In my latest episode with the FreeStyle Libre, I got to test time zones and jet lag:
Contrary to expectations, the FreeStyle Libre did not catch fire when changing time zones (at least not when traveling forward in time).
Didn’t notice any impact of jet lag (+9h) on blood sugar responses, except perhaps for breakfast in the plane, but being strapped into a seat is a factor, too… Traveling back home would have been more interesting, but I didn’t have a sensor for the return trip.
Nothing much new learned in terms of food. Rice noodles aren’t great, and perhaps don’t eat a whole bag of glazed gingerbread cookies when staying up late.
The sensor I used was past its use-by date (got a discount for buying two earlier this year, and the pharmacy labeled the sensors as being good for one year beyond their sell date)… Got low readings for the first few days, then everything was fine.
So much for resistant starch from refrigeration.
I guess I will need to switch from Jasmine (which I prefer) to Basmati rice.
Does the extent you chew the rice have any significant impact?
Also, I don’t recall if you looked at the effect of digestive enzymes on blood sugar spikes?
Have you tested with cinnamon water? I’ve seen changes in glucose levels when you drink water infused with cinnamon prior to a meal!
Sleep + stress has the most significant effect on my fasting glucose. Almost a 20% difference if I’ve slept 6 hours instead of 8. Have you looked into testing cortisol levels?
I did a series of saliva-based cortisol tests once, but the results were all over, and didn’t seem plausible to me. I’ve also had cortisol tests included in regular lab blood tests, but those aren’t practical to do repeatedly and throughout the day, and too expensive “just for fun”…
Ah, I would love to see if there’s a correlation between cortisol and glucose. I often feel when I’m stressed my baseline glucose level for that day is significantly higher. Perhaps I’ll run an experiment and report back!
A FreeStyle Libre sensor still costs only USD 37 out-of-pocket (Bartell Drugs, Seattle), no inflation here.
For the first 3 days, readings sometimes dropped implausibly low, especially at night. Then I was miraculously cured.
Comparison with a lab blood draw during the same period of time: The FreeStyle Libre reported a fasting glucose reading of 78 mg/dL, vs 82 mg/dL, and the A1C calculated from the average FreeStyle Libre readings was 4.7, vs 4.9.
Got to “test” a few new food habits (like Kombucha) and take-out restaurants. No (unpleasant) surprises.
Quantity matters: Some foods that aren’t problematic for me in general can become a problem if I overdo, e.g. bread.
Ripeness matters: Peaches are fine, but if very ripe, eating the entire fruit in one go isn’t a good idea.
Tart cherry juice doesn’t raise my blood sugar. Not sure why I thought it would.
I suspected that an electrolyte drink with no sugar but plenty of sweetener (LMNT) was lower my blood sugar, unwanted, but found no evidence of this happening.
Biggest blood sugar spike: Korean BBQ late in the evening before driving home.
Needs further study: Beets (incl juice), and sweet corn.
Didn’t expect to see anything surprising as there were no major changes to my diet or to the amount of physical activity I get since the last round of testing.
The FreeStyle Libre again reported hypoglycemic events during the first few nights – after that I was miraculously cured
Did a fasting blood draw that had me at 80 mg/dL. The FreeStyle Libre reported 85 mg/dL around that time.
Only had one crazy “glucose excursion”, after eating dumplings. I have had the same meal before with no issues, only difference this time was that I included a dish with Szechuan peppers, and drank a non-alcoholic beer. Neither of these are supposed to cause blood sugar spikes or interfere with the sensor. Could be worth investigating further next time…
Not sure if I should start a new thread for this or not. I’ve had a Libre Freestyle 2 on my arm for two weeks. I am not diabetic but want to understand my mood and energy swings better.
The results are pretty clear and consistent - all starchy stuff gives me large spikes one hour after eating, whether refined or whole. That’s wheat, oats, rice, potato etc. Also most fruit, except strawberries, though some lower GI ones seem to be ok with cream.
In the Zoe project and the Weizman Institute they say they have come up with an algorithm that can predict other foods’ effects given a certain amount of data. Does anyone know what the patterns are, and whether people fall into broad categories? I’m just wondering if I can predict other foods that I will react to given the ones I know about.
I found the Freestyle Libre 2 to be excellent - really impressive technology - and the whole process to be very interesting!
Now using a FreeStyle Libre 3. Same out-of-pocket cost ($40). Data is captured continuously using Bluetooth LE, rather than having to do periodic NFC scans. Took me a while to figure out that I had to install a different app
One data point every 5 minutes, rather than just one every 15 minutes. It’s a bit easier to see exactly how steep some of the curves are, and how high they peak.
The app had several alerts pre-configured, including one for low blood sugar, as I discovered during the first night at 3am … Most of these alerts can be disabled (except for the very-low blood sugar and the sensor-expired alert).
There are “realtime” values that are updated every minute, but they are often way off (like the one that triggered an alert because it thought my blood sugar had dropped below 70 – next morning there was no record of my blood sugar ever dropping below 80).
The blood sugar reported while fasting was exactly 10 mg/dL higher than a lab test done at the same time, and the average blood sugar was 6 mg/dL higher than value extrapolated from an A1C lab test.
Didn’t have any major changes to my diet etc since the previous episode, so no major surprises. I previously observed that being very active all day doesn’t prevent a large blood sugar spike after eating a big plate of pasta with tomato sauce for dinner, but it does look like blood sugar normalizes much quicker than if I had been less active (and maybe even had a large lunch that day).
Here’s a nice bi-phasic response after eating a bowl of pho (with rice noodles!) for lunch:
Not sure what I did to deserve this, but one evening blood sugar remained stubbornly high after dinner, until I “fixed” it with just 10 minutes of intense exercise (starting at the 100 minute mark):
… Most of these alerts can be disabled (except for the very-low blood sugar and the sensor-expired alert).
