin before meals should be helping with the 2 hr post prandial but would probably depend on what you're eating. How high does it spike? At least it goes back to normal before the next meal. The idea of lows really scares me, especially since I had that one low without any symptoms. Lucky you have Killer to watch out for you. Good kitty!

Shannon and SecondHalf, I have a lot of sleep issues. I know that it effects my weight and my BS but I don't know what to do about it. I really don't want to depend on meds for it, because I take so many other meds. I fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow, but I wake up 2-3 hrs later and have a hard time falling back to sleep. I have tried staying up later. Didn't help. Part of the reason is I use a CPap and my headgear doesn't stay on well. I am constantly adjusting it. I really don't want to go for another sleep study for a better one. I barely slept at the original sleep study because it was a strange environment with all these wires attached to me. For a while during the past several months, I was falling back to sleep until 8 - 9 AM, which was good. But now I'm back to getting up at 5 AM because I hate just lying there awake. When I was in the hospital they gave me Ambien every night but it still only kept me asleep for 2-3 hours.

Kris, for a long time I didn't realize what the grazing was doing to my blood sugar. It is such a hard habit to break. It wasn't hunger, I was just grabbing at this and that. The best thing I can do it leave the house and go somewhere that takes my attention away from food. I do notice that when I have gone at least 4 hours without food that I feel so much better and my food tastes much better. Even if I buy healthy things to snack on, I don't stop eating after a small serving. I keep going back for more. Even healthy food isn't healthy if you're eating too much of it.

Rennie, I haven't seen Ian's canned fish thread. Going to go look for it. Wonder if he knows how popular he is? LOL