And that is what we all need to do

For most of us it was a combination of "lifestyle" alone with a few messed up genes that got us the "membership card" and the tough part is accepting that the way we (lived) was a big part of the problem

And it's tough to break and change habits that we have had for "decades"

Like Henry is fond of saying - Baby Steps

I tend to look at it like Eating an Elephant - one small piece at a time and you can't rush it

If you can "fix" one thing that improves the condition - get better sleep or get used to going for a walk after supper or whatever, grab hold of that one and "fix it" - just one more bite of the Elephant 😁

@A DiabetesTeam Member. Thank you. As always you have a very helpful perspective. I have had to read this a few times to really grasp the effect of sleep and it is indeed someting i struggle with so this will become a next step to improve my wellness. I always took the attitude of less sleep equals more productive time. I am seeing the error in this thinking. This will be years of habit that i need to break

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A Diabete...

I know it's counterintuitive @A DiabetesTeam Member, but eating within 30 minutes of awakening is the best thing you can do to quickly gain control of your numbers.

It will shut off the glucogen taps that the liver opens to give you energy for morning wake-up activities.

If we were nondiabetic, our pancreas would simply release enough insulin to rein in those numbers. But as diabetics we need to help a little. Eating notifies the liver that it can stop sending that stored glucose into our system.

When I eat to my blood glucose meter, my numbers are controlled and between 2-3 hours, even if I maximize my carbs to what I can handle, my numbers are lower than before I ate. If I halve those carbs, at 2 hours my numbers are lower than before I ate.

Baby steps.

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A Diabete...

You can also try a small snack before bed. It can also help.

There is a few "clinically relevant" times during the day where taking a reading is of "value"

Fasting identifies potential issues internally that we need a Doctors help and maybe Meds to manage (a fasting blood test at the Lab or morning "stick" measures this)

Pre-Prandial - where you are "before you eat" can show you exactly what that meal did to your blood sugar

Post-Prandial - 2 hours after first bite (1 1/2 hours is the UK standard) tells you how well your system "reacted" to the carbs you consumed

(both of these numbers come from stick tests OR in a Lab a test called an OGTT - Oral Glucose Tolerance Test where you do a 75 or 100 carb "glucose shooter" and they test Pre, Post at 1, 2 and 3 hours to gauge how quickly you spike, how quick your system responds and how well/deficient you are - and by hour 4 you "should be" totally back to normal

And then, just before bed is valuable to get a "baseline" for what your system does overnight

Stick testing at home leaves FBS and a Post-Prandial typically after supper (usually our biggest meal) is "enough" to get a good picture of "what's going on" given it would be impractical to "stick ourselves" 8 or 10 times a day

This is why I personally believe that eventually CGM's will be the major game changer - If I was really bored I could pour over 1440 "stick test readings" a day since the Libre2/3 sends the reading out every minute of every day - just "tons" of information to work with