Frustrated with Low Carb/Need guidance

[Tink625]

Well, I'm a little discouraged. It seems that low carb is working for me. It's been a little over one week and I believe I've actually lost 3 pounds. I'm not hungry either. I'm eating salads, berries, almonds, lean proteins, etc. Actually enjoying it.

But, I said I was discouraged, and the reason for that is my blood sugars are higher than normal. I'm eating an average of 60g of carbs/day, which is about half of what I was eating before. My clothes feel looser and I feel pretty good, most of the time. But my weekly average is up, and I woke up this morning with a high of 289! I haven't had a number like that in ages. I checked my ketones, and sure enough, a moderate spillage. Is it normal to have highs like that when doing low carb? I mean, what's the point if I have to take insulin to fix the hyperglycemia? I can't just run around with high blood sugars! What the heck! (And seriously, I hadn't eaten since about 7pm last night; even then it was just a salad with three grape tomatoes and some greek yogurt with a dab of honey to catch me up on my carbs. I've changed my insertion sight to see if that was the problem, but even that wouldn't explain the rise in glucose averages).

What should I do? I refuse to keep my sugars high...been there, done that. Should I increase carbs a bit? Has anyone else found that low carb just didn't work for them? Grrrrr! I thought this was going to be the magic method at last! I HATE my body!

FYI- Here's what my average food intake is like for the last 7 days:

1,200 calories
60g fat
59g carb
79g protein
1,947mg sodium

Any suggestions? Am I doing this right?

[poodlebone]

Has anyone else found that low carb just didn't work for them?

It didn't work for me but I probably didn't give it enough time. My numbers were good during the day but overnight they would go up so much, I'd wake in the 500s!

I think a lot of low carbers here will tell you to decrease your carbs even more, decrease your protein and increase your fat. 20% or so of protein converts to glucose so excess protein can also cause high numbers.

[Kathryn10]

You may have to redo your basal rates or long-acting insulin, depending on if you're using a pump or MDI. For me, I noticed that the increase in fat and decrease in carbs stabilizes my blood sugars more so that when I eat, I do not have spikes in my bgs. However, that also means that what I eat has a longer-lasting effect on my numbers. Have you ever noticed how when you eat pizza your bg raises after a couple of hours instead of right away and stays that way for a while? So, you may have to increase your basal rates in order to accommodate the higher-fat diet. I hope that makes sense.