Hi,

Just wondering how often people measure their blood sugar levels when on the bsd?

I’m thinking of purchasing a monitor but it looks like it would be quite expensive if people measure often.

Also does anyone know if any of the UK pharmacies will measure blood sugar as part of their diabetes awareness programs?

Thanks in advance

Hey skinnydave – I guess it depends if you are diabetic, pre-diabetic or just doing the diet to lose weight and improved health & wellbeing. I’m in the latter section and bought a monitor when I started on the BSD, simply because I thought this would be another measure of progress and I also wanted to see where things sat at the beginning. I found that my blood sugars were to the higher end of the ‘normal’ zone and it was interesting to monitor on a daily basis for the first few weeks, however after the first month, I reduced this and now (over a year in) just do the occasional check – maybe once a week to ten days or so. These I weight and do a ketostick check daily, but only check waist measurement and blood sugar when I think about it. For info, the monitor I bought was around the £15 mark (I think), yes supplies are a bit pricey but not too bad, especially given that I only checked daily for a short time.

I think Lloyds offer a cholesterol checking service, but I don’t know about blood sugar checks. Guess it would be worth a few phone calls to major chains near you, to see if they offer anything. However, if you are doing the BSD for weight reduction, I would say there is no great need to be checking your blood sugars on a frequent basis, but to use weight and body measurements is a fair way to track progress.

Whatever you decide to do, best of luck and I hope you will be posting great results soon.

I would suggest if you are not diabetic that you dont bother. It can give very misleading results if you dont understand the mechanism of Blood Glucose and its peaks and troughs. E.g. I am diabetic and take meds, test my blood 2 hours after a meal and I am in normal range, got husband to do the same to compare and 2 hours after meal he was in diabetic range BUT he is not diabetic, it was just one reading. If you are pre-diabetic I would test before (or soon after) starting the diet so you can test again in a month to see if there are improvements. If you are diabetic you would know your own regime and routines so probably wouldn’t be asking the question. I test twice a day, always in the morning before food or drink and, while on this diet I test at 7 pm before dinner to make sure I am not going too low.

By the way, it is not pleasant testing, it involved needles, stabbing yourself and squeezing out blood and is bloody painful, more painful than my daily injections of insulin.

The only true test is to have blood taken for a HBa1C test which is done every 3 months. Sometimes less if you are with the NHS (I live in France and my doctor insists).

Just an after thought. If you are going to finger prick DO NOT do it on the tip of the finger. Use the outside edge and never use the same finger. I do one side then the other then move on to the next finger. I have been doing this for 12 years twice a day and you eventually lose feeling in them, especially the finger tips.