G’day all,

Has anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions?

I have done my 8weekBSD diet – I started Jan 8/2017 as I was coming up as pre-diabetic. I lost over 7kg so I am down to 62kg at 170cm, stopped taking my blood pressure meds, all my blood results have come back normal or near normal and I have a BMI of 21 and my waist circumference is 83cm. My doctor is extremely pleased with me and I managed to to this all in about 5 weeks and have been on BSD Way of Life and BSD5:2 depending on how hungry I am.

My biggest problem is, is that my fasting blood glucose level is still anything from 5.8-6.8mmol/l (although 6.3 seems to be the magic number). I have been told about and researched the dawn phenomenon and I understand it. I have also gotten up several times at 3am to take my blood and then again in the morning and it definitely seems that this is happening to me. I have tried going really low carb, under 20g for a while and it still did not go down.

My confusion is this, this morning I did a BG test at 4am and it was 5.4 and then I took it again at 7am and it was 6.4. I then decided to go to Ikea for breakfast and I had bacon and eggs and a hash brown (in total about 30g worth of carbs, which I hardly ever do), 2 hours later I took my BS and it was 5.4! My 2 hour post-prandial reading after a huge carb breakfast was lower than my fasting BS. I am having real problems with this.

Anytime during the day when I take a BS reading- either before or after food- it is always in the normal range – it is only my fasting that refuses to come to the party.

My doctor doesn’t seem worried about this and put it down to me being one of those people that always has a high fasting BS level. I have gone through so many BS strips and I don’t know whether I should keep testing or just live with the fact that my fasting BS is high and throughout the day I am totally normal.

I have also tried lowering my protein and upping my fat and still it seems my BS usually averages about 6.3. I am not sure what else I can do.

I do have a ketonix and I am in low level nutritional ketosis most days of the week. I don’t think I need to loose anymore weight, I mean I probably could but I haven’t been this weight since I was 15 years old (I am 46). I am already being told by friends and family that I am getting too thin.

Any suggestions/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Suzcap

Hi Suzcaps,

I have a similar problem but my fasting blood glucose is 7.4. Hba1c and day time readings are all normal. I am carrying quite a bit of extra weight and am hoping the morning reading will normalise with more weight loss. I also have seen the morning reading normalise after eating. It is a hormone driving the fasting reading, the sooner you eat, the sooner it normalises.

I don’t know what you can do about your morning reading – it is not that high – I would just persist with the bsd woe and retest in a couple of months.

Many thanks Bigeater for your reply. I will definitely continue with the BSD WOL eating. I really do love it and don’t really crave anything much except a hash brown every now and again. I believe you are right – it certainly does normalise after eating even if it is a carb loaded meal!

I wish you luck with your weight loss and the normalisation of your morning readings.

Suz

Since you’ve research the dawn phenomenon, I assume you’ve tried the small snack right before bedtime trick? An ounce of hard cheese, a slice of ham, nothing carby. Just enough to deceive your liver into thinking you’ve eaten in the middle of the night so it doesn’t think it needs to release glucose to keep you from starving to death.

Hi Esnecca,
Yes, I have tried the snack before bedtime. I think it helps keep my readings from going above 6.5.
I think I just need to be patient. I have only been doing BSD since Jan 7, 2017. Maybe my body needs more time to work out that I am not going to go back to my carby ways. Fingers crossed that it will normalise some time in the near future.
Suz

I think it may be more a sign that there is still visceral fat to clear out from around the organs, so in that respect it is actually a very positive sign that even eating this diet at the way of life calories level you are still in ketosis, this is the fat that is still being cleared out for you. I believe I read that some of the others who have got to this stage experienced similar high fasting blood sugar levels until quite late in the process, and in some cases quite a long way under their original targets.

I have been following this diet for 7 weeks. Main purpose is to reduce my blood sugar levels to be able to reduce medication. I have lost 16 lbs. Blood sugar levels initially dropped with the occasional few days higher. With your feedback I realised this was due to dawn phenomenon. Saw the diabetic nurse just last week who was delighted with my progress. HbA1c had come down to 44. I have now been able to drop one tablet – Glimipiride. I am still taking Metformin. Over the last week I have seen my fasting blood sugar rise. This morning it is 7.2 – the highest yet. It has been as low as 4.3 up to dropping the Glimipiride. Does this mean that I need the medication after all. I am sticking to the BS diet, albeit some days going over the 800 cal limit, but this is balanced out with days when I am under.

I would give it some more time, track it for a couple of weeks and work out whether the trend is still down. If it is trust that the diet will bring it down far more naturally than medication. If not falling over a longer period then perhaps return to the diabetic nurse for advice.

I am still struggling with high morning readings. Today was the highest it’s ever been 7.4!
I have tried lowing carbs to below 30 for a week, and then increasing carbs to about 60g for a week and I get pretty much the same readings. I am no longer loosing weight but need to eat more calories to stay that way. I have perfect blood sugar readings during the day, I am just so frustrated.
According to BMI I could get down to 55kg (I am currently at 61kg). I think I am thin enough I can’t imagine loosing more weight I will maybe go as low as 60kg.. I need to find a way to get my morning sugars down without weight loss for the time being. Any suggestions?

Well, I am not to sure what to make of this! This weekend was my daughters birthday and I ate a normal low carb high fat diet for the meal. I decided to have apiece of my daughters birthday cake. Not exactly a small piece. When I took my BS readings the next morning it was 5.4 – one of the lowest readings I have had for weeks. Any suggestions why this happened?

Hi Morrisonaudrey,
I am not on medication so I can’t really answer your question. I was also doing really well for the first few weeks and then the rise in morning BS. I think it might be something that our bodies need to go through almost like a detox. It could be an adjustment period (?), I think if we stick with it, it will eventually go normal. I am on BSDWOL but I think I will do BSD5:2 for a while and see if that helps. Good luck and keep on keeping on. 😀

Thanks Suzcaps and everyone. Mornings my BS is still higher than it was while on Glimipiride but dropping slightly. One afternoon it was 4.4 so it just seems to the morning readings that are all over 6 and have been as high as 7.2. I haven’t tried the protein before bed yet. I have only been off the Glimipiride for just over a week so perhaps it is still to early to tell. Still have weight to lose so another good reason to keep this up. I do find it difficult to get the carbs as low as everyone else seems to. I am way above your 20-40 just from vegetables, skimmed milk in coffee as can’t bear full milk, and the odd piece of fruit like an apple or pear.

I always used to believe the adage ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’, but since starting the diet and checking everything in sight, I was horrified to see just how much sugar there is in an apple (and I’ve never liked pears). The Granny Smiths that I used to eat averaged around 150 g in weight, 42 or so of which is carbs – so there’s 20-40 shot out of the window straight away. In fact, I’ve just about given up on fruit entirely, so much of it is sugar laden. OK, it’s ‘good’ sugar in that it is natural, not processed, but I still see it as sugar.
Mike

Thank you. You are absolutely right Michael. I too have been concerned to see how much sugar there is in an apple and that is one of the better fruits. Apples are included in some of the recipes in the BSD book so I didn’t think it would be too bad until I realised how many carbs were
showing in the Myfitnesspal.com app.

Sometimes though I do want something sweet so a Granny Smith Apple has met that need. How some people manage with a daily carb count of 20 is amazing.

My BS isn’t that bad during the day but it is the fasting reading first thing in the morning that is high, especially now that I have been told I can come off the Glimipiride. It was 7.3 this am but on Saturday afternoon it was 4.4. I will just have to persevere and hope it settles town again once my body is used to doing without the Glimipiride. It is only 10 days since I stopped taking it.

Morrisonaudrey I really get how you are feeling! All BS great except for the morning fast one. I have been totally shocked over the last few days that my BS has been in the high 5’s – the shocking part is that I had a slice of cake each day for two days, and ate a lower carb muffin from muffin break and had baked beans with my breakfast and a piece of toast. I totalled between 50-70g of carbs each day yet my BS was in the 5 range.
Is this possible? Could my body actually need a higher amount of carbs to normalise blood sugar levels. I have gone back through MyNetDiary and noticed that sometimes going very low carb gave me higher fasting readings than going higher carb. I am still finding this all so frustrating. I love eating the BSD way and doubt I will ever go back, but I love the occasional cheat treat.
I know I probably shouldn’t stress to much my readings are high 5’s or low 6’s most days with the very rare 7 thrown in to ensure I stay with the BSDWOL.

I want to thank everyone who has posted their journey and replied to posts. I have spent my hours reading a lot of them. I don’t think I could have started and continued this journey myself without reading all these posts. Good luck to each and every one of you.
Suz

MorrisonAudrey
My experience at the moment is much like yours. I check my BS twice a week, MOndays and Thursdays, and on thiose days check three times – fasting, pre-prandial (about half an hour before eating lunch) and post-prandial (2 hours after finishing lunch). The pre- and post- readings are pretty good, but not the fasting, where I have yet to see a reading under 5 (although to be fair, when I started the BSD it was 7.2 and came down into the 6s pretty quickly) and of late it has plateaued or even edged up.
Mike

Just an update – Check out this Topic re high FBS
https://thebloodsugardiet.com/forums/topic/tofi-need-to-do-whole-8-weeks
Some interesting info in there.