April 15, 2022
Yesterday I started the day with a modest bike ride before having breakfast that flattened my “Dawn Rise” BG curve. When I did have breakfast at about 10:30 am, I bolused alongside, and then launched into a busy day that culminated in attending a friend’s memorial service. At the reception, I had a half glass of the prepared fruit punch and a bite off the buffet, but was very reserved. This small amount did start lifting my BG curve about 30 points up until dinner. Dinner was also carb light with cauliflower, chicken sausage and some tomato sauce with super greens, then followed as I was doing dishes by some Chinese leftover dry fry green beans and a couple ounces of veggie stir fry.
Then I started an hour-long elliptical session that pulled my 135 mg/dl level down into the high 80’s, leveling off in the 90’s. I think my body is becoming accustomed to longer workout sessions. It seems that my liver must be generating more glycogen as I start to exercise to enhance my endurance. That is a double edged sword because on the one hand, it will allow me to have longer workout sessions. On the other, it will become more difficult to quickly pull my blood sugar down from a peak by hoping on the elliptical for 20 minutes.
The gap in the data that starts at about 2:00am is where I changed out the sensor of my CGM. When I do that, it requires a 2-hour warmup session before it again starts publishing data. I’ve experienced that it is common after swapping a sensor that the initial readings will be lower than actual, so if I had bolused after working out, and dropped my levels to the 70’s, it might think I was in the 40’s and start sounding the alarm at 4:00 am.
Given that the whole day had been well-controlled, and that my food intake had been modest and low carb, I decided to risk running a tad high over night, so that it was less likely to trigger a false low blood sugar alarm.
As it happens, my overnight level stayed remarkably steady on its own, so the sensor turned on at 4:00 am with my readings at about 100. It then gradually declined to about 90 mg/dl until I got up at 6:45 am. You can see the last 1.5 hour it is climbing slightly as I get up and face the day, make lunch, nibble on scraps, etc. I’ll grab an actual breakfast shortly, and the cycle will start again.