Less Snacking = Lower Blood Sugars

4 YEARS AND 9 MONTHS WITH NO MEDICATION OR INSULIN INJECTIONS AS A TYPE 1 DIABETIC

I recently started a new job about 5 months ago, and times have gotten a little more stressful. Everything is going great, but my stress levels has definitely been a little higher than they used to be.

Stress levels, accompanied with more business lunches, have slightly elevated my blood sugars over the past 4 or 5 months. Ever since I was diagnosed with T1D, I’ve always been able to closely predict what my A1c levels would be based upon what my average fasting blood sugars were over the past 90 days. I use this “Pocket A1c” app on my iphone which translates a fasting blood sugar level into a likely A1c reading. As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, I only test my blood sugars once per day first thing before I eat breakfast.

Predicting My A1c Readings

As you can see below, usually my A1c is about 0.2 or 0.3 points higher than what the Pocket A1c app predicts based upon my 90 day average fasting blood sugar reading at the time of my A1c test. For the nearly 5 years that I’ve had T1D, this pattern has almost always held true. However, one thing that I learned this past quarter, is that trying to predict blood sugar readings is anything but certain.

As shown below, my average 90 day fasting blood sugars were relatively high over the past quarter, so I was expecting an A1c around 5.7/5.8. However, to my pleasant surprise, my reading was 5.3!

Lack of Snacking?

So, how could this happen? I believe it’s from the lack of snacking. Since I started my new job, I hardly ever eat in between meals. At my old job, I would most days snack in the morning and/or afternoon. The snacking I believe keeps blood sugar levels elevated which drives a higher A1c reading.

Over the past quarter, although my fasting blood sugars were relatively high, my snacking was way down compared to previous quarters. By eating predominately three times per day, my blood sugars had a chance to stabilize at lower levels throughout the day. I remember during my research years ago that minimizing snack intake has a strong correlation to lower blood sugars, which I think proved out over the last quarter.

So, long story short, not only can a low-glycemic plant-based diet dramatically reduce blood sugar levels, but minimizing snack intake throughout the day can help stabilize blood sugars as well. Hopefully this information is more pieces to the puzzle for you diabetics out there trying to stay off of medication like me!