April 27, 2022
Yesterday I started the day off with a decent BG level from overnight after working out for an hour before going to bed and not bolusing any long-acting insulin. I decided to repeat that experiment last night and see what transpired.
My levels rose as I got up and prepared for the day, and they continued to rise after breakfast. Because I planned to do desk work rather than head out and about, I bolused three units after breakfast and brought my pre-lunch levels back into target range.
My lunch was fairly ambitious and a decent quantity, so I ate, and then went for a 30 minute walk. When I got back, my levels started to rise anew, so I bolused another three units of fast acting insulin. That brought my levels down temporarily, but lunch had been big, so I must have still been digesting. The levels started to rise again after the insulin wore off.
Dinner was relatively low-carb, but it did not change the trajectory of my increasing BG levels. They continued to rise. I didn’t bolus because I planned to go for a walk after dinner, and didn’t want to get stranded out, away from the house with my levels crashing. The walk at 8:00 pm brought my levels down to about 140 mg/dl or a touch higher. When I got back, they started to climb again.
The fact that the curve from 8:30 to midnight rises and then falls suggests that I was finally done digesting dinner. To bring the levels down to my target range, I could exercise on the elliptical, so I did. (Had I not been able to, I would have bolused in order to bring the level down into my target range.)
As a separate matter, I’ve noticed that aches and pains start to crop up after a couple days of not exercising and stretching. So not only does the exercise bring my BG levels down, the sessions help my overall wellbeing. For that reason, I decided to see if I could take the session to an hour long, rather than stopping just as my BG level reached 100 mg/dl.
Unlike the night before, I did not crash into the lower bound of my target range and start sounding alarms on my CGM. The level dropped to about 70 mg/dl. Then it started to climb. I went to sleep as it hit the 90’s. I wanted to see if it would steady there, climb overnight, or drop.
Turns out it continued to climb. Luckily, it did not climb so rapidly that I exceeded my target range. Instead, I woke around 125 and it then quickly climbed to 135 mg/dl.
I could speculate on what might be the reasons for that difference between last night and the night before. The most likely reason is that I didn’t sleep as long last night. I would do better to get more Zzzz’s. So there you have it.
I’m Managing It at Sugar Vs. Treadmill.