First, as you know, I haven't been counting calories or carbs lately. I have weight gain to show for this experiment. So as of today I am back to counting calories and carbs again and trying to keep the carbs low and the fat high. I had bacon and eggs for breakfast, a low-carb protein shake after my workout, and ground beef and artichoke hearts for lunch.
I experimented with Dreamfields pasta on Friday. It supposed to be a low-carb pasta, but - well, I'll let the results speak for themselves:Their servings are tiny, so I made my normal double serving (about 112g dry pasta, supposedly 10g carbs that impact blood sugar) with low-carb tomato sauce (about 5g carbs) put on it after cooking the pasta in water and some Parmesan cheese (maybe 1 net carb). I also had a glass of Merlot wine (about 7 oz. and 4 net carbs).
Before the test my blood sugar was 92. One hour after the test it was 86. An hour after that it had dropped to 70. This tells me that, claims aside, the pasta is initiating an insulin response way more than the 20g net carbs I supposedly ate.
When I got to 70 after 2 hours I decided to start testing every 30 minutes. 30 minutes later (2.5 hours since eating) my blood sugar shot up to 106. That didn't seem right so I retested and got 99. So yes, my blood sugar did shoot up about 30 points. I'm guessing my liver dumped a bunch of glucose into my blood to get the level back to normal.
Three hours into the test I was at 96 and 3.5 hours in I was at 95. I stopped testing at that point because I could tell I was stabilizing.
If all this weren't enough, I did a similar test Saturday morning. Fasting glucose was 80. I ate a breakfast of about 20g net carbs (two South Beach breakfast wraps and coffee with heavy cream and sugar free sweetener). The SB wraps have tons of fiber and truly are about 10 carbs per wrap.
Anyway, one hour after eating this 20g of carbs I was 75, and 2 hours after I was 82. As you can see, very different numbers than the pasta and Merlot from the night before.
I'm going to do more testing, but so far Dreamfields does NOT seem promising to me. It's obviously initiating an insulin response, something I am trying to avoid on a low-carb diet. I'm going to run the test next weekend and test every half hour from the start. I'm sure there has to be a blood sugar spike, but by one hour in I seem to have missed it.
I also want to see what results I get if I cook the pasta in an acidic sauce rather than add the sauce after. Some people report blood sugar spikes they don't see when the sauce is added after.
I did horrible walking-wise over the weekend. Less than 5,000 steps both Friday and Saturday. Friday it was raining so Brad and I couldn't walk around the lake, and Saturday was the church Christmas party and that lasted all day of course. :-p And of course I got something lame that no one wanted to "steal" so I was stuck with it. I tossed it into the Christmas tree box when I got home; I'll rewrap it and bring it next year for someone else to be stuck with. Have I mentioned how much I hate this annual tradition of my church?
Maybe we can go walking next Friday. Today I'm back on course. Made it to the gym and did 45 minutes of weights, 30 on the Treadclimber, and just 11 walking on the treadmill. FitDay says 275 calories burned.
Brad and Regina and I went out to dinner at Pyramid Alehouse on Friday night. I decided since I'd just been paid and was caught up on my bills to splurge a bit. My total bill including a 20% tip came to $44.84. I can't remember the last time I spent that much money on a meal for myself. Probably never!
The One Touch Ultra meter (photo) that I bought by mistake came on Friday and I sold it to Brad, who seems happy with it. But he needs more test strips because it only came with 10 expired ones.
I'm bidding on some Ultra test strips on eBay to go with my One Touch Ultra 2 meter (photo) that hasn't yet arrived. It seems like a better meter than my TrueTrack (more bells and whistles), but so far the TrueTrack appears to be accurate. My fasting blood sugar ranges between a low of 80 and a high of 94. I'm trying to get in the habit of testing when I first wake up. Maybe I can sell some test strips to Brad since I doubt he will buy more on his own and then his meter will go to waste.
I decided to use the Multiclix lancets and device that I bought before I knew I could get complete kits on eBay. It really does hurt less than the "Gentle Draw" lancet device that came with my TrueTrack meter, so I swapped them out.
So, that's my boring life the last couple of days.
Technorati tagged: atkins, diet, atkins diet, low carb, weight loss, obesity, obese, overweight, fat, exercise, fitness, diabetes, glucose meter, pasta
2 comments:
Try the Dreamfields experiment without wine - alcohol has an effect on your blood sugar beyond just the net carbs involved. Some diabetics find it produces delayed highs as your body processes alcohol before anything else.
Dreamfields gives me a delayed spike, about the same amount as regular pasta, just a couple of hours later. They say the carbs are not digestible but they are, just later in the process (in the gut) like the sugar alcohols. The company probably only tested it on normal people and/or only for 2 hours.
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