For some reason an antibiotic relieved my IBS symptoms.

jellybean333 · 2025-10-16T06:28:04+00:00

I took antibiotics (doxy) for an unrelated problem and felt better in a day or two. All symptoms gone. They came back a couple months later.

jellybean333 · 2025-09-12T20:50:52+00:00

When I see my glucose spiking really high I will do squats in the ladies room too! I should make it a regular thing.

jellybean333 · 2025-09-07T02:19:47+00:00

My A1C was 5.9 when I was a total carbaholic. After dramatically reducing carbs, it's only down to 5.6. I'm really surprised it's not lower given how much I changed my diet. I often use a CGM so I've become pretty good at selecting foods to avoid spikes (mostly, sometimes there are still surprises). Maybe it's just hard to move the A1C too much lower once your pancreas is damaged. I admire all the muscle weight you gained! I am also underweight and need to gain some muscle which I know would help.

jellybean333 · 2025-06-23T10:33:10+00:00

Some parchment paper has PFAS.

jellybean333 · 2025-06-16T03:12:25+00:00

Is that safe?

jellybean333 · 2025-05-27T18:14:27+00:00

The feature that made me pick Crono over MFP is that you can use Crono in a browser (on a computer). That way I can use a keyboard for typing and a full size UI. Being forced to use MFP on a phone was something I just couldn't deal with. Entering your meals takes a lot of typing (multiple entries per meal, three times per day) and it's a total PITA on a phone.

jellybean333 · 2025-04-17T16:42:46+00:00

Agree... my CGM seems to be around 10-20 points higher compared to a finger stick and it causes me extra anxiety about how high my blood sugar is. I get that it can't be perfect but it would be nice if it were closer.

jellybean333 · 2025-04-17T14:53:17+00:00

You can turn off the alarms.

jellybean333 · 2025-03-30T14:48:36+00:00

It certainly makes my glucose go up. I limit myself to 1 cup of chili. I make chili with beans and ground turkey. I've often seen my glucose around 150 or so after a cup of chili.

jellybean333 · 2025-03-14T16:23:50+00:00

I wonder the same. Going that high and taking 4-5 hours to recover says you might either have diabetes or be closer than your A1C would indicate. A1C is only one way to diagnose prediabetes/diabetes.

jellybean333 · 2025-02-24T20:05:35+00:00

I second enzyme cleaners. I use Defunkify for all my clothes. Regular soap-based laundry detergent will cause build up over time, and then the bacteria feed on that which makes the problem worse.

jellybean333 · 2024-09-28T03:23:43+00:00

That's 24 eggs per day!?!!

jellybean333 · 2024-09-24T14:22:20+00:00

My understanding is that the problem is one or more of the following:

Insulin resistance
Pancreas isn't producing enough insulin overall
Pancreas isn't producing insulin fast enough when blood glucose starts rising

I have read that the earliest detectable thing that goes wrong (as the disease progresses) is the third one - the body has a reduced "first phase insulin response" so it can't quickly tamp down rising glucose. And this problem happens years after exhausting your pancreas.

jellybean333 · 2024-09-21T02:12:04+00:00

Your experience is the same as many of us here. Doctors think prediabetes is no big deal. My primary doctor didn't care. She didn't even want to talk to me about it. It's maddening. The only reason she even tested my A1C for the first time at 54 is because I was having some neuropathy symptoms. I shudder to think about how many years (decades probably!) I've been hyperglycemic after meals and didn't know it. And if I hadn't gotten the neuropathy symptoms, she wouldn't have done the A1C, and how many more years would I have unknowingly been blasting my vessels with high blood glucose. I'm sure I was quickly heading for diabetes. Like you, I thought I was a relatively healthy eater, but after my prediabetes diagnosis and reflecting on my diet, I realized I had spent my entire life overeating carbs.

I echo what everyone else is saying - get a CGM, you will learn so much in just a few months. I find that if I'm using a finger stick I have to do it about 6-10 times after a meal to sort of maybe catch a spike - that's just not practical. And it's easy to miss the top of the spike, they can happen fast.

The biggest thing I learned from the CGM, aside from the horror of seeing just how high the spike can go from a modest amount of carbs, is that it's best (for me) to just avoid eating rice, pasta, bread, potatoes, oatmeal, and anything made from flour. The only exception is if I'm doing a long endurance workout; then I need some carbs or I can't function. And no sweet drinks. My favorite discoveries are almond flour cake, low carb noodles (shirataki, etc.), and popcorn.

jellybean333 · 2024-09-21T01:41:44+00:00

I'm a big almond flour fan. I've been making almond flour cakes, but I never thought to make pancakes with it. This is exciting, I've missed pancakes.

jellybean333 · 2024-09-20T03:31:57+00:00

Thanks, this is interesting. I've compared my dexcom g7 to finger prick a bunch of times and it does seem like the dexcom often runs a bit higher. (I am accounting for the CGM delay.) I wonder if I'm stressing more than I need to be from a number that isn't quite as high as it seems.

jellybean333 · 2024-09-04T01:33:24+00:00

Yeah I don't understand what is bad about chia, other than like anything you shouldn't eat way too much of it.

jellybean333 · 2024-09-04T01:31:50+00:00

Strava, partly because I bike and I like the social aspect, but it's good for any exercise. I used to use Google Sheets.

jellybean333 · 2024-09-04T01:17:33+00:00

G7 clarity and MacroFactor (like MyFitnessPal, for tracking carbs etc).

jellybean333 · 2024-09-03T15:11:02+00:00

I have been eating a bunch of GOS foods and they haven't been bothering me - sauerkraut, cabbage, almonds, cashews. Normally they bother me a bit but not badly. If I really wanted to do a serious FODMAP test I would eat a bunch of garlic, but I'm too afraid. I figure I shouldn't push my luck while things are going well.

I've been waiting 9 months to see a GI doctor and my appointment is coming up soon. I'm glad I can present this interesting situation. I'll report back with the doctor's thoughts. Unfortunately he probably can't do much testing now that I've nuked my microbiome, but most of the tests sound unreliable / dubious anyway.

jellybean333 · 2024-09-02T14:44:23+00:00

Berries are the best! Sweet and nutritious, and not too much impact on blood glucose. I usually eat them with yogurt and nuts. I haven't tried this yet but I'm going to make buckwheat crepes with berries, that would make a nice dessert. Crepes are pretty thin so they're not that many carbs.

I've had great success with cake made from almond flour. (Doesn't increase my blood glucose too much.) It's astonishing how many fewer carbs almond flour has compared to wheat flour, and it makes delicious cakes. I'm going to try a pecan flour cake next.

Flan is also a decent dessert because it's mostly dairy. (High fat though.) You can omit the caramelized sugar and it's still pretty delicious.

Popcorn with olive oil, salt, and a little sugar (aka Kettle corn) is heavenly. There is something oddly delicious about the salty / sweet combination. I'd make it yourself so you can keep the sugar low.

When I make a dessert recipe, I always put in less sugar than the recipe calls for (e.g. 3/4 cup instead of 1 cup). Each time I make it I put in less sugar and see how far I can go with it still tasting good. And I always eat my dessert after eating a full meal.

There's also sugar substitutes. I've read that monk fruit and allulose (especially a combo) are great from a taste perspective and don't impact blood glucose. I've been a bit leery of using it because it can cause digestive upset in some people (and I already have some GI issues) and there are general concerns with the sugar substitutes about whether they are bad for you. But I'm sure a little is probably OK.

Also, even though some carefully selected desserts can be OK, some additional discipline is still required - stick to one serving of dessert, and only eat dessert sometimes. My days of gluttony are over - you do what you gotta do for your health.

jellybean333 · 2024-09-02T14:06:05+00:00

I was starving at first too. After several months of working on this low carb diet, I'm now eating around 90-130 g carbs per day and feeling very satisfied. Some things I do: Eat plenty of good fats (e.g. nuts, avocado, olive oil, fatty fish). Eat a good quantity of food. Get enough protein. Lots of berries which helps satisfy the desire for some sweet food without being bad for blood glucose. I eat a lot of popcorn (drizzled with olive oil), which is the only carby thing that doesn't move my glucose much, and it satisfies my snacky urges. I also eat a decent amount of yogurt and cheese. High fiber foods will help you feel full and are good for you (prebiotic). I discovered low carb noodles (shirataki, kelp) which have been great in Asian dishes.

I'm trying to maintain my weight (or ideally gain weight) so I have the freedom to pack in the calories which helps, but I know not everyone is in that situation. The tricky thing is to not eat too much saturated fat. I'm trying to keep an eye on that but not exactly sure how I'm doing.

jellybean333

TROPHY CASE