Question About Blood Sugar

[jackibar]

Hey, Everyone!

So as I've shared, I've now got my husband doing low-carb along with me!!  He has a question.  He is not diabetic (but I believe he is glucose intolerant, if not pre-diabetic) - but his sugar was starting to creep up after eating carbs - which motivated him to start eating the way I'm eating, which is great because it helps me that he's not eating carb-age in front of me, lol!

Anyway - his question is...  If someone is off carbs (very low carb and only the right kind like you teach) for quite a while and then has even a tiny amount of something like rice (which accidentally got put into a bowl burrito we ordered) - would this cause your sugar to shoot really high since your body isn't used to processing those carbs any more?  Because his shot to 210!!  It came right back down at hour 2 (to 95) - but that freaked him out that it jumped that high.  So we are both wondering if being off carbs causes your body to forget how to process carbs I guess - which would then cause a higher rise in blood sugar than if you'd been eating those carbs all along...??!!

Thanks so much!

- Jacki

[umpa]

thats what is called a spike in blood sugar

[mouseissue]

Hi, jackibar!

Umpa is right... That is a classic blood sugar spike.

No two of us will respond the same way to the same carby food exactly the same way. But one thing is for sure, over time those spikes damage our metabolisms.

Our bodies make "adjustments" when this happens.
Those "adjustments" lead to insulin resistance, and eventually full-blown type II diabetes.

I've been in maintenance for a long time now. And when a situation arises that I eat
some carby food, I firstly don't to eat too much of it. And for 3-4 days afterword, I would restrict my carbs to between 10 and 15 grams a day.
I DO NOT so this often!... In so doing I could re-damage my healed metabolism.

Our bodies are amazing self-healing machines.
They will continue to self-heal if we avoid pushing the self-healing mechanisms too hard or too often.

Tony

[jackibar]

Thanks, Tony and Umpa!  I guess my point was this kind of spike had never happened to him before - even when we did his "makeshift glucose tolerance test" he only went up to 160. So I guess the question is whether being off carbs can somehow DECREASE your tolerance of carbs (kind of desensitize you to them) so that when you do take a carb hit it spikes you higher than it otherwise would...

BTW!!  Neither of us even realized there was rice in our food until we'd eaten about half the bowl. I kept thinking it was some of the cheese or something because when I placed the order I did NOT ask for rice! It was only supposed to have the steak, cheese, peppers, sour cream, and guacamole in a bowl! So this wasn't even an intentional thing on our part and we got it from a place called "Moe's" - so our new joke is, "No mo' Moe's!"

[mouseissue]

Hi, Jacki!

One blood sugar test is not sufficient to draw any long term conclusions.
That's why diabetics take blood sugar reading multiple times each day.
People with insulin resistance problems can experience the odd spike, now and again.

A much better metric than simple blood sugar measurements is the A1c test.
According to the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse (NDIC):

"The A1C test is a blood test that provides information about a person’s average levels of blood glucose, also called blood sugar, over the past 3 months. The A1C test is sometimes called the hemoglobin A1c, HbA1c, or glycohemoglobin test. The A1C test is the primary test used for diabetes management and diabetes research."

The A1c gives a clear picture of how efficiently our metabolisms are handling blood glucose.

Tony