Overeating Carbs Eventually Catches Up to You

Hubby is now on a carb-restricted diet.
Overeating carbs does catch up to you!

Time for some honesty:

Overeating carbs eventually catches up to you.

When hubby and I moved to Texas this past year, our carbohydrate-restrictive lifestyle went totally downhill. This wasn't intentional, of course. It was just a result of not staying aware of what we were eating, drinking, and doing.

I have pre-diabetes.

I was diagnosed a couple of decades ago, which I have easily managed by restricting my carb intake. Hubby hasn't been on a carb-restricted diet, but mostly eats what I do at meals.

Ordinarily, I don't overeat carbs. I have dialed my intake to fit my personal carbohydrate tolerance.

However, the temporary cramped situation of cooking and living in a motel room for several weeks, and then getting situated here in Texas, made it difficult to stay aware of what we were doing.

In addition, I've been going through some spiritual and emotional changes, as well.

Unconsciously, we've both been overeating carbs.

I honestly thought that after all of this time, living a carb-restrictive lifestyle would be automatic and just kick in without us having to pay attention and micro-manage the food intake, exercise, and stress we were under, due to the move.

Our focus was on switching identities, looking for work, and then trying to find a reasonably-priced small house to rent. I kept telling myself that I would check in with my carbohydrate intake once everything settled down.

However, once we moved into our current home, just before the holidays, and finally had an oven to bake with and lots of gluten-free flours in storage, we began to backslide on our moderate-carb diet.

It all started with a huge bowl of Halloween candy, and everything just went downhill from there.

I'm pretty sure that's when it started because I checked my blood sugar just before we left Utah, about a year ago, and even though I was eating what I would call a moderate-carb diet back then (60 to 120 carbs per day), my blood glucose level was completely normal.

After a couple of weeks, once the Halloween candy bowl was empty, hubby decided it was worth the drive to Winco, 30 minutes away, to refill the bowl, so that's what we started to do. We added a side trip to Winco for candy and ice cream whenever we made a Costco trip.

What About Me?

Yes, I was sneaking a couple of peppermint patties on a daily basis.

I won't lie about that.

And sometimes, a flavored tootsie roll, or two.

In addition, I somehow fell into the trap of baking more and more gluten-free breads and goodies than I ordinarily do.

I used to only make cake or cookies for special occasions, when we lived in Utah. I'd make gluten-free bread maybe once a month, or so. But I started making all of these starchy goodies for hubby quite consistently over the past several weeks.

Not good when you have pre-diabetes.

My upper limit for carbs is 30 carbs per meal, with 40 okay only very, very occasionally.

Those 40 carbs will take my blood glucose reading all the way up to just below the 140 mg/dl danger zone, one hour after eating, so staying with 30 or less (with 20 carbs preferably) has always worked best for me.

Hubby has ALWAYS had super-good blood glucose control, so the focus has always been on me, rather than him. Even after eating sugary goodies or candy, and drinking regular Power Ades and sodas, his blood glucose has never ever been higher than 100 mg/dl.

Never.

However, since moving to Texas, he suddenly developed a pot belly.

How We Discovered Our High Blood Glucose Levels

Out of the blue, two weekends ago, while grocery shopping, hubby announced that he wanted me to check his blood glucose level.

"My feet have been hurting me lately, and I'm not going to be like other people," he said. "If I have pre-diabetes, we are changing our lifestyle. Right now."

Hubby is an intuitive.

He gets strong impressions that are almost always correct, so when he has one of his won't-let-go moments, we follow through.

My blood glucose meter was old, and I used the last strip I had trying to remember how to use it, so we went out and purchased an updated model the following day.

Since I'm pre-diabetic and measure my blood glucose level occasionally, I also picked up plenty of blood-sugar strips to help us dial in anything that might be wrong.

Diabetes Testing Kit

(Available at Amazon)

Since hubby's control has always been excellent, I assumed we were talking about his glucose level being maybe 105 mg/dl, or perhaps, 110 mg/dl. What I would call: slightly high.

I wasn't really expecting him to be caught in a dangerous situation, especially when he said that his feet just hurt. He wasn't having shooting pains like you get with neuropathy.

I decided to make gluten-free pizza for the test, which we were getting at Costco and then adding our own toppings to, since that would pack a heck of a wallop and give me a clearer idea of what we were up against.

That gluten-free pizza had 80 carbs for half a pizza, without the toppings, and looking back over our food habits this morning, I realized that we were eating one almost every week.

While I knew this was going to raise my own blood glucose level pretty high, I wanted to see how that much starch was affecting hubby.

Since hubby didn't want to change his habits, making the test accurate, he popped open a hard apple cider and grabbed a couple of homemade chocolate chip cookies while I was fixing the pizza.

One hour after eating, hubby's blood glucose level was 126 mg/dl. Great for the amount of carbs he'd eaten, but shocking because he's never had blood glucose levels go that high before.

My own reading was 158 mg/dl, about what I expected from eating that many carbs.

But two hours after eating, that's when the trauma began.

Overeating Carbs Does Catch Up with You!

Typical blood glucose post-meal testing has you test at one hour and two hours after eating.

This ensures that you catch the blood glucose spike, the highest the blood sugar goes about one hour after eating, and then you test again to ensure that your blood glucose level has returned to a healthy level by the end of two hours.

You don't want your blood glucose level to go higher than 140 mg/dl after one hour or to be higher than 120 mg/dl after two hours. If it does, then you need to either cut down on the portion size or completely eliminate that food.

At 140 mg/dl, physical damage begins and insulin resistance gets worse, including beta-cell death, which can lead to diabetic complications even if you are not a diabetic.

So I retested.

At two hours, my reading was HIGHER than it was at one hour. It was a whopping 195 mg/dl! This is just barely below what is considered to be diabetes, and means digestion was very slow, so the peak didn't come for two hours.

I checked myself again at three hours to make sure that my second-stage insulin response was working and blood glucose had fallen to 136 mg/dl. This was down below the danger zone, thank goodness, but not as low as it should have been.

I honestly don't know why I didn't recheck hubby right then and there. I have no idea where my head was at, especially since he was the one who kick-started the testing.

I just assumed his reading would be okay and that I was the only one who was messed up here.

However, as I watched him continue to eat throughout the evening -- half a dozen chocolate chip cookies, another apple cider, lots and lots of candy -- I got a very strong impression that the one test wasn't giving me an accurate idea of what was going on with him.

That impression was so strong the following morning that I asked him to check his fasting blood glucose level -- as that would give us a more accurate, all around reading of how his daily carbohydrate intake (his candy and cookies) was affecting his overall blood glucose level.

This was when his trauma began.

A normal fasting blood glucose is under 100 mg/dl.

A reading of 101 mg/dl to 125 mg/dl is pre-diabetes.

A reading of 126 mg/dl, or more, used to be how they diagnosed you with diabetes when I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes.

Today, they look at fasting glucose as a "signal," but use the A1c test to make the final determination.

Hubby's fasting glucose was 126 mg/dl -- essentially, diabetic.

At that point, he pushed the cookies to the side of the table and said, "That's enough of that. I'm not losing my feet over a cookie."

Sunday, I made Atkins Induction meals but hubby was still drinking regular soda, regular Power Ade, and his gluten-free apple cider. He refused to do the diet soda thing, and we didn't have anything else in the house but water -- and he doesn't do water either.

Monday morning, hubby's fasting blood glucose was a whopping 146 mg/dl.

That was clearly in diabetic territory, so that's when the real, honest-to-goodness discussions about a change in lifestyle began.

Hubby's Confession

This has been quite frustrating and shocking for hubby, even though he was suspecting it, because he doesn't know what does or doesn't have carbs. He's been buying his lunch at work, so I have no clue what he's been eating.

He knows that we eat a lot of meat and vegetables at home. But as for the other stuff? He had no idea how many carbohydrates were in the things he was eating and drinking.

For example, one Power Ade alone contains 50 carbs and just one homemade, gluten-free, chocolate chip cookie contains 20.

Intellectually, he understood when I told him that almost everything in the house is too high in carbs for pre-diabetes, and has to be replaced, but on an emotional level, he didn't really understand what that meant.

This has been quite an upset for him because we aren't talking about a weight-loss diet that we can modify or walk away from.

Pre-diabetes and diabetes are for life. They never go away. They can only be controlled.

To do that:

You have to find a level of carbs that will fit within your personal carbohydrate tolerance level, per meal and per snack, yet be generous enough to satisfy your emotional needs as well -- and that takes time to figure out.

When the forced change in lifestyle is due to health rather than weight, the motivation for doing so is different. The changes are more emotionally driven, so it's best to ease into it. This is a huge adjustment for someone who has never had to curtail their eating before, let alone count how many carbs they are eating and drinking per day.

Amid the storm, hubby confessed:

"I think I cursed us into having blood sugar problems."

I have a brother-in-law who has diabetes. From what I understand of the situation, and from what I've seen, he hasn't changed his lifestyle. As a result, he lost a couple of toes.

Recently, he lost a large part of his foot. His wife (my sister) had to return to work to help make ends meet.

Upon hearing that, hubby said to himself, "If I had pre-diabetes, I wouldn't be like that. I would change my lifestyle. A donut isn't worth losing your foot over."

It seems that LIFE is putting him to the test about that.

Diabetic Diet is Different from a Low-Carb Diet

I'll be going into some of the differences between a diabetic diet and a low-carb diet in future posts, but for right now, I just want to share that easing into a carbohydrate-restricted diet has been working well for hubby.

Obviously, we don't have time to use the Back Door Approach, so I've been cooking Atkins Induction meals, and giving him bell pepper strips with Ranch dressing or deviled eggs and cheese sticks to snack on. I also didn't snatch his sugary drinks right away until after I found a suitable replacement for them.

We picked up some Power Zero last Friday, which he loves, and some Crystal Light Raspberry Lemonade, which was great too.

At that point, I addressed his apple cider habit, and he decided to limit himself to just one a day right now.

Previously, he was drinking two a day, and sometimes a third on the weekends. While distilled spirits do not have carbs, these gluten-free apple ciders pack a 30-carb wallop each.

Today, I'm more optimistic that we'll be able to find other suitable replacements for what he loves, as well.

Currently, we're still drinking flavored creamer in our coffee, but hubby's numbers are still improving and mine have normalized without giving that up yet.

Fasting blood sugar yesterday was 121 mg/dl for hubby, so he's dropped 5 points this past week, even though he's only been mostly sugar free for 3 days.

I was 101 mg/dl, fasting and 86 mg/dl two hours after eating.

Hubby was down to 116 mg/dl two hours after eating, when I checked him on Saturday night. This was after drinking his one apple cider in the afternoon, so he's below the diabetic guidelines, but his numbers are not as low as he would like to get them.

Since he's only switched to Power Zero and Crystal Light a few days ago, I'm hoping that his numbers will continue to improve this week.